Immigration: the concern about security

By Cathy Keim

Editor’s note: Not only is this a second installment of coverage of last weekend’s Turning the Tides Conference, but it resumes her occasional series on immigration. Here are the earlier installments on immigration and the previous coverage of Turning the Tides.

Clare Lopez gave a riveting presentation on Saturday morning under the National Security Concerns segment, along with Ann Corcoran and Jim Simpson. I want to focus on Ms. Lopez’s talk first because she set the stage for understanding many of the security concerns that face our nation.

Lopez was an operations officer for the CIA for twenty years, serving domestically and abroad. She is a private consultant now specializing in Islam, counter-terrorism, Iran, and the Middle East.

In her remarks, Lopez noted that Islam is a complete way of life, a totalitarian socio-political system governed by a strict juridical framework called shariah. It has a religious component and relies on force to convert and expand. Islam means submission and Muslim means one who submits, said Lopez. stressing that the whole system hangs together on the individual submitting to shariah.

As I see it, it’s not just a metaphysical contemplation of eternity as we traditionally think of religion. The religious component of Islam adds to the intensity of some of its adherents.

To me, Allah is not a loving personal God who sent his son Jesus Christ to redeem the lost; rather, Allah is an impersonal, detached deity and the only way for a person to be sure of paradise is to die as a martyr for the cause. Now that is a powerful motivator.

The secular elite in our government refuse to acknowledge that Islam is a political system and prefer to call it a religion of peace, thus compounding the lie that it is only a religion and that it is peaceful. The elites are importing Muslims just as fast as they can, despite the obvious contradiction between the concept of free citizens and submission to shariah. These two ideas cannot be forced into the same framework. They cannot coexist, no matter how many Priuses drive by with “Coexist” bumper stickers.

Our First Amendment right to freedom of religion is being misused to protect the importation of shariah as a religious “right.” Communism was not protected under the First Amendment as a religion because it is a totalitarian system of government. Back in the 1950s and 1960s our public schools taught courses to explain the differences between communism and our values. Sadly, now Islam is being taught in our schools as a religion of peace rather than the vile totalitarian repressive system that it is.

Returning to Ms. Lopez’s presentation, she noted many of our progressive leaders search for the answer as to why they hate us. The answer is clear, although they carefully avoid it: free societies stand in the way of a caliphate under shariah law.

“An Islamic Caliphate in 7 Easy Steps,” a slide presented by Ms. Lopez, is based on a must-read article that was written in 2005 on the future of terrorism. The article is a review of the book al-Zarqawi – al-Qaida’s Second Generation, by Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein.

Hussein writes, “I interviewed a whole range of al-Qaida members with different ideologies to get an idea of how the war between the terrorists and Washington would develop in the future.” The resulting seven steps are prescient when viewed from 2016.

  • 1st Phase: 2000-2003 – “the awakening”
  • 2nd Phase: 2003-2006 – “Opening Eyes”
  • 3rd Phase: 2007-2010 – “Arising & Standing Up”
  • 4th Phase: 2010-2013 – collapse of hated Arab governments (Arab Spring)
  • 5th Phase: 2013-2016 – Declaration of the caliphate
  • 6th Phase – Total confrontation
  • 7th Phase – Definitive Victory, predicted by the year 2020

Remember this article was written in 2005, so the terrorists were able to assess the first phase which was already completed at that point.

Hussein then states:

“The aim of the attacks of 9/11 was to provoke the US into declaring war on the Islamic world and thereby “awakening” Muslims. The first phase was judged by the strategists and masterminds behind al-Qaida as very successful. The battle field was opened up and the Americans and their allies became a closer and easier target.”

Lopez noted the network is banking on recruiting young men during this period. Iraq should become the center for all global operations, with an “army” set up there and bases established in other Arabic states.

Phase 3 may have not occurred exactly on schedule, but certainly seems to be happening now.

“There will be a focus on Syria,” prophesies Hussein, based on what his sources told him. The fighting cadres are supposedly already prepared and some are in Iraq. Attacks on Turkey and — even more explosive — in Israel are predicted. Al-Qaida’s masterminds hope that attacks on Israel will help the terrorist group become a recognized organization. The author also believes that countries neighboring Iraq, such as Jordan, are also in danger.”

The Arab Spring was the name the media gave to Phase 4 which resulted in “the creeping loss of the regimes’ power (that) will lead to a steady growth in strength within al-Qaida.”

Phase 5 will be the point at which an Islamic state, or caliphate, can be declared. ISIS declared the caliphate in June of 2014.

That brings us to the present day of total confrontation.

Jihad is being waged physically with attacks all over the globe, continued Claire. A subtler approach is the infiltration of our culture by hijra, or immigration.

This is a concept deeply embedded into Islam, one that I believe actually works quite well. The Muslim armies wreak havoc displacing people who flee to other lands bringing Islam with them. The “refugees” currently are thousands of young men who are invading western countries. They then set up “no go zones” in their new countries to serve as the beachhead for the new caliphate. They provide manpower for attacks locally and subvert the government by bankrupting it through the use of welfare and social services. Widespread corruption in our welfare system has been reported. The Muslims see it as a form of tax, jizya, that nonbelievers must pay to Muslims. So naïve western countries are paying the jizya to their superiors (or so the Muslims see it). As they increase, they then demand accommodation to their beliefs, thus introducing shariah law into the society.

Finally, Lopez noted that anywhere that a Muslim pledges allegiance to the caliphate becomes a beachhead for ISIS. Mosques are the command and control centers for this total confrontation.

The plan to defeat America is not through terrorism but to build a domestic Muslim movement that claims adherents, occupies territory, and challenges the existing government and society for authority.

The three stages of jihad according to Lopez are:

  1. Immigrate into western nations.
  2. Infiltrate western governments.
  3. Establish the Caliphate and implement shariah law.

The mosque is the nerve center of a Muslim community. It is a house of prayer, worship, ceremony, and for collecting the zakat (required contributions). It is also an Islamic beachhead in enemy territory, a recruitment, indoctrination, and training center. It is the command and control center for jihad. Raids on Paris mosques as of December 2, 2015 resulted in French authorities seizing 334 weapons, including 145 long guns and 34 “weapons of war” (military-grade weapons), jihadist literature, and IS videos.

It was a sobering presentation of facts we all had seen, but hadn’t been presented in such a manner. Given the roadmap that’s been placed in front of us and the progress radical Islamists have made on their plan, it’s more clear to me that we need to halt immigration now. Just as it would have been insanity to import adherents to the Nazi ideology during World War II, it is insanity to import adherents to Islam now.

Odds and ends number 78

Here I go again, producing those little dribs and drabs of information that I need a sentence to a couple paragraphs to discuss.

