New York Times

December 13, 2010, 7:19 pm

King Outlines Immigration Plans for 2011

By JULIA PRESTON

The Republican who is expected to lead the main subcommittee on immigration in the House of Representatives in the new congress next year said on Monday that he will push for a bill that would cancel employers’ tax deductions for wages of workers who are illegal immigrants.

In an interview, Representative Steve King of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Judiciary subcommittee on immigration in the current congress, said his priority as chairman would be to pass a bill he introduced last year that would also require the Internal Revenue Service to share information with the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration about the immigration status of workers.

Mr. King said his measure would increase pressure on employers to fire unauthorized immigrant workers by increasing their cost. He estimated that if employers were not able to claim tax deductions for those workers’ wages and benefits, an unauthorized immigrant making $10 an hour would cost the employer the equivalent of $16 an hour.

Mr. King said his measure would be a “velvet glove” that would leave it up to employers to fire unauthorized workers. “That opens up lots of jobs for Americans,” he said.

The proposal would break down a major privacy firewall that protects tax information from scrutiny by Homeland Security authorities. Millions of authorized immigrants in the workforce have payroll taxes deducted and file tax returns using a taxpayer number issued by the I.R.S., which is not routinely shared with immigration agencies.

Mr. King’s strategy would be a sharp departure from the outgoing Democratic-controlled House, which last week passed a bill known as the Dream Act. Mr. King was a leading opponent of that bill, which would open a path to legal status for hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrant students if they attend college or serve in the military.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has said he plans to bring up the House version of the student bill for a vote before the end of the lame-duck session. Although it gained some momentum from the House action, its chances for Senate passage appear slim. Mr. King said that if the bills fails there, “it is dead.”

Mr. King, who cautioned that he has not been formally named chairman of the sub-committee, said he also hoped to conduct a review of the Obama administration’s spending on border enforcement, and perhaps seek new construction of physical fence barriers to stop illegal border-crossers. “Build it until they stop going around the end – that would be my standard,” Mr. King said.

On a call with reporters on Monday, several leading immigration scholars said the young immigrants who are eligible for legal status under the student bill, some of whom are already in college, would be forced into a shadow existence if it fails. The researchers were among 280 immigration scholars who signed a letter of support for the bill.

“It would be a complete waste of the taxpayer money we have spent to this point to educate them,” said Douglas Massey, a sociology professor at Princeton who studies Mexican migration. “Just when they are about to come on to the labor market to take up their jobs, we seem to be throwing that investment all away. And it means incredible hardship for them. The only place they can go is into the underground economy.”

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Rep Matt Ramsey and D.A. King to Speak on Immigration Reform Tuesday Night

December 14, 2010: Immigration reform educational meeting. Learn about the immigration reform bill to be considered by the 2011 session of the Georgia General Assembly.

Free Event

When: Tuesday evening, 12/14/10 @ 6:45 PM – 8:15 PM.
Where: Whitewater Creek Amenities Center (upstairs Redwine room), 165 Birkdale Drive, Fayetteville. Birkdale Drive is the entrance to the Whitewater Creek Golf Course on Redwine Road, Fayetteville.

Speakers:

Matt Ramsey serves as House Chair of the Joint Committee on Immigration Reform. He is the state representative for district 72 and has served as Chair of the Crimes Against Children and Illegal Substances Committee of the House Judiciary Non-Civil Committee. Representative Ramsey was appointed by Governor Perdue to serve as one of his Administration’s House Floor Leaders.

D.A. King is President of the Dustin Inman Society. Mr. King is a nationally known immigration expert and has appeared before Congress, the Georgia General Assembly and on many local and national radio and television programs.

Each of our speakers will address the audience and then participate in a question and answer period.

Sponsors:

Fayette-Coweta 912 Patriots, Greater Fayette Republican Women’s Club, Fayette County Tea Party, South Atlanta Tea Party and the Senoia Tea Party Patriots. For more information call Jim Richter @ 770-632-9618 or email: fc912p@gmail.co m.
HERE

I have seen many of these that readers have sent in. The Farm Bureau has started backing up from joining the crazies like Gerardo…keep sending in those letters of outrage!

From the illegal alien lobby, the Georgia Farm Bureau to a reader:

12-10-2010

Mr. R*****,

Thank you for sharing your opinion regarding Georgia Farm Bureau’s immigration policy. Recent news reports have caused some people to think the organization supports illegal immigration and amnesty for people already here illegally.

That perception is wrong. Georgia Farm Bureau does not support amnesty or illegal immigration.

For more than a decade, Farm Bureau has called for federal reform of immigration law and will continue to do so. In the absence of federal reform, the Georgia General Assembly has passed legislation and additional measures are being considered.

