Would President Trump Fix the "Broken" Immigration?

We keep hearing that our current immigration system is broken and it must be overhauled to better serve the immigrants, especially the illegal ones. And in this process, it seems that immigration, whether legal or illegal, is not necessarily run in the best interest of the American people, but in the best interest of crony capitalists and the ruling elites.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), an agency with the Department of Homeland Security, was created in 2002 and assumed its functions on March 1, 2003, as a result of the Homeland Security Act of 2002. USCIS has over 200 offices around the world and staffs 19,000 employees and contractors in four directorates and nine program offices. Applications are processed in four major USCIS Service Centers and 83 Field Offices in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Funding USCIS operations largely from user fees, less than 4 percent of its FY2014 budget came from Congressional appropriations. According to William A. Kandel, writing in a Congressional Service Report in May 2015, $124 million USCIS funding came from direct congressional appropriations and $3.097 billion came from user fees in 2014. http://fas.org/sgp/crs/homesec/R44038.pdf

Over twenty years ago, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was transformed by creating the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA) in 1988 to fund the agency’s activities. “The agency has two other small accounts that were created to support specific purposes both within and outside USCIS: the H-1B Non-Immigrant Petitioner Fee Account; and the H-1B Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee Account.”

When DHS receives its annual funding, USCIS also receives its direct appropriations. In previous years, Congress also funded special projects through direct appropriations such as backlog reduction. In recent years, according to CRS, appropriations have exclusively funded E-Verify and immigrant integration grants. E-Verify is a system that electronically confirms if individuals have proper authorization to work in the United States.

INS was legally allowed to charge fees for immigration services even before the passage of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (INA). When the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA) was created, USCIS collected most of its budget from user fees, and its budget was no longer subject to annual congressional approval. Congress has little or no influence on our immigration policies and enforcement.

Our President issued on November 20, 2014 the Immigration Accountability Executive Action which included provisions such as an expansion of the existing Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program started in 2012, and the new Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) program that “grants certain unauthorized aliens protection from removal, and work authorization, for three years.”

Applicants submit petitions and pay user fees to USCIS which “would purportedly pay for the cost of administering the program.” This executive action benefited 5 million unauthorized aliens living in the United States. “The deferred action programs of the President’s executive action have been temporarily enjoined.”

Some Congressmen, reflecting the wishes of their constituents, oppose deferred action programs but have little or no options to stop the programs using the annual funding process. They cannot control an agency which is largely independent of Congress. To change this situation, an enactment of law would be required which Congress does not seem interested in pursuing, as the illegal immigration debacle continues unabated despite the recent violent attacks in Paris by “refugees” from Syria and elsewhere who were allowed into EU unrestricted.

While some are happy that USCIS reduces the burden of cost to American taxpayers, others are concerned over the lack of congressional oversight on its activities and its lack of accountability to Congress.

Additional potential issues include the level of fees that may prevent potential applicants from seeking benefits or deter lawful permanent residents from becoming citizens; the pace and progress of information technology modernization may not serve legal petitioners efficiently, causing huge backlogs of 4 million legal applications; and the inability of Congress to oversee the adequacy of personnel management and resources.

With the leading purpose of processing immigrant petitions, USCIS handled in 2014 six million petitions for immigration-related services and benefits. USCIS performs other functions:

-          Adjudication of immigration and naturalization petitions

-          Refugee and asylum claims and related humanitarian and international concerns

-          Immigration-related services such as issuing employment authorizations

-          Petitions of nonimmigrant change-of-status

“Humanitarian functions have no associated fee” but the following do levy user fees:

-          Immigration adjudication

Of the 6 million petitions processed each year, 1 million are for permanent status and 5 million are for temporary non-immigrant status; adjudicators determine if immediate relatives and family members of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent resident (LPRs) are eligible; if employees U.S. businesses demonstrate they are needed and no other Americans are available; they also determine if foreign nationals on a temporary visa are eligible to change to another non-immigrant status or LPR status

-          Work authorization

Screens aliens for work under certain conditions

-          Employment verification

Checks lawful status to work in the United States (since FY2007, congressional appropriations have funded the E-Verify)

