Category: Other Immigration

Migration Policy Institute–more than a research outfit

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update: Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies has some insiteful comments about MPI’s 287g report at National Review On Line, here.  Hat tip: Judy.

Yesterday two people sent me the latest “study” from the benign-looking Migration Policy Institute. The press release on the report is entitled, “ICE’s 287(g) Immigration Enforcement Program Is Not Targeted Primarily at Serious Offenders, New MPI Study Finds,” and attempts to show that some jurisdictions involved in the 287g program (that is the federal program which authorizes local law enforcement to apprehend illegal aliens) are stopping illegals for petty crimes and traffic violations and thus in their view abusing the law.   It is a study that looks balanced, but in fact advances a political agenda.

The Migration Policy Institute  (MPI) does just that—it advances an open-borders agenda (as well as advocates for more legal immigration—more refugees and more asylees).

I had never really looked more deeply into the organization, but did just now because this report irritated me so much—not what it says, but that over and over again we are led to believe there is no agenda behind supposedly objective studies like this one and gullible readers, especially reporters, take this stuff as the unvarnished truth.

In 30 minutes I found some of the following information:

The first thing I always check is a group’s Form 990 (virtually all of these pro-migration advocacy groups are non-profits and are required to file a Form 990, some do so in a more timely fashion than others).  Here is the most recent Form 990 for MPI–2008.  There is no reason they shouldn’t have 2009 available.

The most interesting thing to me is that their income went from just over $4 million in the prior year and then jumped to a whopping $9.6 million in the next year.   Could it be that with Obama’s election they were gearing up to push amnesty through Congress?

Unfortunately other than the government portion of their funding which is $443,000, one is not given access to their funders.  I don’t care what end of the political spectrum a group is on, but its major funders should be identified on their public Form 990—a good project for an enterprising Tea Party oriented Congressman!

Like so many of these Washington groups ostensibly helping the world’s poor and downtrodden, one of the biggest portions of their expenses is for all the 6-figure salaries paid to employees.  Examining the Form 990, one sees that one of those receiving six-figures from MPI is Doris Meissner.  I told you about her here recently as she was quoted supporting the “free market idea” of human trafficking and smuggling Somalis across our border:

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, said applicants can wait in camps for years with no assurance they’ll get into the country of their choice.

“Sometimes they decide that smuggling is the best shot,” said Meissner, now a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington. [You see what I mean about reporters, they eat this up, “nonpartisan think tank” my foot—-ed]

When I scrolled down that Form 990 all I had to see was a $50,000 grant MPI gave to the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition that year to know who they were.  That is a very far Left, highly political, open borders and pro-migration and pro-Muslim immigration advocacy group we have written about on many occasions.

And, interestingly, I didn’t know that MPI was actually mentioned in an article about the hotel in Nashville that canceled a meeting I attended in May 2009.  After the Lowe’s Vanderbilt hotel canceled a conference days before it opened, we all went to another “welcoming” hotel and proceeded to have a good meeting.  Here is ACT for America’s account of what happened.  Here is Judy’s post.

So, just by giving TIRRC a $50,000 grant I knew there was nothing nonpartisan and balanced about MPI.  Just one more of George Soros money laundering outfits?

When you can’t figure out who exactly is funding an organization one can search by just googling some of the likely candidates.  For example, I typed in Migration Policy Institute and the Tides Foundation or Tides Center (the hard Left’s premier money laundering operation), MPI and George Soros, and then Discover the Networks is also a really good first option.

Below are some links to give you a better idea of who MPI is:

Discover the Networks, here.

MPI and George Soros here ( here is the source for that story).  Soros operation is called the “shadow party.”

Working with the big money government contractor, International Rescue Committee, here for a PR campaign for more tax dollars going to Iraqi refugees (actually it won’t go directly to the refugees it will pass through the contractors so the head of the IRC can make his $400,000 plus salary).

I told you about this meeting hosted by MPI (here) where “experts” admitted that black men are hurt the most when immigrant numbers are high, but that doesn’t matter to the elite and highly educated at MPI.

