The American immigration system, a la President Barack Obama

Commentary by James Shott

A common refrain about immigration is that the U.S. “is a nation of immigrants.” People coming to the colonies built what would become the United States of America, and since then millions have immigrated here.

“Most immigrant groups that had formerly come to America by choice seemed distinct, but in fact had many similarities,” as ushistory.org explains. “Most had come from Northern and Western Europe. Most had some experience with representative democracy. With the exception of the Irish, most were Protestant. Many were literate, and some possessed a fair degree of wealth.”

Most, but not all immigrants intended to become American citizens. Some, however, returned to their native land after earning money to send home. Not all were good people; some were criminals, mentally ill, anarchists, and alcoholics.

Furthermore, many Americans were not thrilled about immigration, and ushistory.org tells us, “In 1917, Congress required the passing of a literacy test to gain admission. Finally, in 1924, the door was shut to millions by placing an absolute cap on new immigrants based on ethnicity. That cap was based on the United States population of 1890 and was therefore designed to favor the previous immigrant groups.”

Throughout the decades and the problems and controversy that accompanied immigration, diversity came to the US, which had become a nation of primarily peaceful, self-reliant, hard-working people, qualities they generally passed on to the next generation.

However, the concept that America is a nation of immigrants is less and less valid. Today, the USA is a nation not so much of immigrants, but principally a nation of the descendants of people who were immigrants generations ago; a nation of Americans.

Our government has the duty to admit immigrants who want to become good American citizens, as demonstrated in the previously discussed examples of acts affecting immigration. No sensible person would allow people they cannot be virtually certain are good and honorable people into their homes; our government must be every bit as cautious.

But instead we find that the current immigration system is wholly dysfunctional, and the responsibility goes squarely on the shoulders of President Barack Obama and his administration. The idea held by many on the Left – that we are morally obligated to admit any and all who seek entry, legally or otherwise – is not just dumb, it is dangerous. And that concept has no basis in history or in the Constitution.

Nevertheless, that foolish idea has strong support, and it set the stage for what happened in a hearing of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee this past April, when Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, addressed comments to those testifying, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Sarah Soldana.

Chaffetz listed some startling facts:

** In a three-year period Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has released more than 86,000 criminal aliens into the American public. These are people who were here illegally, got caught committing a crime, were convicted of that crime, and instead of deporting them, they were released back out into the United States of America. All told they had more than 231,000 crimes of which they were convicted.

** In 2015, 196 of these people were convicted of homicide, and ICE released them back into the public, rather than deporting them.

** One hundred and twenty-four of those who were released between 2010 and 2015 went on to commit homicide.

** In 2013 ICE released 36,007 criminal aliens who were unlawfully in the United States. As of September 2014, 5,700 of those individuals went on to commit additional crimes.

** In March of 2015, the director of ICE testified before this committee that during fiscal year 2014 ICE released another 30,558 individuals with a combined 79,059 criminal convictions, instead of deporting them. Of those 30,558 criminal aliens 1,895 were charged with another crime following their release, including sex offenses, assault, burglary, robbery, and driving under the influence.

“And ICE told us that in 2015 the agency released 19,723 criminal aliens with a combined 64,197 convictions,” Chaffetz said, “including: 934 sex offenses, 804 robberies, 216 kidnappings, and 196 homicide-related convictions. And that’s on your watch.” They were here illegally, committed crimes, were caught, tried and convicted, and then turned loose to prey on the American people again.

He then displayed an aerial photo of Notre Dame football stadium filled with game watchers, and said, “You released more people that were convicted of crimes and should have been deported than you can fit into that stadium. You’d still have people waiting outside in line. Those are the criminals that you released instead of deporting.”

Government’s job is to seal the borders from illegal entry, to thoroughly vet people before letting the acceptable ones in, and to prosecute and punish criminals. Put them in jail, or at the very least deport them and keep them out.

Do these colossal government failures rise to the level of criminal offenses? Should they? Or, is such dangerous and irresponsible behavior “merely” gross malfeasance? Is there no penalty for such wrongdoing, whether criminal or not?

Not in the administration of Barack Obama, where apparently the treacherous operation of this immigration system is a matter of celebration by his supporters.

Cross-posted from Observations

“Coming to America” in the 21st century: Stupid is as stupid does!

Commentary by James Shott

A sanctuary jurisdiction is a place where people who are in the U.S. illegally may go without fear of being discovered and deported. Most of these people are just looking for a better life, but not all, and some are violent criminals. Regardless of their reason for being here, all are safe from being deported or jailed until they commit a crime, but then it is too late. Someone, likely a taxpaying, law-abiding American citizen will have been robbed, assaulted, raped or murdered.

