Tag Archive for: illegal

The Inconvenient Truth about Public Charge Provisions of Immigration Laws

There are two broad categories of lies that could be referred to as crimes of commission and crimes of omission.

The crime of commission is when facts are blatantly misrepresented, while the crime of omission involves leaving out relevant information, for example, when statements are taken out of context or relevant information is left out of the report.

These tactics have become commonplace and routine particularly when the mainstream media reports on the Trump administration and also when it reports on issues pertaining to immigration.

When the Trump administration promulgates policies that impact immigration, synergy kicks in and the truth is likely nowhere to be found.

Over a century ago a popular expression, the streets are paved with gold, drew immigrants to the United States who were determined to strike it rich in America.  When they got here they found that the streets were paved, not with gold, but with cobblestones that came from the cargo holds of ships that used those cobblestones as ballast.

Back then the cargo holds of the merchant ships that arrived at America’s ports were filled with cobblestones that served as ballast to keep those ships stable on the voyage to the United States.  Once here, those stones were off-loaded and all sorts of products that were made in America replaced the cobblestones in the cargo holds of those ships that returned to their original ports with merchandise to be sold.

The cobblestones were used to pave the roads of the port cities.

Nevertheless the immigrants who came to America worked hard and earned a living and built their futures in our nation.  None of them expected, nor received a “free ride.”

You could say that rather than being paved with gold, the streets were paved with blood, sweat and tears of the immigrants.

With their new-found freedom to worship and to pursue their dreams, many succeeded in building successful and happy lives in the United States.

On August 12, 2019 Business Today breathlessly published a Reuters News report under the title, “New Trump administration rule to target legal immigrants who get public assistance.  The subtitle of that report utterly twisted the truth:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration unveiled a sweeping rule on Monday that would limit legal immigration by denying visas and permanent residency to hundreds of thousands of people for being too poor

That article also included this excerpt:

The 837-page rule could be the most drastic of all the Trump administration’s policies targeting the legal immigration system, experts have said. Advocates for immigrants have criticized the plan as an effort to cut legal immigration without going through Congress to change U.S. law.

The new rule is derived from the Immigration Act of 1882, which allows the U.S. government to deny a visa to anyone likely to become a “public charge.”

That last paragraph creates the utterly false impression that President Trump had to dig back to law books published 137 years ago to find legal justification for invoking the concept of public charge to prevent aliens on public assistance from receiving lawful immigrant status.

In reality, while the notion of public charge was first codified in 1882, it has persisted in all subsequent rewrites of America’s immigration laws and, in fact, is still an element of the current Immigration and Nationality Act.

The claim that Trump’s public charge policies would deny entry to aliens who are poor is false.  This concern does not deny entry to aliens who are poor.  Historically many immigrants who were destitute have come to the United States.  However, they worked their way up the economic ladder to create the American Dream for themselves, their families and ultimately, for America.

The issue is not whether or not an alien seeking to enter the U.S. is poor but if that alien has the physical capabilities and skills and/or education to work and be self-sufficient in the United States.

In fact, Ellis Island was run by Public Health officials along with immigration officials.  Public Health officials had two concerns- that the arriving immigrants were not suffering from dangerous communicable diseases that could create a deadly epidemic and that the arriving immigrants were mentally and physically capable of working and supporting themselves and, perhaps, their families.

My earlier article, “The Left’s Immigration Con Game, referenced the extraordinary documentary, “Forgotten Ellis Island, that chronicles the true story about Ellis Island, and the story is not particularly pretty or romantic and runs contrary to the bogus mythology told by the immigration anarchists of today.

On August 16, 2019 CNBC reported, “Advocacy groups file suit to block Trump’s new ‘public charge’ immigration rule” that included this outrageous quote:

“This rule change is a direct attack on communities of color and their families and furthers this administration’s desire to make this country work primarily for the wealthy and white,” said Antionette Dozier, senior attorney at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “Our immigration system cannot be based on the racial animosities of this administration or whether or not people are wealthy.”

More recently NBC reported, “New York, Connecticut and Vermont sue to block Trump’s public charge rule.

Once again, the Left is resorting to “Lawfare”, filing lawsuits to achieve political objectives.

The quote that appears in the CNBC article noted above from Western Center on Law and Poverty was quick to invoke race.  Let us also be clear that race, religion and/or ethnicity play absolutely no role in determining whether or not to admit aliens into the United States.

The grounds for determining admissibility of aliens into the United States is codified in a section of the current Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S. Code § 1182.

Among the categories of aliens who are excludible are aliens who suffer dangerous communicable diseases, serious mental illness, are criminals, spies, terrorists, human rights violators, fugitives from justice, aliens who had been previously deported (removed) from the United States and aliens who have committed fraud in their applications for visas and/or immigration benefits.

Additionally, it establishes that aliens are inadmissible (excludible) if they are likely to become public charges.

This is how the current Immigration and Nationality Act unambiguously lays out the entire issue of public charge:

(4)  Public charge

(A)   In general

Any alien who, in the opinion of the consular officer at the time of application for a visa, or in the opinion of the Attorney General at the time of application for admission or adjustment of status, is likely at any time to become a public charge is inadmissible.

(B)   Factors to be taken into account

(i)  In determining whether an alien is inadmissible under this paragraph, the consular officer or the Attorney General shall at a minimum consider the alien’s–

(I)  age;

(II)  health;

(III)  family status;

(IV)  assets, resources, and financial status;  and

(V)  education and skills.

(ii)  In addition to the factors under clause (i), the consular officer or the Attorney General may also consider any affidavit of support under section 1183a of this title for purposes of exclusion under this paragraph.

