Category: Other Immigration

Legal immigrant workers pour into Tennessee

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The unemployment rate in Tennessee is at 10%, yet businesses are applying in record numbers for immigrant employees according to an investigation by NewsChannel 5:

A NewsChannel 5 investigation found companies across the state are importing foreign workers at a time when the unemployment rate is near 10 percent.

We spent months reviewing applications Tennessee businesses sent to the federal government as part of a federal visa program called H-2B.

The use of H-2B guest workers has soared nationally, from around 15,000 visas issued in 1997, to an all time high of more than 129,000 issued in 2007. The program was designed to provide temporary workers for small businesses with jobs Americans do not want.

When businesses apply for the right to bring foreign workers into the country, they must prove that no Americans are qualified or interested in the jobs.

Our investigation revealed companies are bending the rules and even lying on federal applications.

Here in Tennessee, business owners told the federal government they could not find people willing to do horse grooming jobs that paid $15.00 an hour, golf course landscaping that paid more than $10.00 an hour and operating carnival rides at more than $7.00 an hour.

Look who gets it—-a labor union!  Yet, labor unions have been organizing for the Open Borders movement.  A chink in the armor?

“You can’t tell me that an employer can’t find somebody in this country to do the work anywhere,” said union leader Jerry Lee, president of the Tennessee AFL-CIO.

With unemployment near 10 percent in the state, Lee said it’s ridiculous to think Tennesseans would walk away from so many jobs.

So, why might businesses want cheap immigrant labor—they are compliant and desperate people.

He thinks many employers now prefer foreign workers because their legal status in this country is tied to their job, making them willing to endure poor conditions.

“They’re not going to rock the boat because they know if they get fired or they make the boss mad, they’re gone,” Lee said.

I’ve been saying for years that this cheap labor demand by business also drives the refugee program.   In addition to the desperation factor (the workers don’t complain about conditions), we are still looking for the benefits that we believe are built into laws that ‘encourage’ businesses to hire refugees over the average out-of-work American.

That reminds me, remember the incredible story from 2009 where Visa lottery winners (another legal immigration program) were bused into Shelbyville, TN to stand in line overnight in hopes of applying for in-demand meat packing jobs.

And, it sure is a good thing that the refugee program was closed in Washington County, MD, where we live, in 2007.  The unemployment rate here is at 10%.

Unaccompanied minors taken care of (well, sort of) by ORR

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

The Office of Refugee Resettlement is charged with the job of taking care of a growing number of illegal alien children who get into the US with parents who abandon them or get in with the help of human smugglers.  I came across a couple of mentions of this “business” recently.

The first is a Q & A published at a accident and divorce lawyers website here where a questioner asks why Mexican parents turn their kids over to human smugglers.  The article reports a Kansas case, which you can go read, and ends with this:

Typically in cases of illegal immigration by juveniles, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency policy calls for agents to work with social service agencies to return the children to their families in their home countries, said Jim Cross, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Kansas.

ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro declined to release any information about the juveniles found in Kansas, citing privacy concerns. But she said all unaccompanied minors encountered by ICE are turned over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health & Human Services.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement gets about 7,200 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children a year in its facilities, said spokesman Kenneth Wolfe. Their average stay is 55 days before they are released to family members or sponsors, age out of the facility, or are returned to their home countries, he said.

When I used the word “business” above I didn’t just mean the business of human trafficking, but the “business” of caring for all these children whose parents have abandoned them.   ORR doesn’t have “facilities,” it contracts them out, which brings me to the California case.

“Non-profit” that runs home for unaccompanied minors sues state of California

Courthouse News tells us that a “non-profit” group whose “home” was found in violation of California law and ordered closed has sued California because they claim it will cause them to break their federal contract.  I’m no lawyer, but does this mean that if the contractor wins they can put unaccompanied kids in some sort of jeopardy just so as not to hurt their contractual arrangement with ORR?  And, get this they are citing the Supremacy clause claiming that California can’t cite them for violating California laws!

SACRAMENTO (CN) – A detention home for undocumented children sued the California Department of Social Services, claiming the state’s attempt to shut it down would violate the facility’s contract with the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Plaintiff BCFS-Health and Human Services houses boys who are believed to be in the United States illegally, “and who have had some criminal arrest or conviction.”

The federal complaint states: “These children, who are also known as ‘unaccompanied alien children,’ do not have parents or guardians who are available to care for them. The BCFS facility provides shelter and care to these children while the federal government determines the appropriate next steps toward reconnecting them with their families.”

The BCFS facility was licensed as a group home in October 2009, and was allowed to house up to 24 children at a time.

But California’s Department of Social Services refused to renew its provisional license in October this year, after several visits to the facility revealed several violations.

BCFS claims:

“Further, defendants have failed to consider the obligations that flow from BCFS’s grant from ORR, and BCFS’s need to provide a safe, secure environment for the group of unaccompanied alien minors at their facility to further the goals and policies of the federal government.”

