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Countless Biden Ploys to Immigration Increases

By Joe Guzzardi

In the criminal justice system, parole means a prisoner’s early release, pursuant to certain conditions, from his sentence. But in immigration law, parole has a different meaning. The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes the federal government to exercise discretion to temporarily allow certain otherwise inadmissible aliens applying for admission at a port of entry to physically enter the United States even if they have no legal basis for admission.

Typically, DHS only grants parole, and limits it to individuals outside the United States, if the agency determines that there are urgent humanitarian needs or a tangible public benefit. Parolees, legally considered arriving aliens, are expected to depart when their authorized time periods lapse.

Another parole category is parole-in-place, available to some aliens already residing in the U.S., and often living with their illegally present family members. For the fortunate aliens who are paroled in place, they receive lifetime valid work permits, Social Security numbers and other affirmative benefits like driver’s licenses. As originally written, parole in place can only be granted on a case-by-case basis. But the Obama administration, unable to pass comprehensive immigration reform, began to use parole as a cover to give amnesty to small groups, a little bit at a time.

In October 2013, then-President Obama ignored separation of powers, and granted amnesty via parole to small groups of illegally present aliens: illegal alien spouses, children and parents of military personnel and veterans, as well as certain relatives of those who entered under the Visa Waiver program, itself badly in need of stricter oversight. Obama had earlier tipped his hand about his willingness to go around Congress when he signed off on deferred action for childhood arrivals, DACA, the program that eventually gave 650,000 aliens temporary status and work permission.

In March, parole once again jumped to the forefront of immigration news. The Biden administration announced that it would “reinstitute and improve” the Central American Minors Refugee/Parole program (CAM) that Obama initiated in 2014, but that President Trump ended in 2017. Interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC News, Biden personally proclaimed that Northern Triangle migrants need not go through the hazardous and costly process of paying traffickers. Soon his administration would send Department of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services representatives to El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala to process asylum petitions in person. Biden: “And the process of getting set up, and it’s not gonna take a whole long time, is to be able to apply for asylum in place. So don’t leave your town or city or community.”

Under Biden, who ignores immigration law and has looked the other way as thousands of worldwide foreign nationals have walked in, parole is poised to become a much larger challenge for keeping immigration at levels the nation can support. Criminals are well-aware of the ease of entry at the Southwest border. At the Rio Grande Valley border sector, Customs and Border Protection reported a 380 percent increase in criminal alien arrests over last year’s total. And what CBP calls “gotaways” have spiked 156 percent since 2020.

Biden has disregarded the American majority and provided an immigration policy diametrically opposed. The parole authority is broad, without statuary limitations, and therein lay abuse opportunities that the Biden administration will take advantage of.

Combined with executive actions and executive orders on immigration, parole is a dangerous tool that allows the sitting president to circumvent Congress, and carry out his immigration vision unilaterally. Conceivably, Biden could decide to grant parole to millions of illegal immigrants, an action that’s consistent with his proven, open borders immigration agenda.

In his reckless rush to admit as many foreign nationals as possible in the shortest time period, Biden’s power grab has exposed citizens to public health risks, added to U.S. workers’ job concerns and further endangered the environment. Americans want a meaningful immigration process – one that enforces congressionally written and passed laws that the U.S. president dutifully signed.
 

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.

Countless Biden Ploys To Immigration Increases

Countless Biden Ploys To Immigration Increases

The Woke and Bob Feller In Cleveland

By Joe Guzzardi

Last week, the perpetually offended scored another big win. The venerable Cleveland Indians announced that next year their nickname will be the “Guardians,” a reference to two large landmark stone edifices near Progressive Field. For the woke, the triumph isn’t quite on the scale of tumbling down or defacing statues of America’s founding fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but the symbolism is identical.

