Bishops' immigration expert calls new policy a step in the right direction

[Blacksword]

My wife was assigned, as a visiting nurse, to a single-parent household in which a boy had serious health problems; treated under Medicaid. The mother was a single mother, admittedly illegal, who received all kinds of social benefits and lived in a fairly nice neighborhood. Mother’s daily routine consisted largely in watching Mexican soap operas. My wife asked her if she was Catholic (many are, of course) Oh no, she was now a Mormon, of recent vintage. But, she protested, the Mormons weren’t nearly as generous as the Methodists, whose church she had joined not terribly long before. Ultimately, the Methodist aid ran thin, and she had been around to a number of churches previously, so she was down to the Mormons at that moment. Corruption, and a corruption that we reward because we think somehow that imposing order on the mess is somehow uncharitable.

I have listened to protestant preachers who complain about that; how illegals “make the rounds”, pretending to be interested in this church or that, then switch when the material help thins out. Evidently, those pastors’ “comparing notes” is intermittent, but is also hampered by the name changes. They know they’re being had in a lot of cases; perhaps even most, but how to distinguish when one has no information, but a general feeling that they are supposed to “help the poor and the wayfarer”? They can’t, of course.

The cynicism and negativism in these posts is palpable. But that notwithstanding, are there some persons among the undocumented population in the U.S. who are taking advantage of assistance from charitable organizations or acting unscrupulously? Certainly that is likely. Among a population of some 12 million people, you are bound to have some number who are dishonest. That, however, does NOT mean that all, most, or even “very many” are so. Your posts are completely bereft of any actual substance or factual information. A few unverifiable, and frankly, to some extent questionable, anecdotes are NOT a solid basis upon which to form any kind of general or comprehensive opinions on an issue without more actual background facts and knowledge, and certainly not an adequate basis upon which to formulate federal law. None of these anecdotes are even worth responding to really, being totally unverifiable. I will say that the example you give above of a mother receiving “social benefits” with the child on medicaid is a little unclear. First, unlawfully present persons are not entitled to actual social services such as welfare, social security, or other benefits, so by “social benefits” I can only assume you mean charitable assistance from churches or other organizations. As for the child receiving Medicaid, was he a U.S. citizen? Do you even know? Because if he was a U.S. citizen, then of course, assuming other qualifications for the Medicaid are in place, he would be as entitled to the benefit as anyone else who is a citizen qualifying for the benefit, the legal status of his mother notwithstanding. If he was also an undocumented alien, he wouldn’t be eligible for Medicaid in the first place, so I assume, if your story has a basis in fact, that he is not. Even so, there is no actual evidence presented here of any kind of percentage of the undocumented population who are “gaming” charitable organizations, or really anything of substance to go on at all.

 

[Blacksword]

As an immigration attorney, then, you know the way to get legal is to go back to the country of origin and “get in line” like the others. There are avenues, and no question about it. It’s just that they’re very narrow avenues. The proper argument is for greater quotas, not to countenance disdain for the law and the citizens and others who are here legally, often with considerable difficulty.

As an immigration attorney, you also know how easy it is for illegals to obtain very convincing phony ID. I personally know a woman who makes them. She was busted about a year ago for it and slapped on the wrist. She’s now back in business. She really, really is good at it. Even offered to create one for me, just for fun, but I declined.

And this post shows that you, like the vast majority of people, are completely uninformed on immigration law. I have explained this several times in these forums, it gets tedious going over the same ground repeatedly, but nevertheless:

No, they cannot “get legal” by going back and “waiting in line”, for several reasons. Leaving the U.S. after having entered without inspection and resided here makes them PERMANENTLY inadmissible to the U.S. as a matter of law. Please read the legal provisions at INA § 212(a)(9)(B) for more on this. Without obtaining a waiver on the basis of having a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or child who would be subjected to exceptional and unusual hardships (meaning far more than just the expected hardships of separation and loss of a parent, such as being severely disabled and dependent on the alien parent for daily care, income, support, being unable to support themselves and becoming homeless, etc.) the person is never getting back into the U.S. legally, period. As you can imagine, those waivers are given RARELY at best, so that’s major bar to “getting legal” number one.

Major problem number two is that, as I’ve written before, there is no “line” for immigrant visa processing for unskilled, uneducated immigrants wishing to perform manual, low-skilled and unskilled labor positions without any employer or petitioner on their behalf. The alien first has to have an actual employer petitioning for them specifically, which they don’t. That hypothetical employer then has to file for a labor certification to the U.S. Department of Labor certifying that they have advertised repeatedly for open positions and been unable to find any minimally qualified, available U.S. workers who applied for the position. This CAN’T happen though, because the DOL will not approve a labor certification where the employer says they’ve advertised for a position with NO education or skill requirements at at, and yet nobody applied. It’s not going to happen. They don’t accept that there are no available U.S. workers for a job that has no actual requirements at all. Even if that, in bizarro world let’s say, were to happen, the hypothetical employer then would have to file an immigrant visa petition which, once approved would get an alien a visa number that will not become current to them for some 15 years, give or take. This means the person would, even if these things were to work out for them, and they don’t because as I said the DOL won’t approve such cases to start with, the foreign national would be waiting some 15 years or more to actually enter and start the job. So no, there are no legal avenues for such persons.