For example, I don’t need to give much more than an “attaboy” to Ted Cruz for continuing to stand against ethanol subsidies yet succeed in Iowa, as Leon Wolf pointed out recently at RedState. Such a stance may not make me a lot of friends among the corn farmers locally, but I’ll bet the chicken producers would love to see a decrease in the price for a bushel and I suspect once the Renewable Fuel Standard is pulled it will give them a break. Let’s hope Cruz (or some other GOP candidate) follows through on this common sense. After all, according to my friend Rick Manning at Americans for Limited Government, the deficit last year was $677 billion so putting ethanol subsidies on the chopping block would make fiscal sense as well.

As Richard Falknor at Blue Ridge Forum points out, though, we have a large number of gutless wonders in our House of Representatives who don’t care that the latest omnibus was a budget-buster. Maybe they just need to read some advice from my Patriot Post cohort Mark Alexander, who reminded us of what our Founding Fathers said 240 years ago. We really do need a revival of the Spirit of ’76. (I’m old enough to remember the Bicentennial, by the way.) As Alexander writes about the current GOP crop:

Patriots, in this presidential election year, I invoke this timeless wisdom from George Washington’s farewell address (1796): “Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” Indeed, there are among even the ranks of Republican presidential contenders some pretenders. Caveat Emptor! The future of Liberty hinges on the ability and willingness of grassroots Patriots to distinguish between the genuine article and the false prophets.

Yet while Ted Cruz seems to be one of the few who is standing up for conservative principles in Congress, as Erick Erickson adds at his new website, The Resurgent, the Establishment has decided to throw its lot in with Donald Trump to stop Cruz’s polling advances. Yes, politics makes strange bedfellows.

None may be stranger than those in the state of South Dakota where the drive for non-partisan elections I told you about a few weeks ago made the ballot. Local talk radio host Rick Knobe is spearheading the effort:

For too long, both political parties have been shouting over each other at the expense of the voters, and now have an opportunity to do something about it. Just look at the growing number of registered Independents, which now numbers over 100,000 in South Dakota. That number is growing here and across the country. When this measure passes, those 100,000 South Dakotans will have the opportunity to fully participate in the election process.

The state as a whole had 521,017 registered voters as of the 2014 elections so it appears about 20-25% are not affiliated. If it is adopted in this election, the state will move to a non-partisan primary for 2018. I suspect the two major parties will lose a significant amount of their support should this happen, so this is something to watch as it develops.

Immigration is one of the issues that has thoroughly disgusted a number of former Republicans who bolted the party when the elites adopted a pro-amnesty stance. Recently many Republicans (including the aforementioned Ted Cruz and our Congressman Andy Harris) supported a major expansion of H-1B visas despite a claim from the Center for Immigration Studies that found no evidence of a labor shortage in those occupations. One has to question how many semi-skilled workers are idle in this area due to the H-1B visa.

Finally, I’m going to circle back to Erick Erickson. I’ve been impressed with his new website, one which I can read without being overrun by annoying pop-up ads and false story breaks that only serve to increase page view count (in order to extort more money from would-be advertisers.) On Thursday he had a candid assessment of how his website was doing and so far he seems to be successful. Good news for those of us who value content over clickbait.

So ends another (hopefully) clickbait-free edition of odds and ends. Now my mailboxes are empty once again.

2016: a pivotal year

By Cathy Keim

Here I am writing this piece on January 3, 2016, after being absent for most of the month of December. I had a wonderful holiday filled with family and friends from all over the world, and I hope that you had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year too.

My husband and I were just over in Washington, DC, to visit with some family and had the opportunity to go to the Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park. It’s a great zoo, but I was trying to figure out where in the Constitution it said that the federal government should be funding a world class zoo. I couldn’t remember where that would be.

The Smithsonian Institute receives about 70% of its funding from the government. This is just one example of how our tax dollars are spent on “worthy” projects that are not Constitutional, yet most of us don’t even think about it anymore. We are used to the federal government encroaching into every sphere of our lives.

I read some of the propaganda that they have gotten children to write, then posted for the visitors to read. One piece was from a young girl that was calling upon us to work harder to save the tigers. It was an excellent example of Common Core English skills using emotionally charged adjectives to drive people to take action. (I have read the lesson plans for just such activities. Common Core would rather have the students use emotion than reason to write a persuasive piece.)

I kept wondering why this young lady was so worked up about tigers when our federal leadership could not take the time to cut the funding for Planned Parenthood despite being caught red-handed selling baby parts for profit. It seems that tigers are much more important than easily replaceable babies.

The inability of our leaders to act upon such horrific revelations as selling baby parts leads to my premise that 2016 is a pivotal year for our Republic. We have sunk to such depths in our understanding of what the American Experiment is about that many are calling this our last chance to right the ship of state.

Over my break I took the opportunity to look through some of these assessments.

Daniel Horowitz listed the top ten betrayals of the GOP elites, all of which Michael and I have covered as they happened.

Phyllis Schlafly shocked people with her statement after the passage of the omnibus bill last month,

This is a betrayal of the grassroots and of the Republican Party. We thought we were electing a different crowd to stand up for America, and they didn’t. We’re extremely outraged by what Congress has done. Nancy Pelosi couldn’t have engineered it any better. I think the people are going to react by electing Donald Trump.

Maryland’s own Ann Corcoran has started a new blog to encourage people to join the fight to save America. She has done yeoman’s work for years at her Refugee Resettlement Watch to bring attention to the deeply flawed Refugee Resettlement program. Her new blog is American Resistance 2016!

They are changing America by changing the people! Will you fight to save it, or allow the greatest nation on earth to perish?

But the quote that most caught my attention was by Diana West. She was responding to a plea by Brent Bozell for conservatives to get behind Ted Cruz because he has been leading the fight for conservative issues. Diana said:

To be honest, if these were the only issues under discussion in this GOP presidential primary season I would hardly be able to make myself pay attention. It’s not that they are unimportant issues. Personally, I support every one of them. But they are not existential issues. They are not the issues on which the very future of the Republic hangs. They are issues that a responsible Republican House and Senate, if they were loyal to their oath and to their constituents, could today begin to rectify all by themselves. (Emphasis mine.)

Our elected leaders could have stopped the funding for Obamacare, Planned Parenthood, immigration, etc. but they did not. That is why the base is done with them. That is why Donald Trump is drawing such support.

I went to Donald Trump’s website and read his immigration plan.

His three bullet points are:

1. A nation without borders is not a nation. There must be a wall across the southern border.

2. A nation without laws is not a nation. Laws passed in accordance with our Constitutional system of government must be enforced.

3. A nation that does not serve its own citizens is not a nation. Any immigration plan must improve jobs, wages and security for all Americans.

It is remarkable that his plan is seen as remarkable. Most of the points on his plan are common sense, but our leadership seems to have lost their common sense.

