Theft By Deception: The Immigration Con Game By Michael Cutler
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2015/michael-cutler/theft-by-deception-the-immigration-con-game/print/
A pattern of criminality has been in progress for decades with more Americans falling victim to this crime each day. The crime is “theft by deception.” Because of this, millions of Americans are losing their thin sliver of the American Dream, their security and their peace of mind
In order to understand the crime we first need to know and understand the elements of the crime.
To provide a starting point and specific language, we will use the definition of “theft by deception” as defined in one state in particular: Georgia. However, this crime, of using deception to steal, is codified in virtually every state and city. This crime is defined in the Georgia Code [2], in part, as:
a) A person commits the offense of theft by deception when he obtains property by any deceitful means or artful practice with the intention of depriving the owner of the property.
(b) A person deceives if he intentionally:
(1) Creates or confirms another’s impression of an existing fact or past event which is false and which the accused knows or believes to be false;
(2) Fails to correct a false impression of an existing fact or past event which he has previously created or confirmed;
(3) Prevents another from acquiring information pertinent to the disposition of the property involved
Today politicians from both political parties, echoing the claims of many special interest groups that provide massive campaign contributions, use deceptive language to achieve their (criminal) goals. As you will see, the claims they make about immigration are without merit and are deceptive and seek to satisfy their campaign contributors.
The perpetrators are our elected politicians from both the “Repugnantcan” and “Demoncrat” parties.
Many politicians have insisted that aliens do the work Americans are either too lazy or too dumb to do. Politicians also have repeatedly claimed that upon graduation from colleges, foreign students in the U.S. should have “Green Cards stapled onto their diplomas,” purportedly to keep these foreign students from returning to their home countries half-way around the world and competing with American companies.
Here’s a far better solution: Educate American kids who are likely to not go half-way around the world after graduation but no farther than half-way across town.
Today there are more than 1.1 million foreign students studying in the United States. They are attending more than 9,000 schools and, because there is an abject shortage of ICE agents to conduct field investigations, there is no way to know if many of these schools even exist. In some instances the schools are nothing more than “mills” that, given the authority to petition for foreign students, simply pocket the “tuition” paid by “students” who never study anything in the United States.
Because of a lack of ICE agents, the monitoring of foreign students is actually done by foreign student advisors employed by the schools. Where legitimate schools are concerned, it is likely that the officials take their responsibilities seriously — but when dealing with shady operations this is akin to having the proverbial “wolf guarding the henhouse.”
Furthermore, America is comprised of its citizens and not companies that are generally multinational corporations that say a “Pledge of Allegiance” to the bottom line and not to our republic or our flag.
Our Declaration of Independence begins with the phrase, “We the people…”
Of the 1.1 million foreign students, China sends us the most students, followed by India and South Korea. Saudi Arabia is in the top ten.
We are indeed training the students of countries, such as China, that are our adversaries. Of late the relationship between the United States and China has degraded and yet we continue to train their scientists and engineers who may plan to return to China to work on weapons systems that might, one day, threaten our safety and security.
Furthermore, most foreign students are granted employment authorization enabling them to work in the United States to obtain practical training under the controversial “Optional Practical Training [3] Program.” With extensions, foreign students may work several years in the United States. Their employers do not pay into the Social Security or Medicare trust funds for these employees, making these foreign employees far more financially attractive to unscrupulous employers. Meanwhile, the Social Security and Medicare trust funds potentially lose billions of dollars they desperately need to stave off bankruptcy.
The property that is being stolen is no less than the American Dream of millions of Americans. When experienced, highly skilled and highly educated American workers are fired, so that foreign workers can replace those workers, a serious theft has occurred. When American students graduate with the necessary degrees and skills that they acquired at great cost and find that they are unable to obtain the jobs they desperately want and for which they have prepared themselves, they too are victims of this crime.
The statements made by the perpetrators of the crime are carefully crafted to facilitate the deception. We have all heard the false claims that Americans won’t do the filthy, dangerous and back-breaking jobs and lack the skills to do the high-tech jobs. Those statements about the work Americans won’t do are a part of the crime that is being perpetrated on American workers and their families, making deceptive claims to create false impressions as noted in the section of law quoted above.
My dad was a construction worker, a plumber who joined other tradesman in a host of other trades on job sites to support my mom and me, many years ago, when I was growing up. Today hard-working American tradesman of every race and ethnicity are still trudging off to work every morning to do those arduous, dangerous, filthy and back-breaking jobs, glad to earn their paychecks, when jobs are available.
These skilled American craftsmen embody the “can do” American spirit and are frequently maligned by politicians who were elected to represent them and their families.
Increasingly, these skilled tradesman are being replaced by unskilled illegal alien day laborers, who do substandard work — often shortchanging the homeowner who hires a home improvement company to repair their homes. Sometimes the quality of work done is so deficient, that there are serious and even catastrophic consequences.
