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National Review, September 4, 2020

Immigration was not a major theme of the recent Republican convention, but there was one sentence that caught my attention. In his speech on the first day of the event, Donald Trump Jr. said, "If Democrats really wanted to help minorities and underserved communities ... they'd limit immigration to protect American workers."

He included other things in that list, such as school choice and supporting police. But the unadorned call for reducing immigration was notable not illegal immigration, not low-skilled immigration, not criminal immigration, just immigration. And not ameliorating its consequences or fixing the problems of a "broken" system just reducing the level.

Whether or not Don Jr. meant to do so, that one sentence pointed to an approach that's more effective and less inflammatory than many of the policies pursued by Republicans. Too often, those skeptical of today's immigration policies expend inordinate energy on the symptoms of excessive immigration rather than addressing the actual problem: too much immigration.

One example is the effort to exclude illegal aliens from the census count for the purposes of reapportioning seats in the House (and for drawing House and state legislative districts). Of course it's absurd that illegal aliens effectively have representation in Congress. And since they can't vote (and seldom do noncitizens who vote seem to usually be legal residents), including illegals in the reapportionment calculations gives greater weight to the votes of citizens in the House districts where illegals live than to citizens in other districts where there are fewer eligible voters, each vote counts more, creating something akin to rotten boroughs.

But how is the Census Bureau supposed to do this? It's required to count everyone, but then somehow identify individual illegal aliens, and their places of residence, and subtract them from the count used to apportion House seats and draw districts? If this were possible for more than a handful of people, ICE would be able to just go and pick them up and deport them. If having a large illegal population is a problem and it certainly is then how about we try to shrink it?

The best way to do that would be through worksite enforcement. And while we're starting to see more of that, it's still woefully, almost comically, inadequate. The division of ICE with the worksite portfolio (Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI) focuses on customs work and doesn't give a rat's patootie about illegals filling American jobs. So what we're essentially doing is asking the Census Bureau to do ICE's job. Good luck with that.

Another example of focusing on immigration symptoms rather than immigration itself is welfare use. Immigrants are significantly more likely to use taxpayer-funded services than the native-born are. This is mainly because of their lower average level of education, which translates to lower incomes, which means they're more likely to qualify for welfare benefits.

The usual response to this longstanding problem has been to avoid addressing immigration policy and instead simply try to deny immigrants access to welfare. In 1996 Congress explicitly chose to address symptoms rather than the cause; it expanded the ban on immigrant use of welfare in the broader welfare-reform bill, while rejecting the Barbara Jordan Commission's recommendations to trim legal immigration back to the levels of the 1980s.

And it didn't work. Within five years immigrant welfare use was right back where it had been before the changes. There were a number of reasons for this; George Borjas found that some states picked up the slack, while at the same time naturalization increased among welfare-dependent immigrant groups, since the immigrant-specific rules didn't apply to citizens. But the basic reason is this: A modern society is not going to let kids starve, or people die on the steps of the emergency room, just because they're not citizens.

And even this administration's efforts to tighten the "public charge" rules (excluding people likely to use welfare) and shift to a more "merit-based" system sensible as they are aren't going to make much difference in the end unless numbers come down. The proposed public-charge rules are about as tight as they are likely ever to be, and yet they permit significant use of taxpayer-funded safety-net programs before triggering exclusion and don't even consider welfare use by the children of immigrants, where the real public expense is. And "merit" doesn't quite mean what people think. Immigrant college grads earn significantly less than comparably educated Americans, in part at least because foreign degrees on average don't translate into the same level of skills as U.S. degrees. As a result, even educated immigrants are much more likely to use welfare than educated Americans.

In short, if you're going to admit large numbers of immigrants, you're going to create a significant welfare burden for taxpayers. The only way to avoid that is to admit fewer immigrants.

Another attempt to ameliorate the effects of mass immigration is seen in the plethora of rules designed to protect American workers from the large-scale importation of foreign workers. The various employment-related programs both permanent and "temporary", high-skilled and low-skilled have a variety of different worker protections: Some require jobs to be advertised before a firm is permitted to import a worker, other visas require payment of the "prevailing wage" or the "adverse effect wage rate", yet others limit the nature or duration of employment for foreign workers.