If you come into the United States without proper documentation, without following the approved procedure, you are a federal law-breaker. If you come into the U.S. legally and over-stay your Visa, you are a federal law-breaker.

Both types of illegal immigrants are deportable under Immigration and Nationality Act Section 237 (a)(1)(B) which says: "Any alien who is present in the United States in violation of this Act or any other law of the United States is deportable.”

You are not an “undocumented immigrant,” you are an illegal alien, a law-breaker. Period. You are not entitled to any government benefits, you should not be able to get a job; you should not be protected by going to a sanctuary jurisdiction.

If you broke our laws to come here because of intolerable conditions where you came from, you have our sympathy for your situation, but we have a process for people like you to immigrate to the United States. In very dire circumstances you may be able to request asylum, but even in those dire conditions, there is a process to follow, and that process does not include crossing our borders illegally, living in the shadows, collecting benefits and avoiding immigration authorities. If you do that, you are a criminal, and should be deported. If you do it again, you should be jailed.

If an American citizen harbors an illegal alien, he or she is breaking the law and can be prosecuted. But cities and counties may do so with the blessing of the federal government, and get taxpayer funding to do so.

It’s not that most illegal aliens are criminals, it’s that far too many of them are. Even one illegal who commits a crime – especially a serious crime like armed robbery, assault, rape or sexual abuse, murder, etc. – is one more than we should accept.

Far too many illegals are up to no good. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) records, “from January 1 to August 31, 2014, more than 8,100 deportable aliens were released after arrest in approximately 300 local sanctuary jurisdictions, even though ICE had issued a detainer seeking custody in advance of deporting them,” as reported by Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, writing in National Review. “Some 62 percent of these offenders had a prior criminal history,” of whom about 3,000 were felons. “Of the 8,100 aliens who were released to the streets instead of to ICE, approximately 1,900 were later arrested, a total of 4,300 more times, on 7,500 different charges.”


Kathryn Steinle, 32, walking on Pier 14 with her father in San Francisco on July 2, 2015, was shot and died in her father’s arms, begging him to help her. Ms. Steinle and her father were minding their own business, but she was nevertheless mindlessly shot and killed. And who committed this heinous crime? An illegal alien from Mexico named Francisco Sanchez who had seven felony convictions against him, four on drug charges, and had been deported five times.

“ICE had started the deportation process, but San Francisco asked for custody of Sanchez to pursue prior drug charges,” Ms. Vaughn’s report noted. “These were dropped, and in early April, instead of turning him back over to ICE for deportation, the San Francisco sheriff’s department released Sanchez, in keeping with the city’s longstanding sanctuary policies, without notification to ICE. Less than three months later, Sanchez shot and killed Ms. Steinle.”


Kate Steinle is not the only American murdered by an illegal, only one of the most recent. It is a true scandal that Americans are less concerned with this serious threat to the safety of their fellow Americans as they are with whitewashing history by removing every existing Confederate battle flag from the land of the free and the home of the brave, and that the Obama administration is more concerned with global warming than with illegals streaming into the country, many of whom are violent criminals.

How many of those who like sanctuary jurisdictions and open borders and the other foolish ideas that constitute threats to Americans have the power of their convictions? How many would follow the same policies at their homes, leaving doors unlocked, allowing anyone to come in and live in their basement or garage, or their bedrooms? Very few, most likely. But they like the sanctuary idea because it makes them feel all warm and fuzzy with misplaced compassion, and they don’t really have to worry about the consequences.

Except they do. These vicious crimes are their responsibility. Wonder how would they feel if Kate Steinle was their daughter, wife, or sister? How would you feel?

Cross-posted from Observations

Ebola infected West Africa – Will it now infect the United States

President Barack Obama said the following on September 16 at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta: “First and foremost, I want the American people to know that our experts, here at the CDC and across our government, agree that the chances of an Ebola outbreak here in the United States are extremely low. We’ve been taking the necessary precautions, including working with countries in West Africa to increase screening at airports so that someone with the virus doesn’t get on a plane for the United States. In the unlikely event that someone with Ebola does reach our shores, we’ve taken new measures so that we’re prepared here at home. We’re working to help flight crews identify people who are sick, and more labs across our country now have the capacity to quickly test for the virus. We’re working with hospitals to make sure that they are prepared, and to ensure that our doctors, our nurses and our medical staff are trained, are ready, and are able to deal with a possible case safely.”

Four days later the “unlikely” occurred: the first person infected with Ebola arrived in the U.S. from Liberia, where he had assisted an infected woman, become contaminated, but did not tell anyone about it in order to get on a plane and travel to Dallas, Texas. It took three different flights for him to get here and no one along the way apparently knew he had been in Liberia, or was able to determine that he had been infected, since he was asymptomatic until after he got here.