Of course the day laborers are paid substandard wages so it should not surprise anyone that the quality of the work they do is substandard. As the saying goes, “You get what you pay for.” However, the homeowners who hire contractors pay top dollar for the work that is done. The contractor, however, pays substandard wages to substandard employees. The homeowners who pay their hard-earned money rarely getting their money’s worth are also the victims of the crime of theft by deception.
Today increasing numbers of “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) professionals are being laid off and replaced by foreign workers from India and elsewhere. The only thing “exceptional” about these foreign workers is that they will work for exceptionally low wages under exceptionally adverse conditions.
Work helps to define us. Work provides dignity, a sense of purpose, opportunities and income. Virtually every college student who attends college does so with the hope/expectation of a brighter future through a career made possible by acquiring a higher level of education.
When young Americans opt to attend colleges they put off working for years. Upon graduation from those institutions of higher learning, where they invested years of their lives studying conscientiously, they find themselves encumbered by massive debts in the form of student loans. All too often they find that they cannot get jobs in their chosen fields of study, including those who took degrees in the STEM disciplines. For these victims of the crime, their share of the “American Dream” and indeed their futures, have been stolen, their time and money wasted.
Having mentioned student loans, college educations are not inexpensive. The extreme cost of an education was made crystal clear in the April 8, 2015 USA Today report, “National student loan debt reaches a bonkers $1.2 trillion.” [4]
The May 17, 2014 New York Daily News article, “Americans owe $1.2 trillion in student loans, surpassing credit card and auto loan debt totals” [5] began with this paragraph:
Student loans have become the second largest source of personal debt in the United States. Aware of growing public concern over the issue, Senate Democrats are making student loans one of their top election year planks and will vote on legislation to allow refinancing at lower rates.
While it may be helpful to lower the interest rate, the real issue is to make certain that qualified American workers get those jobs. It is the rare politician, indeed, from either party who has advocated to make certain that Americans are given every opportunity to be successful.
Increasingly, American students who graduate from college find themselves to be “all dressed up with no where to go” and Americans who have jobs — especially (and in increasing numbers) high tech workers — are losing their jobs.
In December 2011 “Dan Rather Reports” aired a disconcerting hour-long report on how highly educated and experienced American computer programmers are being replaced by programmers from India. The report was titled:“Rather Reports: No thanks for everything” [6] and featured interviews with computer programmers who had been working for years in the industry and had exceptional qualifications. They were displaced by foreign workers.
On May 15, 2007 a four minute infuriating video [7] was aired on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on CNN. It featured an immigration lawyers’ conference in which lawyers were being coached to “not find qualified U.S. workers.” The lecturer is identified in the video as being Lawrence M. Lebowitz, the Vice President of Marketing for the firm of Cohen & Grigsby.
On June 9, 2015 the Daily Caller reported, “Disney Blacklisted Displaced American Workers.” [8] Apparently it was not enough for the managers at Disney to fire American workers and demand that they train their replacements if they wanted their severance packages — they also allegedly took steps to make certain that these newly laid off workers would not be able to find new jobs.
On June 3, 2015 the New York Times published a report “Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements” [9] that summed up the situation at Disney World.
On February 20, 2015 the newspaper, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, reported, “Edison under fire over plan to replace employees with foreign workers.” [10]
These two employers represent the tip of a humongous iceberg. There are many, many more companies that are employing the very same tactics.
UC Davis Health System provides health advice. It has posted a section on the issue of “Coping with the Stress of Layoff and Unemployment” [11] that begins with the following:
Coping with the Stress of Layoff and Unemployment
When a person’s job ends involuntarily due to budget cuts it is normal to feel a sense of loss and the need to take some time to begin to heal. At least temporarily, you may have lost many things important to you including your daily work; your work associations; a structure for your days; financial security and status, etc. Even though the job loss is due to budget cuts and is not your fault, it is common to feel some loss of self esteem, and think that somehow you have failed. It can be hard to tell your friends and family.
Loss and the Grieving Process
Loss triggers a grieving process that may include the stages of shock and denial, anger, resistance, sadness, and finally, acceptance.
While the article focuses on the loss of a job due to “budget cuts” it neglects the loss of jobs due to unbridled greed and the importation of foreign workers. Of course, given all of the factors, hiring foreign workers does indeed reduce the amount of money employers budget for labor. Firing qualified and experienced American and lawful immigrant workers certainly “cuts their budgets!”
The ABC News report HealthJob Losses Carry High ‘Stress Tag’ [12] includes this paragraph:
“When you lose a job, the losses are multiple,” explained Michael McKee, a psychologist at the Center for Integrative Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “There’s the possible loss of the financial ability to support yourself and your family if you don’t have savings. There may be the loss of self-respect, and the respect of others. For some people, there’s a loss of identity. There’s a loss of security and daily structure. At the extreme end, there are people who lose meaning and hope.”