The media has accused President Trump of wanting to separate families.  In point of fact, family members may provide an affidavit of support wherein they guarantee that they will provide financial assistance to their family members who seek to immigrate to the United States.  This would help to unite families not divide them.

The issue is not about dividing families or denying poor people an opportunity to immigrate to the United States, but to protect the financial solvency of the United States, an issue of increasing concern as the national debt continues to soar into the stratosphere, by simply enforcing existing laws.

I must remind you that the imposition of American policies to address public charge laws is not new, but has a long-established history that goes back 137 years.

It is clear that the United States is unable to secure its borders.  Billions of humans around the world live below the poverty line.  If the United States was to permit all of the world’s poor to come to America with the expectation of receiving free healthcare, free education, housing subsidies and other such free benefits, our nation would implode.

As it is, our national debt has soared into the stratosphere and continues its upward trajectory.

The time has come for the Radical Left to be reminded of one of their favorite chants, the one that deals with “sustainability!”

EDITORS NOTE: This FrontPage Magazine column is republished with permission. © All rights reserved.

Epic Excuse-Making Follows Near-Fatal Police Shooting By Criminal Alien

When Napa County Sheriff’s Deputy Riley Jarecki initiated a routine traffic stop earlier this month, she probably did not consider that the refusal of California officials to comply with federal immigration authorities had put her in the direct path of a habitual illegal alien criminal with drug and mental health issues.

But that is what happened on Feb. 17 when Jarecki pulled over Javier Hernandez-Morales, who’d been deported three times since 2011 and had arrests for a range of crimes from multiple counts of driving under the influence, battery on a peace officer, illegal possession of a firearm and violating his probation. And there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest, according to Fox News.

After she approached his car window, the Mexican national fired a gun at Jarecki, who shot back, including at least one fatal gunshot.

“It’s unfortunate that our law enforcement partners and the community are subjected to dangerous consequences because of inflexible state laws that protect criminal aliens,” said ICE spokesman Richard Rocha in a statement.

The incident, Rocha said, could have been prevented had ICE been kept in the loop about Hernandez-Morales’ releases from jail. “This is an impactful, scary example of how public safety is affected by laws or policies limiting local law enforcement agencies’ ability to cooperate with ICE,” he said.

When Hernandez immigration status became known, local officials shifted blame and denied wrongdoing by insisting they were following state law.

“We are in compliance with state law. That is the law of the state of California, and the county intends to comply with state law,” Napa County Supervisor Vallea Ramos told a local CBS News affiliate.

The law in question is SB54, a measure signed in 2017 by former Gov. Jerry Brown and that affords protection to all illegal aliens.

The problem for California politicians and local law enforcement who want to absolve themselves of responsibility is that, according to the Los Angeles Times, three detainers for Hernandez-Morales were issued by ICE to Napa County Jail in 2014, 2015 and 2016; and a further detainer to Sonoma County Jail in 2016.

None were honored and all were issued prior to SB54 going into effect.

The controversial law received warranted criticism in December after Newman (Calif.) Police Cpl. Ronil Singh was killed by an illegal alien who had several drunk driving arrests. Like Hernandez, Singh’s murderer should have been deported years ago.

Perhaps the most outrageous displays of blame-shifting is the op-ed penned by Jodi Hernandez, a relative of Jarecki’s attacker.

Published in the Napa Valley Register, the stunning letter implies that Hernandez was merely a victim of an uncaring system that denied him access to mental health care and did not recognize his humanity.

After apologizing to Deputy Jarecki for being forced into a situation where she had to shoot the suspect, Jodi Hernandez launched an assault of her own against enforcing immigration law.

After noting Javier had worked in the vineyards doing work that “kept the engine that is Napa Valley going,” she asserted that America was “rotting from the inside out.”

She went on. Americans, she wrote, “have lost our ability to relate to the rest of humanity from our place of relative affluence in comparison to the rest of the world” and then she argued the nation “cannot ignore the pain and anguish of an individual and expect to have a safe, strong country.”

Javier Hernandez-Morales was a Mexican national. He was in the U.S. illegally. And he was a habitual criminal with an active arrest warrant. The primary responsibility of officials in California is not to tend to his mental health needs of foreign nationals, but the safety and security of their residents and U.S. citizens.

The thinking of open border policymakers and individuals like Jodi Hernandez is not only foolish, but deadly.

COLUMN BY

avatar

JENNIFER G. HICKEY

Jennifer joined FAIR as Web Content Writer in 2017 and brings to the role extensive communications and media background. She began her career as a policy research analyst on multiple national and state political campaigns before entering journalism. In addition to spending over a decade writing for several broadcast and print news outlets, Jennifer directed communications strategy for a member of Congress and a military nonprofit.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The Pros And Cons Of TPS For Venezuelans

Congress Fails To Act On “Child Recycling”

Sex and the Temporary Visa Worker

New York Plans Dedicated “Hand-Holders” for Illegal Aliens Seeking Tuition Subsidies

EDITORS NOTE: This FAIR column with images is republished with permission.

Video on Illegal Immigration — ‘No Documents Needed’

Wayne Dupree in his column “No Documents Needed’ — This EPIC video on illegal immigration must be shared!” writes:

This Christian organization named “America Working” has put together one of the best videos to slam our lawmakers for not providing action to stop illegal immigration.

It starts out by telling you the viewer: No Action = Guilty Action

The video was put together very well and goes so much further in-depth on issues many of you probably never thought of.

Read more.

