Croom Station Signal

A Hard Working Immigrant Speaks Truth to the Cheap Foreign Labor Lobby

From the ABA Journal Magazine, August 2011:

"I was once an immigrant from a third-world country, where corruption is widespread in all levels of the government.

"Although our constitution guaranteed us freedom of speech, in reality one can easily be executed for saying something inimical to the greedy government officials’ interest.

"The influx of immigrants here from my country of origin greatly boosts that country’s economy. And here is why. Roughly 140,000 employment visas are issued to aliens to work here as skilled and non-skilled worker every year. For skilled worker, one is required to possess a bachelor’s degree.

"However, a degree in a third world country isn't remotely comparable to a bachelor’s degree here because of disparity in quality of education. In a third world country, one is guaranteed a degree by merely paying all the tuition fees and 90% class attendance. The educational institutions there are primarily motivated solely by generating revenue rather than providing quality education.

"Despite the disparity, US is giving equivalent credits to those degrees resulting in employing alien graduates here mostly as teachers and health personnel.

"Now once this alien worker obtains a green card, they will petition for their alien relatives. Most of the petitioned relatives specially the parents will not find a job. After these relatives obtained citizenship in five years, they will put them on welfare—a preconceived intent formulated since the petition was filed. Entitling to benefits can easily be achieved because most foreigners have a tight-knit family and usually live under one roof hence will show no assets at all.

"My country of origin produces a lot of graduates who are employed all over the world despite of our no-quality education. Because part of our culture is to help our relatives back in our country of origin, we send “remittances” out of our monthly pay to that country which is indubit-ably a great boost to their economy and blissfully, to the corrupt government officials."

Read the article (OK, its shamelessly about me), where this revealing story is posted as comment number 5 by "Sam."

GOP Politics of Illegal Alien College Tuition

The thoughtful Americans at the Center for Immigration Studies have one of the more observant (and yet so disappointing) insights into the feckless electoral campaign of Texas Gov. Rick Perry:

The heated exchange between Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Rick Perry over the issue of in-state college tuition for illegal aliens illustrates how different candidates might approach a policy problem for which there's no easy answer. Where they come down on this issue shows whether a candidate is able to make tough but right decisions that best serve the national interest.

Rick Perry has been defending Texas's DREAM Act Amnesty Lite.

At the September 22 Florida debate, Texas Gov.Perry defended his support for a Texas law giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens.

"If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don't think you have a heart," Perry said. "I still support it greatly."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney replied, "I think if you're opposed to illegal immigration, it doesn't mean you don't have a heart, it means you have a heart and a brain."

Perry's snarky soundbite reveals a lot about him. Some 32,000 illegal aliens already received taxpayer subsidies of $40,000 or more for a Texas undergraduate degree course, in place of lawfully resident Texans, citizens and legal immigrants alike. So why does he come down on the side of lawbreaking illegals, and against lawful state residents?

Emotion.  Perry lets his heartstrings be his guide. He feels sorry for illegal aliens who purportedly were brought to this country as minors. Those matters of fact are hardly proven in each case, but Perry substitutes his sympathetic urges for the sort of toughness of thought and steely reasoning necessary to serving as the leader of the free world.

That's not good enough. Candidates who can't resist putting their personal feelings ahead of clearer, though tougher reasoning and allegiance to the requirements of justice are unfit to hold office. In-state tuition for illegals encourages and rewards more illegal immigration. It misallocates limited public resources, which the public has entrusted to officials. It cheats legal residents.

 

Obamanomics Hurts the American Working Man-- Bad

As President Barack Obama puts together yet another “new” jobs plan, he is up against a powerful and dangerous trend:  A smaller share of men have jobs today than at any time since World War II.**

If that sounds bleak, it is. The portion of men who work and their median wages have been eroding since the early 1970s. For decades the impact of this fact was softened in many families by the number of women going back to work. The housing bubble helped mask it by artificially stoking the male-dominated construction trades. But when real estate crashed, the portion of men holding a job—any job, full- or part-time—fell to 63.5 percent in July 2011— just a hair above the December 2009 low point of 63.3 percent.

These are the worst numbers since 1948. Among the critical category of prime working-age men between 25 and 54, only 81.2 percent held jobs. In the current recession, 80 percent of all jobs lost were held by men. In perspective, in 1969 95 percent of men in their prime working years had a job.

