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Congress must address the serious immigration problem. But first …

Commentary by James Shott

When illegal immigration is the subject, a large faction keeps saying that immigrants contributed greatly to building America into the greatest nation on Earth, and that we should therefore give all those illegals citizenship or some sort of legal status. And it is true that smart, dedicated, hard-working people who came here for a better life made tremendous contributions to the American success story.

But those people came here the right way, by following immigration procedures. Right now, there are some 4.5 million people following in their footsteps waiting to come to America legally.

Currently, however, there are some 11 million people inside our borders who did not come here the proper way. About 40 percent of them are foreigners who arrived legally, frequently on tourist Visas, and simply didn’t leave when they were supposed to.

Most of the other 7 million illegals are low-wage workers and their families who sneaked over the southern border, and even though they did not enter the country honorably by obeying immigration laws are people who are here for honorable purposes. And then there are the punks and thugs bent on committing vicious crimes, including murder, against American citizens.

For every 100 actual American citizens there are roughly 3 people residing in the country illegally, and that is a huge problem.

Actually, there are two separate problems: One problem is what do we do with the people here illegally, and the second, and most important, is how do we remedy the circumstances that allowed this intolerable situation to develop so that it never happens again?

Our immigration system has been both neglected and mismanaged, and as a result the country has endured substantial harm. This situation has been the genesis of frequent and strong calls to reform the immigration system. But the immigration system is not what failed; the people in positions to competently operate it and enforce the laws have failed – and in some cases, refused – to do their jobs.

So, the question is: What do we do about the fact that we have 11 million illegals now in the country?

Perhaps past history will be a good guide as to how we should proceed. What the bipartisan US Senate “Gang of Eight” is proposing today is very similar to what was done in the 1986 amnesty when Ronald Reagan was President.

According to Mr. Reagan’s Attorney General, Edwin Meese, writing in the Heritage Foundation’s “The Foundry”: “The path to citizenship was not automatic. Immigrants had to pay application fees, learn to speak English, understand American civics, pass a medical exam, and register for military selective service. Those with convictions for a felony or three misdemeanors were ineligible.” That is quite similar to the “Gang of Eight’s” idea.

When the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was enacted, there were approximately 5 million illegal aliens in the country, and about 2.7 million of them benefitted from the IRCA. What has happened since then is that the number of illegal aliens has more than doubled.

What went wrong after that compassionate act to grant legal status to those illegal aliens that caused not a decrease in the number of illegals, but a dramatic increase?

“Well, one reason is that everything else the 1986 bill promised—from border security to law enforcement—was to come later,” Mr. Meese said. “It never did. Only amnesty prevailed, and that encouraged more illegal immigration.” Had we done all that the IRCA required, we likely would not have the problem we have today.

In fact, Mr. Meese writes, the failure of the federal government to implement all of the elements of the IRCA to protect the nation from people entering illegally in the years after its passage caused Mr. Reagan to regard the amnesty as the greatest mistake of his administration.

Now that we see what happened after 1986 when we failed to prevent people illegally entering the country, and this time we have to make sure that does not happen again. We therefore have to yield the strong demand for securing the borders and putting improved control programs in place before doing anything to provide legal status of any kind to any illegal alien.

We have to become more sensible and less ruled by compassionate impulses. The country and the states cannot afford amnesty for 11 million illegal immigrants, or for half that number, no matter how nice they may be.

What must happen first is to do whatever is necessary to secure the borders. After that – but only after that – whatever steps we take must protect the interests of the United States before considering the interests of illegal aliens. And we must honor the 4.5 million who are waiting to come to America the proper way before helping illegals.

If you steal food because you are hungry, you have a good reason, but you still broke the law. If you want a better life and sneak into a country that offers promise for a better life, you have a good reason, but you still have done something wrong.

We must not endorse wrongdoing by rewarding it.

Cross-posted from Observations

Perplexing immigration issues and some clarity on global warming

Come to the USA

If you’re thinkin’ about illegal immigration,

Be careful when you’re choosin’ the nation

‘Cause breakin’ the law in some countries is frowned upon.