Watch “No Documents Needed”:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Buffalo, NY: Something fishy in Somali tale of woe

Heads-up Aberdeen, South Dakota! New resettlement site being proposed

Somalis arriving at the rate of 750 a month right now; will it ever end?

14,000 illegal Muslim migrants disappear without trace

What could possibly go wrong?

“14,000 illegal immigrants disappear without trace,” The Local, November 27, 2015 (thanks to C. Cantoni):

More than 14,000 foreign nationals told to leave Sweden have instead gone underground, with police saying there is little they can do to enforce deportation orders.

A total of 21,748 people had been given deportation orders by the Migration Agency at the end of October – the largest number in history, the Aftonbladet tabloid reported on Friday.

Of those, 14,140 are registered by police as ‘departed’ or ‘wanted’. Some are believed to still be at unknown locations in Sweden while others are thought to have left the country.

“We simply don’t know where they are,” Patrik Engström, head of the national border police, told the newspaper.

The rest of the individuals either remain in refugee centres, are in custody, or are living in separate accommodation which they have arranged themselves, awaiting deportation.

The government has previously announced it wants to step up efforts to ensure people without legal right to stay in Sweden exit the country. But police say most of its resources are currently devoted to carrying out ID checks after Sweden stepped up border controls.

“It’s a huge task and it is completely dependent on the police being allocated resources,” said Engström.

The Local reported in May that an increasing proportion of refugees due to be deported from Sweden were instead disappearing….

RELATED ARTICLES:

India: Muslim cleric says gender equality “un-Islamic,” women “fit only to deliver children”

France: Arabic graffiti found daubed on easyJet planes’ fuel tanks

Garland, Texas: Islamic State Jihadi Illegally Purchased Weapon from Fast and Furious Operation

The Los Angeles Times reported, Nadiv Soofi one of two Garland, Texas jihadis, the other was roommate Elton Simpson, killed in the May 2015 attack illegally purchased a weapon  in 2010 from a Fast and Furious front in Phoenix, “Assailant in Garland, Texas, attack bought gun in 2010 under Fast and Furious operation”Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) picked up on this and senate investigators are looking into how a terrorist killed in the Texas purchased a weapon illegally from the much maligned Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) “gun walking” program. Fast and Furious first came to light in 2010 with the tragic killing of US Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry by one of the ” gun walking” weapons used by a drug cartel member.

You may recall that former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder criticized Republicans in 2011 for “politicizing” the furor over the revelations.  In testimony before Congress Holder eschewed knowledge and responsibilities simply saying  it was “flawed in its concept, and flawed in its execution”. He was charged with contempt of Congress for his testimony.

The Times investigative report by Richard Serrano noted:

Five years before he was shot to death in the failed terrorist attack in Garland, Texas, Nadir Soofi walked into a suburban Phoenix gun shop to buy a 9-millimeter pistol.

At the time, Lone Wolf Trading Co. was known among gun smugglers for selling illegal firearms. And with Soofi’s history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, there was a chance his purchase might raise red flags in the federal screening process.

Inside the store, he fudged some facts on the form required of would-be gun buyers.

Late Nadir Soofi Garland Texas Mohammed Cartoon contest assailant

Late Nadir Soofi, Garland, Texas Mohammed Cartoon contest assailant.

What Soofi could not have known was that Lone Wolf was at the center of a federal sting operation known as Fast and Furious, targeting Mexican drug lords and traffickers. The idea of the secret program was to allow Lone Wolf to sell illegal weapons to criminals and straw purchasers, and track the guns back to large smuggling networks and drug cartels.

Texas gunman’s mother: ‘He just had a normal American upbringing’

Instead, federal agents lost track of the weapons and the operation became a fiasco, particularly after several of the missing guns were linked to shootings in Mexico and the 2010 killing of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in Arizona.

Soofi’s attempt to buy a gun caught the attention of authorities, who slapped a seven-day hold on the transaction, according to his Feb. 24, 2010, firearms transaction record, which was reviewed by the Los Angeles Times. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, the hold was lifted after 24 hours, and Soofi got the 9-millimeter.

As the owner of a small pizzeria, the Dallas-born Soofi, son of a Pakistani American engineer and American nurse, would not have been the primary focus of federal authorities, who back then were looking for smugglers and drug lords.

He is now.

In May, Soofi and his roommate, Elton Simpson, burst upon the site of a Garland cartoon convention that was offering a prize for the best depiction of the prophet Muhammad, something offensive to many Muslims. Dressed in body armor and armed with three pistols, three rifles and 1,500 rounds of ammunition, the pair wounded a security officer before they were killed by local police.

A day after the attack, the Department of Justice sent an “urgent firearms disposition request” to Lone Wolf, seeking more information about Soofi and the pistol he bought in 2010, according to a June 1 letter from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, to U.S. Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch.

Though the request did not specify whether the gun was used in the Garland attack, Justice Department officials said the information was needed “to assist in a criminal investigation,” according to Johnson’s letter, also reviewed by The Times.

The FBI so far has refused to release any details, including serial numbers, about the weapons used in Garland by Soofi and Simpson. Senate investigators are now pressing law enforcement agencies for answers, raising the chilling possibility that a gun sold during the botched Fast and Furious operation ended up being used in a terrorist attack against Americans.

Among other things, Johnson is demanding to know whether federal authorities have recovered the gun Soofi bought in 2010, where it was recovered and whether it had been discharged, according to the letter. He also demanded an explanation about why the initial seven-day hold was placed on the 2010 pistol purchase and why it was lifted after 24 hours.

Asked recently for an update on the Garland shooting, FBI Director James B. Comey earlier this month declined to comment. “We’re still sorting that out,” he said.