Men who do have jobs are getting paid less. Adjusted for inflation, median wages for men aged 30 to 50 dropped 27 percent—to $33K a year— from 1969 to 2009, according to an analysis by MIT economics professor Michael Greenstone, who was chief economist for Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. "That takes men and puts them back at their earnings capacity of the 1950s. That has staggering implications."

Moderately skilled men without a college education have taken direct hits to their employment prospects.  But even those with bachelor's degrees from less selective schools are seeing their economic worth erode. The middle is crumbling, with elites doing better while more male citizens are being pushed down the compensation scale.

What is wrong?

Lowlights of Maryland Budget Deficit Crisis from our State Budget Analyst

The General Assembly’s own Office of Policy Analysis has now pegged the 2011 state budget deficit at a crushing $1.6 BILLION.  Senate President-for-Life Mike “V.” Miller says addressing the budget black hole “is going to be very, very, difficult.”  Of course the “non-partisan” OPA was considerate enough to wait until AFTER November 2 to release the bad news, presumably with the humanitarian intention of avoiding fear-mongering among the peasants.  In Naptown, “V” stands for Venal. 

But a read though the charts prepared by OPA Director Warren Deschenaux show the fiscal outlook is much worse than the MSM have reported.

The OPA “Spending Affordability Briefing” is a shocking data-dump for the numerate. 

 

 I’ll try to share some of the most appalling “lowlights” here on the mighty Signal.

But you can also download the charts and tables and see for yourself at:

http://mlis.state.md.us/other/spending_affordability/briefing_111010.pdf . 

Lowlight:  The Dixiecrats claim that the last thing to be cut will be state aid for public education. But the biggest percentage increase in public education support between 2011 and 2012 will be subsidies for the schools with the highest numbers of illegal aliens, where state subsides for “limited English proficiency” payments will go up a hefty 7.7%.  The relative increase from 2010 is even higher, 9.5%, but OPC chief Warren Deschenaux conveniently omitted that figure from the briefing, which you have to calculate for yourself.  See Briefing page 14.

By contrast, funding for community colleges will rise a measley 1.9%, and supplemental state education grants, designed to improve programs for the poorest American public school students, will drop by 9.2% from 2010 to 2012.  Again, the budget analyst only provides the percent for the 2011-12 projected change, to make it look like there is no real drop at all.

Lowlight:   The worst fiscal situation in Maryland’s history since the end of federal occupation after the Civil War is barely reflected in the Dixiecrats’ suicidal entitlements for votes agenda.  Projected general fund spending on direct welfare payments is projected to metastasize 113.3 % between FY 2011 and 2012, while state medical assistance programs, which include massive subsidies for uncompensated medical care for illegal aliens, will surge 66% next fiscal year, an increase of  $1.15 BILLION DOLLARS in just 12 months!  See Briefing page 39. 

Lowlight:   While the “magic” press conference budget deficit is pegged at $1.6 BILLION, the structural deficit – that’s the “real” 2012 budget deficit of ongoing revenues less operating costs—is a staggering $2.1 BILLION.  See Briefing page 16. 

Lowlight:   The General Assembly spent like drunken sailors and stole grandma’s savings to fool the public with the 2011 budget.  Buried on the last page of the briefing is a chart innocently labeled the “Fund Transfers and Multiyear General Obligations Bond Repayment Plan.”  An inquiring taxpayer will see that the Dixiecrats “transferred” $444 MILLION for 18 key special trust funds (a total of 57 funds in all were raided) to pay the bills this year.

The “repayment plan,” to be spread over the coming four years, is of course a fantasy. Briefing page 51. Even more shocking is the $350 MILLION taken in 2011 from the Local Income Tax Reserve— income taxes collected by the state for county governments— and used instead to paper over the shortfall in funding for the soon-to-be bankrupt state teachers pension funds.  Briefing page 11. 

Lowlight:  In 2012, the state will somehow have to come up with $1.21 BILLION in new state taxes to replace one-time federal stimulus funds used to paper over the 2011 deficit.  Briefing page 11. 

Lowlight:  We're starting to pay out-of pocket for Obamacare madness in 2012.  Since BS&N (Barak, Steney and Nancy) slashed reimbursement for over-the-counter medications from the federal health savings programs starting on January 1, 2011, the state will have to pay $5.1 million just to fund the difference for state Medicaid recipients.  Briefing page 8. 