Imagine that.

Sneak into China and they’ll call you a spy

And ship you to Mongolia till you die.

And in Sudan they’ll hang you and the camel you rode in on.

Yeah, and don’t go ahikin’ and enter Iran,

Or you might never be heard from again.

And in Mexico, you might face a firing squad.

Yeah, and forget all about going to North Korea.

That’s a great example of a bad idea,

So when it comes down to it, there’s only one option you got.

Yeah come to the USA.

There's no penalty to pay

Should you get caught illegally immigratin

Those lyrics from Ray Stevens' "Come to the USA" YouTube video illustrate the stark difference in how some countries view people who sneak across their borders, compared to the USA.

The US now has 11-to-20 million immigrants that illegally crossed our borders or over-stayed their visas, and the US Congress, in an attempt to reward those illegal immigrants, is now debating various measures under the guise of "immigration reform" which could easily be even more destructive and costly than the Affordable Care Act.

There is little agreement among our Senators and Representatives about what to do. Ideas being floated range from plain amnesty to plans to convert illegals to legal status and create a path to citizenship, and most pay a bit of lip service to securing the borders. Since they take such a friendly approach to people who are here illegally, these measures are viewed as a form of amnesty, and amnesty failed miserably in 1986. Any act that gives illegals an advantage over the 4 million people waiting in line who entered legally isn’t fair.

An exhaustive study by the Heritage Foundation has found that after amnesty, current illegal immigrants would receive $9.4 trillion in government benefits and services but pay only about $3 trillion in taxes over their lifetimes, leaving a deficit of $6.3 trillion that would be paid for by another big increase in government debt or by raising taxes on those who still pay taxes.

Further, some of the people who have entered illegally are criminals, and perhaps a few terrorists in the mix, and we have to continue rooting out the bad among those millions and secure the border to prevent others like them from sneaking in.

Our government has acted stupidly and negligently over the years allowing national security to suffer by failing to secure the borders. That has to stop now, before any measure to legalize illegals proceeds.

More Inconvenient Truth

Dr. Roy Spencer has serious climate credentials dating back to 1981 that involve research at the University of Alabama-Huntsville, and award-winning climate studies for NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His research has been entirely supported by the U.S. government through NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Department of Energy.

He has produced a graph based upon 73 separate climate change prediction models that shows the full high/low range of those predictions of increasing global temperatures from 1979 through 2024, as well as the median prediction of those models. These datasets show predictions of global temperatures rising as much as 2 degrees Celsius (C) over that period, and about 1.5 degrees C by 2012.

These predictions shouldn’t surprise anyone; they are the similar to the dozens, hundreds or thousands of news stories of impending global catastrophe if drastic steps are not taken immediately to stop man’s upward pressure on global temperatures. And certainly if these models are accurate and we refuse to take steps to control greenhouse gas emissions, we will be negligent.

“And now,” as the great commentator Paul Harvey used to say, “for the rest of the story.”

Dr. Spencer uses the same graph to show the results of actual temperature observations from balloons and satellites from 1979 through 2012. These observations use actual measurements of temperatures that occasionally show cooling periods or static results, but most of which over the last decade show increases in temperature.

Most important, however, is that even in the years from 2003 through 2012 when the warming trend has been the most consistent, the actual rise in temperature is only .2 degrees C, well below the predicted level of .6 to .8 degrees, and a mere fraction of the highest of the range of predicted increases of 1.3 to 1.5 degrees C.

In explaining this dramatic difference between prediction and reality, Dr. Spencer notes that “to many politicians and the public, the term [global warming] carries the implication that mankind is responsible for that warming. … [M]y group’s government-funded research … suggests global warming is mostly natural, and that the climate system is quite insensitive to humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions and aerosol pollution.”

He goes on to say that, “Believe it or not, very little research has ever been funded to search for natural mechanisms of warming … it has simply been assumed that global warming is manmade.”