Reports that Georgia Farm Bureau has already decided whether to support possible changes in Georgia law are incorrect. If legislation is proposed, Georgia Farm Bureau will study it and point out to legislators how such proposals might affect farmers. That is the purpose of this organization.

Again, thank you for sharing your views with Georgia Farm Bureau.

Member Services Support

Athens Banner Herald
December 14, 2010

D.A. King

Georgia lawmakers are considering ways to solve the illegal immigration crisis. The solution is obvious. Enforcement works, just like with any other crime. Illegal immigrants migrate out of every area in which jobs become unavailable and the law is enforced, and take budget-crashing dependents with them.

Genuine dedication from Georgia’s legislative leadership in protecting American workers and driving illegal immigrants out of Georgia will be measured by the enthusiasm with which common-sense enforcement measures are implemented in the 2011 legislative session. Here are some suggestions:

► Finish the job begun in 2006 with passage of Senate Bill 529, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. In part, GSICA requires local governments and agencies that administer public benefits to use an affidavit system and the federal SAVE program to verify the eligibility of applicants for those finite taxpayer funded benefits.

However, there is no penalty for violating GSICA, and it shows. With 159 counties and 535 municipalities in Georgia, and a number of state and local agencies doling out public benefits, there were only 300 agencies authorized to use SAVE as of Nov. 1.

The Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have successfully beat back repeated attempts to add penalty language absent in the 2006 law. The entire 2006 Georgia immigration law, then the toughest in the nation, should be re-examined, overhauled and strengthened. Compliance will only come with constant monitoring, audits and meaningful sanctions and enforcement.

► On the question of whether Georgia should pass laws similar to what has been passed in Arizona, the answer is yes. Nearly half of the 50 states already are in the process of doing just that. More than 100,000 illegal immigrants have fled Arizona since its Senate Bill 1070 was passed.

Georgia lawmakers should emulate Arizona legislators in every way they’ve attacked illegal immigration, starting with protecting jobs by requiring all employers to use the no-cost federal E-Verify database to help ensure newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States. Arizona has had a state law requiring all businesses to use E-Verify since 2008. Georgia would catch up with Utah, Mississippi and South Carolina with required universal use.

Only Georgia’s public employers and their contractors now are required to use E-Verify. Not all do.

In this year’s General Assembly session, House Bill 1259, the Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act, was introduced with a goal of reducing the hiring of black-market labor. It required all employers to use the E-Verify system to obtain or renew a business license. It is a quite workable and reasonable idea, unless you are a criminal employer.

However, HB 1259 never saw even a single subcommittee hearing. The GOP-controlled Georgia government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the real cause of most illegal immigration, which is illegal employment.

The real culprits in this mess are the employers who take advantage of the fact that they have almost no chance of being punished for hiring taxpayer-subsidized, illegal, replacement labor, while we struggle to pay unemployment benefits to jobless citizens. Nobody doesn’t see what is happening here.

The good news for Georgians properly incensed about losing jobs to illegal immigrants is that Gov.-elect Nathan Deal has repeatedly and publicly expressed his support for statewide use of the E-Verify system. More than 16,000 private Georgia employers already are voluntarily using the free federal tool with no complaints.

When we are again watching other states discuss the possibility of copying Georgia’s immigration laws, we’ll know our elected officials have returned to a real effort to make our state an illegal-immigrant-free zone.

• D.A. King is president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society. He lobbied in support of the 2006 Georgia immigration law.

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The Marietta Daily Journal

D.A. King: Gold Dome support needed in solution to illegal immigrant problem: Simple enforcement
by D.A. King
Guest Columnist

December 14, 2010

The Georgia legislature is conducting joint committee hearings on legislative solutions to illegal immigration in Georgia, and is being constantly reminded of the fact that we are cursed with more illegal aliens than Arizona.

The solution is obvious: Enforcement. It works. Just like with any other crime.

Most illegal immigration is all about “JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!” Illegal aliens migrate out of every area in which jobs become unavailable and the law is enforced. And they take their budget-crashing dependents with them.

Genuine dedication from Gold Dome leadership in protecting American workers and driving illegals out of Georgia will be measured by the enthusiasm with which common-sense enforcement measures are implemented in the 2011 session.

Some suggestions and goals:

First, foremost and beginning on day one: Finish the job that was begun in 2006 with passage of the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act (SB 529).

In part, GSICA requires local governments and official agencies that administer public benefits to use an affidavit system and a federal program, called ‘SAVE,’ to verify the eligibility of applicants for those finite taxpayer funded benefits.

There is no penalty for any local government or department head for violation. It shows.