My July 22, 2014 article for FrontPage Magazine, “Immigration ‘Reform’: Engineered Destruction of the Middle Class [13],” included a reference to the August 30, 2013 edition of “Business Insider” which published a Reuters news article: “Poverty Stresses The Brain So Much That It’s Like Losing 13 IQ Points [14].”
The title of that worrying report makes it clear that poverty often becomes self-perpetuating and, once again illustrates how the theft of job opportunities by deception, claims still more victims of this crime who may, in the end, face the consequences of this crime, the theft of the American Dream through deception, for a lifetime. The consequences are also likely to reverberate throughout America as well, when Americans are unable to live up to their capabilities and, rather than being contributors, become dependent on extremely costly assistance programs.
On February 17, 2015 CAPS (Californians for Population Stabilization) posted my commentary: “Effective Immigration Law Enforcement is ‘Pro-Immigrant,’ Compassionate.” [15]
In October 2014 Progressives For Immigration Reform published my policy brief: The Liberal Case for Effective Immigration Law Enforcement [16]. A video of my presentation [17] of my policy brief at the Progressives For Immigration Reform conference in November 2014 has been posted on You Tube.
I have written in numerous articles about Alan Greenspan’s avid support for Comprehensive Immigration Reform as clearly elucidated when he testified before a Senate immigration hearing on April 30, 2009 on the topic: Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2009, Can We Do It and How? [18]
In part, his prepared testimony [19], included this paragraph:
The second bonus (of greatly increasing H-1B visas) would address the increasing concentration of income in this country. Greatly expanding our quotas for the highly skilled would lower wage premiums of skilled over lesser skilled. Skill shortages in America exist because we are shielding our skilled labor force from world competition. Quotas have been substituted for the wage pricing mechanism. In the process, we have created a privileged elite whose incomes are being supported at noncompetitively high levels by immigration quotas on skilled professionals. Eliminating such restrictions would reduce at least some of our income inequality.
As for the impact increased numbers of foreign workers has on the U.S. economy, on April 15, 2015 the Financial Express headline blared, “India tops in remittances, receives $70 billion: World Bank.” [20]
Here is an excerpt from the article:
Remittances to the developing world are expected to reach USD 440 billion in 2015, an increase of 0.9 per cent over the previous year. Global remittances, including those to high income countries, are projected to grow by 0.4 per cent to USD 586 billion.
United States, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Russia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) remained the top five migrant destination countries and apart from India, China, Philippines, Mexico and Nigeria are the top five remittance recipient countries, in terms of value of remittances, the report said.
“Total remittances in 2014 reached USD 583 billion. This is more than double the ODA in the world. India received USD 70 billion, China USD 64 billion, the Philippines USD 28 billion. With new thinking these mega flows can be leveraged to finance development and infrastructure projects,” said Kaushik Basu, World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President.
The money flowing out of the United States (remittances) hobbles the U.S. economy and runs in direct opposition to the economic stimulus programs that added to our national debt to pump money into the struggling U.S. economy.
While many factors are involved, there is a point that cannot be ignored: On May 29, 2015 the BBC reported, “US economy shrank in first quarter” [21] noting that the U.S. economy shrank by .7%. However, for the first quarter of 2015, India’s economy soared. Consider this headline, that ran on the same day on the BBC website, “India’s economy surges by 7.5% in first quarter.” [22]
The only way to get Americans working and to reduce our national debt is to put American workers and American students first. American minorities are suffering the greatest poverty and despair. I addressed this in my May 7, 2015 article for FrontPage Magazine, “Hopeless in America [23].”
Thus far, nearly every candidate for the presidency of both parties has supported massive amnesty programs that would create potentially, tens of millions of newly authorized foreign workers who would not only have as much right to a job in the United States but would actually be more attractive to employers than a comparable American or lawful immigrant. Such aliens would not be covered by ObamaCare. Employers who hired the newly legalized would not have to make the decision of whether to provide costly healthcare insurance to employees or pay a $3,000.00 per employee penalty for not providing health insurance.
On November 28, 2014 I was interviewed by Charles Payne on “Your World With Neil Cavuto” about this issue. Fox News posted the interview online, “ObamaCare incentivizing hiring of illegals? – Former INS agent Michael Cutler weighs in.” [24]
Finally, the administration, without the benefit of legislation, has implemented policies that constitute the ultimate betrayal through deception to facilitate the dismantling of any remaining vestiges of integrity of the immigration system that stand between America and those who would do us harm.
We have been robbed of our share of the American Dream, our national security has been undermined and we have lost our peace of mind.
This theft has been ongoing for decades and has involved administrations of presidents from both parties, looting our nation’s treasury and stealing our dreams and aspirations and those of our children and their children.
Election Day is rapidly approaching and those who seek office need to be made to understand in unequivocal terms, that we are not as foolish, gullible and blind as they have come to expect us to be.
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