-          International Services

USCIS Office of International Affairs “adjudicates refugee applications and conducts background and record checks related to some immigrant petitions abroad;” a component of this program is the asylum officer corps who interview and screen asylum applicants; according to USCIS, “a person seeking asylum is applying for protection from persecution for the same reasons as a refugee but, unlike a refugee, is present in the United States”

-          Fraud Detection and National Security

This office flags applications and petitions that trigger national security and criminal database notifications; such duties, formerly performed by INS enforcement, are now under the responsibility of DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

-          Civic Integration

Instructing and training on citizenship rights and responsibilities via a Citizenship Resource Center website and via the Immigrant Integration Grants Program “which assists public or private nonprofit organizations that provide citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to LPRs

-          Naturalization

Granting U.S. citizenship to LPRs; adjudicators must check if aliens have continuously resided in the U.S. for a specific period of time, have good moral character, are able to read, write, speak, and understand English, and have a basic knowledge of U.S. civic and history;

Do unsavory characters who are not worthy of American citizenship or of refugee status slip through the adjudication process? Of course they do, the terrorist Tsernaev brothers come to mind.

One of the biggest criticisms of USCIS is that petitions are still processed in the “outmoded” paper form and there are constant complaints of lost files. Since 2008 USCIS has embarked on IT Modernization and Client Services in order to “improve information sharing, workload capacity, and system integrity.” Eventually the system will be “paperless, centralized, and consolidated, ensuring national security and integrity, customer service, operational efficiency, and quality in immigration benefit decisions.” (Fiscal Year 2016 Congressional Budget Justifications, p. 3357)

Since Congress is so weak and unwilling to protect our borders, our American interests, and our sovereignty, would a President Trump be ready to use his executive pen to stop the flood of illegal immigrants by building a fence, enforcing current immigration laws, and deporting criminal illegal aliens?

 

 

CPAC 2015's Conservative View of Immigration Focused on "Consensus"

“We are not a nation of immigrants, we are a nation of citizens.” – Mark Levine to CPAC

CPAC 2015 Panel on Immigration
From left: Alfonso Aguilar, Rep. Jeff Duncan, Charlie Gerow, Mario Lopez
Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

Among the glitz and conservative rhetoric of CPAC 2015, one important panel discussion was barely attended by 40-50 people – “Immigration: Can Conservatives Reach a Consensus?” It is in my estimation an issue that is going to fundamentally alter the makeup of our society forever.

The panel was moderated by Charlie Gerow of Quantum Communications and consisted of three panelists:  Representative Jeff Duncan (SC-3), Alfonso Aguilar of the American Principles Project and Mario Lopez of the Hispanic Leadership Fund.

Alfonso Aguilar presented an argument for a conservative solution that respects the rule of law and focuses on border security but recognizes the need that our economy has for foreign workers, dealing at the same time with “the undocumented population without doing amnesty.”  Amnesty, in his view, and self-deportation that does not work, are “false choices.”

Because the status quo is not an option, Aguilar said, we must encourage those Republicans who share his view and convince the rest of the Republicans that “the status quo is not acceptable.”  People are staying here illegally because “Big Government encourages de facto amnesty.” Additionally, “people come here to work, they are not coming here to have children and to become citizens, no mother brings her child so they can pay instate tuition at Texas A&M.” They come here because there is no way for them to enter and exist legally, Aguilar continued.

Yes, we need border security, strategic fencing, and more resources in places like the Rio Grande Valley where there is lawlessness; we need expanded use of sensors, of drones, and an exit registry, Aguilar proposed.

“We believe in the free market. If American Big Business cannot find workers, why should the government tell an American employer that they cannot bring a foreign worker that they need? Let the market determine,” continued Aguilar. “The Braceros program worked, but liberals opposed it because of the unions.”  

Aguilar argued for family reunification, that we cannot break up families. There are entire towns in Mexico that have dislocated populations, he said. We have become a social featherbed for the poor Mexican population. Aguilar argued that “children” traveled last summer on top of trains to be reunited with their families. Yet there is factual information that many among these travelers were not children, were known gang members, and transportation and housing were arranged and paid for by our government.

The panel emphasized that we need a market-based guest worker program that will work as long as operational control and border security are under control. We cannot grow the economy, Aguilar said, if there are no American workers willing the do the job and we do not have foreign workers.  What about millions of American citizens who are currently unemployed and have no prospects of getting a job in this terribly mismanaged and depressed economy? Why does the government only care for the fate of illegal aliens and not the future of our own American citizens?