Wikipedia reports that MPI gets funding from international interests through the United Nations, here.  Heck, you can see all their international funders at their website, here.

And, to really see what grassroots immigration control groups are up against, see UNBOUND PHILANTHROPY, here.

O.K. so this is taking me more than a half hour—UNBOUND has a boatload of information on its Form 990!  Will have to write a separate post!  [Update: Here is my post on Unbound Philanthropy.]

Bottomline, MPI is not an unbiased, nonpartisan, independent think tank.  It is an open borders advocate and a pro-migration organization. So please read any “study” or report that they release as propaganda to advance their agenda.

Fake university busted by ICE

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This story isn’t about refugees but for two reasons I’m posting it.  First, I am fascinated by the large number and variety of scams and frauds perpetrated by people trying to get into the US (or who are ripping off welfare such as the food stamp program), and because it might help explain the mystery of a so-called Indian “university” that purchased a major piece of property in my county but split the scene almost immediately thereafter.

Here is the story from the Economic Times.* Hat tip: Ed.

WASHINGTON: Hundreds of Indian students , mostly from Andhra Pradesh , face the prospect of deportation from the US after authorities raided and shut down a university in the Silicon Valley on charges of a massive immigration fraud .

The Tri-Valley University in Pleasanton, a major suburb in San Francisco Bay Area, has been charged by federal investigating authorities with being part of an effort to defraud, misuse visa permits and indulge in money laundering and other crimes.

According to a federal complaint filed in a California court, the University, which was raided and shut down last week, helped foreign nationals illegally acquire immigration status.

The university is said to have 1,555 students. As many as 95 per cent of these students are Indian nationals, the complaint said.

Investigations by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) found that while students were admitted to various residential and online courses of the university and on paper lived in California, in reality they “illegally” worked in various parts of the country as far as Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Texas.

[…..]

ICE has called it as a “sham university.” The ICE investigations found that more than half of these students were reported to be residing in a single apartment located in Sunnyvale California.

So the “sham” university was used to bring “students” to the US on Student Visas only to let them roam throughout America taking jobs, what!, that Americans won’t do!

Now to Maryland. In 2008 an Indian “university” purchased the property (buildings and 40 plus acres) that had been the original local headquarters of Allegheny Energy in Washington County.   There was much fanfare in the local paper (where the worship of diversity is a driving force and anyone questioning anything about immigration is a racist bigot who kicks kittens) about how wonderful it was that this foreign university wanted to be in Hagerstown.

However, the mystery is that the Indians never did anything with the property and that it is now on the market again and I can’t find a single word about it in the Herald Mail archives (not even the original article with all its gushing excitement).    I know I wasn’t dreaming about their arrival in Washington County because I found this story about Vinayaka Missions University in which the Herald Mail story is mentioned.  Maybe it’s me, but see if you can find a word about the “university” in the local paper.

LOL!  I bet its this motto of Vinayaka that mesmerized the grand poobas at the Herald Mail:

Vinayaka Missions University’s motto is the school, “strives to spread the cerebral VISION to impart knowledge that is WISDOM which is achieved in the spirit of UNITY.”  [huh?]

Oh, I did find lots of fraud claims throughout the world about Vinayaka Missions University.

*Just like the previous story on Somalis swarming a UN office in South Africa, funny how we have to read these stories in foreign publications.

Roy Beck of NumbersUSA responds to Obama State of the Union on immigration

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Beck:  So what good is it to keep jobs in America and fill those jobs with foreign workers here?  That is one of Roy Beck’s (NumbersUSA CEO) observations as he live-streamed the State of the Union address last night.  According to Beck, few people applauded at many of Obama’s immigration comments.   Read all about it here.

Just a reminder that we learned last week that American black males are hurt the most by competition from immigrant labor, here and that Leftist pro-migration activists know and apparently don’t care.

I’m digressing, but I had the pleasure of meeting three black conservative Republicans in Maryland recently who all concur, immigration is considered an extremely important issue in the black community and its just a matter of time before the issue begins to change the black electorate in places like Democrat-controlled Maryland.  Much work is being done to bring that change about.