As an immigration attorney, no, I don’t know how easy it is to get fake ID’s. I’ve never obtained one, and don’t know anything about it. I hear they are pretty easy to get, but pretty much everyone hears that.

Lastly, I am NOT advocating disdain for the law. I’m advocating rational, sensible, appropriate reforms of our laws that are badly misguided, some 50 YEARS out of date, and dysfunctionl, serving NO ONE whether it be the U.S. as a whole, our people, or foreign nationals. I’m advocating targeted and appropriate legal reforms to make our laws comport with our current economic and global socio-economic and political situation so that they function to properly address our nation’s actual labor and economic needs, serve our businesses and people, and promote the values we claim we hold as a nation: justice with mercy, support for families and the importance of family unity, and the spirit of innovation, development, progress, and the spirit of charity and openness to those who wish to work hard at work worth doing and contribute to the greater common good.

 

[Ender]

I posted the article written by the Archbishop, who spoke with concern of how to best accomplish a immigration reform…

Yes, he gave his opinion about how to best accomplish immigration reform, but determining what works best is not a moral question so his opinion carries little weight.

Christ’s teachings are moral, and without qualification. He didn’t say, stop and spend time trying to decide how to do. He just said ‘do’, or more precisely, ‘love’.

Do you really mean this: don’t think, just do something? It is properly the responsibility of the laity to determine the best solutions to practical problems, to figure out just what it is we ought to do in concrete situations.

*Let the layman not imagine that his pastors are always such experts, that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give him a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission. Rather, enlightened by Christian wisdom and giving close attention to the teaching authority of the Church, let the layman take on his own distinctive role. *(Gaudium et Spes)

*The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.” *(BXVI)

I am not inclined to act without thinking nor (necessarily) accept that the clergy has any special insight into the solutions to political problems. Deriving those solutions is the right and responsibility of the laity, not the clergy.

Ender

 

[Ender]

And I remain curious. As I asked in my earlier post, could you please provide us with specifics on legal reforms, proposals, and measures you hold as the best solutions to this issue, bearing in mind the guiding principles of love and mercy that the proposals should be formulated in conformity with, as instructed by our Bishops? Thank you.

It is surely too much to expect everyone to agree that immigration is a practical issue and not a moral one, but if you will concede that point then I will put forward my perspectives on how the issue should be addressed. If we’re still at odds on immigration as a moral question, however, then I consider specific proposals nothing more than a distraction from the issue I want settled.

Ender

 

[Ridgerunner]

The cynicism and negativism in these posts is palpable. But that notwithstanding, are there some persons among the undocumented population in the U.S. who are taking advantage of assistance from charitable organizations or acting unscrupulously? Certainly that is likely. Among a population of some 12 million people, you are bound to have some number who are dishonest. That, however, does NOT mean that all, most, or even “very many” are so. Your posts are completely bereft of any actual substance or factual information. A few unverifiable, and frankly, to some extent questionable, anecdotes are NOT a solid basis upon which to form any kind of general or comprehensive opinions on an issue without more actual background facts and knowledge, and certainly not an adequate basis upon which to formulate federal law. None of these anecdotes are even worth responding to really, being totally unverifiable. I will say that the example you give above of a mother receiving “social benefits” with the child on medicaid is a little unclear. First, unlawfully present persons are not entitled to actual social services such as welfare, social security, or other benefits, so by “social benefits” I can only assume you mean charitable assistance from churches or other organizations. As for the child receiving Medicaid, was he a U.S. citizen? Do you even know? Because if he was a U.S. citizen, then of course, assuming other qualifications for the Medicaid are in place, he would be as entitled to the benefit as anyone else who is a citizen qualifying for the benefit, the legal status of his mother notwithstanding. If he was also an undocumented alien, he wouldn’t be eligible for Medicaid in the first place, so I assume, if your story has a basis in fact, that he is not. Even so, there is no actual evidence presented here of any kind of percentage of the undocumented population who are “gaming” charitable organizations, or really anything of substance to go on at all.

Come, come, counselor, I did not call you a liar, so please refrain from calling me one, even in your lawyerly, subtle way.

As to the mother and child mentioned, I can only conclude that the child was born here or that both mother and child had phony ID. The woman frankly admitted to my wife that she is illegal. I don’t know whether she said anything about the child’s legal status. Possibly my friend, the phony ID maker, could tell me, but I haven’t bothered to ask her, and probably won’t.

Since, as you maintain, my posts are so “bereft of information”, then perhaps you can give us the reliable sources establishing:

1. How many illegals are actually working for money.
2. How many receive public assistance in one form or another, including medical care.
3. Of those, how many have good looking phony ID.
4. How many are criminals.
5. How many are receiving benefits from charitable organizations and, of that number, how many are verified as being truly in need by an independent third party.

And “cynicism” and “negativism” has nothing to do with it. Anybody who knows any significant number of illegals knows abuses of every kind are commonplace. You, yourself, have some thought that the process needs to be made rational. Why? Because you think it’s irrational now.

