Category: Immigration

I’m tired hearing about kids in cages. Frankly, it’s a very American thing to do. It’s so commonplace that folks just accept it as normal. Here’s some examples:

We separate kids from their parents and keep them in cages every Monday thru Friday from about 8 AM to 3 PM about nine months out of the year. It’s called school. Oh, you think that’s being harsh to say that? Ok, how do said children or parents gain access to the facility? They enter thru gates and checkpoints and while doing so may be subject to random inspections and metal detectors too. During school times many campuses have police present or on call to protect the site and civilian safety monitors patrol the grounds—especially at recess—to prevent unauthorized crossing of perimeter fencing.

For many parents, school is often just a government provided babysitter that warehouses children while parents are otherwise occupied. Many parents rejoice that the government requires that they are separated from their children on a regular basis. Parents who don’t agree are often visited by government agents if they don’t comply with this separation.

At my son’s school, the gates are locked and signs directing me to his location are frequently wrong. I often joke (lament might be a better word) with other parents that the school needs an app to locate your child. I can’t tell you how many times it’s taken me 10 to 15 minutes of running around from place to place to locate my youngster and extract him from his campus.

Other examples of forced separation abound. Heck even the local health club has gotten in on the action. They don’t allow children to be with their parents, instead forcing them not to follow their folks healthy example but sit in a separate, guarded area with, yep, a fence around it—completed with barbed wire.

Please note that the barbed wire in photo is to keep kids from escaping not directed to keep people out of the children’s area.

Caging children and separating them from their folks is not always a bad thing. Depending on the circumstances, many folks just consider it part of daily life. I submit for your consideration that if it weren’t for lawyers and criminals running free on our streets that there would be a lot less fences separating people from each other.

If you haven’t been out of state much, it might surprise you that in many neighborhoods, houses are not separated by any type of fencing. Whole blocks have backyards as one contiguous grass area with nothing but swing sets and play structures as far as the eye can see. Children have whole subdivisions as their play area.

When folks enter our country in violation of the law, they have committed a crime. This is no secret. They know it is wrong but purposefully do it anyways. When they get caught there can be consequences. It seems that many are willing to take that risk. Those arresting them will segregate people as they see fit, often for health and safety reasons. If children are separated then I have to believe there is a good reason.

The bottom line is that the current controversy about kids in cages is a contrived, emotional argument. It was perfectly fine when a Democrat President was in charge. I know of no photos of this alleged phenomenon since Trump took office. Not to say that one may not exist but the ones recently put out by Congressional Democrats to publicize their hearings on this issue were all removed from their websites and Twitter accounts as each was proven to be photographed when Obama was President. Congressional Democrats have yet to put forward one photo created after the current Administration took over. Funny how that works.

Since being locked out of the House by Nancy Pelosi, President Trump has searched far and wide for a new venue for this critical speech. Trump spokesman, Sarah Sanders said this is the first time that Trump has been locked out of the House since Melina learned about Stormy Daniels. 

Using his Twitter account, Trump described Nancy Pelosi as a classic three bagger and deeply regrets ever inviting her into the White House. He says this was a moment of weakness on his part.

In response to a reporter question on Twitter, Trump said the Democrats really had to hit below the belt to dredge-up a Speaker that would make him miss John Bonheur. 

At the behest of Republican political consultants and select CNN viewers, Trump has chosen a Taos, New Mexico, On The Border Restaurant, as the new site of this important annual address to the American people. 

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, (D-N.Y) is angry that she can’t attend the speech to protest president Trump’s policies. Apparently, due to the government shutdown, she can’t get her passport renewed in time to enter New Mexico.

MSNBC is threatening not to carry the speech because Trump has arranged private funding to fly to New Mexico. In this case, the issue is not the funding itself but the fact that principle sponsors are Rent-A-Fence and Tostitos.

After breaking the tablets of the Law on television last night, President Obama is reportedly traveling to an undisclosed location in Texas today where he will lay his teleprompter across the Rio Grande River so his new sheep can walk into the Promised Land on dry ground. Only after kissing his ring and pledging fealty will they be granted a permanent stay.

Most people I’ve heard today talking about the almost October surprise that Gloria Allred sprung on Meg Whitman don’t know what they are talking about. Since most folks never get to sign the front of a paycheck, they are uninformed about how businesses deal with hiring and firing of employees.

First, an employer will interview candidates for a job.  Then they will make an offer to hire someone. At that point the employee is supposed to provide the necessary documents for an I-9 form. The employer has to accept the documents at face value. There is no legal requirement to make copies of the documents or attempt to verify their authenticity. In fact the employer is subjecting himself to legal peril if they rescind an employment offer on the basis of identification documents. At most places where I have worked, we kept copies of the I-9 and supporting documents in the employee files. Also, there is no government agency that an employer can send the documents to for verification if they have a doubt.

Please note that you do not need to show a Social Security Number (SSN) as a condition of employment. The card is only one of a litany of documents that can be submitted for identification purposes.