Lowlight:  The state is planning on a nearly 450% increase in video lottery terminal revenues between now and 2015 just to keep the “magic” deficit figure below its unsustainable 2011 level.  This “stupid poor people’s tax” scheme is a fiscal fantasy and a social abomination.  Briefing page 22. 

Lowlight:  Maryland has reached its maximum sustainable level for general obligation bond borrowing, which is calculated as a ceiling of 8% on state general revenues used to pay GO bond interest payments. Briefing page 26.  

The outlook for the Transportation Trust Fund is even worse.  They apparently have exceeded their sustainable borrowing limits by projecting unreal revenue levels over the next five years from vehicle titling and fuel taxes.  BOTTOM LINE:  Even if O’Malley imposes draconian taxes, Maryland’s capital spending programs, particularly for roads and public transportation, are going to take a massive hit.  Crumbling infrastructure will then takes its inevitable toll on state economic activity and the tax base it can generate.  It’s called the race to the bottom. Briefing page 23-24.

Indentured Foreign Teachers in Maryland Public Schools

I recently ran across a June 2009 report by the American Federation of Teachers spotlighting a troubling increase in the hiring of exploitable foreign teachers, primarily from the Philippines, to work in the most dysfunctional public schools in Baltimore.

 

According to the AFT report, “Importing Educators,” in 2005 Baltimore City Public Schools recruited 108 teachers from the Philippines to help meet staffing shortages in schools labeled “persistently dangerous” by the state of Maryland.

   

By 2009, more than 600 Filipino teachers, or ten percent of the city’s entire teaching force, are working in Baltimore. 

 

The recruitment process is designed to make it easy to avoid recruiting U.S. citizens for these jobs. Rather than attending job fairs throughout the Mid-Atlantic, trying to persuade American teachers and recent education school graduates to accept positions in troubled inner-city schools, Baltimore officials can “meet all their hiring needs in one trip.” The recruitment agency paid for multiple junkets by Baltimore Schools HR officials to Manila, a locale known for its sex tourism, staying in luxury hotels.  

 

Such arrangements violate many international standards for ethical recruiting and create powerful incentives for school officials to rely foreign body shops for filling positions.  Each foreign teacher recruit must pay between five and eight thousand dollar “placement fees” to a body shop contracting with the Maryland school district. In the past year, two of the Filipino teachers working in Baltimore have committed suicide, raising alarm bells about the conditions under which they work and are housed.

 

The problem is spreading rapidly to other counties in Maryland which have adopted similar hiring practices.  By summer 2009 more than 1,200 Filipino teachers alone were estimated to be working in taxpayer-funded teaching jobs state-wide.

 

One Baltimore official was quoted as saying that recruiting domestically is “almost a waste of time.”

Obama and the Revolution in France

My friend Rob Sanchez, the patriotic web warrior and author of the online Job Destruction Newsletter, uses the example of post-modern France to show how uncontrolled immigration promotes national suicide.

In France, Muslims from North Africa were imported for several generations by using a temporary guest worker program. These cheap laborers were in theory temporary, but in practice most of them stayed on, either legally or illegally. France gave most of the early guest workers citizenship and welcomed their families also.

 

It was the French version of Comprehensive Immigration Reform. The French government vowed to make sure that all of the new immigrants would go through secular assimilation programs, but for many that never happened.

 

The French government didn't follow through on their costly promises, and the truth is that many of the Muslims had no intention of changing their loyalty to France.

 

 

Instead of assimilating, the immigrant laborers were isolated in public housing ghettos on the outskirts of major cities such as Paris. With extremely high birthrates and European social welfare benefits, the population of angry Muslims began to swell.

 

In addition to the guest workers there was a growing flow of illegal immigrants from Arab countries into France. Unemployment rose most dramatically among the youngest age groups, who were typically second or third generation French citizens. It was a perfect formula for social unrest: Mexifornia + Islamism on steroids.

The result: riots broke out in 2005. Sporadic violence has continued ever since. One of the main factors driving the civil unrest is youth unemployment, which surpassed the 20% level in 2005.

 

If unemployment was a major factor in the riots in France, then we had better prepare for the same thing here. The U.S. unemployment rate of young American minorities is rising far above the levels that sparked violence in France. To see just how dire the situation is, here, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, are the stats on U.S. non-seasonally adjusted unemployment rates, by age range and year:           ......