Roger Simon says at PJ Media:

The rise of Donald Trump is a good thing, not because any one man can easily change the course of history, not because he’s necessarily the best candidate (although he could be), but because his rise indicates that a lot of people who often ignore things are waking up to this extreme situation.

We are in for a rough ride in 2016. Our GOP leadership has given President Obama a pass on everything he has wanted right up until he finishes his term with their funding of the omnibus bill.

Winston Churchill was the man for his time. He spent the years leading up to World War II pleading with his government to rearm and to prepare for the fight ahead. The appeasers refused to listen to him, but when the time came, he was ready to lead. Donald Trump has not spent the last decade in opposition to the government and many of his statements give me heartburn, but on the great issue of our time he is leading as no other candidate.

Immigration: The SEASON Act and its effects

By Cathy Keim

Second in an ongoing series.

I am using my prerogative to switch to a different immigration topic because a friend sent this Breitbart article and pointed out that Rep. Andy Harris is on the list, as is Senator Barbara Mikulski. As I mentioned before, immigration is such a broad subject that one cannot cover all the angles in just an article or two.

I actually wrote to Andy Harris about the Strengthen Employment and Seasonal Opportunities Now (SEASON) Act (H.R. 3918) back on November 12. I saw him later that day at the Kathy Szeliga event and I asked him about his support for this bill.

He stated that the Obama administration had changed the regulations about the H2B visa program and HR 3918 was merely to return things to the way they were done previously, adding that employers needed the foreign workers to do these jobs that Americans will not do. I asked about the families of H2B workers and he said that they were not allowed to bring their families with them.

But I checked on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) website and it clearly states that:

Any H-2B worker’s spouse and unmarried children under 21 years of age may seek admission in H-4 nonimmigrant classification. Family members are not eligible for employment in the United States while in H-4 status.

So I must disagree with the Congressman’s assertion. My concern was that if the families enter with the worker, then they will most certainly have an impact on the local economy as the children enroll in school and utilize other social services.

The H2B visa worker may be a boon for the employer, but the rest of the community is underwriting the social service costs for the cheap labor. In addition, we are paying the welfare costs of our unemployed citizens who could be working instead of a foreign worker. The taxpayer is picking up the tab in every direction while the employer is improving his profits.

The employers complain that Americans won’t do these jobs, but it is likely that they would do them if they were paid a fair wage. The employers utilize the H2B visa program to bring in foreign workers to keep the wages depressed.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management:

In a separate final rule, the departments unveiled the methodology for determining the prevailing wage that must be paid to H-2B workers.

(snip)

The Economic Policy Institute’s (vice-president Ross) Eisenbrey expressed disappointment that the rule allows alternative wage surveys to set the prevailing wage. “Employers only use these alternative surveys to ensure that they can pay their workers the least possible amount, rather than using credible and reliable survey data compiled by DOL,” he said, pointing to the seafood industry as an example as having used private wage surveys to justify “paying their H-2B workers wages near the federal minimum wage for grueling work like crab-picking, rather than the higher average wages paid across Virginia and Maryland for similar work.”

Here is a link to information about the changes to the H2B visa program that were put into effect in April of this year.

I also asked Mike Smigiel, who is running against Andy Harris for the First Congressional District seat, for a statement about HR 3918. Smigiel said:

With our real unemployment numbers over 11% and the workforce participation at one of its lowest levels in years we clearly have a workforce that is hard pressed to find employment. The most vulnerable sector of the workforce are youth, legal immigrants, and those with a high school education or less. Record numbers of Americans are living in poverty and surviving on food stamps, it is hard to fathom that Congress would expand the H2-B program to an all time high.

What Congressman Harris failed to address is the fact that those here on the H2-B program can bring their spouses and families in under the H-4 visas. Do you think that the spouses and children of those coming in under the H-4 visa program are not going to be working, going to school, getting sick? These associated costs will be additional burdens upon our already strained economy.

Our first obligation should be to helping our unemployed and underemployed citizens by providing this most vulnerable sector of the workforce work training and providing incentives to employers to hire citizens for the jobs.

It is disingenuous of Congressman Harris to sponsor this legislation since just a few months ago he voted to prohibit American poultry, beef or pork producers from listing the country of origin on their products. This does not benefit the consumer or farm workers but makes it easier for large farming corporations to take their operations overseas where labor is cheaper and there are fewer regulations placed upon their farming operations. Their products can then be sold in the US without any notice that they were not raised here. So thanks to Congressman Harris we may be eating Chinese chickens with American companies’ names on the product.

Once again, I would encourage you to pick up your phone and call Congressman Andy Harris and Senator Barbara Mikulski and ask them to not support HR 3918. Let’s put our own citizens back to work.

Immigration: a continuing series

By Cathy Keim

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the need to pause our immigration programs due to the many problems associated with them. It is such a complex issue, with so many areas to address, that I decided to start a continuing series where I can look at some of the more pressing problems in more detail.

We do not have an immigration problem; it could more accurately be called an invasion. Armed with Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform of the 1960s, our elite political class has decided that America needs a remake and one of their methods to achieve this is to bring in immigrants, refugees, illegal aliens, and foreign students by any means available.

For over thirty years we have been experiencing increasing numbers of people flooding into the country, but we have not been making an effort to assimilate them. The government school system does not even try to teach our own children the core beliefs upon which our country was founded or what it even means to be an American, so why would we make an effort to teach these newcomers our unique American heritage?

Immigration without assimilation equals invasion (to quote Bobby Jindal – ed.) and spells the end of America as we know it. There are many agents pushing for this expansion of our population from corporations wanting cheap labor to politicians wanting sure votes to refugee resettlement agencies (VOLAGS) that get paid by the head to bring in refugees. Obviously the motivations and methods vary, so I will address different issues separately instead of trying to cover it all at once.

One of the extremely frustrating aspects of this invasion is that ordinary Americans can see very clearly the negative effects of the masses of mostly poorly educated immigrants flooding our communities, but our elites, buffered by their upscale communities and private schools, refuse to heed the calls for halting immigration.

The Syrian refugee issue has been dominating the immigration discussion recently. It is troubling because these refugees cannot be vetted to insure that there are not jihadists hiding amongst the thousands of people fleeing the fighting. I have already touched upon some of the relevant issues, so today I will concentrate on the question of why are so many people are fleeing the Muslim crescent from Libya to Afghanistan?

The United States government has to accept responsibility for their part in the crisis through their destabilizing various governments in the area during the Arab Spring. Once the dictators were toppled, the vacuum led to an increase in fighting and chaos causing people to flee to safer areas. Some of the people came from areas that are not more chaotic than usual, but are joining the masses as economic immigrants hoping for a better life elsewhere.

When hundreds of thousands of people are on the move fleeing from war, terror, and economic chaos, it is impossible to check their credentials or vet them for security risks, disease, or criminal behavior. While our government helped create the mess, we do not have to bring them into our own country to pay penance. As pointed out before, it is much more cost effective to help them in safe places nearer their homelands so that they can return when the situation permits.