After developing a fever, he visited Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital was treated and sent home, despite having recently been in Liberia. He was staying with relatives in Dallas and as the disease progressed he got sicker and became contagious, and after that he returned to the hospital and was diagnosed with Ebola. Several days later, he passed away.

His relatives were exposed to Ebola, and the residence and outside areas were contaminated. Who knows how many others were exposed to the virus?

Mr. Obama said we can handle this, should the need arise. But the need arose, and a well-respected hospital didn’t handle the first infected person very well at all.

The first airport screenings began Saturday at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Other airports were to begin screenings this week. Screenings at African airports and another screening at U.S. airports, the president said, would make it unlikely that someone infected with Ebola will get to the U.S.

Given the botched handling of the first Ebola patient in our country, can we believe Mr. Obama? “No matter how many of these procedures are put into place, we can’t get the risk to zero,” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Martin Cetron, director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. He told a news conference that these new measures wouldn’t necessarily have detected Ebola in the patient who traveled to Dallas.

Complicating an already unnerving situation, a second case of Ebola at the Dallas hospital has now been confirmed. A female nurse who had cared for the Ebola patient prior to his death was assessed on Friday, CDC Director Dr. Thomas Frieden said, and on Sunday it was confirmed that the nurse has Ebola.

The nurse’s infection is blamed on a breech of protocol. One report said that when removing the protective clothing she was wearing, the nurse inadvertently touched her cheek with her gloved hand, a glove that was contaminated with the virus. And now she has Ebola. And now, the disease has a small, but troubling presence in America.

This second error at this hospital has put other hospital personnel at risk, and may have infected one or more of them. Raise your hand if you believe the U.S. healthcare system really is prepared to deal with Ebola patients.

Even without these errors in handling Ebola in Dallas, it simply makes no sense either to bring potential or actual Ebola patients here, or allow people from countries where the disease exists to come here. Why take the chance of exposing Americans, particularly healthcare workers, to this vicious disease?

Columnist Thomas Sowell outlines the situation: “There was a time when an outbreak of a deadly disease overseas would bring virtually unanimous agreement that our top priority should be to keep it overseas. Yet Barack Obama has refused to bar entry to the United States by people from countries where the Ebola epidemic rages, as Britain has done. In other words, the safety of the American people takes second place to the goal of helping people overseas.”

President Obama has a giant blind spot when it comes to protecting the country from illegal entry of who knows who through the southern border, and now that blind spot extends to failing to stop people potentially infected with Ebola from coming into the U.S.

In situations like this one, we need to be smart, not compassionate. We can help the unfortunate West Africans by sending medical supplies and assistance without needlessly putting ourselves at risk. And we must.

Illegal immigration problem is largely a federal government creation

As a result of inadequate security measures along the southern border, the Obama administration’s leniency toward illegal entry into the country, and the idea of amnesty for illegal immigrants, the long-standing border security problem is now at crisis level due to the recent tsunami of Central American young people arriving in the US.

These kids left their homes in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador because of horrible conditions in those countries, entered Mexico and traversed the length of the country in an arduous journey frequently highlighted by unspeakable abuse, and crossed the border into the US.

That so many thousands could accomplish this ought to be more than a casual curiosity. Don’t you wonder how these young people can get into Mexico and travel more than a thousand miles through the country to the US border without being arrested and imprisoned? This question is particularly curious considering what happened to the US Marine war veteran Andrew Tahmooressi, who merely made a wrong turn at a confusing intersection on the border, accidentally ended up in Mexico, was arrested and has been in a Mexican jail for nearly four months. How do thousands of these kids who willfully enter Mexico illegally avoid arrest when an innocent wrong turn and a few minutes in Mexico gets Sgt. Tahmooressi put in jail?

However they manage it, when they cross the Rio Grande, the youthful illegals follow instructions to the Border Patrol station and turn themselves in. "They know that once they get to the station, we are going to give them paperwork and we are going to set them free into the United States," said Chris Cabrera, a leader of the local chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, a labor union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents.

"Most of the time, they're getting released to relatives in the U.S.," he said. "There's nowhere to put them, so they're released on their own recognizance and have a pending court date. I'd say between 95 and 97 percent of adults or youths don't show up for court."

So, due to a “soft on deportation” government attitude that serves as an invitation to people in Central America, and a fatally flawed US border policy that allows illegal aliens to easily enter the country by the thousands, they illegally cross the border and shortly thereafter disappear into the ether.

