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The Biggest Immigration Lie of All: Law Abiding Illegal Immigrants

Show me an illegal immigrant who is law abiding and I will show you a bum, or someone who is being supported by a criminal. President Obama disagrees, insisting illegals are working so they can have a life like ours:

The result is an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States. The overwhelming majority of these men and women are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their children. Many settle in low-wage sectors of the economy; they work hard, they save, they stay out of trouble.¹

Does the president understand that illegal immigrants can’t work in the U.S. without authorization no matter how much he wants to keep them here? American citizens seeking a better life have excused robbing banks, embezzlement, selling drugs, and every other crime imaginable to get what they want. If you are an illegal immigrant, you commit identity fraud.

Testimony before a House Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement included a claim that 75% of illegal immigrants have fraudulent Social Security numbers.² Whether or not this figure is accurate you need money to eat, and if you want to work you must be an American citizen or you need authorization.

If ICE reports are any indication, identity mills that turn illegal immigrants into Americans are flourishing. Last month we talked about identity theft and vote fraud, and how Voting Follows Citizenship as Our Government Devalues America. ICE does good work at a time when immigrant rights groups, Democrats, and the Obama administration are doing everything in their power to undermine immigration enforcement by portraying illegals as upstanding members of our communities wronged by an unfair system. Here a few excerpts from ICE news releases, part of a list agents add to every day:

 9 suspects arrested in HIS probe targeting Fresno-area phony document mills

 … special agents discovered and seized hundreds of fraudulent identities in the process of being manufactured, along with numerous document-making supplies, including printers and laminators. In addition, special agents recovered more than $5,000 in cash from the various search locations.³

And this:

6 Mexican nationals sentenced for identity theft

The HSI investigation revealed that organization members were creating counterfeit identification documents and Social Security cards using stolen identities.4

And this:

Third co-conspirator in driver’s license mill sentenced

According to court documents, Gaitrie and Rajin Latchman would, for a fee of between $2,500 and $3,000, arrange for illegal aliens to obtain a Florida driver license. … As part of their services, the Latchmans would provide immigration and identification documents to the aliens, to present at the DHSMV office.5

Is assimilation by fraud Washington’s final fix for immigration as politicians continue to spread the lie that illegal immigrants are law abiding workers who belong here? Is fraud forgiveness on the way when the political climate is ripe? There can be no such thing as a federal path to citizenship for law abiding illegal immigrants because even amnesty supporting lawmakers include background checks in their bills that would likely screen out the majority of illegals. If legislation is ever passed that rolls out the red, white, and blue carpet that ends in American citizenship, it will be a sorry bunch who shuffle down its length to claim their prize. The rest will be living, working, and enjoying the better life that comes with being an American, because their identities say they already are.

List of references

Posted 04 May 2012 † Civil Bob § Immigration ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged: illegal immigrants

Unions Vital to Campaign to Deceive Middle Class Workers

Barack Obama denies accusations that he is engaging in class warfare, but as he intensifies his fight to stay employed he is turning to unions as a replacement for his Buffett Rule tax hike. The president is joined by other members of his administration who insist that the middle class is unable to get a fair shake in the workplace without unions. The new class war is a campaign of deception against the middle class, who will not benefit from the president’s tinkering with the economy and stand an even smaller chance of benefiting from organized labor.

Stumping for infrastructure spending and collective bargaining rights before the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, the president indulged the usual patriotic appeals to worker security:

That’s why unions were built — understood workers on their own wouldn’t have the same ability to look after themselves and their families as they could together. And what’s true for you is true for America.¹ 

Union membership has been as flat as job growth. Combined public and private sector membership was a scant 11.8% of workers in 2011.² If unions are the salvation of the middle class, as Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis believes, American workers are in big trouble:

Prior reporting shows that union members have greater access to health care, retirement and leave benefits. Today’s numbers make it clear that union jobs are critical to a strong economy. And a strong economy depends on a strong and growing middle class.³

Education Secretary Arne Duncan threw in his support for collective bargaining after Ohio voters backed unions for the public sector, an area where membership flourishes:

“The voters of Ohio sent a clear signal that they support collective bargaining rights and they want to work together to rebuild their economy, strengthen the middle class and improve public education. I salute the unions and their allies for their successful effort to support workers rights, and I look forward to working with all of the people of Ohio to meet our common goals.”4

Spearheading the Middle Class Task Force, Vice President Biden joined Duncan in ignoring the debt burden public employee collective bargaining places on middle class taxpayers:

 Tonight the people of Ohio delivered a gigantic victory for the middle class with their overwhelming rejection of a Republican attempt to strip away collective bargaining rights. Fundamental fairness has prevailed.5

Speaking to a no risk crowd at a GM plant last September, the president put his cards on the table when he declared that the purpose of his presidency is to support the middle class:

And America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and without a strong labor movement. (Applause.)