“Some number that are dishonest”??? Every single one of them is dishonest in some manner. Now, do I blame them for that? Not particularly. WE are the ones who are rewarding and thus encouraging dishonesty in every way. Dishonesty in coming here “ahead of the line”; dishonesty in getting bogus identification; dishonesty in applying for benefits; dishonesty in claiming tax deductions they aren’t entitled to. And to that we add our own dishonesty, which runs from top to bottom and includes all levels of society. There’s the dishonesty of George W. Bush, who had a “Hispanic preference” in immigration going without admitting it. There is the dishonesty of Barack Obama who pretends altruism and pretends the “costs of deportation” would be too huge to bear. There is the dishonesty of the limousine set with their illegal nannies and gardeners and drivers and horse trainers. There is the dishonesty of eastern restaurants which hire illegals by the score. There is the dishonesty of building contractors who do likewise.
There is the dishonesty of industrial employers who know full well that some applicants are illegal, and know they can’t reliably verify status, and who just think it’s all a big joke. There is the profound dishonesty of the government which will penalize employers for not accepting ID that’s valid on its face, yet penalize them for hiring illegals notwithstanding such ID, yet works in cahoots with some employers to actually check them out and stage raids.

And yes, there are the charitable organizations, including churches, who don’t check into anything and hand out stuff to people, some of whom they know are lying, and then lie to themselves about how charitable they’re being, never mind that it’s at someone else’s expense.

And you call ME a liar? Counselor, the whole thing is one unending series of lies. I’m just calling attention to it.

 

[Ridgerunner]

And this post shows that you, like the vast majority of people, are completely uninformed on immigration law. I have explained this several times in these forums, it gets tedious going over the same ground repeatedly, but nevertheless:

No, they cannot “get legal” by going back and “waiting in line”, for several reasons. Leaving the U.S. after having entered without inspection and resided here makes them PERMANENTLY inadmissible to the U.S. as a matter of law. Please read the legal provisions at INA § 212(a)(9)(B) for more on this. Without obtaining a waiver on the basis of having a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse or child who would be subjected to exceptional and unusual hardships (meaning far more than just the expected hardships of separation and loss of a parent, such as being severely disabled and dependent on the alien parent for daily care, income, support, being unable to support themselves and becoming homeless, etc.) the person is never getting back into the U.S. legally, period. As you can imagine, those waivers are given RARELY at best, so that’s major bar to “getting legal” number one.

Major problem number two is that, as I’ve written before, there is no “line” for immigrant visa processing for unskilled, uneducated immigrants wishing to perform manual, low-skilled and unskilled labor positions without any employer or petitioner on their behalf. The alien first has to have an actual employer petitioning for them specifically, which they don’t. That hypothetical employer then has to file for a labor certification to the U.S. Department of Labor certifying that they have advertised repeatedly for open positions and been unable to find any minimally qualified, available U.S. workers who applied for the position. This CAN’T happen though, because the DOL will not approve a labor certification where the employer says they’ve advertised for a position with NO education or skill requirements at at, and yet nobody applied. It’s not going to happen. They don’t accept that there are no available U.S. workers for a job that has no actual requirements at all. Even if that, in bizarro world let’s say, were to happen, the hypothetical employer then would have to file an immigrant visa petition which, once approved would get an alien a visa number that will not become current to them for some 15 years, give or take. This means the person would, even if these things were to work out for them, and they don’t because as I said the DOL won’t approve such cases to start with, the foreign national would be waiting some 15 years or more to actually enter and start the job. So no, there are no legal avenues for such persons.

As an immigration attorney, no, I don’t know how easy it is to get fake ID’s. I’ve never obtained one, and don’t know anything about it. I hear they are pretty easy to get, but pretty much everyone hears that.

Lastly, I am NOT advocating disdain for the law. I’m advocating rational, sensible, appropriate reforms of our laws that are badly misguided, some 50 YEARS out of date, and dysfunctionl, serving NO ONE whether it be the U.S. as a whole, our people, or foreign nationals. I’m advocating targeted and appropriate legal reforms to make our laws comport with our current economic and global socio-economic and political situation so that they function to properly address our nation’s actual labor and economic needs, serve our businesses and people, and promote the values we claim we hold as a nation: justice with mercy, support for families and the importance of family unity, and the spirit of innovation, development, progress, and the spirit of charity and openness to those who wish to work hard at work worth doing and contribute to the greater common good.

What a hoot, counselor! Talk about generalizations! I once worked in immigraton myself. I am sure I don’t know as much about it as you do, but I do know how it works at least basically. I’ll admit it was all H1A and H1B. But it was also easy,notwithstanding that it involved a lot of paperwork and phone calls.

But some of your assumptions are really too much. How many illegals do you think go to the consulate in Monterrey or somewhere and say “Well, I used to work in the U.S. illegally, but now I want to get legal.”? If there are any at all, I would be surprised.

I have a couple of friends who imported farm laborers temporarily and legally, to pick vegetables. No, I didn’t handle those deals, but they sure did it. It’s pretty exacting from the employer’s standpoint. I’ll admit that. They did tell me that much about it.

So, okay, let’s hear your specific proposals and the results you expect from them.

(By the way, we aren’t supposed to direct insults to individuals on here. I don’t report people, but some do, and there could always be a first time for me. You have, so far, called me a liar and called me uninformed. I think they discourage that kind of thing in the Bar, don’t they? They sure do on CAF.)

 

[Blacksword]

Come, come, counselor, I did not call you a liar, so please refrain from calling me one, even in your lawyerly, subtle way.