But what if there is a bigger plan behind the forced immigration? The Koran calls for hijrah, or the emigration of Muslims to other lands based on the original hijrah when Mohammad fled Mecca for Medina in 622 AD. This is the date which is used as the beginning of Mohammad’s revelations and when he became a military and political leader, not just a religious leader. Islam is a total package of political thought with military force and a religious component. It is not a just a religion. It was in Medina that Mohammad became a warlord who wreaked havoc on all those around him who didn’t conform to his ideas. Writer and expert on Islam Robert Spencer pointed this out recently:

“And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance,” says the Qur’an. “And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.” (4:100)

ISIS published an article calling for Muslims to flood into Libya where arms are plentiful and then make the voyage to Europe. The USA made sure that Libya collapsed and this is the result.

While we are certain that a percentage of the emigrants coming from the Middle East and North Africa are jihadists, what of the others that are simply fleeing the violence? ISIS has a plan for that too. The ISIS view of the world is a dark one, for they are sure that they are ushering in the end times and the return of the Mahdi.

Unlike Christian sects that have fled to the hills to await the return of Christ, ISIS takes a more forceful view. They intend to usher in the end times with murder and mayhem. They take a dim view of wishy-washy Muslims or Muslims that live in the gray zone. This would be people that just live their lives, work hard, pay their bills, and don’t give much attention to religion or don’t practice Islam according to ISIS standards. I would guess that the vast majority of mankind falls into this gray zone. While they may be called Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or some other sect, they probably don’t really pay much attention to their religious condition. In the West, this would include the secular people that do not give any credence to any deity.

ISIS has a strategy to push the West through terrorist attacks into retaliating against their Muslim populations, thus causing the non-engaged Muslims to feel a grievance against their government and move from the gray zone into active ISIS activity.

This cycle of terrorism by an ISIS-inspired Muslim living in the West, the government’s crackdown on Muslims as we are seeing in France, the resulting reaction against being treated as guilty by association, and the resulting increase in violence is exactly what ISIS desires. They want all of us to move from a gray zone, which allows for people of different faiths or no faith to live together, to a black zone where you are either for us or against us.

I will take up this development in the next installment of the series.

No matter what ISIS is doing, the first step we need to do is secure our borders and stop the influx of immigrants until things can be sorted out.

There is an opportunity to use the power of the purse to halt the Refugee Resettlement program by refusing to fund it in the omnibus spending bill that must be passed by December 11. Please call your Senators and Representative in Congress at 202-224-3121 to encourage them to not fund this program.

A modest proposal: pause all immigration into the USA while we sort things out

By Cathy Keim

Due to the Paris attacks a week ago Friday, immigration is a hot topic – especially the Refugee Resettlement Program which brings in about 65,000 refugees annually Now it is being primed to bring in 10,000 Syrians or more this year.

About 30 governors have requested that Syrian refugees not be admitted to their states. Speaker Paul Ryan is bringing a proposal to the House to stop admitting Syrian refugees. This sudden light shining on the Refugee Resettlement Program caused the Volunteer Agencies (VOLAGS) to have a conference call last week to tell the press how safe the program is.

I joined in on the call and heard some interesting information. The VOLAGS were condescending, insulting, and deceptive in their information but also attempted to tug at the heartstrings with sad stories and shame anyone who questioned bringing Syrians into the USA.

Keep in mind that the VOLAGS are paid by the head to bring the refugees in and to get them settled somewhere. Several of the VOLAGS have religious names such as Church World Service and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, but they cannot share their faith because they are supported in the 90%+ range by federal tax dollars. So one has to ask why is a “religious” organization working as a government contractor when that explicitly rules out any ability to share their religious faith with the refugee? They might as well remove the deceptive “religious” title.

I missed the first few minutes of the call, but when I joined the reporters were being assured that many refugees have been resettled for many years and we have never had an incident so our record is good. In fact, the VOLAG representative stated that their refugees are vetted much more thoroughly than other visa holders such as students, tourists, and businessmen. Hold that thought, as we will come back to it.

Addressing the governors’ moves to refuse refugees, the representative stated that the refugees are legal residents so they can move wherever they want. The governors cannot stop them once they are in the country. Later she stated that refugees must always inform Homeland Security of their new address every time they move until they become citizens, but they can move wherever they wish. (Many do migrate a second time to be closer to family or other of their countrymen. Baltimore has had a difficult time retaining the refugees that they have brought in to repopulate the inner city.)

A reporter asked if the VOLAGS keep crime statistics on the refugees. The representative cheerfully replied, “No, but I can count on one hand the crimes committed by refugees and I have worked with them for years!” This is an astonishing claim since Ann Corcoran at Refugee Resettlement Watch frequently reports on crime issues among refugees.

The spokeswoman sneered at Texas and Alabama for saying they didn’t want any Syrian refugees. She said Texas had received 238 refugees in 3 years and Alabama had received 105 refugees last year, which had an insignificant impact in her words. She compared states denying access to state services with George Wallace refusing to integrate the University of Alabama.

The reps said that the poor attitude exhibited by these governors would have a negative impact on how the refugee community interfaces with the community. Here was the example given: In Minneapolis – St. Paul where they have a huge Somali population, they have had problems with refugees trying to travel abroad to fight. The FBI meets regularly with the community and has a good rapport with them, so the families contact the FBI to stop their young men when they try to leave to fight. If the governors keep acting in an unwelcoming way, this kind of trust with be disrupted!

Wow, that is a real success story. Young men that have been raised most or all of their lives in America want to go abroad to join the jihadists, but mom calls the FBI to keep them home. Why do I not find that comforting?

In a bid for sympathy that had a threatening edge to it, the rep told how these refugees have suffered greatly due to terror and war. It is wrong to deny them the ability to join family members in the states these governors represent. Prohibiting them from joining families that are already here working, paying taxes, and being good neighbors is wrong, but these are survivors won’t be stopped. They will join their families no matter what the governors said.

The final threat was that these refugees have been through so much and have had to wait for so long in refugee camps, that if the process is delayed anymore then they may just undertake the risky trek to Europe rather than wait for America to let them in. The trek is dangerous and it will be our fault if they don’t survive it.

She also pointed out that we couldn’t deny access just to Syrians. How can you tell if they are Syrian, not Lebanese, or Jordanian? This implies that if we try, then they will just declare themselves to be from another country and who can tell? That seems to refute the thorough vetting claims, but we won’t quibble here.

Now let’s address a few points that the VOLAGS didn’t mention.

It appears that out of 2 million Christians and 80,000 Yazidis in Syria, the Refugee Resettlement Program has brought in 53 Christians and 1 Yazidi and less than 10 Druze, Baha’is and Zoroastrians combined. The reason for this is that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees decides which refugees come to the USA. The UNHCR chooses refugees from people that are in the camps that they sponsor. The minorities do not dare go to those camps because the other inhabitants will persecute them, thus they have no access to apply to the refugee program. Now you know why we are not helping the persecuted Christians.