This is mind numbing. Nadir Soofi, one of the two jihadis killed in the May 2015 Garland, Texas AFDI Mohammed cartoon contest attack purchased a weapon illegally from the Fast and Furious sting front in Phoenix, with the ironic name of Lone Wolf Trading. Ask yourself why this illegal transaction occurred despite Soofi’s drug and assault charges record. This latest revelation demonstrates that the BATF sting operation was totally misguided and worked against apprehension of suspects giving material aid to Islamic terrorism. Notice this info occurred after record checks were run on weapons seized by local Garland police and run through the federal gun clearance data base.

Too bad that former attorney general Eric Holder, now at premier D.C. law firm Covington and Burling, and the former BATF program officials were never investigated or referred for possible prosecution for this lame brained scheme.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is from Twitter.

Court: NSA’s Mass Surveillance Is Illegal: The 2nd Circuit strikes down bulk collection of U.S. phone records by JULIAN SANCHEZ

In a ruling certain to profoundly shape the ongoing debate over surveillance reform in Congress, the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit today held that the National Security Agency’s indiscriminate collection of Americans’ telephone calling records exceeds the legal authority granted by the Patriot Act’s controversial section 215, which is set to expire at the end of this month.

Legislation to reform and constrain that authority, the USA Freedom Act, has drawn broad bipartisan support, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has stubbornly pressed ahead with a bill to reauthorize §215 without any changes. But the Second Circuit ruling gives even defenders of the NSA program powerful reasons to support reform.

McConnell and other reform opponents have consistently insisted, in defiance of overwhelming evidence, that the NSA program is an essential tool in the fight against terrorism, and that any reform would hinder efforts to keep Americans safe — a claim rejected even by the leaders of the intelligence community. (Talk about being more Catholic than the Pope!) . . .

A few notable points from the ruling itself: Echoing the reasoning of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board’s extremely thorough report on §215, the Second Circuit rejected the tortured legal logic underpinning both the NSA telephone program and a now-defunct program that gathered international Internet metadata in bulk.

The government had persuaded the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to interpret an authority to get records “relevant to an authorized investigation” as permitting collection of entire vast databases of information, the overwhelming majority of which are clearly not relevant to any investigation, on the premise that this allows NSA to later search for specific records that arerelevant.

As the court noted, this not only defies common sense, but it is wildly inconsistent with the way the standard of “relevance” — which governs subpoenas and court orders used in routine criminal investigations — has been interpreted for decades.

If every American’s phone records are “relevant” to counterterrorism investigations, after all, why wouldn’t those and other records be similarly “relevant” to investigations aiming to ferret out narcotics traffickers or fraudsters or tax cheats?

Past cases invoked by the government, in which courts have blessed relatively broad subpoenas under a standard of “relevance” only underscore how unprecedented the NSA’s interpretation of that standard truly is — since even the broadest such subpoenas fall dramatically short of the indiscriminate, indefinite hoovering the agency is now engaged in.

The court also quickly dispatched arguments that the plaintiffs here lacked standing to challenge the NSA program.

In general, parties seeking to challenge government action must demonstrate they’ve been harmed in some concrete way — which presents a significant hurdle when the government operates behind a thick veil of secrecy. Since documents disclosed to press by Edward Snowden — and the government’s own subsequent admissions — leave little question that the plaintiffs’ phone records are indeed being obtained, however, there’s no need for a further showing that those records were subsequently reviewed or used against the plaintiffs.

That’s critical because advocates of broad surveillance powers have often sought to argue that the mere collection of information, even on a massive scale, does not raise privacy concerns — and the focus should instead be on whether the information is used appropriately.

The court here makes plain that the unauthorized collection of data — placing it in the control and discretion of the government — is itself a privacy harm.

Finally, the court repudiated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court’s strained use of the doctrine of legislative ratification to bless the NSA program.

Under this theory — reasonable enough in most cases — when courts have interpreted some statutory language in a particular way, legislatures are presumed to incorporate that interpretation when they use similar language in subsequent laws.

The FISC reasoned that Congress had therefore effectively “ratified” the NSA telephone program, and the sweeping legal theory behind it, by repeatedly reauthorizing §215.

But as the court pointed out — somewhat more diplomatically — it’s absurd to apply that doctrine to surveillance programs and legal interpretations that were (until the Snowden leaks) secret, even from many members of Congress, let alone the general public.

While the court didn’t reach the crucial question of whether the program violates the Fourth Amendment, the ruling gives civil libertarians good reason to hope that a massive and egregious violation of every American’s privacy will finally come to an end.

Julian Sanchez

Julian Sanchez is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, studying technology, privacy, and civil liberties, with a focus on national security and intelligence surveillance. Julian Sanchez is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute, where a version of this post first appeared.

The Surge of Deadly Illegal Migration Across the Mediterranean

The EU is in the midst of another refugee crisis in the Straits that separates Sicily from North Africa. The flash point of the humanitarian crisis is the Island of Lampedusa 297 kilometers offshore of Tripoli, Libya. 168 kilometers north of Lampedusa is the Island Republic of Malta which is also in the crosshairs of this crisis. Refugees from the Jihadist conflicts throughout the Middle East, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, even South Asia pack into a flotilla of overloaded vessels which make a bee-line for this Italian landfall with less than 5,000 full time residents, where heretofore they received a welcome. Off-shore of Lampedusa now sits a flotilla of EU coast guard vessels on rotating duty alert for distress calls escorting floundering vessels to port on the Italian island and hence to Sicily and the Italian mainland. Unfortunately, these days Italian and EU coast guard vessels also search for the bodies of illegal migrants washed overboard.