As to the mother and child mentioned, I can only conclude that the child was born here or that both mother and child had phony ID. The woman frankly admitted to my wife that she is illegal. I don’t know whether she said anything about the child’s legal status. Possibly my friend, the phony ID maker, could tell me, but I haven’t bothered to ask her, and probably won’t.

Since, as you maintain, my posts are so “bereft of information”, then perhaps you can give us the reliable sources establishing:

1. How many illegals are actually working for money.
2. How many receive public assistance in one form or another, including medical care.
3. Of those, how many have good looking phony ID.
4. How many are criminals.
5. How many are receiving benefits from charitable organizations and, of that number, how many are verified as being truly in need by an independent third party.

And “cynicism” and “negativism” has nothing to do with it. Anybody who knows any significant number of illegals knows abuses of every kind are commonplace. You, yourself, have some thought that the process needs to be made rational. Why? Because you think it’s irrational now.

“Some number that are dishonest”??? Every single one of them is dishonest in some manner. Now, do I blame them for that? Not particularly. WE are the ones who are rewarding and thus encouraging dishonesty in every way. Dishonesty in coming here “ahead of the line”; dishonesty in getting bogus identification; dishonesty in applying for benefits; dishonesty in claiming tax deductions they aren’t entitled to. And to that we add our own dishonesty, which runs from top to bottom and includes all levels of society. There’s the dishonesty of George W. Bush, who had a “Hispanic preference” in immigration going without admitting it. There is the dishonesty of Barack Obama who pretends altruism and pretends the “costs of deportation” would be too huge to bear. There is the dishonesty of the limousine set with their illegal nannies and gardeners and drivers and horse trainers. There is the dishonesty of eastern restaurants which hire illegals by the score. There is the dishonesty of building contractors who do likewise.
There is the dishonesty of industrial employers who know full well that some applicants are illegal, and know they can’t reliably verify status, and who just think it’s all a big joke. There is the profound dishonesty of the government which will penalize employers for not accepting ID that’s valid on its face, yet penalize them for hiring illegals notwithstanding such ID, yet works in cahoots with some employers to actually check them out and stage raids.

And yes, there are the charitable organizations, including churches, who don’t check into anything and hand out stuff to people, some of whom they know are lying, and then lie to themselves about how charitable they’re being, never mind that it’s at someone else’s expense.

And you call ME a liar? Counselor, the whole thing is one unending series of lies. I’m just calling attention to it.

I did not call you a liar, or imply any such thing. I said the anecdotes were of no probative value and questionable, because they are: you don’t provide full facts and admit to not even knowing them. Thus, they are questionable. The costs of removal for all of them would be enormous, according to ICE it would be several hundred billion over a ten year period.

Some of your questions no one can answer accurately, and I’m sure you know that. However, we do know almost none are on public assistance since it’s forbidden by law and the government is pretty good at checking before handing out welfare checks. A tiny percentage are criminals, as we know they commit crimes at a fraction of the rate US citizens do. When one is charged with a serious crime, they go through the justice system to it’s outcome, and then are deported. And we know most are working, that’s why they’re here in the first place.

 

[Blacksword]

What a hoot, counselor! Talk about generalizations! I once worked in immigraton myself. I am sure I don’t know as much about it as you do, but I do know how it works at least basically. I’ll admit it was all H1A and H1B. But it was also easy,notwithstanding that it involved a lot of paperwork and phone calls.

But some of your assumptions are really too much. How many illegals do you think go to the consulate in Monterrey or somewhere and say “Well, I used to work in the U.S. illegally, but now I want to get legal.”? If there are any at all, I would be surprised.

I have a couple of friends who imported farm laborers temporarily and legally, to pick vegetables. No, I didn’t handle those deals, but they sure did it. It’s pretty exacting from the employer’s standpoint. I’ll admit that. They did tell me that much about it.

So, okay, let’s hear your specific proposals and the results you expect from them.

(By the way, we aren’t supposed to direct insults to individuals on here. I don’t report people, but some do, and there could always be a first time for me. You have, so far, called me a liar and called me uninformed. I think they discourage that kind of thing in the Bar, don’t they? They sure do on CAF.)

I’ll respond more fully later when able, but again, I do not think I hurled any invectives your way or was otherwise inappropriate, friend.

I have several times already on these forums given my legal proposals, you could easily look this up. A note: I think you mean “H-2B”, not “H-1A” as that visa applies to foreign nurses, and has not existed in the law for years now. And no, neither the H-1B nor the H-2B are “easy”. If they were employers and their attorneys wouldn’t screw them up so often!

 

[Blacksword]

It is surely too much to expect everyone to agree that immigration is a practical issue and not a moral one, but if you will concede that point then I will put forward my perspectives on how the issue should be addressed. If we’re still at odds on immigration as a moral question, however, then I consider specific proposals nothing more than a distraction from the issue I want settled.

Ender

I fail to see why this concession is necessary or even relevant. I’m merely asking that you provide your legal proposals to this issue, keeping in mind the christian moral constraints with which said solutions must conform. I’ve given my proposed solutions freely and often here after all.

 

[Blacksword]

It is surely too much to expect everyone to agree that immigration is a practical issue and not a moral one, but if you will concede that point then I will put forward my perspectives on how the issue should be addressed. If we’re still at odds on immigration as a moral question, however, then I consider specific proposals nothing more than a distraction from the issue I want settled.