Here is another interesting fact. If we bring a refugee to the USA, it will cost about $64,000 to take care of him for five years, but it would only cost about $5,300 for five years if he relocated in his native region, thus we could help twelve times as many people for the same cost. Since our money is limited, would it not be better to spend it more wisely?

Now back to those student visas that the rep so correctly pointed out as being dangerously unvetted. The numbers of foreign students are huge.

The Institute of International Education recently wrote regarding student visas for the academic year of 2014/2015. Here are some highlights:

  • 974,926 foreign students were admitted for this past academic year, almost double the overall level before 9/11.
  • After China, India, and South Korea, the leading country of origin is Saudi Arabia with 59,945 student visas. In addition, we took in 10,724 from Turkey, 11, 338 from Iran, and 9,034 from Kuwait.
  • Using the 44 predominantly Muslim countries we identified in our piece on green cards from Muslim countries, I counted 156,781 student visas from those same predominantly Muslim countries. This means that Muslims likely account for 16% of the foreign students, and that doesn’t include India. Roughly 10% of the Indian population is Muslim and we bring in a whopping 138,000 students from there.

Is there any wonder why U.S. college campuses are replicas of some European countries in terms of the anti-Jewish activity and pro-Palestinian activism?

Even more amazing is that in 2010 President Obama unilaterally shut down the National Security Exit-Entry Registration System (NSEERS), which was implemented after 9/11 to properly vet and track those who come here from risky countries on a student visa.

Daniel Horowitz asks,

(W)hat is tolerant about importing an ideology that is stridently intolerant, incompatible with democracy, and promotes ethnic and religious supremacism? What is humanitarian about transforming America into Europe where Jews, ironically and tragically, are forced to flee because of the growing Islamic intolerance?

We need to pause immigration and take the time to have this discussion rather than continuing heedlessly onward with ever increasing numbers of unassimilated immigrants.

Speaker Paul Ryan: Hero or Bane?

By Cathy Keim

I have been out of action due to travel and a crashed computer. Now that I am home and my computer has been revived, I would like to offer some thoughts about last week’s disheartening and cowardly betrayal of the base by our overlords in D.C.

Speaker Boehner used his last opportunity to either support President Obama’s agenda again or to clear the path for the 2016 Presidential election so that the GOP candidate can win by removing the controversial budget battle and potential government shutdown. I suppose that the GOP leadership thinks that it was the second option, but the effect on the base was to demoralize and depress them to the point where one might say we are not a two party system anymore. Instead, they contend we are a one party system with two names!

The backroom bargaining that led to the passage of the budget bill was a slap in the face to all the grassroots supporters of the GOP. The leadership may think that they have cleared the path for the new Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, to work collegially with the various factions in the House, but this seems unlikely.

Speaker Boehner passed his budget through with Democrat votes again! The majority of the Republicans voted against the budget, but not Paul Ryan. “I think this process stinks,” the speaker-in-waiting reportedly harrumphed as he walked into a meeting where Republicans were briefed about the 11th-hour agreement. “Under new management, we are not going to run the House this way.”

Speaker Boehner cleaned the barn before turning the reins over to Paul Ryan, who despite his complaint about how the budget deal came to be, did not disagree so strongly as to vote against it.

Congressman Andy Harris voted against the budget and even tweeted this plea to the senate to save us from this deal.

But in similar fashion to Ryan, he got over his angst quickly enough to vote the next day to approve Ryan as Speaker.

Where does this leave us now? Will Speaker Ryan be an improvement over John Boehner? Will it make any difference?

Our first inkling of whether Paul Ryan will try to re-establish Congressional prerogatives to check this administration will be whether he will allow riders on the next CRomnibus bill. If he allows the conservative members to attach riders, this will lead to a fight with the President. Will Ryan permit this or will he roll over for the President?

We will know soon enough since the CR has to be dealt with in December.

Another major issue to watch is immigration. Paul Ryan has been soft on immigration for years. In a bargain to be elected Speaker, he agreed to not bring up immigration reform under this President. Depending on who the next President is, this promise may not amount to much. Several of the GOP candidates are open border types as is Hillary Clinton, so this promise is a weak reed for the conservatives in Congress to lean on.

Interestingly, the House Freedom Caucus is not conservative on immigration. This makes logical sense if one realizes that many of the Freedom Caucus members are more libertarian than conservative and libertarians tend to advocate for immigration.

From Breitbart:

A recent PBS documentary exposed how Ryan and Rubio were nearly successful in their effort to pass amnesty in 2014. Ryan had crafted a bill and had the Republican votes necessary to pass it. Ryan’s amnesty effort was aided by many of the members of the House Freedom Caucus, including Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID). Mulvaney has since become one of the biggest boosters in the House Freedom Caucus of a Paul Ryan Speakership. According to the documentary, the Ryan-Rubio amnesty plan was foiled when Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA)scored a historic primary victory to oust then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor.

Sessions explained in the interview, “There’s a great danger to elect a Speaker of the House who is a leading advocate for two major issues today — trade and immigration — and advocating against the wishes of the Republican voter.”

No matter what Speaker Ryan does, I doubt if any of us will wish to have John Boehner back. But we may not find Ryan much of an improvement if he follows through on his previous positions. If he does allow for more open debate without punishing those that disagree with him and if he will return to the Hastert Rule which says the Speaker will not bring up issues for a vote which cannot be passed by a majority vote of the majority party (no more bills passed by a minority of Republicans aided by Democrats), then we may find that Paul Ryan is an improvement over John Boehner.

The wrong idea

THIS is what happens when Americans aren’t taught history.

Our former governor, who gave illegal aliens in-state tuition if they were lucky enough to have their parents make it across the border without being caught and properly tossed out of the country until they go through the proper processes to stay, now believes in “comprehensive immigration reform.” According to his “vision” page, this is what Martin O’Malley considers comprehensive immigration reform:

Bringing undocumented immigrants out of the shadows will grow our economy, expand our tax base, create jobs and lift wages – benefiting our country as a whole. We must boldly advance comprehensive immigration reform, while also using executive action to its full authority to end unnecessary detentions and expand deferred action. As Americans, when refugee children arrive on our doorstep, we shouldn’t turn them away—we should act like the generous, compassionate people we are.