The illegal refugee crisis in the Mediterranean reached a new peak in late April 2015 when thousands of illegal ‘migrants’ attempted the perilous journey. They were seeking refuge and access to generous welfare and absorption benefits from the EU. In one tragic instance, an overloaded 66 foot fishing vessel capsized on Sunday, April 19th when migrants rushed to one side of the deck hailing a commercial vessel responding their distress call. The result was over 800 downed, less than 49 survived and 28 bodies have been pulled from the water so far. Another ship disaster last week claimed 400 lives off Tripoli. The picket line of Italian and other EU coast guard vessels were pressed into service endeavoring to recover the remains. That week, an estimated 8,500 made the crossing on questionable vessels arranged by human traffickers. In 2014 more than 1,600 died during turbulent crossings. So far this year more than 900 lives have been lost. Frontex data shows that migration across the Mediterranean in 2014 peaked to a level more than twice as high as its previous peak in 2011. 170,760 migrants crossed the Mediterranean in 2014, compared with 64,300 in 2011, 15,900 in 2012, and 40,000 in 2013.

Italian President Renzi and Maltese PM Muscat requested an emergency EU Summit to address these deadly illegal migrant ship disasters. It was quickly added to the agenda of the EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Luxembourg.  According to a USA Today report Renzi said, “How can it be that we daily are witnessing a tragedy?” Muscat seconded Renzi calling “it the “biggest human tragedy of the last few years.” The illegal migration problem was discussed at the Informal meeting of the Foreign Affairs Ministers of the EU and the Southern Mediterranean countries held in Barcelona on April 13th to discuss the future of the European Neighborhood Policy.

However, there was a new development. In one illegal crossing, 12 Christians from Nigeria and Ghana were thrown overboard from a sinking raft by Muslim compatriots, because they wouldn’t recite the Shahada – the profession of faith or other Qur’anic verses. The perpetrators were arrested by Italian police. Onshore, ISIS followers in Libya beheaded 30 Ethiopian Orthodox Christians seeking to make the illegal passage across the Mediterranean, yet another outrage. That sparked anger from the Obama Administration. However, in the 20 months remaining of President Obama’s final term in office, the priority is engagement with Iran over its nuclear program via the P5+1 process hoping to deprive the Islamic regime of nuclear weapons. That priority leaves a legacy for his successor to deal with, a welter of crises.

Danish psychologist Nicolai Sennels in a 10 NewsDK blog post noted the scandal of EU cooperation with North African human traffickers:

Last weekend the EU coast guard transported 8,500 people from North Africa to Italy alone. EU says that it “saves” the “refugees” (many of them turn out to be jihadis or fake refugees) from the dangerous travel across the Mediterranean. However, it is the EU that lures millions to do this potentially deadly trip by promising Western welfare to those willing to take the chance. The EU should either start offering free transport from Africa to Europe or start sending all refugees back to local camps. I advise the latter option, and not just because it would make us able to give safety to more people for the same amount of money – which is more compassionate. But also because it would dissuade people from taking the deadly chance. Thereby nobody would die in the attempt to reach EU shores. That is how Australia does it – and since Australia introduced this policy, the amount of drowned boat-refugees decreased to zero.

It is obvious that the situation is unsustainable, but as long as our politicians continue to obey the EU and the UN, the human tsunami of refugees seeking the help of European tax payers will continue. According to humanitarian agencies “up to half a million migrants may try to cross the Mediterranean this year – a figure that would dwarf the 170,000 who reached Italy last year.

According to a report from Express, North African Human smugglers are alerting EU authorities they are sending illegal people across the Mediterranean:

Trafficking gangs ferrying immigrants into the European Union are tipping off officials so Italian and EU coast guard vessels   can pick up their boats. …

Gangs are so certain their boats will be picked up they’re even putting less fuel in the tank because naval vessels will pick them up, a former UK immigration manager has revealed.

Of the 270,000 migrants who arrived in Europe illegally last year, more than 220,000 of them came through North Africa.

Many of those attempting the dangerous crossing in overloaded un-seaworthy craft were propelled by sectarian conflicts in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria involving ISIS, Al Qaeda in the Maghreb, Al Shabaab and Boko Haram. Muslims among these illegal migrants are being welcomed into what the scholar Bat Ye’or called Eurabia: the Euro Arab AxisIn her book, Bat Ye’or warned about the consequences of EU bureaucracies engaged in outreach to Muslim countries on the periphery of the Mediterranean via the Barcelona Process of the 1990’s. That led to the establishment of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) in Paris on July 13, 2008 at a meeting of 43 heads of Euro-Mediterranean States. Subsequently, Foreign Ministers of the UfM met in Marseilles in November 2008 and established a headquarters in Barcelona. In 2010, senior member states of the UfM approved the Statues and Barcelona Headquarters in accordance with Spanish Law. According to the website of the UfM its vision and mission/mandate are:

The UfM is a multilateral partnership aiming at increasing the potential for regional integration and cohesion among Euro-Mediterranean countries. The Union for the Mediterranean is inspired by the shared political will to revitalize efforts to transform the Mediterranean into an area of peace, democracy, cooperation and prosperity.

The UfM was promoted by former French President Nicolas Sarkozy as a means of contending with the problems of rejectionist émigré Muslim communities engaged in internal disturbances attributable to mass immigration. Add to that are the contemporary problems of thousands of EU Muslims traveling to Syria to join the Islamic State to fight and build the self-declared Caliphate. A Caliphate engaged in ethnic cleansing of infidels: Christians, ancient religious minorities and what are deemed heterodox Muslims.

