immigration

Democrats have a solution for illegal immigration: Abolish ICE. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wisconsin, is drafting legislation to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and five Democrats are joining him. Looking at the recent protest signs in Portland, this idea is taking off. Well, it’s a novel idea. No police, no lawbreakers. No Border Patrol. No border.

So, how did we get caught between separating children from their parents and abolishing ICE? As a child therapist, I’m keenly aware of the trauma that’s caused when children are separated from their parents. And I don’t support it.

But since the 1990s, between 6,000 and 10,000 migrants, including children, have died miserable deaths along our southern border. Millions of families have been separated as the parents came north to get better paid jobs and provide wealthy Americans with an abundant stream of cheap labor as nannies, landscapers, house cleaners and so on. The negative impact on children and family structure of migrating providers is well documented by academics, and many children have been abandoned entirely by fathers who started new families in America.

Prior to President Barack Obama’s “catch and release” policies, 90 percent of illegal migrants were single men, who, if caught, faced incarceration until their cases were heard. But the number of children brought to the border exploded when people realized that with a child they would be released into the interior with an appointment for a future hearing, and many never showed up. In addition, these policies created business opportunities for drug gangs who moved into smuggling children and using children to carry drugs.

So, where was public shock and moral outrage on behalf of children all these years?

When Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, it was hailed as a victory for border security in exchange for an amnesty that addressed illegal immigration. For the first time in our nation’s history, Congress made it a federal crime to employ undocumented workers. At that time, everyone — Democrats and Republicans — believed that Congress had finally solved the problem of illegal immigration by cutting off the “jobs” magnet.

But much of the bill was never enforced, and 32 years later, it is clear that Congress must do more to protect American workers and to combat illegal immigration.

As Capitol Hill Republicans attempt for — what, the eighth? ninth? — time in the past two decades to jam through an amnesty that their voters have explicitly, loudly and repeatedly said they do not want, it’s worth asking a question that is rarely raised:

Does the United States — population 320 million and rising — need more people? If so, why?

To most ears, the question sounds blasphemous, which illustrates the rottenness of our immigration debate. Actually, “debate” is far too generous. One side has made sure that there is no debate. Good people want more immigration, and bad people object or raise questions. An inherently political issue has been effectively rendered religious, with the righteous on one side, sinners on the other.

The basic question remains. The pat answer over the past 20 years — “to do the jobs Americans just won’t do” — may seem to have some salience with a 3.9 percent unemployment rate. But that only further raises the question. After at least two decades of wage stagnation and even decline, now that we’ve finally reached the nirvana of full employment (and who knows how long it will last), why not take advantage of this tight labor market to raise wages across the board? Especially for the working and middle classes that got nowhere or even lost ground during the housing, finance and tech booms of recent years?

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is temporarily shutting down a taxpayer-funded advice service for the huge numbers of illegal migrants who drive down blue-collar wages throughout the United States, according to the Washington Post.

The program, dubbed the Legal Orientation Program, paid various left-wing groups to provide immigration-court advice to migrants, according to the Washington Post. The program helped roughly 53,000 migrants during 2017, the Post said.

The shutdown spotlights the administration’s efforts to reform the nation’s business-oriented immigration system, which annually delivers at least one million additional cheap workers and taxpayer-aided consumers to businesses, and up to one million government-dependent voters to the Democratic Party. Overall, the nation’s migration policy shifts at least $500 billion per year from young Americans up to investors, employers, real-estate owners, and migration-industry progressives.

WASHINGTON 

House Speaker Paul Ryan will push his open borders agenda during his last months in Congress, telling the media that he is interested in passing an amnesty for millions of illegal aliens who are enrolled and eligible for the President Obama-created Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

Ryan announced this week that he will leave Congress after his current term is up, but now he says he will continue pushing for a DACA amnesty despite his exit.

Border Patrol agents in the Laredo Sector of Texas continue to find more Bangladesh nationals being smuggled across the border from Mexico. Agents arrested 12 over the Easter weekend alone.

The Laredo Sector continues to lead the nation in the apprehension of Bangladeshis smuggled into the U.S. from Mexico. Over the Easter weekend, agents arrested 12 in three separate incidents, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The crossings all took place in southern Laredo where border barriers are virtually non-existent.

“It goes to show that our agents are arresting people from all over the world on a daily basis. Their intentions for entering the country illegally can only be determined after they have been arrested,” Laredo Sector Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Gabriel Acosta said in a written statement.

Acosta said his agents have arrested a total of 156 Bangladeshis since the beginning of Fiscal Year 2018 (October 1, 2017). This represents an increase of 64 percent over the previous fiscal year.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa is set to become the latest Republican-led state to target so-called sanctuary cities by withholding money from local governments that don’t comply with federal immigration laws, even though the plan could lead to court challenges.

A bill outlining an expansive immigration enforcement plan is expected to receive final legislative approval this week. It comes as President Donald Trump ramps up calls for more stringent immigration enforcement.

Nearly 100 recently arrested MS-13 gang members arrived in the United States by crossing through the U.S.-Mexico border as “unaccompanied minors” and then getting resettled throughout the country by the federal government.

About 475 gang members have been arrested by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s “Operation Matador” sting, with 99 of those gang members arrested having arrived in the U.S. as “unaccompanied minors.”

Of the 99 MS-13 gang members who entered the country as unaccompanied minors, 64 of them were granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (SIJ), which acts as a quasi-amnesty program for young illegal aliens who cross the southern border.

Of the 475 gang members arrested by ICE in this operation, 65 of them had been allowed to be released into the U.S. by an immigration judge, while four were re-arrested on criminal charges after they were released.

Unaccompanied minors who cross the southern border have continued to be resettled across the U.S. despite a direct correlation of the quasi-amnesty program — known as the Unaccompanied Minor Childrens (UAC) program — with the proliferation of the MS-13 gang in regions of the country like Nassau County and Suffolk County in New York.

Under President Trump’s administration, the UAC program has continued. For example, in Fiscal Year 2018 thus far, nearly 200 unaccompanied minors have been resettled in Suffolk County, along with almost 280 in Queens County, and more than 115 in Nassau County, despite the regions’ issues with the MS-13 gang.