National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers to Gang of Eight: How About Comprehensive Immigration Enforcement First, Geniuses?

Actually, I paraphrased their respectful and compelling open letter:



Related: National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers.

Someone Break the News to Marco Rubio: Amnesty Costs 70 Times More Than Enforcement

I respect Marco Rubio. I supported him in his Senate run. Most importantly, I believe he means well.

But the allure of power has proven too strong for him. Ensconced in the Beltway Bubble, Rubio's fallen for what I call "the legislation delusion". Roughly translated, it is the belief that complex, multi-faceted legislation can solve humanity's problems.

Obamacare is the quintessential example of law run amok: it represents tens of thousands of pages of regulations, arbitrary thresholds, segmentation of families into static classes, and other symptoms of a master planner's delusions.

What the Statist terms "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" is similarly -- and fatally -- flawed. It represents dizzyingly complex regulations, dependent upon arbitrary conditions, restrictions, and dictates all requiring millions of pages of flowcharts. It is the product of the proverbial "Mastermind": one who believes he or she can better orchestrate mankind than the entirety of the civil society.

And, as history has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, Masterminds must always turn a blind eye to the financial ramifications of their plans. One need only review the cost of Amnesty.

The cost of amnesty: $999 billion. The cost of attrition by enforcement: as little as $14 billion. Amnesty would cost up to 70 times as much as enforcing existing law.

$999 billion cost of Amnesty (Mass Legalization)

Source: The Heritage Foundation
Summary: The Heritage Foundation issued two studies in 2007 pointing out that the big problem with mass legalization is that (a) most illegal aliens are low-skilled and therefore do not earn enough money to pay enough taxes to cover the government benefits they receive; and (b), amnesty would eventually make them eligible for the full array of welfare and medical benefits offered by local, state and federal governments. They found the cost of allowing illegal aliens to remain in the United States, and eventually to become citizens, would be $3.7 trillion through the year 2056. That works out to a present cost of $1 trillion, at a 5 percent discount rate. In other words, immediately upon passage of an amnesty bill, the United States government would need to put $1 trillion into an investment earning 5 percent per year if it were honest about paying for the costs of amnesty.

$14 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #1.

Source: Congressional Budget office Estimate for H.R. 4437.
Summary: This option is the bill H.R. 4437 sponsored by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner that passed the House of Representatives in 2005. This bill would have been so effective in combating illegal immigration that some 1 million illegal aliens marched in cities around the United States on May 1, 2006 to protest it. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $1.9 billion over the 5 years 2006-2010, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure. The resulting cost was actually $13.5 billion, which we round up to $14 billion to facilitate comparison to the other cost figures.

$177 billion cost of attrition through enforcement option #2.

Source: Congressional Budget Office Estimate for H.R. 4088.
Summary: This option is the SAVE Act (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement Act) that was introduced in the House of Representatives in 2007. This is a strong attrition through enforcement bill. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the bill would cost $40.7 billion over the 10 years 2009-2018, which we extrapolate out to the year 2056 using a linear model to account for cost increases. Then we use a discount rate of 5 percent to bring the future costs back to a single present cost figure.

We conservatives are immigrants. We are first-generation immigrants or the descendants thereof. But we, as opposed to those whom the "Gang of Eight" would legalize, have followed a lawful process. We and our forebears have come to America's shores through Ellis Island and other ports of entry, applied for citizenship, and have become the law-abiding citizens that have shaped the country.

That is not what "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" represents: it instead grants legal status to those who have broken the law, stolen their way into the country without background checks, without any vetting of their connection to drug cartels or terrorism, and without even a modicum of examination.

There is only one acceptable response to the Gang of Eight's master plans. Seal the border, prove it is sealed over a substantial period of time, and then -- and only then -- will the American people countenance "amnesty" or whatever term the Statist uses to describe legalized lawbreaking.