This huge influx has secondary effects that are potentially much more problematic: their presence forces border agents to be transferred away from the border so they can handle the kid tsunami, making it even easier for others to come in, such as members of drug cartels, members of MS-13 gangs, human sex traffickers, and people from the Middle East, China and Russia. Who knows what horrors these people may intend to unleash on our country?

Despite this disgraceful reality, the whitehouse.gov website tells us: “… today border security is stronger than it has ever been."

We are also told that deportation of illegals is at record levels, but Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson admitted before the House Appropriations Committee that “a very large fraction” of deportations aren’t really deportations, but instead are “turn-backs” at the border. Categorizing “turn-backs” as “deportations” paints a rosy but inaccurate picture: actual deportations are down sharply.

Let’s be honest: With his pen and his phone Barack Obama takes care of the things he thinks are important, like trying to lessen the damage of the Affordable Care Act, even if doing so is not legal or constitutional. Everything else he tosses aside with simplistic denials, or third grade humor, like "Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat."

He could have fixed the porous southern border and stemmed the influx of illegal aliens entering the country, but instead his actions made the situation worse, because fixing this dangerous problem is not important to him.

Mr. Obama wants nearly $4 billion in “emergency spending” to take care of these youthful illegals, but the situation does not qualify for emergency spending. The border crisis isn’t “sudden, unforeseen and temporary,” as the law requires.

Even so, the plan as outlined puts precious little of the funds toward securing the border, and lacks details on how the program would work, and how the money will be spent.

This situation has to be remedied as soon as possible. Some laws must be changed so that illegals from Central America aren’t treated more liberally than those from Mexico and Canada. Then secure the border.

Building a wall on the border, like a fence around your property, helps you control who comes in; it is an act of sovereignty, of common sense. Support it with agents and observation methods, and a second fence, if needed.

Instead of inviting people to come here illegally with a message that they won’t be sent back, send a message that will discourage people from seeking to illegally enter the country.

Americans are compassionate people who truly desire to help those in need, but we cannot do so at our own peril, as is the case with promises of amnesty and reckless border policies.

Congress must address the serious immigration problem. But first …

Commentary by James Shott

When illegal immigration is the subject, a large faction keeps saying that immigrants contributed greatly to building America into the greatest nation on Earth, and that we should therefore give all those illegals citizenship or some sort of legal status. And it is true that smart, dedicated, hard-working people who came here for a better life made tremendous contributions to the American success story.

But those people came here the right way, by following immigration procedures. Right now, there are some 4.5 million people following in their footsteps waiting to come to America legally.

Currently, however, there are some 11 million people inside our borders who did not come here the proper way. About 40 percent of them are foreigners who arrived legally, frequently on tourist Visas, and simply didn’t leave when they were supposed to.

Most of the other 7 million illegals are low-wage workers and their families who sneaked over the southern border, and even though they did not enter the country honorably by obeying immigration laws are people who are here for honorable purposes. And then there are the punks and thugs bent on committing vicious crimes, including murder, against American citizens.

For every 100 actual American citizens there are roughly 3 people residing in the country illegally, and that is a huge problem.

Actually, there are two separate problems: One problem is what do we do with the people here illegally, and the second, and most important, is how do we remedy the circumstances that allowed this intolerable situation to develop so that it never happens again?

Our immigration system has been both neglected and mismanaged, and as a result the country has endured substantial harm. This situation has been the genesis of frequent and strong calls to reform the immigration system. But the immigration system is not what failed; the people in positions to competently operate it and enforce the laws have failed – and in some cases, refused – to do their jobs.

So, the question is: What do we do about the fact that we have 11 million illegals now in the country?

Perhaps past history will be a good guide as to how we should proceed. What the bipartisan US Senate “Gang of Eight” is proposing today is very similar to what was done in the 1986 amnesty when Ronald Reagan was President.

According to Mr. Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, writing in the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry”: “The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.” That is quite similar to the “Gang of Eight’s” idea.

When the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was enacted, there were approximately 5 million illegal aliens in the country, and about 2.7 million of them benefitted from the IRCA. What has happened since then is that the number of illegal aliens has more than doubled.

What went wrong after that compassionate act to grant legal status to those illegal aliens that caused not a decrease in the number of illegals, but a dramatic increase?

“Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill promised—from border security to law enforcement—was to come later,” Mr. Meese said. “It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal immigration.” Had we done all that the IRCA required, we likely would not have the problem we have today.

In fact, Mr. Meese writes, the failure of the federal government to implement all of the elements of the IRCA to protect the nation from people entering illegally in the years after its passage caused Mr. Reagan to regard the amnesty as the greatest mistake of his administration.