And none of it really works. Mind you, I'm all for these rules, and more, because without them things for American workers would be even worse. But in reality, they're a poor substitute for simply not importing workers in the first place. The rules are routinely gamed by lawyers and consultants vastly more numerous and cunning and motivated than the well-meaning but hapless regulators at the Labor Department. And what does the "prevailing wage" mean, anyway? By the time something like that is calculated (even assuming perfect information) and translated into policy decisions, the information is out of date.

I understand the reason immigration-controllers advocate such rules; in the face of implacable business lobbies demanding unlimited immigration, this is often all you can get, and sometimes even Democrats will support some of these restrictions. But the real goal always needs to be the abolition of these programs, not merely the amelioration of the harm they do.

All these efforts at addressing symptoms are essentially defensive, and my hat's off to those fighting in the trenches. But victory comes only through offensive action. And the first step toward being able to take the offensive is to ensure that your own side knows the goal. So, to adapt Don Jr.'s observation, if Republicans really wanted to help minorities and underserved communities and all American workers and taxpayers they'd limit immigration.

See the article here:
Immigration: Numbers Are of the Essence - Immigration Blog

In response to COVID-19, the Trump administration ordered immigration enforcement agencies along the border to expel those apprehended under 42 U.S.C. 265. That statute allows the government, in whole or in part, to close the border to prevent the spread of communicable disease although there is some ambiguity about the scope of the statute. Its important for the government to limit the spread of serious communicable diseases across borders in normal times and during pandemics, although it remains unclear that such closures actually affected the spread of COVID-19 domestically. Aliens apprehended until Title 42 are expelled quickly, which is abig change from earlier policies to mostly punish unlawful border crossers with detention and criminal charges under Title 8of the U.S. Code (immigration law).

Figure 1shows just how dramatically Title 42 changed border enforcement policy. Both Border Patrol agents and Office of Field Operations agents who man border checkpoints were both tasked with enforcing the new order. As aresult, Title 42 expulsions went from 21 percent of all apprehensions and expulsions in March 2020 (the order was issued March 21, so it only applied to about onefourth of that month) to 91 percent in April.

Since 2005, the government has employed an enforcement with consequences strategy to reduce the number of illegal border crossers by specifically attempting to cut the recidivism rate, with some success. Those consequence include detaining illegal border crossers for longer, charging more of them with immigration crimes like unlawful entry, treating repeat offenders more harshly, other punishments. Those consequences combine to raise the costs for illegal border crossers by reducing their expected income from entering the United States by channeling them into more expense means of entry like hiring more sophisticated smugglers who charge ahigher price and taking more dangerous routes to cross the border. Imposing higher costs on illegal border crossers means that fewer will try to cross illegally in the first place and they will try fewer times.

Title 42 expulsions also lower the costs for illegal border crossers. By removing them very rapidly and not enforcing consequences, apprehended and expelled illegal border crossers face lower costs in their attempts to cross the border. Thus, we should expect more of them to try and the recidivism rate to rise beginning in March 2020, ceteris paribus. Of course, not all else remains equal as the U.S. recession has somewhat dimmed the jobs magnet that attracts most illegal immigrants in the first place, although the relative difference is likely smaller given the recession in Mexico. When recidivism data become available for 2020, Isuspect well see an increase in recidivism rates compared to earlier years as the consequences have been so reduced.

Continue reading here:
COVID-19 Transformed U.S. Policy Along the Southwest Border - Cato Institute

Massachusetts lawmakers could soon make our streets far more dangerous.

With the indefinite extension of the legislative session due to the COVID-19 shutdown, the state Legislature could pass the grossly misnamed Safe Communities bill at any time. That bill would all but end cooperation between police in the commonwealth and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to locate and remove illegal immigrants already in detention. Without that cooperation, Massachusetts would become far less safe for law-abiding residents.

The bill would specifically ban police from turning criminals already in custody over to federal immigration officials. Instead, local law enforcement would have to release these alleged rapists, armed robbers and other violent criminals back onto the streets.

Lawmakers negligence will have deadly consequences for Massachusetts residents.

Plenty of evidence suggests sanctuary state status would boost victimization of Massachusetts residents citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. The U.S. General Accounting Office found that illegal immigrants committed a cumulative total of 5.5 million offenses. Each was arrested an average of seven times.

Most illegal immigrants arent violent, of course but a significant minority are. Boston Police recently concluded that gangs commanded from the Dominican Republic control most of the heroin trafficking in Massachusetts and surrounding states. In a single 2016 operation, federal agents arrested 56 gang members in Boston, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville on charges including five murders and 14 attempted murders. Other charges included drug trafficking, racketeering, firearm violations, human trafficking and identity fraud.

