THE BILL SECURING OUR BORDERS: IS IT JUST A POLITICAL GESTURE? ADRIAN MORGAN, EDITOR FSM
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.7047/pub_detail.asp
A Bill Securing the Border, or a Political Gesture?
August 13, 2010 – The Editor
Today, President Obama will be signing into law a proposal that will give $600 million to securing the southern Mexican border. This money will go towards adding 1,500 new law enforcement agents, unmanned aerial vehicles and surveillance. The new posts break down into 1,000 border patrol agents, 250 border agents at points of entry and more than 250 intelligence analysts, special immigration officers and investigators.
In a statement, President Obama said the proposals in the bill would
“build upon our successful efforts to protect communities along the Southwest border and across the country. And this new law will also strengthen our partnership with Mexico in targeting the gangs and criminal organizations that operate on both sides of our shared border.â€
The bill will be partly funded by imposing greater fees upon companies who bring non-American personnel into the United States under the H-1B visa program. India has expressed disapproval, as four Indian companies – Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Mahindra Satyam – will be affected.
The bill provides for companies who use the H-1B visa program to have 50 percent or more of their staff on this scheme to pay a further $2,000 in visa application fees, on top of the existing $320 for filing an H-1B permit. The non-immigrant L-1 Visa, which also allows for foreign workers to gain work permissions for up to seven years, will also be affected under the terms of the new bill.
In practical terms, the increased fees will not provide much income for the bill’s budget. The company with the largest amount of H-1B visas is Infosys Technologies. In 2008, it had 4,500 such visa permits, and adding $2,000 in application costs to each one of these would only draw in $9 million. There were 35,000 applications for these visas this year, out of an allocation of 85,000 available.
Even if the full complement of 85,000 available H-1B visas were all used by companies who had at least half their workforce made up of such visa applicants, an increase of $2,000 per visa would only rake in $170 million, less than a third of the overall cost of the new measures. With no alternative suggestions being made for the source of income for this bill, it must be assumed that American tax-payers will pay for this.
Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and other Democrats introduced the bill. Schumer had claimed that the H-1B visas had allowed the creation of “multinational temp agencies†that have undercut U.S. workers’ jobs. He said that firms operating with high numbers of such visas created a situation that was
“discouraging many of our smartest students from entering the technology industry in the first place. Students can see that paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for advanced schooling is not worth the cost when the market is being flooded with foreign temporary workers willing to do tech work for far less pay.â€
Though this may well be true, there seems an element of a punitive nature in targeting the companies who have workers on H-1B visas. The use of such visas generally involves firms working within computer, hi-tech and IT industries. These companies are operating fully legitimately, and have nothing to do with the estimated 11 million illegal aliens who are living and working in America and paying no income tax at all.
Perhaps a fairer method of funding this and future measures to combat illegal immigration would be to introduce federal legislation to impose dramatic tax forfeits upon state and city legislatures that operate as “Sanctuary Cities.†In these locales, illegal aliens can work and live safely in the knowledge that they are granted most of the advantages conferred upon regular citizens (apart from taxes, of course). By not informing the federal authorities of the presence of illegal aliens, Sanctuary Cities are “concealing or harboring†unauthorized aliens, thereby flaunting existing federal law such as Title 8, USC § 1324 (a) from 1907 which outlaws:
“alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts.â€
Washington recently acted to punish the state of Arizona for its implementation of SB-1070. This state bill was created to ensure that those who are suspected of breaking federal law (by being unauthorized aliens) are merely questioned on their immigration status. Merely by attempting to punish a state for trying to enforce federal laws that the government has chosen to neglect has sent an appalling message. That message is that the administration does not CARE about illegal immigration.
There are genuine reasons to be concerned about the porous border. Economically, it is unhealthy with a poor economy to continue to have illegal (undocumented) workers being employed without paying tax, happy in the knowledge that Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis will secure the “rights†of such undocumented workers.
Hezbollah has been active in South America for at least a decade, particularly in the tri-border area where the frontiers of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge. Three years ago, it was plain that Hezbollah terrorists in this region were threatening the United States with revenge terrorist attacks, should Iran be attacked.