Now that we see what happened after 1986 when we failed to prevent people illegally entering the country, and this time we have to make sure that does not happen again. We therefore have to yield the strong demand for securing the borders and putting improved control programs in place before doing anything to provide legal status of any kind to any illegal alien.

We have to become more sensible and less ruled by compassionate impulses. The country and the states cannot afford amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, or for half that number, no matter how nice they may be.

What must happen first is to do whatever is necessary to secure the borders. After that – but only after that – whatever steps we take must protect the interests of the United States before considering the interests of illegal aliens. And we must honor the 4.5 million who are waiting to come to America the proper way before helping illegals.

If you steal food because you are hungry, you have a good reason, but you still broke the law. If you want a better life and sneak into a country that offers promise for a better life, you have a good reason, but you still have done something wrong.

We must not endorse wrongdoing by rewarding it.

Cross-posted from Observations

Perplexing immigration issues and some clarity on global warming

Come to the USA

If you’re thinkin’ about illegal immigration,

Be careful when you’re choosin’ the nation

‘Cause breakin’ the law in some countries is frowned upon.

Imagine that.

Sneak into China and they’ll call you a spy

And ship you to Mongolia till you die.

And in Sudan they’ll hang you and the camel you rode in on.

Yeah, and don’t go ahikin’ and enter Iran,

Or you might never be heard from again.

And in Mexico, you might face a firing squad.

Yeah, and forget all about going to North Korea.

That’s a great example of a bad idea,

So when it comes down to it, there’s only one option you got.

Yeah come to the USA.

There's no penalty to pay

Should you get caught illegally immigratin

Those lyrics from Ray Stevens' "Come to the USA" YouTube video illustrate the stark difference in how some countries view people who sneak across their borders, compared to the USA. 

The US now has 11-to-20 million immigrants that illegally crossed our borders or over-stayed their visas, and the US Congress, in an attempt to reward those illegal immigrants, is now debating various measures under the guise of "immigration reform" which could easily be even more destructive and costly than the Affordable Care Act.

There is little agreement among our Senators and Representatives about what to do. Ideas being floated range from plain amnesty to plans to convert illegals to legal status and create a path to citizenship, and most pay a bit of lip service to securing the borders. Since they take such a friendly approach to people who are here illegally, these measures are viewed as a form of amnesty, and amnesty failed miserably in 1986. Any act that gives illegals an advantage over the 4 million people waiting in line who entered legally isn’t fair.

An exhaustive study by the Heritage Foundation has found that after amnesty, current illegal immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services but pay only about $3 trillion in taxes over their lifetimes, leaving a deficit of $6.3 trillion that would be paid for by another big increase in government debt or by raising taxes on those who still pay taxes.

Further, some of the people who have entered illegally are criminals, and perhaps a few terrorists in the mix, and we have to continue rooting out the bad among those millions and secure the border to prevent others like them from sneaking in.

Our government has acted stupidly and negligently over the years allowing national security to suffer by failing to secure the borders. That has to stop now, before any measure to legalize illegals proceeds.

More Inconvenient Truth

Dr. Roy Spencer has serious climate credentials dating back to 1981 that involve research at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, and award-winning climate studies for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His research has been entirely supported by the U.S. government through NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy.

He has produced a graph based upon 73 separate climate change prediction models that shows the full high/low range of those predictions of increasing global temperatures from 1979 through 2024, as well as the median prediction of those models. These datasets show predictions of global temperatures rising as much as 2 degrees Celsius (C) over that period, and about 1.5 degrees C by 2012.

These predictions shouldn’t surprise anyone; they are the similar to the dozens, hundreds or thousands of news stories of impending global catastrophe if drastic steps are not taken immediately to stop man’s upward pressure on global temperatures. And certainly if these models are accurate and we refuse to take steps to control greenhouse gas emissions, we will be negligent.

“And now,” as the great commentator Paul Harvey used to say, “for the rest of the story.”

Dr. Spencer uses the same graph to show the results of actual temperature observations from balloons and satellites from 1979 through 2012. These observations use actual measurements of temperatures that occasionally show cooling periods or static results, but most of which over the last decade show increases in temperature.

Most important, however, is that even in the years from 2003 through 2012 when the warming trend has been the most consistent, the actual rise in temperature is only .2 degrees C, well below the predicted level of .6 to .8 degrees, and a mere fraction of the highest of the range of predicted increases of 1.3 to 1.5 degrees C.

In explaining this dramatic difference between prediction and reality, Dr. Spencer notes that “to many politicians and the public, the term [global warming] carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. … [M]y group’s government-funded research … suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.”

He goes on to say that, “Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming … it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade.”