Here are the series of questions I have regarding all these claims:

  • How exactly does legalizing illegal immigrants “grow our economy, expand our tax base, create jobs, and lift wages?” They are already priced into the job market because they are “doing the jobs Americans won’t do.” (Apparently this includes construction and food service now.) What’s to say they wouldn’t maintain these arrangements even if they become legal, as working on a cash basis enables them to avoid paying taxes and Social Security?
  • Moreover, this wave of illegal immigrants granted amnesty will only bring another wave of low-skilled (and probably illegal) immigrants into the country. That depresses wages, creates more of a strain on the welfare system (as the initial wave of immigrants is undercut on wages and goes on public assistance), and puts pressure on the government to do this all over again. We should have learned this after Simpson-Mazzoli in 1986.
  • What are “unnecessary detentions?” If they are here illegally, the detention should be long enough to assure they will be in court for a deportation hearing. Too often we catch and release illegal aliens who never show up for court and become those in the shadows.
  • Is the definition of “refugee” being stretched to a breaking point? Since Cuba is now apparently our friend, there really aren’t any nations close by which would have the sort of oppressive government that qualifies one for “refugee” status, nor is there an active war in our hemisphere. Just because the economic condition is bad in a place doesn’t make one a refugee from it.

And it’s interesting that O’Malley brings up the Statue of Liberty. At one time, Ellis Island was the main entry point for immigrants, who were checked for health and whether they had criminal records. Eventually there was a prohibition on children arriving without adults during this era, which ended when President Harding signed the Immigration Quota Act in 1921. So while the Statue of Liberty has been a beckoning symbol for well over a century, for much of our history we were very selective on those we would allow into the country.

Further, immigrants of that era were not given the benefit of a welfare state or catered to in their native language. Certainly we had enclaves of Germans, Poles, Italians, and so forth, but eventually these families were expected to assimilate to one degree or another.

To me, true immigration reform would return to that time of quotas and strident checking. Those who immigrate legally go through a lot of red tape to get their green cards, only to see those who bypass the process get preferential treatment. I understand life is less than fair, but that is patently unfair to those who are doing it the right way.

And to those who say we can’t round up and deport 11 million illegals? It’s been done, and if the political will is there we can do it again. Most of them would self-deport once the word got out we were serious.

Let’s face it. The real need for reform is on the other side of the border, where our economy and largess has been a crutch to many nations for far too long. When remittances make up over 1/6 of a nation’s economy, this is an issue. (Surprisingly, the share in Mexico is quite low, but they are still a larger share of GDP than tourism.)

For the true sake of our country’s security, well-being, and economic growth, we need to rethink our immigration policies, restoring them to the point where we can be selective in who we choose to admit. It doesn’t mean we won’t accept people who work hard, but it does mean we want them to become Americans first and dissolve into our vast melting pot – as my German and Polish forefathers did over a century ago.

A look ahead: 2015 on the national front

You know, it’s disgusting yet telling that I could use much of what I said last year word for word as my prediction for 2015, like these paragraphs:

We will see absolutely zero effort to reform entitlements, whether Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security. This will be another year they hurtle toward insolvency, probably going splat just in time for Generation X to reach retirement age in about 15 years. (That would be me – I’m on the cusp between Gen X and Boomer.)

Nor do I care how many articles of impeachment are drawn up: the House leadership doesn’t have the courage to pursue it, nor would they ever get the votes in the Senate to convict. They could find Barack Obama in bed with a dead girl, live boy, a bloody knife in his right hand and a signed confession in his left and the Democrats would swear the boy set him up and the girl stabbed herself thirteen times – in the back – and not convict him.

It doesn’t matter how poor the economy is, either. The government won’t dare stop priming the pump to the tune of a trillion dollars a year in debt, parceling out $80 billion or so of “quantitative easing” monthly. When the Dow and its record highs are the one factor of success apologists for Obama can point to, anything which maintains that facade will be continued despite the possibility of long-term inflationary catastrophe – again, probably in time for Generation X to retire.

Just as ineffective is our foreign policy, which has been a muddled mess as old friends are ignored and longtime enemies coddled. We may have an idea of what the hotspots may be, but events have a way of occurring at the most inopportune times and places for American interests.

Here’s the problem. We have a Republican Congress once again, for the first time since the 2006 elections. But it’s all but certain to me that they will be the do-nothing Congress, as the lame-duck session showed. Many would want me to have faith in the leadership, and I understand the political reality being what it was led us into the budget deal that enshrined the government spending for the rest of the fiscal year (except for the Department of Homeland Security, funding for which is supposed to expire in February to set up a fight over Obama’s amnesty.) But why do I think Republicans will cite some obscure (and probably push-polled) data which tells it to avoid that messy immigration fight and just fund DHS for the rest of the fiscal year so they can have the fight in September? Then they’ll tell us we’re too close to the 2016 election.

Each time Congress has been begged to act, they have kicked the can down the road.

But that leads me to another point, and it’s been gnawing at me for some time now. Unfortunately I’m not sure just how it gets resolved.

Supposedly we are the United States of America. But are we really…united?

Over the last decade, we have been continually divided – red against blue, religious against agnostic (or religion vs. religion in the case of Christians and Jews vs. Muslims), and now at its most pronounced, black against white. Some consider those who are the enforcers of law to be the criminals, as are those elected officials who create it.

There’s a deep distrust of our fellow man these days, so we all retreat inward and look suspiciously at those who we don’t know. Thousands of people are on high alert with their guns at the ready against someone…they don’t know who that Other is, but many of us are tense and on edge, almost as if we are on a war footing. I imagine my ancestors may have felt the same way about the prospect of Japs or Nazis marching into our neighborhoods during the two world wars.

The person who will have the most impact on 2015 on a national scale is someone whose role we don’t know yet, but he or she will emerge either as the healer we all need or the person who tears the fabric of our society to bits. It may be a little hyperbolic, and I’m not going to go all Book of Revelations on you or assume that Jefferson’s quote about the tree of liberty is our fate, but we are rapidly approaching a point of no return if things continue the way they are. To borrow a term favored by Radical Green, our current path is unsustainable.

Too many people have come to the way of thinking which believes there’s not a dime’s worth of difference between the Republicrats and the Demoblicans. The only clear winners seem to be the small elite which runs Washington and Wall Street, leaving the shrinking middle class to fend for itself. That’s not the way it’s supposed to be; certainly that’s not the way I want it to be. But as more and more Americans say about that perception: it is what it is.

Truly I hope I am wrong in my assessment of how things will be on a national scale, particularly when so much good can be done on the local and state levels. But it can all be undone with a single spark that lights our national tinderbox, so it seems to me the thing to do is pray for the best and prepare for the worst.

Being the ‘manufacturing voter’

Since I parted ways with American Certified a few months ago, I haven’t followed the manufacturing world as much as I had while writing for them. But they still hold an important place in our economy and the question needs to be asked: are you a manufacturing voter?

This video was put out by the National Association of Manufacturers, which has a full-size spread just in time for this year’s election. They stress seven key issues:

Immigration

The immigration system in the United States is broken. Comprehensive reform will strengthen U.S. economic and national security and ensure that manufacturers’ workforce needs are met, without displacing American workers.