Fjordman, Norwegian blogger Peder Jensen, author of Defeating Eurabia  said in an email exchange:

While the Mediterranean is flooded with illegal immigrants, including Islamic Jihadists, the EU elites are creating a Union for the Mediterranean. Europe needs a Union for the Mediterranean just like it needs a beheading. This is, coincidentally, just what it might get. It is doubtful whether most Europeans want a Union with North Africa and the Middle East, but then the EU elites never cared about what ordinary Europeans think. There is no reason for them to start now.

The Syrian Civil war displaced nearly 4 million registered refugees. UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) administered camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Egypt hosting 3.2 million. 22 countries have agreed last December to accept 100,000 of the more than 320,000 Syrian refugees most at risk in 2016. The UNHCR has requested absorption of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees by major EU countries and even here in the US.

The consequences of these refugee and illegal migrant flows caused by sectarian Jihad warfare in the Muslim Ummah heartland are ironic. The Eurabian bureaucracies have in effect acquiesced to the Islamic doctrine of Dar al Hijrah – the land of immigration, a reflection of the Prophet Mohammed’s migration from Mecca to Medina that kick started the first grand Jihad. That has given rise to calls by center right parties in the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Austria, France, Sweden and the UK to reject further mass Muslim migration, whether legal or illegal. This is a reflection of rising concern over Muslim citizens traveling to join the cause of the Islamic State or Al Qaeda only to have some return to commit massacres like the Charlie Hebdo mass shooting and the Hyper Cacher Kosher Supermarket in Paris that killed 17 in January 2015. As both Sennels and Fjordman have stated, the EU citizens will pay the price of this massive wave of illegal Muslim emigration across the Mediterranean spawned by Jihad.

Geert Wilders’, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV)  in the Netherlands, drew attention to this dilemma in a speech April 29, 2015 at the Washington, D.C. Conservative Opportunity Society:

The UN plan to resettle 1 million immigrants in Western nations will provide jihadis an opportunity to infiltrate Western countries, including the US. It will give terrorists the opportunity to settle in our countries without the extra scrutiny involved in obtaining a visa or a residence permit.

We should not do this. The vast majority of the European citizens disapprove of the way their governments are handling immigration. Moreover, there are plenty of other safe countries where immigrants bound for the West can go to, including the wealthy Gulf States that have almost zero asylum-seekers today.

Immigration, especially Islamic immigration, had devastating consequences. It has made our countries less safe.

Tunisian Captain and Syrian first mate of capsized fishing vessel off Libya, April 19, 2015.

Smuggler Profiteering of Illegal Migrant Trafficking

The massive surge in the deadly illegal migrant trade across the Mediterranean figured in the emergency meeting of EU Foreign ministers in Luxembourg. The loss of over 1,200 in two separate trafficking ship disasters spurred on deliberations requested by Italian President Renzi and Maltese PM Muscat. April 22, 2015 charges were brought in Italian courts against the 27 year old Tunisian captain and 25 year old Syrian mate of the 66 foot fishing boat that capsized off Libya with a loss of 800 crammed into the flimsy vessel. NBC news reported:

The Tunisian captain of the boat — 27-year-old Mohammed Ali Malek — was arrested along with a Syrian crew member, 25-year-old Mahmud Bikhit.

Sicilian prosecutors said Tuesday that Malek has been charged with culpable shipwreck, manslaughter and aiding and abetting illegal immigration. Bikhit has been charged with aiding and abetting illegal immigration, the statement from Catania’s prosecutors said.

The question is who benefits from this deadly smuggling business?

The answer is the jihadists in Libya who have profited from the turmoil in the region. A Wall Street Journal report revealed how profitable the business of trafficking illegal migrants is worth taking the risks involved as deadly as the results have been to their customers seeking refuge in the EU. This is the bottom line of the WSJ report: “Brazen, multi-million-dollar people-smuggling enterprise run by Libyan militias and tribesmen proves hard to combat.”

The WSJ wrote:

Various armed groups in Libya are aggressively advertising their services to would-be migrants from sub-Saharan Africa and Syrians fleeing conflict in their country, presenting the collapse of order in Libya as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to secure safe passage to Europe, says Arezo Malakooti, the director of migration research for Paris-based Altai Consulting, a consultancy that works with the International Organization for Migration and other migration-related groups.

“The profits from human trafficking have consolidated a new balance of power in the Sahel and Libya,” says Tuesday Reitano, head of the Geneva-based Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime.

How a Saharan tribe profits:

The Saharan Tebu tribe, for instance, is now making “a killing,” according to Ms. Reitano, who estimates the tribe pockets some $60,000 a week by charging West African migrants for a seat on four-wheel-drive cars that take them to Agadez, a major city in Niger. From there, they ferry the migrants to the central Libyan city of Sabha and then proceed to northern Libya ahead of their sea journey to Italy and Malta.

The profits are such that tribes normally at war cooperate at times in getting migrants from one place to the next.

Mustapha Orghan, an activist who has worked with aid groups to track smuggler operations said:

Tebu and Tuaregs used to smuggle goods. The new alternative is human trafficking…and now both Tuaregs and Tebu are trying to get their share of the cake.

Mr. Orghan said Ghat, a southern Libyan town near the Algerian border where he lives, is the first entry point from Algeria for Africans. There, he said, “African migrants get sold from one smuggler to another.”

He said the trafficking business has become increasingly lucrative since chaos in Libya sharply reduced traditional sources of income in the region: heavily subsidized oil, food and other goods from Algeria.