With 159 counties and 535 municipalities in Georgia, and a so-far unknown number of other state and local agencies that dole out public benefits, there are only 300 total agencies authorized to use SAVE as of Nov. 1, 2010. Don’t try this defiance at home.

The Association County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have successfully beat back repeated attempts to add penalty language absent in the 2006 law. Both anti-enforcement groups must be exposed and overcome if we are serious about reserving benefits for legal immigrants and voting citizens.

The entire 2006 Georgia immigration law, then the toughest in the nation, should be re-examined, overhauled and strengthened. Compliance will only come with constant monitoring, audits and meaningful sanctions and enforcement.

On the question, “should Georgia pass laws similar to what has been passed in Arizona?”

Yes – as nearly half of states in the nation are already in the process of doing – of course we should. More than 100,000 illegals have fled Arizona since its SB 1070 was passed. Mexican officials whine that 23,380 Mexicans fled from Arizona to Mexico between June and September.

And we should emulate Arizona legislators in every way they have attacked illegal immigration. Starting with protecting jobs by requiring all employers’ to use the no-cost and effective federal E-Verify database to help insure that newly hired employees are eligible to work in the United States.

Arizona has had a state law requiring all businesses to use E-Verify since 2008. In addition to Arizona, Georgia would catch up with Utah, Mississippi and South Carolina with required universal use.

Only Georgia’s public employers and their contractors are now required to use E-Verify.

With a goal of the reduction in the hiring of black market labor, HB 1259 – ‘the Georgia Employer and Worker Protection Act’ – was introduced in the 2010 session with influential sponsors. It required all employers to use the E-Verify system to obtain or renew a business license.

It is a quite workable and reasonable idea … unless you are a criminal employer.

HB 1259 never saw even a single sub-committee hearing. Or any media coverage.

The GOP controlled Georgia government cannot continue to turn a blind eye to the real cause of most illegal immigration: Illegal employment.

The real culprits in this mess are the employers who take advantage of the fact that they have a better chance of being struck by lightning than being punished by the Obama administration for illegally hiring taxpayer-subsidized, illegal, replacement labor … while we struggle to pay unemployment benefits to jobless citizens.

Everyone can see what is happening here.

The good news for Georgians properly incensed about losing jobs to the resentful illegal aliens who escaped capture at our borders is that governor-elect Nathan Deal has repeatedly expressed his support for statewide use of the E-Verify system.

More than 16,000 private Georgia employers are already voluntarily using the free federal tool with no complaints.

When we are again watching other states discuss the possibility of “copying the Georgia immigration laws” we will know that our elected officials have returned to a real effort to make our beloved state what the huge majority of Georgians demand: An illegal alien-free zone where English is not an optional language and the law is equally applied.

It’s the new American Dream.

D.A. King is a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration and president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which has been an authorized E-Verify user since mid-2005. He lobbied in support of the 2006 Georgia immigration law.

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NRO – The Corner
The E in DREAM

December 10, 2010

By Heather Mac Donald

While Sen. Harry Reid regroups for another shot at passing the DREAM Act next week, it’s worth reviewing the details of this little-analyzed law. The MSM inevitably presents the law as a way for successful young illegal aliens who are living the American dream by pursuing a college degree to fully join the mainstream. In fact, the DREAM Act is written to maximize the number of illegal aliens who are shielded from immigration enforcement, period. Its educational and character trappings are so minimal as to be pretextual.

Every illegal alien who applies for what is known as “conditional legal status” is immunized from any fear of deportation for ten years. The threshold for qualifying for conditional legal status is extraordinarily lax. An illegal alien can have a criminal record and still qualify, as long as the time served for an aggregate of three non-felony offenses is under 90 days. (The current version of the bill, S. 3992, is a masterpiece of legalistic obfuscation on this count.) In Los Angeles (and undoubtedly elsewhere), jail overcrowding (significantly due to illegal-alien criminals) is such that prosecutors and courts routinely plea-bargain felonies down to misdemeanors and sentence property crimes and even some violent offenses to time served in jail while awaiting a plea bargain. Thus, one can have quite a history of offenses without crossing the DREAM Act threshold for criminal ineligibility. Drunk drivers and drug dealers could also qualify for conditional legal status, so long as they have routinely pled down.

Even if a judge has previously ordered an alien deported on criminal grounds and the alien ignored the deportation order, he may still qualify for conditional legal status if he received the deportation order before he was 16.

The education requirements in a bill purportedly about rewarding educational achievement are also ridiculously minimal. High school drop-outs qualify for conditional legal status, so long as they have obtained a no-brainer GED at some point.