Energy

Energy is poised to be a significant competitive advantage for manufacturing in the United States. In fact, the United States enjoys a slight advantage on energy costs compared to our major trading partners. The United States can widen this gap and enhance our energy security.

Labor

In recent years, the nation’s time-tested labor law system has faced significant challenges. The National Labor Relations Board, for example, has issued rules and orders that undermine employer flexibility and chill workplace relations. U.S. labor laws should safeguard the rights of employees and employers.

Workforce

Nearly 12 million men and women work in manufacturing in the United States. This workforce can grow significantly if manufacturers can find workers with the skills needed for the modern manufacturing workplace. Today, 600,000 manufacturing jobs are unfilled because of this skills gap.

Trade

To thrive in the global economy, manufacturers need trade policies that make the United States a better place from which to export. Manufacturers thrive when they can compete in open markets abroad.

Infrastructure

Manufacturers rely on a strong infrastructure to move people, products and ideas. Unfortunately, the nation’s infrastructure is out of date and resting on the legacy of a bygone era. To compete in the 21st-century economy, the United States must invest in and modernize our infrastructure in ways that encourage economic growth, job creation and increased competitiveness.

Tax Reform

Manufacturers in the United States face a significant disadvantage in the global competition for investment and jobs. In fact, it is 20 percent more expensive to manufacture in this country compared to our major trading partners and that excludes the cost of labor. Taxes drive this cost disadvantage.

I’m not sure whether their idea for immigration reform matches up with mine; presumably they operate under the incorrect belief that there aren’t enough qualified Americans to do the specialized engineering they need. But in a broad sense, what assists manufacturing would probably help the economy at large.

And our Congressman Andy Harris seems to agree with NAM’s approach – so much so that he scores a perfect 100 percent on their voter guide. By a wide margin, he has the best record of any Maryland or Delaware House member.

Yet this approach is also needed on a local scale as well. While Maryland state representatives can’t do a great deal with some issues that require federal input, they can pave the way on issues like tax reform, energy, job training, and infrastructure to put more Marylanders to work making things.

Lowering the corporate tax rate (or even eliminating it) would be a great step, as would opening up Maryland to fracking, promoting technical and vocational education as part of an overall broad “money follows the child” educational reform, and dumping inefficient light rail boondoggles like the Purple Line and Red Line in favor of creating alternative routes for through trucks, another Bay crossing from southern Maryland to the lower Shore, and upgrading the U.S. 13 corridor through Delaware – these are all worthy ideas for real investment.

Those who vote for manufacturing should keep that platform in mind when those candidates get to Annapolis and Washington.

Border security, VA among chief concerns at Harris Salisbury townhall

It was a fairly packed house at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 194 in Salisbury as Congressman Andy Harris held the second of four proposed town hall meetings in the district. After speaking in Easton on Wednesday, many of those same topics came up last night.

But the first order of business was recognition. After pointing out that unemployment among veterans was higher than the average – “I can’t figure that out,” Harris said – Andy presented a Congressional Citation to Chris Eccleston, who operates Delmarva Veteran Builders, a local construction firm which specializes in giving veterans job opportunities upon return to civilian life.

Once that presentation was out of the way, Harris introduced his “three things of great concern.”

As opposed to past negativity about the situation, Andy considered the declining deficit as a piece of good news, noting that federal spending had been fairly level for the last three years. The annual deficit is down $550 billion from its peak, although the aim of the House is to eventually bring the budget back to balance. Andy, however, conceded that the “House’s goal is to balance the budget in ten years.” So while it was still important, Andy wasn’t as concerned about this as he was the following three.

He also said there was “good news on the energy side,” pointing out we now produce more oil than we import and should be the leading world producer of both oil and natural gas by year’s end. The oil production was helped by technology which allowed what he called secondary and tertiary production from existing wells, as opposed to the primary production from new drilling.

On the other hand, Harris believed that, “in terms of immigration, the system is broken.”

“The border is just not being enforced,” he added, noting that Texas Governor Rick Perry has called out his state’s National Guard to assist with border security. In legislation recently passed by the House, added Harris, funding was included for governors who, like Perry, decide to call up their National Guard to address the situation.

“We can’t afford to have a border that’s not secure,” explained Harris.

The news was equally troubling on the foreign policy front. “The world is more dangerous now than it was six years ago (before Obama took office),” said Harris. It wasn’t just the Middle East, either – Andy touched upon the Chinese carriers now patrolling the South China Sea, well outside their territorial waters.

And while we were reaping the effects of our decrease in defense spending, Andy continued, we were also suffering from a lack of trust. Our allies could now doubt our sincerity based on recent actions.

After expressing his main concerns, Andy took questions from the audience. As my editorial license, I’m going to cluster them into areas of concern – on top of the list was our most recent crisis.

Immigration. Many of the questions dealt with various aspects and concerns from those attending about the situation on our southern border and the resettlement of “unaccompanied children.”

Much of the problem could be traced to the passage of a 2008 bill intended to counter human trafficking. Andy noted that the law as written provided the assumption that children from certain Central American countries were being brought for the sex trade, which was a problem at the time. It was estimated that perhaps 2,000 children a year would be affected, with the idea being that these children would get a hearing to ascertain their status.

Unfortunately, the crush of those claiming status under this law and the DACA order signed by Barack Obama in 2012 means that the waiting period for these hearings is anywhere from 18-60 months – and only 46% of those called show up, Andy said. One third of them are “granted status,” he added.

“We should close the loophole,” said Harris. “I don’t see how you get out of the problem without changing the law.” We also needed more judges on a temporary basis to expedite the hearing schedule.

A solution the House could offer to rescind Obama’s order would be that of defunding the executive action, for which there was a bill. And while some were pessimistic about such action given the Senate, Harris stated that the Senate could agree to “a compromise deal over a much larger package.” My concern would be what we would have to trade away.

Andy also pointed out that the resettlement of these children was more or less being done without telling local officials, noting when the Westminster facility was being considered the word came down late on a Thursday afternoon in a week the House wasn’t in session on Friday. It eventually led to the question about those being placed in Maryland.

When asked how many were in the First District, Harris conceded he had “no idea…nobody’s telling us.”  But he continued by saying, “your school system will be affected,” adding that many of these children can’t read or write in Spanish, let alone English.

And the fact that these children aren’t necessarily being screened, vaccinated, or quarantined if necessary was also troubling to Harris. “The CDC is cognizant of it,” said Harris, who had spoken himself with the CDC head. Of course, the children are but a small portion of those crossing – perhaps 10 percent, said Harris.

“The real solution is you have to secure the American border,” concluded Harris. Rapid hearing and swift repatriation would send the message to parents in the host countries that it’s not worth the expense and risk to send children northward to America.

The VA situation. Given that the town hall meeting was being held in a VFW hall, there were concerns aplenty about the state of the Veterans Administration and its health care.