“Farming” migrants to make profits:

In Sabha, African men typically spend months working as laborers, and women as housemaids, to earn the roughly $1,000 to pay for the crossing from Libya’s northern coast. If there is no demand for their services in Sabha, smugglers farm them out to cities further north and west for approximately 700 Libyan dinar, or about $500.

Discrimination among “customers” leads to deadly trips:

Ismail, an African migrant who declined to give his full name and nationality, tried to cross three times in recent weeks but was thwarted by overcrowding and breakdowns of the cheap plastic boat of the sort usually provided for Africans. Syrians, who can often pay more and aren’t discriminated against by the overwhelmingly Arab smugglers, typically make the crossing in sturdier wooden boats.

According to the Frontex agency the EU has arrested 10,000 involved in the illegal migrant trade, mainly truck drivers and many migrants involved in navigating the flimsy crafts. Italian authorities have arrested 1,000 smugglers since 2014. However of these, less than 100 have been convicted. They simply lack the resources in contending with the mushrooming human trafficking business as Libya devolves into a failed state.

Watch this WSJ video dramatizing the journey of an Eritrean illegal migrant across Africa to Libya and his perilous transit via smugglers to his ultimate destination in the Italian island of Lampedusa:

EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg may have surfaced calls for safe and secure channels to reduce the deadly toll of illegal migrants, but going after the lucrative smuggling trafficking business at its source means contending with warring militias and the criminal activities of tribal groups in Libya. Note this ironic comment from the UN Human Rights Commission head:

“Europe is turning its back on some of the most vulnerable migrants in the world, and risk turning the Mediterranean into a vast cemetery,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein Monday. “Migrant smugglers are the symptom, not the cause of this wretched situation.”

The European Commission Proposals

The Brussels meeting of the European Commission (EC) on April 23, 2015 proposed a number of temporary measures to deal with the migrant crisis in the Mediterranean. The EC recommended doubling of Southern European border–control missions of Spain, Malta and Italy from the present level of $3.2 million monthly to effectively “increase search and rescue operations.” The EC will also provide additional resources to Spain, Malta and Greece. Another EC proposal would provide assistance to Tunisia, Egypt and Niger in buttressing their land border controls. The EC proposed a pilot project to re-distribute 5,000 refugees who meet asylum requirements stranded outside the EU, as an attempt to fairly distribute the burden of asylees. That flies in the face of objections by major northern countries to further asylum quotas. In 2014, 626,065 refugees filed asylum claims, a 44% percent increase over 2013. As one example, Germany experienced a sharp rise is asylum requests over the first quarter of 2015 to 85,394, double over the same period in 2014. By contrast the U.S. received 47,500 asylum applications.

The majority of those asylum seekers hail from Kosovo, Syria and Albania. Germany currently has a backlog of over 200,000 applications. This has given rise to complaints by municipalities in Germany about the impact on facilities and community integration. In the most controversial proposal, the EC requested EU Foreign Relations Commissioner Federica Mogherini to develop rules of engagement enabling it to capture and destroy illegal smuggling vessels. Overall EC President Donald Tusk of Poland said the illegal migrant crisis is a” complex issue” that will “take time to tackle.”

However in the immediate future the southern tier of EU nations may yet see a further spike in illegal migrants. In the final Week of April 2015, more than 10,000 refugees from the conflict in Yemen fled in rickety boats across the Bab al Mandab to the Republic of Djibouti placing a further burden on the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Djibouti borders Eritrea where a number of migrants have followed the smuggler network to Libya and the dangerous passage to Italy and Malta on fleets of unseaworthy boats.

Conclusion

Jihad conflicts in the Middle East and Africa are driving hundreds of thousands annually in desperation to pay top dollar for a deadly ride on those rickety boats whose owners mage large profits. Nature abhors a vacuum when chaos creates rich opportunities to rake in enormous wealth from trafficking illegal migrants. The successful smugglers even alert EU officials that they are bringing another shipload of hapless migrants to fatten their margins from this deadly trade. The EU and the Union for the Mediterranean proposals for dealing with illegal mass immigration will surely cost billions of Euros. In the meantime, Italian and other EU coast guards continue to provide a picket line of vessels daily monitoring these dangerous trips in flimsy craft across the Mediterranean from the failed state of Libya.

 EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. Also see Jerry Gordon’s collection of interviews, The West Speaks.

Sarasota School Board Candidate Ken Marsh gets a little help from his union friends

Pat210-302

Patricia “Pat” Gardner, President SC/TA.

PUBLISHERS NOTE: I, Dr. Rich Swier, regret having used the term “illegal” in this and any other article to describe actions by Ms. Pat Gardner and the SC/TA.

Democrat Ken Marsh is in a run off for the Sarasota County School Board in District 1. Marsh has been endorsed by the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association (SC/TA). An investigation has revealed that two officers of the SCTA have been using their official school board email accounts to promote Marsh, denigrate a sitting school board member, promote Charlie Crist for governor and take positions on a variety of political ballot measures. These two individuals are SC/TA President Patricia “Pat” Gardner and SC/TA Treasurer Kevyn Fitzgerald. For example an email from Pat Gardner reads:

—–Original Message—–

From: Gardner Pat

Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 3:37 PM

Subject: List of Contributors to Bridget Ziegler

Please forward:

Bridget Ziegler will be in a run off election for the District 1 School Board seat with Ken Marsh in November.

SCTA endorsed Ken Marsh. Bridget Ziegler will not say if she voted for or against the referendum because she voted against it. Attached is a list of contributors to her campaign. This information came right from the Sarasota Supervisor of Elections web site.