Indians’ management claims that polling found that the Indians name generated deep dissatisfaction among its fan base. Maybe, but skeptics would like to see who was polled, and how the questions were phrased. In all probability, those questioned were progressive whites who are affronted with almost everything about America’s past. Leading the anti-Indians charge was MLB’s meddlesome and super-woke commissioner, Rob Manfred. In a saccharine-sweet social media video complete with melodramatic music, Hollywood pitchman Tom Hanks introduced the Guardians.

On the Indians official website, the chief executives’ biographies appear. Paul Dolan, owner, chairman and chief executive officer has a University of Notre Dame J.D. degree. The second in command, Chris Antonetti, president of baseball operations, is a Georgetown University business administration magna cum laude graduate with a master’s degree in sports management from the University of Massachusetts.

Third in the Indians hierarchy, Brian Barren, is a Princeton University alum whose thesis analyzed MLB’s integration. After more than a year of brainstorming, in consultation with other high-powered Clevelanders, and checking in with focus groups, the extraordinarily well-educated Indians management could do no better than rebranding the team the “Guardians.” Only a herculean effort could produce a dumber name.

Some Indians fans hoped that management would reach back into the team’s deep, often unhappy past, and revive the “Spiders.” In 1899, the Spiders logged the worst record in baseball history, 20-134, a dismal performance that included losing 40 of 41 consecutive games. Other names the Indians could have selected, each better than the Guardians, include the old Cleveland-based Negro League teams: the Stars, the Elites or the Hornets.

The Indians have produced some of baseball’s greatest players, including Hall of Fame members Satchel Paige, Larry Doby, Bob Lemon, Early Wynn, Tris Speaker and Bob Feller. One wonders what their take on the Guardians would be – an educated guess is that they would strongly oppose eliminating the Indians, and political correctness in general.

Take Feller, a no-non-sense guy. Feller, an unadulterated patriot, would have been unlikely to immediately enlist in the Navy for World War II if he knew that 44 months later, he’d return to a woke America.

On December 7, 1942, Feller, in his spanking brand-new Buick Century with all the available extras – a heater and a radio – was driving toward Chicago to sign his new contract. At 24, Feller had notched 107 wins, and big money awaited him. Then, over the radio, Feller heard the news that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. Feller drove on, and on December 9 enlisted in the Navy at a Chicago recruiting office, the first professional athlete to sign up for World War II combat.

When Feller looked back at his war experiences as gun captain, he said that he was constantly surrounded by scares and tragedies. The worst, Feller recalled, didn’t occur in battle, but rather when the USS Alabama was caught in week-long Typhoon Cobra whose 180 mph winds sunk three U.S. destroyers. The choppy waves made refueling impossible. More than 800 American sailors drowned or were eaten by sharks after their ships capsized in the storm. During his service, Feller earned six campaign ribbons and eight battle stars. Ironically, because he was attending to his cancer-stricken, dying father, Feller had a military deferment.

Not only did Feller pass up the big money that his 1943 contract offered him, but he sacrificed nearly four years of his pitching career. About players who served in the two World Wars and Korea, fans speculate what they might have achieved had they not lost key baseball years fighting to protect their country. Ralph Winnie, a Seattle baseball statistician, calculated that Feller would have won 107 more games which would have brought his career total up from 266 to 373, notched 1,070 additional strikeouts up to 3,651, pitched five no-hitters instead of three, and 19 one-hitters instead of 12.

Feller and the other Indians greats are fading from memory, and wokeness is accelerating their disappearance. The Indians have thrilled or disappointed Cleveland fans for 115 years, but Indians – deemed “racist” to the woke – had to go. Dolan said that an “epiphany” motivated his decision to rebrand the Indians as the Guardians. But Dolan is listening to the wrong people. Feller was often asked what his greatest win was. Instead of answering that moment came when he threw an Opening Day no hitter, Feller unhesitatingly replied, “World War II.” Defending America, her history  and her greatness was Feller’s proudest accomplishment. If they would only heed history’s lessons, therein lies a valuable lesson for the Indians’ management and the wokesters. Tearing things down is easy; building, tough.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research and an Internet Baseball Writers Association member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

The Woke and Bob Feller In Cleveland