Politico lets the cat out of the bag: immigration "reform" would give Democrats a permanent majority

Well, anyone with an ounce of sense knew this was the case, but this is the first time I've seen it in black and white. I refer, of course, to the Obama administration's press release blog, otherwise known as Politico:

Immigration reform could be bonanza for Democrats

The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.

...Republican Mitt Romney ... would have lost the national popular vote by 7 percentage points, 53 percent to 46 percent, instead of the 4-point margin he lost by in 2012, and would have struggled even to stay competitive in GOP strongholds like Texas, which he won with 57 percent of the vote...

...Texas, where the unauthorized immigrant population is second only to California’s, had an estimated 1.65 million undocumented immigrants in 2010, according to statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center. Romney won the state in 2012 by just under 1.3 million votes...

...In Arizona, Romney won by 212,000 votes — and there are an estimated 400,000 undocumented immigrants in the state as of 2010... Even Georgia, which isn’t a border state and doesn’t immediately come to mind when thinking of immigrant-heavy states, would be affected: Georgia had an estimated 425,000 undocumented immigrants in 2010, per Pew Hispanic Center’s estimates, and Romney won there by 308,000 votes...

If all those immigrants had voted in 2012 and President Obama had won 71 percent of them — the percentage he won among Latinos nationally — he would have come in less than 50,000 votes short in Arizona, within about a half-million votes of winning Texas and 125,000 votes shy in Georgia.

Politico quotes the quintessential loser and establishment RINO consultant Steve Schmidt -- you know, the genius behind the McCain 2008 campaign -- who says that Republicans are bound to get some Hispanic votes if they support Amnesty.

Say Steve-o, what's the track record to support this conjecture? Let's look, just for fun.

--1980 Jimmy Carter, 56% Ronald Reagan, 35% +21

--1984 Walter Mondale, 61% Ronald Reagan, 37% +24

--1988 Michael Dukakis, 69% George H.W. Bush, 30% +39

--1992 Bill Clinton, 61% George H.W. Bush, 25% +36

--1996 Bill Clinton, 72% Bob Dole, 21% +51

--2000 Al Gore, 62% George W. Bush, 35% +27

--2004 John Kerry, 58% George W. Bush, 40% +18

--2008 Barack Obama, 67% John McCain, 31% +36

--2012 Barack Obama, 71% Mitt Romney, 27% +44

In other words, over the last 9 election cycles, Democrat presidential candidates won the Hispanic vote by an average of 33 percentage points. But I'm sure the brilliant strategist Steve Schmidt can turn things around, even though a huge chunk of illegals are de facto Democrats, i.e., dependent upon government largess.

If the Gang of Idiots -- which is the phrase they prefer, I hear -- get their way, the entire United States will become a supersized version of California. Only with crappier weather.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.

And now, a public service announcement on immigration from Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)

Brought to you courtesy of the Sunday talk shows, which iOwnTheWorld watches so you don't have to.


As Dave Cutler wrote recently, we need comprehensive immigration law enforcement. Passing more laws -- when our current ones aren't enforced -- makes no sense, unless you're a Democrat or a miscreant. But I repeat myself.

The Gang of Eight's Immigration Deception [Cutler]

Guest post by Michael Cutler

The “Gang of Eight,” aka the “Eight Gangsters,” are concocting Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation. Purportedly this legislation is needed to address the presence of the officially-estimated population of 12 million illegal aliens.

While the legislation is referred to as being “Comprehensive,” there is nothing truly comprehensive about their approach, other than the fact that it would provide nearly all illegal aliens who are in the United States, or who will arrive in the months to come, with lawful status and ultimately, a pathway to United States citizenship. It would also increase the number of visas for many thousands of foreign workers and allow them to compete unfairly with American workers.

A History of Deception

The “one time” amnesty of 1986 was supposed to involve approximately one million illegal aliens. Over 3.5 million actually came forward. If history were to repeat itself, Comprehensive Immigration Reform would involve between 30 and 40 million aliens.