That’s the central challenge that we face in our country today.  That’s at the core of why I ran for President.  That’s what I’ve been fighting for since I’ve been President.6

With 6.9% private sector union membership and meager job growth, if unions are the answer the middle class is doomed and by Mr. Obama’s own admission his presidency has been a failure. When he talks about creating jobs for Americans he turns to spending on infrastructure with union labor that costs the middle class too much and leaves out most American workers. The president claims that trickle down is a failure. Does he believe that it works when the money is thrown at unions?

Unions have a much stronger grip on the public sector, where membership can exceed 40% and gives us failing state and local budgets unable to pay for the wages and benefits Labor Secretary Solis promotes. Since education budgets rest largely on the shoulders of local and state taxpayers, pushing public employee unions is a win-win for Democrats. The party gets the votes, and the middle class gets to pay the taxes to support unaffordable pay and benefits for teachers and school administrators.

Do middle class Americans have such a fragile sense of who and what they are that a few bad years causes them to swallow a party line that is just another tired take on income redistribution? Unions eliminate freedom of choice for businesses, government, and taxpayers. If they were vital to the economy they would be flourishing. Will Americans see that backing unions representing only 11.8% of workers and using that support to take credit for propping up the middle class is a deception and a fraud?  

Failure or not, Barack Obama and members of his administration are determined to convince Americans that unions are our champions. The middle class should feel betrayed. Karl Marx would have been proud.

List of references

Posted 02 May 2012 † Civil Bob § Unions ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: Arne Duncan, Hilda Solis, middle class

Republicans Bear the Guilt for Student Loan Interest Bailout

Should conservatives save themselves a lot of heartache and throw in the towel now? Republicans seem unable to get their message out without looking like villains (see: Do Republicans Want to be America’s Enemies?). With so many prime targets and renewed support from women a possibility thanks to Hilary Rosen, did House GOP members have to select a program to fund the newest bailout that could be used to throw women’s health in their faces? Going after Democrats for the interest hike on student loans should have been like snuffing fish in a barrel. Even the president admitted last week at the University of North Carolina that Democrats are largely at fault for legislation that caused the interest rate confrontation. Nevertheless, when he mentioned Democrats who were attending the speech, the crowd responded with applause.¹

Students were big Obama supporters in 2008. Anyone old enough to vote and incur student loan debt is also old enough to learn that decisions have consequences. Instead of teaching a lesson about choice, we are going to watch Democrats take credit for backing House Republicans into a corner and forcing a bailout over a problem they created. The GOP will bear criticism for endangering the health of women, and for putting student futures in jeopardy even though their solution will ultimately go nowhere.

The president shows genius at using Republicans as his whipping boy when Democrats get the urge to spend to shore up their support base. Mr. Obama boasted of his student loan fix when he took loans away from the banks, but like most of the president’s successes the benefits were pushed far into the future, all the way to 2020:

This reform of the federal student loan programs will save taxpayers $68 billion over the next decade. And with this legislation, we’re putting that money to use achieving a goal I set for America: by the end of this decade, we will once again have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.²

The interest on student loans is part of a college affordability crisis Democrats are creating while they ignore the excesses that help make a public college education so expensive. Union interference, excessive salaries and benefits for educators and administrators, taxpayer-paid breaks for illegal immigrants, and the president’s threat to punish tuition hikes while his Secretary of Education insists we pay teachers more money are all part of a broad strategy endorsed by the White House. Republicans should have gone after these abuses long before they brought up a “slush fund” that was bound to get them in hot water no matter what they did with it. If they needed money for the loan interest bailout there are grant programs aplenty that do not reflect on the stereotype that the GOP is anti-woman (see: Will Obama’s Tax Hikes Pay for Reid’s Arts Grants?).

Pulling $6 billion from one bill and throwing it at another is not the same thing as refusing to spend $6 billion in a down economy. How did the GOP end up buying into another bailout made necessary by the failure of Democratic policies? The president is a master at manipulating public opinion to get his way, so we keep shelling out billions to fund his rich vs. poor, entitled vs. disadvantaged worldview. No matter what caused the recession, the bad economy we are stuck with now is the fault of the man in the White House and Democrats in Congress who are still selling the country on their bad ideas. Why are Republicans unable to get the message out about what is really happening, and why are they making it easy to place blame everywhere except where it belongs?

List of references

Posted 29 April 2012 † Civil Bob § Education ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: Democrats, federal budget, Republicans