Nothing more happens with an employee SSN until year end taxes are filed. The W-2s are submitted to the Social Security Administration (SSA). If the name on the W-2 does not match the name on file with the Social Security Administration, they will eventually send the employer a “Don’t Match” letter. This letter has language that many people would be surprised to see. Two points I would like to highlight concerning this letter. It is illegal to terminate an employee if their SSN does not agree with their name. The letter also makes it clear that this is a matter between the Social Security Administration and the employee.

“Employers should not assume that the mismatch is the result of any wrongdoing on the part of the employee. Moreover, an employer who takes action against an employee based on nothing more substantial than a mismatch letter may, in fact, violate the law.”

“An employer that receives such a letter and terminates employees without attempting to resolve the mismatches, or who treats employees differently based upon national origin or other prohibited characteristics, may be found to have engaged in unlawful discrimination.”

http://www.ssa.gov/employer/ICEinsert.pdf

In most cases, by the time an employer gets a “No Match” letter, the employee is no longer with the company. These letters are simply a multi-column list of social security numbers. The employer must look-up each number to find the name associated with the number.

If employer attempts to verify the name and SSN, the government will not help. They will only say if it matches or does not match. They won’t tell you what is wrong. This is especially frustrating when dealing with folks from south of the border. The SSN template cannot deal with the way Spanish people are named. SSA wants first name, middle initial and last name. I’ve seen Spanish employees that have six names by our government’s way of reckoning.

For example if you hire Mario de Jesus Garcia Esperonza, how do you make him fit the First name, middle initial, last name format? Also, many Spanish folks are barely literate in their own language and they know no English. It is common to see their first and last names transposed on their documents. Is he Valentine Edwardo or Edwardo Valentine? Again, SSA can’t deal with properly documenting Spanish names and won’t help correct errors when they occur.

One year I went thru this with 75 employees and we never could successfully resolve a single instance of “No Match”. The E-Verify system was not any better plus it was all tied to my personal SSN and not the employer tax ID number. I left the company over three years ago and as far as I know, my SSN is still tied to their employee verification account with SSA.

Lastly, the ACLU took the “No Match” letters to court in 2007 and got a favorable ruling that blocked the SSA from sending employers “No Match” letters. Here is their press release. http://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/court-blocks-government-implementing-flawed-social-security-no-match-rule

I don’t know how this court action was resolved or if it has been. It appears likely that the letters are still blocked. They certainly were when the current Administration came to power. Given the political leanings of President Obama, I doubt he would fight hard to have the government begin issuing these letters any time soon.

I have been listening to the debate over the proposed immigration bill for several weeks. The bottom line is that supporters say they must do something about immigration. Their basic argument in support of this law is that the current system is broken. Supporters argue that this bill will fix the problem. They say trust us, we will replace the laws that aren’t enforced now with more laws that have no enforcement mechanisms. We make all illegals legal and then there is no problem.

I have heard members of Congress, administration officials, staff from The Wall Street Journal and others claiming to support the bill try to argue in favor of this legislation but they cannot cite why this bill is better than current law and more importantly how this law will fix the problem of illegal immigration once and for all.

The bill’s supporters are utilizing emotional arguments both in favor of the bill and also to attack its opponents. Anyone that opposes this bill is a racist, bigot, Nazi, xenophobe. Facts are not relevant to this discussion. I have not heard a single person who says that they favor the bill try to argue the merits of the legislation by citing chapter and verse from this wonderful compromise worked out in secret. Ultimately supporters claim that President Bush will sign it so it must be ok.

What a joke! President Bush will sign anything that Congress gives to him no matter how bad, unconstitutional or fiscally irresponsible. He holds the all-time record for the fewest vetoes of any President in history. He has vetoed only one bill and that was after almost six years in office!

I am in favor of immigration by legal means. I wish the numbers allowed were at least doubled if not tripled from what they are now. Let folks in legally; lots of them.

The bill’s approach of granting blanket amnesty to all illegals is a national security nightmare. There is no agency assigned to do background checks, no money to hire manpower for the checks and no responsible agency assigned by the legislation. 24 hours for a background check and then a visa that will be good for the rest of your life is just stupid. What database will be used for the check? If we can’t even stop the Virginia Tech shooter from buying firearms through legal means including a background check, why do we think we will catch some terrorist from Jordan before he is given legitimate papers when twenty million people try simultaneously to get their background checks?

We have had a check-in/check-out law on the books for eleven years for legal visitors and it still does not work. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have had major computer issues since the 9/11 attacks. Now the same people who created and funded these notable computer failures think we can create a nationwide system from scratch in 18 month that will screen people from every corner of the globe!

There needs to be as much time as necessary to do the background checks. The visas much have expiration dates and renewal requirements.

We need to secure the borders before any regularization program for illegals is adopted.

The cornerstone of making the system work needs to be employer verification. Only one or two forms of identification should be allowed for employment. These identification documents must be verified by the government prior to employment. If employee information is suspect either at hire or due to errors later found by the Internal Revenue or Social Security Administration, the employer needs both the legal right to terminate and the legal protection not to be sued by some ACLU type if they do.

If the borders are secured and the employer is empowered to check-up on new hires, the economic draw for illegal immigration will be drastically reduced.