As part of a VA reform bill which recently passed and the VA has 90 days to implement, veterans who live over 40 miles from a VA facility are supposed to have the option of a private physician to address their needs. But Harris pointed out there was some interpretation involved based on whether the VA would extend that standard to an appropriate facility for the type of care needed – for example, something only handled in Baltimore. Harris hoped the interpretation would allow veterans on the Lower Shore to use closer local facilities, for which our local regional medical center could be a substitute provider, rather than make them travel to Baltimore because there was a VA clinic inside the 40-mile range but it couldn’t address the need. “They regulate, and we have to watch them,” said Andy.

The ultimate goal was “to make the VA system compete,” said Harris.

Entitlements. On a related note, one questioner asked about protecting Social Security and Medicare.

Andy believed that “you can’t change the law retroactively,” meaning that the status quo should prevail for those 55 and older. On the other hand, those in the younger generation “don’t expect all of it,” so the time was now to begin the discussion on preserving what benefits we can. The question was no longer if we got to zero in Social Security and Medicare, but when – Social Security tax receipts peaked two years ago and were now slowly declining . “We know the figures,” added Andy.

The system is “not sustainable…shame on us” in Congress for not addressing it.

Foreign policy. There were a couple questions which dealt with this topic, one on Ukraine and one on defunding Hamas.

Regarding Ukraine, one piece of “bad news” which could affect us locally was Russia’s decision to halt chicken imports from America. Their preference for dark meat nicely complemented our love of white meat, so while it wasn’t a large market it was an important one.

But in the geopolitical sense, Harris was relatively blunt. “We let it all go too far (and) should have put a stop to this in Crimea.” Andy pointed out that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in the Budapest Memorandum, which we were a party to along with Great Britain, Russia, and Ukraine. As expected, Russia violated its end of the deal, but Harris noted “I don’t know where it ends.”

As for defunding Hamas, the House did so in its FY2015 budget. In it is a provision that states if Hamas is included in a Palestinian Authority government, we would withhold funding from them.

Andy added that he was “disappointed” in the administration’s lack of Israel support, and blasted Hamas for “purposefully aiming (their rockets) into civilian areas – that’s terrorism.” He added, “The war was started by Hamas…Israel has to end it.”

Impeachment/lawsuit vs. Obama. It actually started as a comment from the audience while Harris was explaining his answer to the immigration issue and Westminster situation.

“I think Obama is an enemy of the country,” it was said. And when Andy pointed out he was duly elected as President, stating, “nobody is claiming (Obama) wasn’t elected fair and square,” the audible murmur in the audience indicated otherwise.

But Andy believed suing Obama over his lack of adherence to the Constitution was the best choice. “Let the Supreme Court decide,” he said, as the proper procedure for changing law was supposed to lead through Congress. He would not vote for impeachment, but would rather the lawsuit run its course. I don’t think that was the popular sentiment of those assembled.

Term limits. This was actually the first question out of the chute, and Andy was clear about the questioner’s desire to see them enacted: “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Harris. He bemoaned the lack of co-sponsors to a Joint Resolution he introduced last year holding both Senators and members of Congress to 12-year limits. “Part of the problem is that people view it as a lifetime job,” said Andy. Most agree term limits are necessary, so Andy held out hope that the 2014 campaign will bring out a new “Contract With America” promising a vote on the issue.

Common Core: It was actually asked as an awareness question regarding the new AP history framework, to which Harris could only promise to “look into this.” But there was language being considered for the appropriations bills which stated the federal government couldn’t provide incentives to adopt Common Core, as they did for Race to the Top federal funding.

Transportation/energy. Answering a question about bringing light rail to this area, Harris opined it was “some of the least efficient ways to transport people.”  He preferred a surface transportation system, such as busses, because they’re more flexible – if the development doesn’t follow the rail system, there’s no chance of adjusting it to suit.

On the related subject of energy, Harris believed it was easier to produce fossil fuels while researching the next generation of energy harnessing, such as fusion or hydrogen cells. At this point, “fossil fuels are the coin of the realm,” Harris said.

Maximizing our resources also provides us an opportunity to counter Russia’s “ability to use energy for bad ends.” He also warned that Canada would either send its crude to us through the Keystone XL pipeline or ship it to China.

Manufacturing. Finally, we’ll get to the question I asked about making things in Maryland and America.

Andy began his answer by referring to the practice of tax inversion, which has made news lately. He blamed our “horrendous” corporate tax rates for being an incentive for companies to stray offshore, or even just across the border to Canada (which has a 15% corporate tax rate compared to our 35%.) “We live in a global environment,” said Andy, so the obvious solution was to cut our corporate tax rates.

Rather, Washington was thinking about trying to make the practice more difficult. Harris feared it would encourage more inversions.

Other steps to getting things made in America were to continue promoting cheap energy – as methane is the basis for many plastic products, having an abundant supply would be crucial in that area of production. We could also work on scrapping some of the over-regulation plaguing our job creators.

After the hourlong forum, Andy stayed around for more questions and answers. I thought the give-and-take was excellent, and it’s a shame more local media wasn’t there.

The influx

In this time of crisis on the southern border, it’s worth having an idea of what the long-term effects can be. While the source of the information is the immigration hardliners at the Center for Immigration Studies, the figures don’t lie. This is particularly noteworthy as Maryland is one of the top destination states for immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

So the trends are disturbing, as most of the statistics cited by CIS would suggest the influx of illegal aliens would be a drain on the system – among current immigrants from those nations, they are more likely to be lacking a high school diploma and either live in poverty and/or be enrolled in some sort of welfare program despite holding a job at about the same proportion as native-born Americans.

Granted, the CIS figures are released by an entity that bills itself as “low-immigration, pro-immigrant.” But imagine that 20,000 of these new immigrants find their way to Maryland – what does that mean for the state’s financial situation? This is particularly troubling long-term as the Anthony Brown platform includes at least $9.15 million in state money to give student loans to children of illegal aliens. Obviously more such children will mean more of a strain on that program as well as other supplemental income programs Maryland taxpayers already provide.

For too long business has looked the other way as illegal aliens came in, willing to take jobs for lower wages than the native-born. But now the conditions are a little different because the use of child labor is frowned upon and a larger proportion of those crossing the border are minors, many of whom are unaccompanied.

Having an immigrant underclass is nothing new in American history. Leading into the Great Depression, the immigrant population hovered around 13 to 15 percent before declining under 10 percent for most of the remainder of the 20th century. In fact, we are only now beginning to reach the point where we were a century ago insofar as percentage is concerned.

But the question going forward is whether they will assimilate as well as their European forefathers did, and based on how we’ve done over the last 30 years since the Simpson-Mazzoli amnesty, I can’t see the new wave of immigrants doing much to become Americans. Yet they don’t mind accepting our dollars.