Ender

I fail to see why this concession is necessary or even relevant. I’m merely asking that you provide your legal proposals to this issue, keeping in mind the christian moral constraints with which said solutions must conform. I’ve given my proposed solutions freely and often here after all.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I did not call you a liar, or imply any such thing. I said the anecdotes were of no probative value and questionable, because they are: you don’t provide full facts and admit to not even knowing them. Thus, they are questionable. The costs of removal for all of them would be enormous, according to ICE it would be several hundred billion over a ten year period.

Some of your questions no one can answer accurately, and I’m sure you know that. However, we do know almost none are on public assistance since it’s forbidden by law and the government is pretty good at checking before handing out welfare checks. A tiny percentage are criminals, as we know they commit crimes at a fraction of the rate US citizens do. When one is charged with a serious crime, they go through the justice system to it’s outcome, and then are deported. And we know most are working, that’s why they’re here in the first place.

Good! I’m glad to be cleared of the charge!

Well, though, counselor, my anecdotes are as good as any others, and I think I know about my anecdotes as well as anyone else knows his own. And, since you admit you don’t know anything really substantive about the illegals here, and since I actually did provide significant detail, I think they stand.

I don’t buy that whole thing about the huge cost of removal. Illegals “remove” themselves all the time. They go back and forth between the U.S. and their countries of origin, or at least those from the Western Hemisphere do. Call it anecdotal if you want, but I know a lot of them and I know they do that. It’s impossible for me to think it’s any different anywhere else. The traffic from here into Mexico is so thick, bus tickets are dirt cheap.
They can come back because the door is a swinging door. It’s a swinging door because border enforcement is so bad.

How does anybody know what percentage are criminals? We don’t even know what percentage are from Yemen or Iran coming across our southern border. We only know that some get caught, and we also know most illegal immigrants are not caught. We also know the “pickings” for criminals are much richer in the U.S. than in Mexico or El Salvador. So why should we believe or disbelieve any particular percentage, particularly when around half the prison population in some of our prisons are illegals?

And “the government” doesn’t hand out welfare checks or issue Medicaid cards. State agencies do both. And they can’t go behind facially valid ID either because it’s “discriminatory” to do that. Yes, they (like employers) can check the SS numbers with E-verify. That’s it. But any really good forger ALWAYS uses real SS numbers and does a good job of matching ages. That’s why legal Hispanics have to guard their ID so carefully. There’s a big business in stolen identities. If identity is stolen all the time for other purposes, why would anyone believe it’s less prevalent for that purpose?

A lawyer friend of mine gets a fair number of legal (I guess) Hispanic clients who get hit with child support garnishments out of places they have never been. He goes ahead and goes through the DNA testing and all that, and almost always defeats them. Why does that happen? Because of the heavy traffic in phony ID. Some forger sells the identity of a legal Hispanic resident or even citizen to an illegal who gets some woman pregnant, who files for AFDC, which finds the SS number in the IRS records and garnishes the wages of a completely innocent guy.

It’s interesting to talk to people who review medical records. Anyone who does a lot of it will tell you that among certain ethnic groups, there are patient signatures that don’t match other patient signatures in the charts. Now and then some doctor catches on and refuses the patient, but it’s not common because doctors don’t look at the signatures and just takes peoples’ word that they are who they say they are. Perhaps the most amusing was one where a 70+ year-old woman really was rejected as a patient by a doctor. I guess the doctor read the chart because the woman’s record showed that she had given birth within the year.

And big employers (the kinds that get raided) will tell you they often have some Hispanic disappear during a raid, or just disappear for no known reason, (possibly just go home for awhile) then return later with a different name and whole new set of ID. But they can’t question that new ID either, because it’s “discriminatory” to do that.

Lies piled on lies piled on lies. And we encourage it by rewarding it.

But was George W. Bush’s “Hispanic preference” really a bad policy other than the multiple, multiple dishonesties involved? I’m not sure. I have yet to see anyone come up with a more generous immigration policy that would not result in the whole thing eventually being shut down. Why? Because then we could not indulge in a Hispanic (that is, Christian and basically western) preference and would have to put Yemenis, Iranians, Somalis and others on the same footing as Hispanics. I’m not sure the American people (including Hispanics) would put up with that for very long.

But maybe your program solves that. What is it?

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’ll respond more fully later when able, but again, I do not think I hurled any invectives your way or was otherwise inappropriate, friend.

I have several times already on these forums given my legal proposals, you could easily look this up. A note: I think you mean “H-2B”, not “H-1A” as that visa applies to foreign nurses, and has not existed in the law for years now. And no, neither the H-1B nor the H-2B are “easy”. If they were employers and their attorneys wouldn’t screw them up so often!

I think I said I did H1A and H1B some time back. And I beg to differ about the ease of doing H1A (back then, I guess) and H1B. I did them myself, and I know. Well, I’ll admit this much. If the applicant went to a school that the education certifying companies didn’t know anything about, it was not at all easy. But they knew about most of the likely ones and would certify equivalency pretty readily. Unfortunately, at the time (shortly after the Iron Curtain dropped) it was next to impossible to get visas and work permits for Eastern Europeans because their educations were so bad. It’s probably better now. Unsurprisingly, anybody from the “Anglosphere” was a shoo-in because their English was so good and their schools were at least as good as ours. (The professional agencies started requiring strong English proficiency, you know.) Same with South Africans, even Afrikaners. Perhaps most surprisingly, Filipinos who graduated from the University of Santo Tomas were easy because courses there are taught in English.