For Juneteenth: 'Cheap Labor' by Frederick Douglass

“How vast and bottomless is the abyss of meanness, cruelty, and crime sometimes concealed under fair-seeming phrases.... Ostensibly the demand for cheap labor is made in the interest of improvement and general civilization. It tells of increased wealth and of marvelous transformations of the old and the worthless into the new and valuable. It speaks of splendid cities built, and flourishing towns multiplied; of rich mines developed, of amply cultivated fields at home; in a word, it speaks of national prosperity.

 

 

Alas! however, this is but the outside of the cup and the platter--the beautiful marble without, with its dead men's bones within. Cheap Labor, is a phrase that has no cheering music for the masses. Those who demand it, and seek to acquire it, have but little sympathy with common humanity. It is the cry of the few against the many.

 

A moment's thought will show that cheap labor in the mouths of those who seek it, means not cheap labor, but the opposite.

 

 

It means not cheap labor, but dear labor. Not abundant labor, but scarce labor; not more work, but more workmen.

 

It means that condition of things in which the laborers shall be so largely in excess of the work needed to be done, that the capitalist shall be able to command all the laborers he wants, at prices only enough to keep the laborer above the point of starvation.

 

The former slave owners of the South want cheap labor; they want it from Germany and from Ireland; they want it from China and Japan; they want it from anywhere in the world, but from Africa. They want to be independent of their former slaves, and bring their noses to the grindstone. The African slave trade with all its train of horrors, was instituted and carried on to supply the landholding inhabitants of this country with cheap labor; and the same lust for gain, which originated that infernal traffic, discloses itself in the modern cry for cheap labor and the fair-seeming schemes for supplying the demand. So rapidly does one evil succeed another.

 

Last week we took occasion to say a word of the 'Coolie Trade' now prosecuted in the interest of cheap labor, and as kindred in character and results to the African slave trade of other days. Our reading shows the points of resemblance between the two schemes to be more striking than they at that time appeared, and the coolie trade but little behind its predecessor in every species of baseness and cruelty.

 

 

The trade of the slave-trader across the sea was a track of blood. The slaves were literally stowed between decks, without regard to health, comfort, or decency. The great thought of captains, owners, consignees, and others, was to make the most money they could in the shortest possible time.

 

 

Human nature is the same now as then. The rights of a Coolie in California, in Peru, in Jamaica, in Trinidad, are scarcely more guarded than were those of the Negro slaves brought to our shores a century ago. The sufferings of these people are almost as heart-rending as any that attended the African slave trade.”

 

 

Excerpted from Frederick Douglass, Cheap Labor, The National Era, August 17, 1871.

Montgomery County: Alien Criminal Gang Haven

Faced with updated crime stats, Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger admits there has been an increase in gang violence from Hispanic gangs like MS-13 and the Latin Kings. A great majority of these gang members are illegal aliens.  See the Center for Immigration Studies report, “Taking Back the Streets.”

Chief Manger reports that incidences of murder, rape, assault, burglary, and robbery increased in Maryland in 2008, much of it attributable to gangs.

The FBI believes that gangs are responsible for up to 80 percent of all U.S. crime. Aaron Escorza, chief of the FBI’s MS-13 National Gang Task Force, says that gangs “know what law enforcement is doing. Word of mouth spreads quickly.” Criminal alien gangs are clearly spreading the word that Maryland is becoming part of the “wild wild East,” like Mexico, and El Salvador.

Maryland’s gang violence should not be surprising. Virginia has been cracking down on illegal alien gangs – and illegal immigration in general – since 9/11. New anti-gang legislation, increased police cooperation with federal immigration authorities, and tightening of drivers license policies, for example, have made Virginia less welcoming for violent criminal aliens.

Maryland on the other hand is one of the most corrupt states in the nation regarding immigration law compliance. Maryland’s sanctuary cities, taxpayer-subsidized day labor centers, support for non-citizen voting, and lax drivers license laws are a magnet for illegal immigration and immigrant gangs. Virginia’s immigrant gangs have naturally begun relocating here.

Maryland’s status as a neo-confederate sanctuary bastion is simply not sustainable. Maryland legislators have a choice – be part of the solution by following Virginia’s lead, or answer to the citizens for the increased crime, corruption, and suffering caused by kowtowing to apologists for violent criminal aliens.