And that is just one of the deceptions inherent in the coverage of the current debate. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) was on ABC’s “This Week” last Sunday, and expressed concern that pledges to secure the border between the U.S. and Mexico won’t be kept, leading to a massive influx of illegal aliens.

“It looks like…it will give amnesty now, legalize everyone that’s here effectively today and then there’s a promise of enforcement in the future,” Sessions said about the proposed legislation. “Even if you pass laws today that appear to be effective, it doesn’t mean they’re going to be enforced.”

“And we have in this administration,” he added, a failure to enforce. So that’s a big deal right now.”

The Border Deception

Another deception is the claim that the United States has just four border states. Any state that has a seaport or international airport is as much a border state as are those states found along America’s northern and southern border. Simply stated, there are 50 border states.

The “debate” over Comprehensive Immigration Reform has, by design, centered on whether the southern border is secure. It most certainly is anything but secure, but that is hardly the only problem in our current immigration system. While that border must be secured against the illegal, un-inspected entry of aliens and cargo, it is not a more serious problem than the fact that there are millions of illegal aliens present in the United States who ran across the U.S./Canadian border, jumped ship or stowed away on vessels, or violated their terms of supposedly lawful admissions into the United States.

It is certainly not more serious than the fraud permeating the immigration benefits program.

While attention is being intentionally drawn to the U.S./Mexican border, attention is purposely being drawn away from the myriad other abysmal failures of the immigration system.

The Terror Deception

The lack of integrity in the adjudications process was the focus of clear concerns of the 9/11 Commission, and the 9/11 Commission staff noted it in their report, 9/11 AND TERRORIST TRAVEL: Staff Report of the National Commission onTerrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

This paragraph is found on page 98 under the title “Immigration Benefits:”

“Terrorists in the 1990s, as well as the September 11 hijackers, needed to find a way to stay in or embed themselves in the United States if their operational plans were to come to fruition. As already discussed, this could be accomplished legally by marrying an American citizen, achieving temporary worker status, or applying for asylum after entering. In many cases, the act of filing for an immigration benefit sufficed to permit the alien to remain in the country until the petition was adjudicated. Terrorists were free to conduct surveillance, coordinate operations, obtain and receive funding, go to school and learn English, make contacts in the United States, acquire necessary materials, and execute an attack.”

Page 47 of the above-noted report contained the following paragraph:

“Once terrorists had entered the United States, their next challenge was to find a way to remain here. Their primary method was immigration fraud. For example, Yousef and Ajaj concocted bogus political asylum stories when they arrived in the United States. Mahmoud Abouhalima, involved in both the World Trade Center and landmarks plots, received temporary residence under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers (SAW) program, after falsely claiming that he picked beans in Florida. Mohammed Salameh, who rented the truck used in the bombing, overstayed his tourist visa. He then applied for permanent residency under the agricultural workers program, but was rejected. Eyad Mahmoud Ismail, who drove the van containing the bomb, took English-language classes at Wichita State University in Kansas on a student visa; after he dropped out, he remained in the United States out of status.”

The “Eight Gangsters” expect that there would be no way to verify material facts contained in applications for Comprehensive Immigration Reform filed by “Undocumented Aliens.” They craft legislative prerequisites for aliens to deceive their colleagues and the American people. Aliens who game the system will be able to falsely claim they meet those requirement. For example, let’s examine the requirement that aliens must have been present in the United States for a designated period of years. Without a record of their entry into the United States, and without the means to conduct field investigations, an alien could easily enter the United States well after any cutoff date, while fraudulently claiming to have been here for years.

The "Unobtainium" Deception

Engineers who are engaged in cutting-edge programs refer to materials that don’t exist but that would be essential to the construction of advanced design aircraft, spacecraft and the like, as being “unobtainium.” Where immigration is concerned, the term “unobtainium” could be used to refer to the verification of claims made in applications for immigration benefits. There is no way to verify information concerning material facts contained in those applications.