What can we do with the millions of “undocumented” currently residing in the United States? “We cannot deport millions of people,” Aguilar said, and self-deportation does not work. Actually deportations have occurred in the past successfully.  He proposes a penalty for the path of legal status, but no citizenship.

In light of the hurried Social Security cards which were issued to the five million amnestied by executive fiat, these people will vote illegally for those who brought them into our country. Contrary to what Aguilar said, “Latinos are not natural-born Democrats,” they do come from third world nations whose citizens look up to big government for their salvation and wellbeing even though they may be conservative with their families and with religious views. They look up to the Pope with reverence, a political figure, who has criticized capitalism in favor of Marxism and has interjected himself in the issue of global warming and population control.

Mario Lopez pointed to a chart from Reason.com, showing the backlogged legal immigration system as a proof that our immigration system is broken. He mentioned Obama’s executive overreach in reference to amnesty and how he voted five times as a senator for poison pill amendments to kill the immigration reform bill proposed long before he became President.

Pointing to the visa lottery, the country quotas, and the bureaucratic nightmare that backlogs family integration visas, he said, “It is almost impossible to immigrate legally to the United States.” My question is, how many members from an extended family in Mexico should be allowed to integrate with one illegal family member who successfully jumped our border, while millions from other countries are waiting to bring one spouse and/or child into the United States?

“People are dying every day to get a piece of the American dream. “ They are not coming here for handouts, welfare checks. People come because America is the shiny city on a hill.” I say, it is a shining city on the hill with generous welfare programs at the border. This mass exodus into the United States created “legacy voters” who are loyal to Democrats who promise and deliver more welfare.

“Why is the system broken? It is not broken, it is not enforced,” said a member of the audience. “What has to be changed, radically changed?” Aguilar answered that the immigration track, the quota system based on the country of origin, treats other countries unfairly, and it must be stopped. The H2B visas for non-agricultural unskilled workers should not be capped at 65,000 per year, he argued, because employers cannot find American workers and the labor market should be allowed to prevail.

Do politicians and immigration lobbyists care how millions of unskilled and unemployed Americans are supposed to find jobs? The tired explanation that Americans won’t do jobs that illegals do is a convenient fantasy created for those in need of cheaper labor. Additionally, not all illegals are paid lower wages.

Rep. Jeff Duncan interjected that we have an unsecure border and a broken sovereignty.  “The American people do not trust the administration to enforce the law so why should we have another law for the President to pick and choose winners and losers; the President has poisoned the well to have a conversation in Congress because no one trusts the administration to actually do the job that it is charged to do. We have to uphold the law.”

Rep. Duncan said that the robust welfare system incentivizes people not to take the jobs. In order to redress the immigration problem, welfare reform must also be addressed concurrently.  Rep. Jeff Duncan’s partying words were, “ I don’t agree with everything the panel has said, but we should have a debate and listen to the American people.”

People should come here legally and then go back to their countries. The American people should decide how much immigration we have. Mario Lopez argued that “Labor is an economic commodity. Overpopulation is not an issue if you complain that you are bringing in too many illegals. There is a demand of labor.”

Panelists agreed with one audience member that citizenship should be outlawed if a person has committed a crime in the United States and the offenders should be sent back to their home countries.

To the question, could labor unions be a hindrance to the proposed immigration system, Mario Lopez answered that labor unions are generally against it with the exception of a few such as the SEIU. “Operatives in unions are generally Democrats.” He continued that “we cannot keep people out” and “the Chamber of Commerce wants cheap labor.”

The question remains, if illegals who refuse to assimilate do not come to the United States for welfare, why have so many received over $4.1 billion in earned income tax credit, who claimed children of relatives in Mexico, and why recently amnestied illegals, who have not paid taxes at all, will receive retroactively for 2011-2013 as much as $35,000 per family in earned income tax credit?

Would it not be cheaper for the American taxpayer to enforce e-verify and adopt $5 biometric cards that would match prospective foreign employees with prospective employers and stop all welfare to illegal aliens? Would it not be safer for the American people to stop bringing in “refugees” from countries that are hostile to our culture, to our western civilization, to our legal system, and to our way of life?

Copyright: Ileana Johnson 2015