I said nothing about H2B. Never did those.

Gosh! I’m kind of flattered to know that I managed to get done what even lawyers often “screw up”. But maybe it’s harder now.

Oh gee. I have to go back to see your proposals? (sigh) Well, if you can’t repeat them, I’ll see what I can find. :crying:

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have several times already on these forums given my legal proposals, you could easily look this up.

Goodness, Blacksword, I do see where, in Posts # 15, 60 and 70 you challenged Ender to provide his detailed proposals. I see where, in Post #53, you talked about how potential immigrants would take “any avenue available” to be here legally, but I took that as a general statement, not a specific proposal. I also see, where, in Post #62, you said this:

“Lastly, I am NOT advocating disdain for the law. I’m advocating rational, sensible, appropriate reforms of our laws that are badly misguided, some 50 YEARS out of date, and dysfunctionl, serving NO ONE whether it be the U.S. as a whole, our people, or foreign nationals. I’m advocating targeted and appropriate legal reforms to make our laws comport with our current economic and global socio-economic and political situation so that they function to properly address our nation’s actual labor and economic needs, serve our businesses and people, and promote the values we claim we hold as a nation: justice with mercy, support for families and the importance of family unity, and the spirit of innovation, development, progress, and the spirit of charity and openness to those who wish to work hard at work worth doing and contribute to the greater common good.”

But that’s not really specific either, is it?

Now, if you intended that I go hunt through various other threads to see if I can hunt down the legal needle in the thread haystack which, for some reason, is not disclosed to Ender or to me in a thread specificially dealing with “new policies” for immigration, then what am I to think of pride of authorship?

So, the conundrum remains standing on the field, unanswered and unresolved. How do we improve (and to my preference, expand) immigration in an orderly and rational and honest manner without ending the Bush (and now Obama) “Hispanic preference”; termination of which is likely to result in a “no immigration at all” reaction on the part of the American people, and perhaps reasonably so, given some of the threats from abroad?

 

[Ender]

I fail to see why this concession is necessary or even relevant.

Not relevant? What is the topic of the thread? The assertion was made by “the bishops immigration expert” that the decision to suspend deportations of illegals “who pose no security threat” is* “From the Church’s perspective… a positive step."* Most of the people here who support this action accept that their position is supported by the Church. This claim is false as the Church has no position whatever on this new policy.

I’m merely asking that you provide your legal proposals to this issue, keeping in mind the christian moral constraints with which said solutions must conform. I’ve given my proposed solutions freely and often here after all.

My particular position is irrelevant to the question this thread has raised and until the primary issue has been resolved I have no incentive to wander off on a tangent. I told you, I’ll lay out my position when - and only when - we are agreed that immigration is not a moral issue.

Ender

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Yes, he gave his opinion about how to best accomplish immigration reform, but determining what works best is not a moral question so his opinion carries little weight.
Do you really mean this: don’t think, just do something? It is properly the responsibility of the laity to determine the best solutions to practical problems, to figure out just what it is we ought to do in concrete situations.

Let the layman not imagine that his pastors are always such experts, that to every problem which arises, however complicated, they can readily give him a concrete solution, or even that such is their mission. Rather, enlightened by Christian wisdom and giving close attention to the teaching authority of the Church, let the layman take on his own distinctive role. (Gaudium et Spes)

The Church does not have technical solutions to offer and does not claim “to interfere in any way in the politics of States.” (BXVI)

I am not inclined to act without thinking nor (necessarily) accept that the clergy has any special insight into the solutions to political problems. Deriving those solutions is the right and responsibility of the laity, not the clergy.

Ender

Christ said when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the poor, and care for the sick, we have done it to Him. Those ‘insights’, I believe, the authoritative men of the Church have a clear understanding of what is to be done. Christ didn’t say to study on it, and I believe His teachings to be very moral.

 

[Ender]

Christ said when we feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give shelter to the poor, and care for the sick, we have done it to Him. Those ‘insights’, I believe, the authoritative men of the Church have a clear understanding of what is to be done.

Not at all. It is not enough simply to want to do good, one must have a reasonable idea of how to bring it about. Johnson’s war on poverty provides all the example one needs to realize that good intentions do not necessarily bring about good results. Your position is that, because you want help, whatever you do is going to work just they way you intend. The problem with this theory is that results flow solely from the actions we take and the intent behind the actions is irrelevant to the outcome. You may give yourself a gold star for wanting to help but if you don’t know what will come from your actions you are as likely to make the situation worse than to make it better.

Christ didn’t say to study on it, and I believe His teachings to be very moral.

Using this approach we wouldn’t need doctors. All we would need are people who want to do good so it wouldn’t matter what they did, anything done with good intentions would merely work. The problem here is obvious, but Christ said to heal the sick, not study on it, so why do we need medical experts any more than we need experts on immigration?