There has been no mention as to how the USCIS would process these amnesty applications. There are not enough personnel available to conduct face-to-face interviews with all of the applicants. Today, that beleaguered, inept and incompetent agency is processing alien “DREAMERS” without in-person interviews, and without the capacity to conduct field investigations to verify claims made in those applications.

Immigration fraud compromises national security and deprives hardworking Americans the opportunity to find decent jobs at a time when such jobs are already in short supply.

Yet fraud largely goes undetected and unpunished. Think of it as a case of “Mind over matter.” If the administration doesn’t mind, it would not matter if aliens lie on their applications with impunity, and, in fact, tacit immunity!

The Fraud Deception

Aliens who succeed in gaming the system provide encouragement to other aliens, who are consequently emboldened to file their own fraud-laden applications, further exacerbating the backlog of applications, applying more pressure on the over-burdened system to move the applications still more quickly. It takes minutes to approve an application, but it may take hours or days to deny an application. The only way to clear the burgeoning backlog of applications is to approve nearly every application. This encourages more fraud and further compromises not only the integrity of the immigration system, but national security and the safety and well-being of all Americans as well.

Today, record numbers of Americans, especially young Americans and members of the American minority communities, are unemployed and underemployed. It is outrageous that the “Eight Gangsters,” such as Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), are calling for more work visas for foreign workers as a “solution” to the immigration crisis. This is the equivalent of addressing drunk driving by raising the acceptable blood alcohol level for motorists. While fewer drivers would be legally drunk, the carnage on the highways would actually increase as more drivers drank more—with impunity!

As I noted at the conclusion of my prepared testimony for the hearing on immigration conducted by the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 20, 2013:

Inspiring a Flood of New Illegals

“Law enforcement is at its best when it creates a climate of deterrence to convince those who might be contemplating violating the law that such an effort is likely to be discovered, and, that if discovered, adverse consequences will result for the law violators. Current policies and statements by the administration, in my view, encourage aspiring illegal aliens around the world to head for the United States. In effect the starter’s pistol has been fired, and for these folks, the finish line to this race is the border of the United States.”

The true solution to the immigration crisis lies in addressing all of the failures that induced and enabled millions of illegal aliens to enter the United States and work illegally or, in all too many instances, acquire lawful status by committing fraud. More agents must be hired for ICE and they must be given the resources and leadership to do an effective job. Aliens must come to understand that those who commit fraud and other violations will be identified and face prosecution and deportation.

Rather than Comprehensive Immigration Reform, America really needs COMPILE (Comprehensive Immigration Law Enforcement)!

Michael W. Cutler is a retired Senior Special Agent with the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

"Damn, fellas, I got some Dominican hookers waitin' for me."

Which is, I hear, the full quote from this story.

In the last batch of amendment votes to the budget, the Senate voted on several foreign policy proposals... Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) introduced an amendment that would prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty in order to uphold the Second Amendment. His amendment passed on a 53-46 vote...


Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said he thought it was irresponsible to be considering major foreign policy decisions at 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.

Candy Crowley was unavailable for comment.

ABC's Martha Raddatz hosts Sen. Bob Menendez, fails to ask about FBI investigation into his alleged dalliances with underage hookers

Alternate headline: Exhibit 9,036 proving that the media is a fully-owned subsidiary of the federal government

ABC’s This Week invited Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) on the show this weekend to discuss current issues.

On Friday the news broke that the FBI has been investigating top Democratic Senator Bob Menendez for engaging in sex with underage Dominican hookers on junkets with a wealthy Democrat donor.

For some reason the ABC host Martha Raddatz forgot to ask Menendez about the hooker scandal.

That’s outrageous. You could imagine the grilling this man would get if he had an “R” behind his name instead of a “D”. Instead, ABC willfully keeps the public in the dark on this horrific scandal.

The federal government and the media have formally merged into a single, holistic entity bent on destroying the Constitution of the United States.

Which is why I urge all regular Americans to boycott ABC, NBC, CBS and the rest of the alphabet channels. Never watch them. Never link them. Never refer to them.

They deserve nothing but your ridicule.