BCFS asks the court to declare the state regulations preempted by federal law, and that the state’s denial of licensing a violation of the Supremacy Clause.

Can you imagine the power a “non-profit” could have in a state if they can claim their federal contract lets them get out of state laws because federal law supercedes state law!   In other words, ORR in partnership with a  non-profit contractor could say, ‘too bad for you state government.’

See more on BCFS, Baptist Child & Family Services, here and here.  Finally, for the umpteenth time I ask, where is the ACLU to uphold the separation of church and state?

Temporary Protected Status extended for Somalis

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is a little notice I missed when it came out on Election day, November 2nd.  Makes you wonder if it was planned on a day when NO ONE would be paying attention.

Homeland Security grants extension of Temporary Protected Status for Somalis.

This Notice announces that the Secretary of Homeland Security (Secretary) has extended the designation of Somalia for temporary protected status (TPS) for 18 months, from its current expiration date of March 17, 2011 through September 17, 2012. The Secretary has determined that an 18-month extension is warranted because conditions in Somalia prompting the TPS designation continue to be met. Armed conflict in Somalia is ongoing and, due to such conflict and other extraordinary and temporary conditions, requiring the return of eligible individuals with TPS to Somalia would pose a serious threat to their personal safety.

We discussed Temporary Protected Status extensively here  (one of many posts)when Haitians were granted this category of protection and we discussed it here (again one of many posts) when Liberians who had previously been given this privilege sought to extend it and succeeded (Obama extended TPS for Liberia).

The gist of it is—if a Somali gets in here illegally, or some Somali already here gets a deportation order they cannot be deported to Somalia.  They can stay and work in the US.  Roy Beck of NumbersUSA says essentially forever.

Maybe this is finally my answer as to why Omar Jamal (representing Somalia at the UN right now) was never deported after his 2005 conviction on immigration fraud.

Greece: Muslim immigration activist says it’s just like water….

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..close off one channel and it will flow through another one.   He is talking about the tens of thousands of Muslims attempting to get into western European countries illegally each year.

From the Washington Post, “Greek town becomes flash point in war against Muslim immigrants:”

NEA VISSA, GREECE – This little farming town on the edge of Europe, where the crosses of Greek Orthodox churches face Turkey’s minarets scarcely a mile away, has become the latest battleground in the continent’s war against a flood of unwanted immigrants from the strife-torn Muslim world.

The European Union’s joint border patrol force, Frontex, dispatched armed international guards last week to reinforce Greek patrols around Nea Vissa, seeking to seal an eight-mile stretch of frontier that has become the main corridor for illegal entry into Europe for thousands of fortune-seeking Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis and North Africans. The 200-member pan-European deployment marked the first such Frontex operation along the borders of one of the European Union’s 27 member nations. Greek officials called it a belated recognition that the onrush of immigrants here is a problem that must be dealt with by all of Europe.

The French immigration minister, Eric Besson, said the posting of French and other foreign border guards should be seen as a sign of determination by Europe to stanch the flow. “France is totally mobilized to struggle with Greece against the networks that exploit immigrants in defiance of the most basic humanitarian laws,” he said on a quick visit to the border.

The growing presence of immigrants, particularly Muslims who bring with them their own customs and religious practices, has become one of the main irritants in Western European societies. Immigration has become a prominent and sometimes sour part of the political debate even in countries with long liberal traditions, including Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and France.

Read it all.

And, by the way,  a TV news station in Atlanta, GA is again reporting on illegal aliens from Muslim countries crossing our southern border, here.  It is not just happening in faraway Greece.

Yikes!  It just occurred to me that since we have been taking Malta’s illegal aliens, setting a precedent by transforming them into refugees, might we do the same with Greece’s?

Elaborate cross border tunnel discovered in San Diego

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I’m posting this story quickly now just to save it for my San Diego collection.  Recently we reported that Somali “community” leaders in that city have been charged with suspected terrorism activity.  So, if tons of marijuana is being moved under the border from Mexico to California in ventilated tunnels—how about illegal aliens as well!

From CBS News last week:

U.S. and Mexican authorities combined to seize nearly 30 tons of marijuana at the California border, uncovering an elaborate 600-yard underground tunnel connecting warehouses on either side of the border, officials said Wednesday.

[…..]

They also found the opening to the tunnel, which ran the length of six football fields under the border and ended at a warehouse in Mexico, Morton said. The tunnel had lighting, ventilation and a rail system to send loads of illegal drugs into California.

Approximately 4 additional tons of pot were found in the warehouse on the Mexican side of the border.

[…..]

Officials have found 125 underground tunnels along the border built by Mexican drug cartels to elude detection since the early 1990s, ICE officials said. Of those, 75 have been found in the past four years. Many were discovered before they were completed. The majority were found along the California and Arizona borders with Mexico.