Adapted from Maryland: Gang Haven, by Jon Feere of the Center for Immigration Studies, www.cis.org.

PG County Police Go PC, Shrug Off Illegal Alien Homicide Wave

NBC4 reported today that Prince George's County saw a sharp spike in homicides involving "Hispanics."  From mid-March to mid-May, "Hispanics" counted for ten of the County's 24 homicides, even though "Hispanics" account for only 12 percent of the population, according to 2006 Census estimates, the most recent figures available.

This year 21 percent of homicides have involved Hispanics, up from a 13 percent average over the past five years, according to NBC4. Most of the slayings occured -- surprise-- in and around Langely Park.

For local crime statistics, "Hispanic" is an official euphemism for illegal aliens from Latin America. The majority of "Hispanic" county residents are in illegal immigration status, although large numbers receive TPS or other amnesty benefits.

Prince George's County States Attorney Glenn F. Ivey confirmed the trend, telling NBC4 its "definitely a problem." However, Mr. Ivey's candor brought an immediate attempt at spin from County Police spokeswoman Sharon Taylor, who warned against "drawing generalizations" from the illegal alien murder wave. Taylor told NBC4 that the killings could just have easily occured among another group.

Sure. And is it equally unfair to point out that her big boss, County Executive Jack "Slumlord" Johnson, has mantained a radical santuary policy throughout his term in office that prohibits County police and officials from reporting illegal aliens discovered during normal police activity to federal immigration authorities?

It should come as no suprise that criminal alien activity is growing dangerously in the County, even as illegal aliens are "self-deporting" from law-abiding jurisdictions in Northern Virginia and northern Maryland.

BBC: Langley Park Home to 'Worlds' Most Dangerous Gang'

A new international report by the British Broadcasting Corporation on “the world’s most dangerous gang” comes from – surprise – Langley Park, Maryland.

BBC News foreign correspondent Piers Schofield writes that “the suburbs of the US are no longer the same as those immortalised in 1950s movies, with white families living in big houses and the father driving off to work in his Buick, past manicured lawns. These days, it is more likely that English will not even be the first language you hear on the streets.” Schofield is reporting from Prince George’s County.

“In Langley Park, Maryland, the kiosks sell Spanish-language newspapers; supermarket shelves are stocked with tortillas and beans. Mexican music plays in the background while the tannoy blares out announcements in Spanish. Outside, groups of men hang out on the street corners and their Spanish is accented - Nicaraguan, Honduran and, most often, Salvadoran. They wait, hoping to be picked up for a day's labouring in the houses and gardens of Washington DC's middle class. But among the day laborers lurks a darker shadow."

The BBC report goes on to describe violent crimes committed by Mara-13. According to U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, the MS-13 gang operations model is “rape, kill, control."

The BBC went to the Steny Hoyer U.S. Courthouse in Greenbelt, where a home video made by the maras in a Salvadoran prison was presented as evidence of the links between immigrants in Prince George’s County and their even more depraved and vicious ‘hermanos’ in El Salvador. In it, maras send greetings to their "homies" in Maryland. They talk of killing and controlling others and display their full-body tattoos in a show of allegiance to MS-13.

Schofield interviewed Aaron Escorza, head of  the FBI National Gang Task Force. Escorz told the BBC that the gangs move freely around the region. "They don't recognise borders," Escorza explained. "They commit crimes in El Salvador and flee to the US, and you have MS-ers who are committing crimes in the US and fleeing down to El Salvador to evade arrest."

In the capital, San Salvador, entire swathes of the city are now virtually under the control of MS-13 and its rival, Mara 18. Local police patrol warily, tending when possible to avoid those parts of the city. The region's homicide rates are among the highest in the world - 58 per 100,000 of population in El Salvador. 

This crime wave was 100% preventable. Most Salvadorans in PG County are illegal aliens, most without papers, but some on a special TPS program that allows them to stay, work and get welfare while still being classified as illegals. Jack Johnson’s sanctuary policy ties the hands of the police, while Jorge Bushs’ pro-amnesty policies have allowed bung-holes like El Salvador to export poverty and mayhem to suburban Mary land, where the taxpayers get to foot the bill and suffer the consequences.

Edited from the April 3rd BBC online report.