Once granted conditional legal status, an alien is shielded from any enforcement proceedings for ten years, gaining the right to drive, work, and travel internationally, as if he had entered the country legally.

To convert conditional legal status to permanent legal status, the illegal alien needs at most to have completed two years worth of college credits over ten years. He need not have earned a bachelor’s degree, nor have maintained a high GPA. He could have spent five years in remedial classes and the next five accumulating a year’s worth of credits in Chicano/a studies. But even that minimal educational standard is waivable. If the illegal alien shows “compelling circumstances” for not accumulating two years worth of credits or if removal would cause “extremely unusual hardship” to the alien or his family, he can still be granted permanent legal status.

The DREAM Act is not about creating an incentive for, or rewarding, high educational achievement. It is about trying to extend an amnesty to as many illegal aliens as possible, who will then have the ability to legalize their family members.

HERE

Caroline Espinosa — Numbers USA

DREAM arguments pull at heartstrings but ignore common sense

The passage of the DREAM Act in the House on Wednesday makes me think how quickly we forget to be thankful after Thanksgiving. Instead of being thankful for the education and other opportunities they have already received, potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act amnesty are asking for more. More education, more jobs, more benefits…

HERE

“On December 3, the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs of the Department of Homeland Security, Nelson Peacock, responded to a letter from a number of senators about the costs of deporting all illegal aliens. “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population,” HERE

A letter
Save Money: Deport All Illegal Aliens – free up $1 trillion a decade

To:
President Barack Obama
Rep. Bobby Scott
Sen. Jim Webb
Sen. Mark Warner

December 11, 2010

The next time President Obama feigns concern over the national deficit, Americans should ask him why he does not take a simple step that would free up $1 trillion a decade, assure his social spending went to his fellow countrymen, and allow one of our allies to rebuild its traditional way of life: He could deport every illegal immigrant in the United States.

The facts are out: deportation would be considerably less expensive than the unsustainable influx of illegal aliens who all-too-readily enroll in our entitlement programs. On December 3, the Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs of the Department of Homeland Security, Nelson Peacock, responded to a letter from a number of senators about the costs of deporting all illegal aliens. “Our conservative estimate suggests that ICE would require a budget of more than $135 billion to apprehend, detain and remove the nation’s entire illegal immigrant population,” he wrote.

The Center for American Progress (CAP) – the most influential “progressive” think tank in Washington, which was founded with seed money from George Soros – released a report in March that provided a slightly higher estimate. CAP forecast it would cost taxpayers $285 billion over five years to “snare the 10.8 million undocumented immigrants in the United States.” The report assumed “20 percent of the current population [of illegals], or 2.16 million people, would depart before any contact with authorities,” that is, they would voluntarily self-deport. The residue would cost $200 billion to deport. The Center padded the total with another $85 billion to hold the line for five years.

Given the Center’s political orientation, we may safely assume theirs is the upper ceiling. But how would these estimates compare with the status quo?

In July, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released a study, The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Immigration on U.S. Taxpayers, stating illegal immigrants cost U.S. taxpayers $113 billion every year in benefits at the local, state, and federal levels combined.

Under the most liberal estimate, the five-year cost of deporting every illegal immigrant in the United States would pay for itself in 2.5 years. It would be just 14 months according to ICE.

Over ten years, the United States would save $1.13 trillion, or $845 billion in the first decade minus CAP’s estimated deportation costs.

These estimates, of course, only tally economic savings to the government. They do not reflect the substantial economic and personal well-being each American will experience from lower rates of drug trafficking, murders, gang activity, kidnappings, sexual assaults, crime, home invasions, overcrowded schools, hospital closures caused by soaring medical costs, job losses, prison detentions, bilingual status, property damage, environmental degradation, and overburdened infrastructure. The more educated children of illegals, whom Obama hopes to reward with the DREAM Act, would squeeze native-born citizens out of competitive slots in universities and careers; deporting them, as I have suggested, would open up educational and employment opportunities for our own citizens. These benefits are truly incalculable, yet they are never mentioned as part of the immigration debate.

Some may object that deporting 11-13 million illegal immigrants is impossible. History proves not only that it can be done but that it has been done.

The United States government has encouraged massive repatriation of illegal immigrants a number of times – first in the early days of the Great Depression, and various times until the 1950s. The most significant effort took place in 1954, when President Eisenhower commenced “Operation Wetback” to deport the illegal immigrants – then as now, mostly from Mexico – whose numbers had grown 6,000 percent in ten years.

Ike turned the plan over to the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), General Joseph Swing. The two generals cleaned house in three months.