Ender

 

[Prodigal_Son1]

Not at all. It is not enough simply to want to do good, one must have a reasonable idea of how to bring it about. Johnson’s war on poverty provides all the example one needs to realize that good intentions do not necessarily bring about good results. Your position is that, because you want help, whatever you do is going to work just they way you intend. The problem with this theory is that results flow solely from the actions we take and the intent behind the actions is irrelevant to the outcome. You may give yourself a gold star for wanting to help but if you don’t know what will come from your actions you are as likely to make the situation worse than to make it better.

Using this approach we wouldn’t need doctors. All we would need are people who want to do good so it wouldn’t matter what they did, anything done with good intentions would merely work. The problem here is obvious, but Christ said to heal the sick, not study on it, so why do we need medical experts any more than we need experts on immigration?

Ender

Personally, I can’t think about standing before the Lord one day and trying to explain that I was waiting until I found a good plan to proceed with what He taught and that according to ‘men’ there were too many problems to do as He asked. It’s that simple, for me anyways.

It seems universal healthcare is something else people seek to avoid. I’m sorry Ender, it seems people are making excuses to avoid the processes.

 

[Blacksword]

Good! I’m glad to be cleared of the charge!

Well, though, counselor, my anecdotes are as good as any others, and I think I know about my anecdotes as well as anyone else knows his own. And, since you admit you don’t know anything really substantive about the illegals here, and since I actually did provide significant detail, I think they stand.

I didn’t say we don’t know anything about them. I provided some answers to those questions. We KNOW they commit crimes at far lower rates than U.S. citizens based on criminal profiles, crime reporting data, criminal prosecution data, etc. Sure, we don’t catch every undocumented alien who commits a crime, but we don’t catch every U.S. citizen criminal either. It’s a fair guess that the statisticians who research and publish these kinds of studies know how to factor in for such variables. We know most of them are working based on employment statistics, economic and labor statistics, payroll reporting, and other sources. If you’re going to argue against what is accepted as objective reality on these sorts of issues, then there is little point in continuing discussion as you have left the bounds of rationality at that point.

I don’t buy that whole thing about the huge cost of removal. Illegals “remove” themselves all the time. They go back and forth between the U.S. and their countries of origin, or at least those from the Western Hemisphere do. Call it anecdotal if you want, but I know a lot of them and I know they do that. It’s impossible for me to think it’s any different anywhere else. The traffic from here into Mexico is so thick, bus tickets are dirt cheap.
They can come back because the door is a swinging door. It’s a swinging door because border enforcement is so bad.

Sigh, again here, you are saying that the agency charged with actual apprehension and removal of such persons has NO IDEA what its talking about. This isn’t rational. And you don’t seem to understand the costs associated with the employment of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”, the agency who’s made the estimates I’m referring to) officers to do the catching and detainment, or the costs of, often times, months of detainment of apprehended aliens awaiting removal in federal prison facilities. This requires feeding, providing medical care for those who get sick, etc. This costs money, lots of it. And undocumented aliens don’t enter by BUS, they have to cross over hundreds of miles of desert on foot, circumventing ports of entry, or be stowed away in trunks of cars, etc. They don’t just ride on a bus, the CBP checks every passenger on buses. I know, I’m at the Port of Entry in Detroit ALL THE TIME. That’s how it works.

How does anybody know what percentage are criminals? We don’t even know what percentage are from Yemen or Iran coming across our southern border. We only know that some get caught, and we also know most illegal immigrants are not caught. We also know the “pickings” for criminals are much richer in the U.S. than in Mexico or El Salvador. So why should we believe or disbelieve any particular percentage, particularly when around half the prison population in some of our prisons are illegals?

Persons intending ill from Yemen or Iran don’t sneak in across the border. They need ID to have access to the places they need to go, they need to be able to open bank accounts, move money, and generally have access to facilities and to aspects of U.S. commerce that are closed to persons without documentation. And the crossing of the border without inspection is too risky for such persons since the last thing they want is to be flagged and identified in such a manner, and they don’t want to risk death in the desert either. This is also a KNOWN fact; it’s been detailed in national security reports as a potential terrorism concern and been concluded by every national security and counter-terrorism expert to be exceedingly unlikely. Again, it feels here like you’re almost saying “experts are morons and don’t know anything”, which, if that’s the case, there’s little of substance on ANYTHING that can be explained to you if you personally don’t happen to just already accept it. And again, you mention the number of undocumented aliens in prisons, but seem to be unaware that the VAST majority of these persons are not there for conviction of any criminal offenses. Rather, they are there for the reason I mentioned above: they are being held without bail awaiting removal proceedings to be completed. Thus, they are being held in federal prisons, along side serious violent criminal offenders, for mere civil immigration offenses of being unlawfully present. Not a very humane treatment of persons if you ask me, but suffice to say, again, that we KNOW the percentages of these persons, since we know why they are there, and the vast majority have NOT been convicted of any actual criminal offenses, nor are they there serving any kind of criminal sentence.

Employers, for the record, DO have the prerogative to question and refuse to accept identification that readily appears to be fake. This is not discriminatory, and will not get one in trouble, so long as the employer’s HR or other representative is not SAYING something stupid in telling the applicant “Hey, I’m sorry, but this drivers’ license does not look legitimate.” If they SAY something overtly racist, they’re inviting trouble. Now, I’m not a fake ID detective, but I’m just pointing this out: patently false identification can absolutely be questioned by the employer.