Data mining breeches our Founder’s concept of liberty and privac

Collecting data from phone calls of Verizon customers is one thing. Collecting email information on millions of Americans is something else. Both of these activities stir concern and break the bounds of constitutionality, but the invasion of privacy is far greater in the collection of email data.

Phone call data consists of phone numbers, dates and call duration, but not the conversation itself. Email data, on the other hand, not only has email addresses and date information, but the actual message as well, which often includes names and attached text and media files.

The potential for misbehavior is enormous, particularly with email data, given the nature of the information available to prying eyes. Some comfort may be taken from the idea that intelligence personnel who use this information are not susceptible to political influences unlike, say, Internal Revenue Service workers. That does not relieve the concern for our privacy, however.

Hardly anyone doesn't want to the government to find plotting terrorists or discover terrorist plans before they are acted upon, even if it involves tapping phones, capturing emails or other covert measures. But the routine collection of massive amounts of data in the hopes of finding a couple of useful pieces of information is over-the-top and unjustified. Its use has increased since the practice was first introduced after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and has increased exponentially under the Obama administration, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The way it is supposed to work is that when the government has reason to believe that one or more individuals – like let’s say Irv Huffington or Ahmed Ali-Yahoo – may be planning an attack, it goes to court to seek an order allowing it to tap their phone or take whatever actions it proposes to do. It doesn't simply start collecting the records of millions of people hoping to find the Huffington or Ali-Yahoo needle among millions of data bits in the haystack.

Here's what the 4th Amendment to the US Constitution says: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

That language is precise and unambiguous. It does not allow judges to give anyone, or anyone to just take the information of millions of Americans in the hope of finding something hidden away among huge collections of data.

In order to get permission to breech a citizen's privacy, the government must request permission by offering a compelling reason and support that assertion under oath, describing explicitly the place and persons under suspicion. Nowhere in the 4th Amendment is the term "fishing expedition" mentioned or implied, nor is there language allowing nosing around in the private lives of millions of citizens who empower the government because it makes things easier, and it does not depend upon what the meaning of "is" is.

The Founders viewed "general warrants," or dragnet searches such as we are witnessing today, as tyrannical. That view is not mitigated by the advent of terrorist acts that kill dozens, hundreds or thousands, nor by the amazing technological advances since the mid-18th century; general warrants still are tyrannical.

The United States has Constitution protections for a reason: because the Framers understood from first-hand experience how government can slither into impropriety, tyranny and oppression unless it is clearly and firmly prevented by statute from doing so. The U.S. Constitution was created not to limit what the people may do, but to limit what the government may do.

We are told, and many of us believe, that in order to be safe in these perilous times, we must give up much of our liberty and privacy for security, but Benjamin Franklin expressed this idea about that: Those who willingly give up liberty for security will have neither, and deserve neither.

It is a point of shame for the citizens of the United States that so many Americans have no functional knowledge of the principles upon which our nation was created or of the meaning or power of the US Constitution. That is a prime reason that so many on the political left are able to mis-think so many things with such great success.

As a nation we have grown lazy and tone deaf as our government has grown to gargantuan proportions and ridiculous levels of expense, and burst through the top and sides of the constitutional box our much-smarter-than-we-are Founding Fathers built for it.

When they look out on the US landscape and see that some things that aren't working well, they think becoming more like left/liberal Europe is the answer, without even the suspicion that the reason things aren't working is because they have been trying for decades to become more like Europe and less like the United States of America, which under the US Constitution became the freest, most prosperous and most successful nation in human history, while liberal socialist and communist governmental models have always failed.

The depths of the scandalous Benghazi episode are becoming clear

The following timeline of events is what we know about the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya:

• April 5, 2011: Christopher Stevens arrives in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi to forge ties with the forces battling Moammar Gadhafi. President Obama appoints him as ambassador to Libya on May 22, 2012.

• February: The U.S. embassy requests and is granted a four-month extension, until August, of a Tripoli-based “site security team” composed of 16 special forces soldiers who provide security, medical and communications support to the embassy.

