1. The Los Angeles Times ran an article last weekend titled, "Trump crackdown focuses on people in the U.S. illegally -- but not on the businesses that hire them."
Though the LA Times article squanders much of its energy criticizing Pres. Trump, it does make the wonderful point that the government needs to crack down on crooked employers to make a real dent in the hiring of illegal aliens. No wall or deportation effort will work without eliminating the jobs magnet, the article correctly notes.
The Times article focuses on a former INS regional director criticizing the huge 1986 immigration amnesty, which legalized about three million illegal aliens. "The only thing IRCA did was legalize all these people and put a few lights and fencing out there on the southern border, and we never did anything with the jobs."
You won't read in the LA Times that the best way to stop businesses from hiring illegal aliens is mandating E-Verify. So, the Times logic is still flawed. On the campaign trail, President Trump actually got that we need E-Verify. We need to make sure Congress does, too.
ACTION: Join us in demanding E-Verify.
2. The New York Times ran its lead editorial Sunday on "No Crackdown on Illegal Employers." It too pointed out what a disaster the 1986 amnesty was, noting correctly that the Border Patrol alone can't solve our illegal immigration crisis while we're still drawing illegal aliens with promises of jobs. And they could have added "with promises of benefits and amnesties."
The failure of Congress to REQUIRE employers to use the federal E-Verify system, the Times editorial correctly notes, was the biggest reason for the failure of 1986 bill, which caused an explosion of illegal immigration. Nonetheless, the Times still believes that another mass amnesty must be part of any new legislation.
The good news is that President Trump has asked for funding to hire 10,000 more agents for ICE, the agency responsible in part for cracking down on crooked employers, in his budget supplemental request.
ACTION: We need YOUR help getting that budget item through Congress.
3. USA Today published an editorial called "When Sanctuary Cities go too far." The editorial asserts that "advocates try to defend the indefensible."
They opine that "when such policies are carried to extremes such as shielding immigrants who have a history of serious crimes or who repeatedly sneak back into the U.S.A. immigration advocates undermine their credibility by defending the indefensible." The newspaper called "mindless" San Francisco's sanctuary city policy that allowed five-time deportee Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez to evade ICE arrest and therefore be free to kill Kate Steinle.
I'm happy USA Today has finally decided that protecting criminal aliens and harboring outlaws in order to score political points is a BAD THING!! This is progress for a mainstream media outlet.
President Trump has signed an executive order that would defund cities that defy federal law by protecting violent illegal aliens.
No group can put the righteous squeeze on Congress like NumbersUSA can.
ACTION: NumbersUSA's mission is to get Congress to appropriate the money that will allow the administration to enforce these reforms.
4. The Washington Post published, "Fear, Hope and Deportations" last Saturday, showing that their journalists are starting to discover that people are actually hurt by illegal and fraudulent immigration.
It reports that "In Texas, undocumented immigrants accounted for a quarter of all deliveries paid for by Medicaid in 2015 more than 54,000 babies according to the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. The cost to taxpayers: $116 million."
The cover story also provided some international perspective: "Over the past three decades, every other developed economy in the world except Canada has abandoned or restricted birthright citizenship amid rising flows of immigrants and refugees."
American citizenship is priceless. Why is our government treating it so cheaply?
NumbersUSA has worked hard to stop the foolish policy of automatic birthright citizens for many years. Congress and the White House seem sympathetic at last, but NumbersUSA needs funds RIGHT NOW to get Congress to move on this common sense reform.
ACTION: Help us end birthright citizenship for illegal aliens!
5. Last Sunday, "60 Minutes" and the "CBS Evening News" provided the best stories. The "60 Minutes" piece was called "You're Fired" and exposed the seamy side of the H-1B employment visa program. Under H-1B, employers are allowed to hire foreign workers in specialized fields for multiple-year contracts. The H-1B visas are not supposed to be used to replace existing American workers, to drive down wages or to keep willing and able Americans from getting new jobs.
In interviews, H-1B legislation author Rep. Bruce Morrison said "the H-1B has been hijacked," and calls it "a travesty that shouldn't've been allowed to happen."
The CBS coverage is withering, with many stories from laid-off workers who were threatened with loss of severance pay if they didn't train their own replacements.
Craig De Angelo is a former programmer for Northeast Utilities who was laid off to make room for an H-1B replacement. He explained, "It wasn't called 'training your replacement.' It was called, 'knowledge transfer.' I didn't get laid off for lack of work; I got laid off because someone cheaper would do the work." He told of how American workers put flags outside their cubicles, and how he watched as one by one, the flags disappeared.
Despite these outrageous abuses, many in Congress want to expand the H-1B program!
ACTION: We at NumbersUSA have been fighting H-1B abuse for a long, long time, and we're finally making progress.
