Luke Ford

From CIS.org:

1. University of California Gets Bonus from Feds for Selecting Foreign Grad Students (Memorandum)
2. Private Immigration Bills = Congressional Earmarks = Executive Pardons (Blog)
3. Blowing Holes in Latino Vote Mythology (Blog)
4. Comedian Colbert Tips Hearing Towards Farmworkers’ Amnesty (Blog)
5. Congressional Immigration Hearings as Comedy Central (Blog)
6. Fraud-Ridden Refugee Program May Restart (Blog)
7. BALCA Lets It All Hang Out, OAA Never Does (Blog)
8. Book Tells of ‘The Migrants Who Don’t Matter’ (Blog)
9. USCIS Spends Inordinate Resources on Tiny Populations (Blog)
10. The GOP’s Pledge to America and Immigration: The Missing Promise (Blog)
11. Intricacies of Immigration Enforcement and Its Lingo Exposed (Blog)
12. Abuses of the Diversity Visa Program Hidden in ICE Press Release (Blog)
13. Does It Pay to Enforce the Law? (Blog)
14. Stirring Latino Anger Against ‘Enemies’ (Blog)
15. Hurricane Karl and the Mexican State of Veracruz (Blog)
16. H-1B Program Gets Two (Well-Deserved) Kicks in the Ribs (Blog)

— Mark Krikorian]

1.
University of California Gets Bonus from Feds for Selecting Foreign Grad Students
By David North
CIS Memorandum, September 22,2010
http://www.cis.org/uc-bonus

Excerpt: The University of California (UC) receives an extra $15,000-a-year payment from the federal government every time it admits a high-tech graduate student from overseas, as opposed to one from the United States.1 The payment comes to UC after it puts the student on the payroll of a federal grant.

We estimate that UC gets a $50 million yearly bonus from this unusual system.

2.
Private Immigration Bills = Congressional Earmarks = Executive Pardons
By David North
CIS Blog, September 26, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/private-bills

Excerpt: A recent issue of Immigration Daily reminded me that there is yet another way to thwart the enforcement of the immigration law, one that is available to only a select few.

This is through the introduction of private immigration bills in the Congress. These are a sort of migration-oriented version of the congressional earmarks we hear so much about, the appropriations for members’ pet projects that get funded outside the normal budget process.

3.
Blowing Holes in Latino Vote Mythology
By James R. Edwards Jr.
CIS Blog, September 26, 2010
http://www.cis.org/edwards/latino-voting

Excerpt: The Wall Street Journal – whose editorial position is for open borders – reports that more Republican candidates for federal and state office this year are Latino. Furthermore, many prominent GOP Hispanic candidates are taking a hard line on immigration.

4.
Comedian Colbert Tips Hearing Towards Farmworkers’ Amnesty
By David North
CIS Blog, September 25, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/colbert-hearing

Excerpt: You could tell by the title of Friday morning’s hearing ‘Protecting America’s Harvest’ that the House immigration subcommittee’s agenda was tilted towards agri-business.

Then stir in the fact that the chair, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), used to be an immigration lawyer, and the well-ballyhooed presence of comedian Steven Colbert who is vehemently pro-migrant worker; finally garnish with a mix of witnesses that was three-to-one for Open Borders and you get a hearing that did not go well for the limited immigration advocates.

5.
Congressional Immigration Hearings as Comedy Central
By Stanley Renshon
CIS Blog, September 24, 2010
http://www.cis.org/renshon/colbert

Excerpt: It’s not quite the aura of seriousness and purpose that House members, and especially Democratic House members, might want to convey shortly before what is shaping up to be an historic midterm election.

Comedy Central comedian Stephen Colbert testified before a House immigration subcommittee hearing by chairwoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) titled, ‘Protecting America’s Harvest.’ He was invited because he had taken up United Farm Workers President Arturo Rodriguez on a challenge to experience life as a field worker. Colbert did so for one day and used that experience as a comedy segment on his show.

6.
Fraud-Ridden Refugee Program May Restart
By Don Barnett
CIS Blog, September 24, 2010
http://www.cis.org/barnett/refugee-family-reunification

Excerpt:Most of the ‘family reunification’ provisions in the U.S. refugee program have been suspended for the past 2 years. The Priority 3 (P-3) resettlement category was closed for refugees since summer 2008 when U.S. officials found that most refugees from Africa using the P-3 program were not related at all. The fraud rate among Somali refugees was reported to be as high as 90 percent.

7.
BALCA Lets It All Hang Out, OAA Never Does
By David North
CIS Blog, September 24, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/balca-openness

Excerpt: There’s a nice contrast between two of the sets of administrative courts handling immigration cases – the Labor Department’s Board of Alien Labor Certification Appeals (BALCA) and the DHS’ Office of Administrative Appeals (OAA).

BALCA is considerably less secretive than OAA as this instance shows.