Pro-migration forces admit black males hurt most by high immigration numbers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Center for Immigration Studies, David North, reported on a meeting of “pro-migration forces” (that is a much better definition than the usual “open borders” gang I’ve been using), last week where they were trying to figure out where they go now that Amnesty is dead for the next two years.

Check out this shocking admission reported by North (emphasis mine):

On display Thursday was a gently stated, appropriately nuanced discussion of how to deal with immigration policy. The principal speaker was Harry J. Holzer, a former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, and now a Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

[….]

Holzer is frankly pro-immigration, but is honest enough to admit that it can be hard on less-skilled resident workers, and particularly black males. He speaks of, among other things, increasing the costs for illegal immigrants, and increasing the benefits for those in legal status, as part of a scheme to restore some order in the labor market. He is an enthusiastic supporter of high-skilled immigration and mentioned no adverse impacts on high-skilled resident workers, which I think is a mistake.

Not only do employers benefit, but so do white-collar, well-educated, rich people, who get nannies and restaurant workers!  Ahhhhh! And we have been led to believe this is all about humanitarianism!

He is also honest enough to acknowledge that it is not only employers who benefit from low-wage workers, it is also consumers generally, including, he said, to a white-collar, well-educated audience, “people like you.” He spoke of how international migration increased the supply of nannies and people who work in “the restaurants that you like.”

North also clearly described the three branches of the pro-migration forces:

It is useful to note that the pro-migration advocates, though allied with each other, come in three different groupings. There are the employers, who want lower wages; there are the ethnic organizations who say, in effect, “Let My People In”; and then there are the intellectuals [ed: read Leftists!], represented Thursday at a session of the foundation-supported Migration Policy Institute.

Read it all!

House Republican leadership wimps out on choice for immigration subcommittee chairmanship

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update January 23rd: This is really an update of Falknor’s Blue Ridge Forum piece on the two Kings in Congress and how Congressman Peter King has also wimped out on promised shariah hearings.  See Diana West here.

Update January 22nd: Richard Falknor writing at Blue Ridge Forum has more background on what is happening with the Republican establishment in Congress on the issues of immigration and shariah law.

Just when some of us were hopeful that the new House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law (here, apparently not updated as of this writing) would hold hearings on some troublesome areas of the refugee and asylee programs (like the Somali asylum seekers arriving on our borders by the hundreds, here), it looks like Speaker of the House Boehner has blinked and must have had some behind the scenes role in choosing a moderate (sounding) Republican rather than Rep. Steve King of Iowa for the chairmanship.  King would really have shaken things up.

This is from AP a week ago. And, here is a story from The Hill.  Maybe there is something more up-to-date than the AP story, but this is very discouraging news:

WASHINGTON — Republicans eliminated a potential liability with Latino voters Friday by refusing to give the top spot on an immigration subcommittee to a congressman who once proposed stopping illegal immigrants with an electrified fence.

The expectation was that Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, House Judiciary Committee chairman, would choose fellow

Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa to be the next chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration, citizenship and other related issues.

Instead he chose California Rep. Elton Gallegly, who is considered an immigration hawk, but who is less likely to make explosive comments that make him a target for critics.

[…..]

By choosing Gallegly, Republicans get a subcommittee chairman whose public comments are less likely to be incendiary and won’t GOP hurt efforts to become more Latino-friendly, while depriving Democrats of an easy target in the run-up to the 2012 presidential elections.

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, said the decision is a clear message Republican leadership doesn’t want to antagonize Latinos.

The AP says Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith passed over King and chose Gallegly, but I don’t believe it for a minute. This is the inside the beltway Republican leadership wimping out!   And, to me, it is clear evidence that the pro-open borders Republicans (the Bush/McCain gang) are taking control.

A reminder to readers. Check MicEvHill.com daily for what is happening in Congress on immigration.  This blogger is an open-borders advocate but it’s a good place to see what they are up to and what is happening in Congress and in Washington on immigration and refugee issues.  Oh, and since he works for the US Conference of Catholic Bishops you probably pay his salary!