Iran funds Hezbollah in Lebanon, where Nasrallah was a Khomeinist protégé. On October 23, 1983, Iranian-funded terrorists based in Lebanon, who would later become Hezbollah, carried out the truck bombing attack upon the US Marine base in Beirut, which killed 241 American and military personnel. Not long after this, Hezbollah began to establish footholds in South America. It would enact terrorist actions in that continent, such as the attack upon the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on March 17, 1992. This killed 29. In 1994 another attack on an Israeli building in Buenos Aires killed 85.
In recent years, Hezbollah has been mixing with FARC in South America, and has been involved in gaining funds through the drug trade. But Hezbollah has been moving north, into Mexico.
In June, 2010, a congresswoman wrote to Janet Napolitano about Hezbollah’s border activities. Sue Myrick, (R-N.C) wrote that:
“It is vital we know what is happening on our border, especially as crime and violence continue to rise there and as terrorist plots and threats are increasing inside the U.S.â€
Myrick drew attention to “Iranian agents and members of Hezbollah†who were thought to be learning Spanish in Venezuela before posing as Mexican immigrants. She also quoted a former Mexican official who suggested that Hezbollah could be training Mexican drug cartels in how to make bombs. She stated that:
“This might lead to Israel-like car bombings of Mexican/USA border personnel or National Guard units.â€
So far, no USA border personnel have been attacked with car bombs. However, on July 15, 2010, less than three weeks after the Republican congresswoman suggested this, Mexico had its first experience of a drug cartel carrying out a car bombing. This attack took place in Ciudad Juarez. Two policemen and two medics were killed. The car bomb was believed to have been triggered by a cell phone, and was thought to be revenge for the police arrest of Jesus Acosta Guerrero, leader of La Linea drug cartel.
According to a recent report by Scott Stewart of the strategic forecasting group Stratfor:
STRATFOR sources say that Hezbollah members have married Mexican women in order to stay in Mexico, and some have reportedly even adopted Spanish names. A Hezbollah operative with a Spanish name who learns to speak Spanish well can be difficult for a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent to spot. American officials often lack the Spanish skills required to differentiate between Spanish speakers with Mexican accents and those with foreign accents…. Sources tell STRATFOR that Hezbollah and the Iranians are involved in several small Islamic centers in Mexican cities such as Torreon, Chihuahua City and Monterrey. They also have an active presence in Shiite Islamic centers in border towns on both sides of the border and use these centers to coordinate cross-border smuggling of contraband and operatives.
The bill that will be signed today by President Obama has been described by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and his fellow state resident John McCain as “a start,†but it is easy to be cynical.
This was a bill introduced by Democrats, after federal actions against Arizona had failed to elicit universal public support, and after Obama’s suggestion that illegal aliens could have a “pathway to legality.†More importantly, it is a bill introduced by Democrats, the first of its kind during this administration’s tenure, in a period before midterm elections, when the Democrat administration is believed by many to be “soft†on border security.
Yes, this bill is a “start†but it is a late start, and it could do nothing to avert the problems of those who arrived illegally across the border. Back in 2001, at least two people who were scheduled to take part in the 9/11 bombings were not given visas to enter the United States. Additionally, Zacarias Mousaoui, who was scheduled to be flying a plane into the White House on 9/11, was arrested on an immigration violation less than a month before the terrorist tragedy.
Strict immigration enforcement had minimized what could have made 9/11 even more devastating than it was.
With Hezbollah already gathering on the border and almost certainly joining the army of illegals who freely invade America every day, this bill is not nearly enough. It appears only as window dressing. In the face of overwhelming intelligence evidence (an Islamist, posing as a Mexican slipped across the border in late 2005 and was fortunately apprehended), the terrorism risks to Homeland Security – created by a weak border – seem to have been neglected altogether by this administration.
On issues of terrorism and national security, the safety of America’s legitimate citizens should come first. By diverting attempts to secure the border by invoking the phantoms of border enforcement potentially involving “racial profilingâ€, this administration appears to have little concern for the terrorism of Mexican drug cartels or of Iranian-sponsored terrorists crossing over the border.
If there is a major terrorist attack on US soil, caused by either drug terrorists or Islamist terrorists then, and only then, will this administration seriously address border control. Politically and strategically, by that time it will be too late to act effectively, for the barbarians are already inside the gates…
The Editor, Family Security Matters
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