8.
Book Tells of ‘The Migrants Who Don’t Matter’
By Jerry Kammer
CIS Blog, September 24, 2010
http://www.cis.org/kammer/migrants-who-dont-matter

Excerpt: A new book about the abuses suffered by Central American migrants passing through Mexico reports that one man visits a Western Union office in the state of Veracruz up to 35 times a day to pick up money sent to ransom those kidnapped by local gangs.

‘It is clear evidence of the failure of the authorities to stop the abuses,’ said Salvadoran journalist Oscar Martinez, author of ‘Los Migrantes Que No Importan,’ or ‘The Migrants Who Don’t Matter.’ The book is published by the Spanish publishing house Icaria.

9.
USCIS Spends Inordinate Resources on Tiny Populations
By David North
CIS Blog, September 23, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/uscis-inordinate-resources

Excerpt: DHS continues to spend substantial staff resources on the alleged problems of tiny migrant populations, while giving short shrift to bigger issues.

It hides its priorities by never discussing in public the size of the populations involved.

10.
The GOP’s Pledge to America and Immigration: The Missing Promise
By Stanley Renshon
CIS Blog, September 23, 2010
http://www.cis.org/renshon/pledge-to-america

Excerpt: The Republican Party has just released its Pledge to America. Understandably, the focus of most of its attention is a plan for improving America’s economic circumstances, cutting government spending, curtailing the size, scope, and reach of the federal government, reforming the recently passed health care legislation, changing the way in which Congress conducts its business, strengthening American resolve in national security policy, and as part of that effort, dealing seriously with border control and the enforcement of our immigration laws.

11.
Intricacies of Immigration Enforcement and Its Lingo Exposed
By David North
CIS Blog, September 23, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/letter-of-refusal

Excerpt: Would you pay $37,000 to obtain a ‘letter of refusal’?

Probably not, but if you were in the topsy-turvy world of immigration enforcement and immigration linguistics you might be tempted to do so.

Several illegal aliens living in California bought such letters from diplomats employed by Armenia, according to an ICE press release about the arrest of five people involved in the scheme.

12.
Abuses of the Diversity Visa Program Hidden in ICE Press Release
By David North
CIS Blog, September 22, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/visa-lottery-abuses

Excerpt: Publicists working for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have carefully hidden the central role of the Diversity Visa program (the visa lottery) in an extensive and brutal forced labor case involving young women from Africa.

The Diversity Visa program brings 50,000 people to the U.S. every year; people with no connections to the U.S., people without either needed skills, or refugee status, or money to invest; people who have simply won a free government lottery. For more on this program see this blog.

13.
Does It Pay to Enforce the Law?
By Steven Camarota
CIS Blog, September 22, 2010
http://www.cis.org/camarota/does-it-pay-to-enforce-the-law

Excerpt: Recently a blog posting at the American Enterprise Institute web site included an excerpt from a new AEI book by Gordon Hanson. The book is entitled, Regulating Low-Skilled Immigration in the United States. The excerpted passage attempts to make the case that making illegal immigrants return home is probably not good idea. The passage itself uses percentages of GDP to make it case. However, in the discussion below I have put the actual numbers into the calculation, to make it clearer to most readers. Here is Hanson’s argument:

14.
Stirring Latino Anger Against ‘Enemies’
By Jerry Kammer
CIS Blog, September 21, 2010
http://www.cis.org/kammer/stirring-anger-against-enemies

Excerpt: For the past several years, advocates of illegal immigrants have complained — often justifiably — of the hostile tone of some of their opponents, particularly on talk radio.

But as we reported earlier this year, the advocates have been drumming up plenty of hostility themselves. Our report showed how the Southern Poverty Law Center fabricated a bogus hate-group smear that became the centerpiece of a campaign by the National Council of La Raza to delegitimize the Federation for American Immigration Reform, and by extension, NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies.

15.
Hurricane Karl and the Mexican State of Veracruz
By Jerry Kammer
CIS Blog, September 21, 2010
http://www.cis.org/kammer/veracruz-hurricane

Excerpt: The lead story on last night’s newscast on Univision, the Spanish-language TV network, reported on Hurricane Karl’s devastation of widespread coastal areas of the Mexican state of Veracruz, whose northern border is just 250 miles south of Texas.

Reporter Edgar Munoz narrated scenes reminiscent of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina five years ago. Aerial shots showed entire communities under water. Families sat atop roofs waiting for aid.

16.
H-1B Program Gets Two (Well-Deserved) Kicks in the Ribs
By David North
CIS Blog, September 21, 2010
http://www.cis.org/north/h1b-kicks-in-the-ribs

Excerpt: The exploitative H-1B program for permitting corporations to hire nonimmigrant high-tech workers at cut-rate wages got a couple of unrelated but well-deserved kicks in the ribs last month.

A federal court ruled in favor of a USCIS memorandum designed to limit some of the worst abuses of the program, and the U.S. Labor Department forced a software firm to pay $1 million in back wages to 135 of its workers.