The rest of your post here again was essentially conjecture and anecdotal in nature, so there’s really nothing that I, or anyone, can readily say in reply, and so I will refrain from further comment.

 

[Blacksword]

I think I said I did H1A and H1B some time back. And I beg to differ about the ease of doing H1A (back then, I guess) and H1B. I did them myself, and I know. Well, I’ll admit this much. If the applicant went to a school that the education certifying companies didn’t know anything about, it was not at all easy. But they knew about most of the likely ones and would certify equivalency pretty readily. Unfortunately, at the time (shortly after the Iron Curtain dropped) it was next to impossible to get visas and work permits for Eastern Europeans because their educations were so bad. It’s probably better now. Unsurprisingly, anybody from the “Anglosphere” was a shoo-in because their English was so good and their schools were at least as good as ours. (The professional agencies started requiring strong English proficiency, you know.) Same with South Africans, even Afrikaners. Perhaps most surprisingly, Filipinos who graduated from the University of Santo Tomas were easy because courses there are taught in English.

I said nothing about H2B. Never did those.

Gosh! I’m kind of flattered to know that I managed to get done what even lawyers often “screw up”. But maybe it’s harder now.

Oh gee. I have to go back to see your proposals? (sigh) Well, if you can’t repeat them, I’ll see what I can find. :crying:

I see. You are talking about processing registered nurses and professionals from some twenty years ago. Yes, particularly after September 11, 2001, the subsequent formation of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services under the Department of Homeland Security, and the recessions that have hit the U.S. in the 2000’s, things have become MUCH harder. Again, H-1A nursing cases don’t exist anymore at all, that visa has been gone for years, so getting a registered nurse into the U.S. (if she’s not Canadian) for employment is essentially impossible. How’s that for being more difficult?! You can’t get one at all, so that’s pretty tough alright.

As for H-1B professionals, yes, there have been years now of regulatory and inter-agency policy and adjudications memoranda tightening restrictions on those, increasingly preventing off-site placement of the worker unless you can exhaustively demonstrate that the Petitioner “controls” the actual work of the employee, supervises the employee despite being off-site, etc. They’ve ratcheted up the way they interpret “specialty occupation” so that, if they want to, they can deny petitions for Financial Analysts, Accountants, Market Research Analysts, and pretty much any other clearly professional position if they want to by arguing that the position’s duties, size and complexity of the employer’s business, and other various myriad factors show that the position is not “really” a professional Financial Analyst, but rather a mere Finance Clerk, not requiring an actual bachelor’s degree in a related field. Then there are the provisions regarding export license controls, and whether the kinds of technologies a person is working with require an export license from the Department of Commerce! And don’t get me even started on Indian bachelor’s degrees and credit hours v. academic classroom time! Then there are the requirements regarding confirming of sufficient business of the Petitioner to support professional H-1B employment for the period requested, presentation of consulting agreements, contracts for services with third parties, etc. As you can see, just these issues alone (and there are still MORE, if anyone reading this isn’t asleep yet!) have GREATLY complicated the H-1B process. And that’s, as you know, a visa for the kind of immigrant we claim we LIKE, you know, the educated kind who has a professional job offer!

Now, I’ll see if I can post my thoughts, in brief, on how to fix the system.

 

[Blacksword]

Goodness, Blacksword, I do see where, in Posts # 15, 60 and 70 you challenged Ender to provide his detailed proposals. I see where, in Post #53, you talked about how potential immigrants would take “any avenue available” to be here legally, but I took that as a general statement, not a specific proposal. I also see, where, in Post #62, you said this:

“Lastly, I am NOT advocating disdain for the law. I’m advocating rational, sensible, appropriate reforms of our laws that are badly misguided, some 50 YEARS out of date, and dysfunctionl, serving NO ONE whether it be the U.S. as a whole, our people, or foreign nationals. I’m advocating targeted and appropriate legal reforms to make our laws comport with our current economic and global socio-economic and political situation so that they function to properly address our nation’s actual labor and economic needs, serve our businesses and people, and promote the values we claim we hold as a nation: justice with mercy, support for families and the importance of family unity, and the spirit of innovation, development, progress, and the spirit of charity and openness to those who wish to work hard at work worth doing and contribute to the greater common good.”

But that’s not really specific either, is it?

Now, if you intended that I go hunt through various other threads to see if I can hunt down the legal needle in the thread haystack which, for some reason, is not disclosed to Ender or to me in a thread specificially dealing with “new policies” for immigration, then what am I to think of pride of authorship?

So, the conundrum remains standing on the field, unanswered and unresolved. How do we improve (and to my preference, expand) immigration in an orderly and rational and honest manner without ending the Bush (and now Obama) “Hispanic preference”; termination of which is likely to result in a “no immigration at all” reaction on the part of the American people, and perhaps reasonably so, given some of the threats from abroad?

Yes, I did mean to specifically search though my previous posts on immigration. These posts require a large amount of writing, and frankly it detracts from my time with my wife, my two and a half year old daughter (and, Heavenly Father help us all, my wife is an immigrant herself!!!), and from my own time for daily Scripture readings, prayer and reflection, and finishing Aquinas’ abridged Summa (which I’ve been at for what seems like forever) and the Holy Father’s Jesus of Nazareth books. So, my plate is pretty full, but as I said, I’ll provide shortly.