Over the course of 90 days, a mere 750 federal agents, working with state and local law enforcement, deported 80,000 illegal immigrants from Texas. Nearly ten times that many illegals (700,000 to be precise) voluntarily left the Lone Star State, with perhaps another half-million self-deporting from Arizona and California. Instead of dumping them at the nearest border town, INS agents shipped them by train or boat deep into the interior of Mexico, to places like Vera Cruz. Ike’s operations would solve the problem of cheap illegal labor until the mid-1960s.

Could the same thing be accomplished today? The surviving veterans of the operation have no doubt. Walt Edwards, a Border Patrol agent in the 1950s, has said, “Some say we cannot send 12 million illegals now in the United States back where they came from. Of course we can!”

Yes, we can! Si, se puede!

Already, the number of voluntary self-deportations is on the rise, partly from a poor economy and partly from increased pressure. At the moment, ICE or the U.S. Marshals charter flights from 40 cities into the interior of Mexico.

And the greatest beneficiary of these operations appears to be Mexico itself.

The Houston Chronicle noted last year that several Mexican interior states “such as Guanajuato and Chihuahua have announced employment programs for possible returnees.” The newspaper ran a two-part series in 2009 chronicling the lives of several illegal immigrants returned home – the joyous families, the skills they have taught, and the businesses they have opened in the once-barren towns.

Far from being resentful, the deportees have returned to their villages with the agricultural or technological skills they learned in the United States and opened businesses they believe will allow their friends and neighbors to make a life for themselves without leaving Mexico or breaking American law.

In Guanajato, deep in Mexico’s midsection, Jesus Ramirez opened the Nuevo Lindero Dairy Society after being deported from Los Estados Unidos. He now employs 45 families. “Here, almost 50 percent of the population goes to the United States. When they reach 18, they say, ‘See you later,'” he lamented. “With this source of jobs, we hope our children will stay.”

Nor is he alone. Blas Chavez and his brother Alejandro had lived in San Antonio before being returned; now they grow tomatoes in greenhouses and employ 25 fellow Mexicans. “Our workers are from the community,” Blas said. “They can work here all year, and they don’t have to risk taking the trip north.” Alejandro added, “Right now I’m struggling to recruit kids to go to college.” One of their employees, Josue Garcia Arteaga, who was also deported from the United States, seems grateful for the chance to stay in his homeland. “Now I have a son who is 11 months old. I have a job, and here, I can make what I need to maintain my family. That’s why I haven’t gone back.”

In one Mexican state alone, the newspaper explains, returning citizens have opened “a women’s cooperative producing restaurant tablecloths, a tequila distillery and a factory to assemble tote bags for California wineries.”

The Mexican embassy has stated these returnees have grown their country and helped once deserted towns thrive. Ricardo Alday, a spokesman for the Mexican Embassy, has said his government’s assistance for local businesses is “a way for us to provide, as much as we can, new opportunities for our citizens and at the same time, strengthen the local and state economies and provide them with hope after they return to our country.”

These returned deportees – unwanted in the United States – have made a significant step toward turning Mexico’s economic desert bloom into brilliant shades of verde. It seems immoral to destroy Mexican village life by providing incentives for these entrepreneurs to abandon their friends, families, and country to become “cheap labor” for agribusiness, cooks in Mexican restaurants, or nannies to aspiring gubernatorial candidates.

True, the move would not be without political controversy, but it is clearly both in our interest and in the interests of Mexicans.

It will not be without economic costs, but this relatively modest amount of money will be spent enforcing our laws, not undermining them; enhancing the value of U.S. citizenship, not debasing it; uniting our society, not dividing it by creating a subsect of residents who are linguistically and culturally isolated; shutting the door to welfare spending and government dependence, not throwing it wide open to anyone who can cross one of our borders.

Instead, President Obama has sued the sheriff most committed to upholding immigration law and hauled the state of Arizona before the United Nations to answer for its alleged violation of illegal immigrants’ constitutional rights. After all, his agribusiness donors need cheap labor; his Democratic buddies need fodder for voter fraud; and the Cloward-Piven Strategy requires their warm bodies to pad out the welfare rolls that Americans are not yet doing, even in the recession he has presided over.

A president who placed the well-being of his country first would deport all illegal aliens. The fact that Obama is fighting with all his vigor to protect their interests should tell everyone how concerned he is with the well-being of America.

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McClatchey Newspapers

Poll: Obama’s losing support; Romney would beat him now

President Barack Obama’s approval ratings have sunk to the lowest level of his presidency, so low that he’d lose the White House to Republican Mitt Romney if the election were held today, according to a new McClatchy-Marist poll. — The biggest reason for Obama’s fall: a sharp drop in approval among Democrats and liberals…

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