[ATTACHED FILE LISTING DONORS TO BRIDGET ZIEGLER’S CAMPAIGN]

>Please be aware that all e-mail to and from Sarasota County Schools is subject to the public records laws of Florida.

Kevyn_Fitzgerald1

Kevyn Fitzgerald, SC/TA Treasurer, teacher Riverview High School.

Kevyn Fitzgerald, who works at Riverview High School, forwarded an email from Gardner during school hours which reads:

From: Fitzgerald Kevyn

Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 11:55 AM

To: REDACTED

Subject: FW: Information for Restricted Class

From: Gardner Pat

Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2014 10:57 AM

Subject: Information for Restricted Class

Please forward:

Yesterday, I heard from a frustrated teacher at one of our elementary schools that one of her colleagues had announced in the lunch room that she didn’t know who she would be voting for in the Governor’s race. She was shocked and, truthfully, so am I.

We have a screwed up merit pay system ready to hit us right in the face. No one can understand the formula. They don’t have the tests. It is the biggest mess I have ever seen.

Rick Scott signed this bill into law before the session was even finished in his first year. He couldn’t wait. Charlie Crist had a similar version of a merit pay law and he vetoed it the year before. So how hard is it to make a decision?

Scott cut the education budget his first year by 1.3 billion dollars. Yes, the economy was in a shambles. However, Scott’s proposed budget called for cutting 1.75 billion dollars. Even the GOP led Legislature said no. So how hard is it to make a decision?

Scott championed and signed the bill to take 3% from your salary for retirement. He did not put it into the FRS. He used it to fund the state budget. Now they want everyone to go into a 401K. This proposed law has failed twice but they will keep trying. Crist will veto any law that will hurt the FRS. So how hard is it to make a decision?

What is next with Rick Scott? Will they try to limit your sick time? Will they reduce the number of days you can cash in at retirement or worse, take them away altogether? If this man wins everything is up for grabs. He will have nothing to lose.

So, how hard is it to make a decision? [Emphasis added]

NOTE: A flyer titled FAST FACTS For Florida Teachers and Public School Employees was attached comparing Crist to Scott.

You would expect senior SC/TA officials to know the rules concerning use of the school board email system. The Sarasota County Schools Information Technology Guidelines and Procedures, page 28, under the heading “Appropriate Use of E-mail” states the following:

Sarasota County Schools guidelines prohibit certain types of e-mail. These include mail that may be perceived as harassment, political campaigning, or commercial solicitation. Chain mail is also prohibited. Violators will be subject to loss of computer access privileges, as well as additional disciplinary action as determined by the Sarasota County Schools disciplinary procedures. Certain types of e-mail, including but not limited to harassing e-mail, may also subject the sender to civil or criminal penalties. [Emphasis added]

Gardner and Fitzgerald, with others, appear to be willfully ignoring these guidelines by using school board computers and the internal email system, during school hours to send emails that “may be perceived as harassment or  political campaigning.” The teacher mentioned in the Fitzgerald/Gardner email is clearly known to all those who overhead the lunchroom conversation. Both emails are promoting a particular candidate for public office.

So, what has Superintendent Lori White done about these, and other, violations of school board policy?

Scott Ferguson, Communications Specialist Sarasota County Schools, in an email sent on behalf of Superintendent White states:

Ms. Gardner and Mr. Fitzgerald are representatives of the Sarasota Classified/Teachers Association.

Pursuant to the collective bargaining agreements between the School Board and the SC/TA, the Association has the right to use the School Board’s email system to communicate with employees regarding union business. Specifically, the instructional bargaining agreement stipulates, in Article IV-G:

E-Mail and Computer Access

1. The employer shall provide access to the Board’s electronic mail delivery system to the Union as a means of communications with the employees.

2. The employer agrees to provide access to a computer and the electronic mail delivery system for the senior Union representative at each worksite.

3. E-mail communications between the employees and the Union and/or its building representatives involving Union business will be considered a private communication not subject to Chapter 119, Florida Statutes.

4. When the Administration deems it necessary to read an employee’s e-mail, the employee will be so notified in a timely fashion. Such notification will include the reason for such interception. The e-mail of an employee will not be read by an unintended party without providing such notice to the affected parties.

5. The Union will reimburse the district a sum of $250 per year or the actual costs; whichever is higher.

Thus, the SC/TA has the contractual right to use the School Board’s email system to communicate with district employees for its own business. The School Board does not monitor these private communications, and they are not the subject of discipline.

Outside of the SC/TA’s ability to communicate with the employees, you are correct that our procedures state that the district email system is not to be used for, among other things, political campaigning. Superintendent White has sent a reminder to all employees of this prohibition.

So what action did Superintendent White take, after we notified her of the violations, exactly? Superintendent White sent out the following to all school board employees:

REMINDER TO ALL EMPLOYEES

As our community is in the midst of a number of political campaigns, I want to remind all employees about the School Board’s Information Technology Guidelines and Procedures which prohibit, among other things, using the School Board’s email system for any communication that may be perceived as political campaigning. While I encourage all our employees to be civically engaged in the electoral process, this engagement should not occur on work hours, nor should the School Board’s email system be used for this purpose.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Of course since the school board does not monitor these union “private communications” and “they are not the subject of discipline” then Superintendent White cannot know if her reminder will be honored. The only way to know for sure is to follow the school board procedure and revoke Gardner and Fitzgerald’s email privileges at least temporarily.

Imagine what would happen if a student used the school board computer system to politic, what would happen to that student? Perhaps Marsh needs to reconsider who his friends are? Or perhaps Sarasota County voters should consider Marsh and his union friends as “birds of a feather who flock together”?