Massachusetts sadly isnt an anomaly. Noncitizens were responsible for 21% of federal crimes between 2011 and 2016, despite making up just over 8% of the adult population. Between fiscal years 2011 and 2018, 27,300 illegal immigrants served sentences for homicide in state prisons, according to a recent General Accountability Office report. Over the same period, illegal immigrants committed 5.5 million offenses including 667,000 drug offenses, 42,000 robberies, 91,000 sex crimes, 81,000 auto thefts, 95,000 weapons offenses and 213,000 assaults.

Tragically, many of those crimes could have been prevented. Each illegal immigrant was arrested seven times, on average. Had they been deported after their first arrest, many victims might still be alive today.

Those victims, by the way, are disproportionately immigrants themselves. According to the Boston U.S. Attorneys Office, gangs like MS-13 frequently use intimidation to recruit new members typically 14 to 15 years old in local high schools with sizeable populations of immigrants from Central America.

Put simply, the best way to protect both immigrants and native-born citizens is to remove illegal immigrants from this country.

Deporting violent criminals is hardly a right-wing position. Under the Obama and Trump administrations, most deportations involve convicted criminals.

Illegal immigrant crimes are particularly unconscionable because many, if not most, could be prevented by speedy deportations. Illegal immigrants, especially those who commit violent crimes, have no right to remain here. Indeed, we have a strong moral imperative to remove them before they do more harm.

John Thompson is co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform.

See more here:
Safe Communities Act is anything but safe for Massachusetts - Boston Herald

President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden could not be more different on several tech and innovation issues, according to a report released Monday by the nonpartisan Information Technology & Innovation Foundation.

The 40-page report compares both presidential candidates on 10 specific issue areas: innovation and research and development; internet and digital economy; broadband and telecommunications; education and skills; taxes; regulation; trade; advanced manufacturing; life science and biotechnology and clean energy innovation. The reports authors, led by ITIF President Robert Atkinson, found major differences on many of those core issues, chief among them the federal governments role facilitating technology and innovation policy.

President Trumps approach since his 2016 election has focused on reducing government barriers to technology and innovation, reducing taxes and eliminating regulations the administration believes limit innovation. Under Trump, the amount of federal spending on tech has generally increased during his four-year term, but ITIF notes thatwith the exception of certain technologiesthe administration has reduced spending on tech research and development.

Biden, however, indicates through his economic plan he supports significantly increased public investment in R&D and advanced production. Biden also favors a larger government role in health care and physical infrastructure investment, which could play into policies if elected.

Trump and Biden also differ significantly on climate innovation, immigration, rural broadband infrastructure and tax and regulation. While Trumps budget proposals have reduced funding for clean energy investment, Biden has made climate change a core issue of his campaign, and supports massive increases in clean energy R&D funding, the report states. On immigration, Trump has pushed back against low-skill, H1-B and illegal immigrants, while Biden supports both high- and low-skill immigrants. Both candidates support increased federal investment in rural broadband infrastructure, but Biden supports much larger federal investments in this space, the report states.

Among the most stark differences between the two candidates are on the issues of tax and regulation.

The Biden campaign supports higher taxes on business, particularly large corporations; stronger regulations, including on privacy and broadband providers; and more-aggressive antitrust enforcement, particularly on large Internet companies, the report states. The Trump administration embraces a more traditional Republican approach of lighter regulations and lower business taxes, and antitrust that is grounded in the consumer welfare principle.

The reports findings are based on information gathered from the candidates websites, policy documents and public statements the candidates have made. The authors also note that while Biden has stated public positions on most tech issues, Trump has been much vaguer, offering a few detailed positions.

In at least one issuetrade policyTrump and Biden share similar views. Both are focused on being tough on China, the report states, and both reject or at least question the prevailing Washington consensus on expanding trade. Even on that issue, however, the candidates have differences: Trump prefers a largely unilateral approach against China, while Biden favors a multilateral approach.

Read more here:
Here Are the Major Differences Between Trump and Biden on Tech Issues - Nextgov

EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) The Trump administrations family-separation policy was second on a list of options to quickly respond to the border surge of illegal immigration in 2017.