• March: State Department Regional Security Officer Eric Nordstrom sends a cable to Washington asking for additional diplomatic security agents for Benghazi, and later says he received no response. He repeats his request in July and again gets no response.

• April 6: Two fired Libyan security guards throw an IED over the consulate fence.

• May 22: An Islamist attack on the Red Cross office in Benghazi is followed by a Facebook post that warns “now we are preparing a message for the Americans,” and another a month later highlights Ambassador Stevens’ daily jogs in Tripoli in an apparent threat. The Red Cross closed the office.

• June 6: Unknown assailants blow a hole in the consulate’s north gate described by a witness as “big enough for 40 men to go through,” and four days later, the British ambassador’s car is ambushed by militants with a rocket-propelled grenade. The British close the consulate soon thereafter.

• July: The anti-Islam video “Innocence of Muslims” is posted on You Tube.

• Aug. 14: The US security team leaves Libya, despite Ambassador Steven’s desire that they remain, according to team leader Lt. Col. Andy Wood.

• In the weeks before Sept. 11, Libyan security guards are reportedly warned by family members of an impending attack. On Sept. 8, the Libyan militia tasked with protecting the consulate warns U.S. diplomats that the security situation is “frightening.”

• Sept. 10: Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri calls on Libyans to avenge the death of his Libyan deputy, Abu Yahya al Libi, killed in a June drone strike in Pakistan.

The next night, Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans, including two who disobeyed orders and came to help defend the consulate, are murdered in an attack that was unquestionably not the result of an obscure anti-Islam video.

Even dedicated Obama apologists cannot ignore the evident rising danger leading up to Sept. 11 that included violence serious enough to close the Red Cross office and the British consulate, and the direct violent attacks on the US consulate, and yet the needed and requested security enhancements were not provided.

It gets worse. From The Hill: "High-level staffers removed vital pieces of information tying terrorist organizations to attacks. They knew early on that radical Islamic terrorists participated in the attack. The former Deputy Chief of Mission to Libya, Gregory Hicks, said in the [Congressional] hearing, 'none of us should ever again experience what we went through in Tripoli and Benghazi on 9/11/2012.' He went on to say he had personally told former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at 2 a.m. the night of the attack that it was a terrorist attack. Gregory Hicks also testified that Secretary Clinton's claiming the attack was incited by a YouTube video caused Libyan officials to hinder the FBI's arrival to the scene." For his forthrightness Mr. Hicks was demoted by the State Department.

Some question the veracity of the three witnesses who testified at the Oversight & Government Reform Committee. This is a predictable, if foolish, effort to discredit these witnesses. But these people are not bystanders; they are not people who are going to report on hearsay; they are not political operatives. In fact, Gregory Hicks is a registered Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary. These people were directly involved in different capacities before, during and after the attack. They are totally credible, and deserve not only our respect and appreciation, but our attention to their message.

So what went wrong? There are three possibilities: massive bureaucratic incompetence; the administration was asleep at the wheel; or the administration put political considerations ahead of doing the right thing. Negative repercussions of an Islamist terrorist attack on a US facility on the iconic date of Sept. 11, right before a presidential election, drove the administration to concoct an implausible scenario to try to deflect attention from the reality that al-Qaeda had indeed not been vanquished, contrary to Barack Obama's boasting to the contrary.

In answer to Hillary Clinton's asinine question: "What difference ... does it make?" It makes a huge difference. Four people died as a result of your and/or the administration's mishandling of this event, Ms. Clinton, and the people you worked for deserve to know who screwed up, and why.

We hired Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and every other public servant to act in the best interest of the American people and the nation, and expect them to put their personal political considerations aside. That clearly did not happen in Benghazi. There is no greater disservice.

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Congress must address the serious immigration problem. But first …

Perplexing immigration issues and some clarity on global warming

Data mining breeches our Founder’s concept of liberty and privac

The depths of the scandalous Benghazi episode are becoming clear

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