The zero-tolerance policy, and 15 other suggestions, were compiled in a 2017 memo and given to then-Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen so she could have an idea of what to do right away instead of something that would have taken months to implement.

The memo resurfaced Wednesday during Chad Wolfs confirmation hearing to move up from Acting Secretary to Secretary of Homeland Security. Wolf, who was Nielsens chief of staff at the time, testified before the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee that he helped compile the list of policy options, but he again denied developing the heavily criticized policy of separating families at the border.

Sen. Jackie Rosen, D-Nevada, questioned Wolf about the testimony he gave during his confirmation hearing to be Under Secretary of DHS in June 2019. Rosen said Wolf told her, then, that he first became aware of the policy from discussions with staff leading up to its formal announcement in May 2018.

After the June 2019 hearing, an email Wolf sent to a Justice Department spokesman in December 2017 became public, Rosen said. Wolf wrote that he worked with others to pull the memo together, and he attached a file named UAC Options, for Unaccompanied Alien Children. The memo was titled Policy Options to Respond to Border Surge of Illegal Immigration.

So let me ask you this, Rosen said Wednesday. I asked if you helped develop this policy, and you told me no, is that correct?

Thats correct, replied Wolf.

But Rosen said Wolf never mentioned the memo, which said DHS considered separating family units and treating the children as unaccompanied.

They werent unaccompanied, they were part of family units. Thats what you said in your memo. You called them unaccompanied but they werent, Rosen said.

Wolf argued that it wasnt his memo.

Let me just say, it was not my memo. You keep referring to it as my memo, Wolf said. He added that Nielsen relied on not only her operators but also her immigration attorneys to develop policy options.

You were part of her team, and as her chief of staff, you have direct relationship and responsibility, Rosen said. You were part of a series of memos that went on, deciding to separate children and treat them as unaccompanied.

But Wolf said his responsibility as chief of staff was, to make sure that the Secretary was fully staffed.

That was not my portfolio, Wolf said. It was not my issue set at that time.

Rosen pressed on, asking since hes been Acting Secretary for 10 months if he considers it his job to speak truth to power when utterly abhorrent policies like this get proposed.

Do you support ending family separation? Rosen asked.

Replied Wolf: As I testified last year, I testify again this year. I support the Presidents decision when he issued an executive order to stop that practice, as the department did. And we executed that executive order I believe in June 2018.

It was a wide-ranging Senate confirmation hearing which pressed Wolf on numerous issues, but testimony on immigration policy, overall, was minimal. In written testimony that Wolf submitted ahead of his hearing, the word immigration does not appear once.

However, congressional Democrats who have come out against President Trumps nomination are mostly critical of Wolfs immigration policies, insisting that it was he who was an early architect of the family separation policy.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Committee Chairman Sen. Ron Johnson, the all-Democrat Congressional Hispanic Caucus said Wolf is unfit for the job.

Apart from the egregious nature of family separation, it emerged that the policy did not include measures to reunite families, triggering a child migration crisis, the letter read. The process to reunite all families could take years and the children separated at the border have been left with a lifetime of trauma. Mr. Wolf, who proposed family separation, does not deserve a promotion.

The Hispanic Caucus questioned, among other things, Citizenship and Immigration Services virtual shutdown, Immigration and Customs Enforcements use of black site hotels to hold migrant children before deporting them, and Wolf refusing to reinstate the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which the Supreme Court protected from an effort to end it by the White House.

Wolfs record shows a consistent failure to effectively manage the agency, a pattern of issuing inaccurate or misleading statements, and enacting some of the most disturbing immigration policies in our countrys history, members of the caucus wrote. Based on Mr. Wolfs track record it is clear he is unfit to serve as the Department of Homeland Security Secretary. On behalf of the CHC, we strongly urge the Senate to oppose the nomination of Chad. F. Wolf.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, introduced Wolf at the hearing, saying, its a real pleasure to introduce Chad Wolf. Hes a fellow Texas and dedicated public servant.

He is an individual that I believe is eminently qualified to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security, Cruz said.

Johnson also praised Wolf, saying extensive management experience combined with his leadership of the Department over the last 10 months make him uniquely qualified to serve as the Secretary of Homeland Security.

The Committee is expected to vote on Wolfs nomination on Wednesday. Should his nomination be reported to the full Senate, its unclear if there would be a vote before the Nov. 3 election.

Read more:
Trumps pick to lead Homeland Security pressed on origins of family-separation policy - wreg.com