Luke Ford

Link: “Immigration is an issue very close to the Jewish people. In our congregation, the vast majority of us are immigrants or descendants of immigrants,” Cohen said. “We feel an obligation as Jews who have experienced the blessings of welcome, and suffered the pain of rejection, to help new immigrants and those who are working to achieve documented status in our country.”

Wow. It is the Jewish duty to help illegal immigrants into America. But what about Israel? Is it the Jewish duty to help illegal Gentile immigrants to achieve legal status in Israel?

Rabbi Andrew Straus of Temple Sinai in Oakland has a recipe for destroying America:

Although the Secure Communities program originally was intended to target undocumented immigrants who commit violent and serious crimes, it has become an indiscriminate mass deportation program. Seven out of 10 Californians deported last year either had no prior convictions, or prior convictions only for minor nonviolent offenses.

Furthermore, Secure Communities has created a climate of fear in the immigrant community and has adversely affected community policing efforts. Many undocumented immigrants, including victims of domestic violence, are hesitant to report crimes to law enforcement or contact authorities because they believe that contact with the police could result in separation from their families and deportation. Beyond the emotional and community costs, in 2012 California taxpayers spent $65 million to detain people for federal authorities.

Immigration is a Jewish issue. We have been the immigrant, the stranger, perhaps more than any other people in the history of humankind. We know what it means to be an outsider, dependent on others. The Torah reminds us over and over again: “When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:33–34). This commandment is repeated more than any other commandment.

Reform CA acted on this mitzvah by traveling to Sacramento to lobby for greater fairness in California’s immigration laws, and in particular to prevent families from being broken apart by unfair deportations. We advocated for the Senate to pass a robust and expansive TRUST Act and for the governor to sign it into law in a manner that will protect as many immigrants as possible.

Participating rabbis from the Bay Area included myself and Steven Chester of Temple Sinai; Larry Raphael and Julie Saxe-Taller of Congregation Sherith Israel; Ryan Bauer, Carla Fenves and Jonathan Jaffe of Congregation Emanu-El; Melanie Aron of Congregation Shir Hadash; and Andi Berlin of the Union for Reform Judaism, along with community members from the above congregations, as well as Beth Am and Shomrei Torah.

We urge you to join us to help make California a more just and compassionate state, as we work with our interfaith partners for passage of the TRUST Act.

Help protect our immigrant brothers and sisters from living their lives in fear of deportation today when tomorrow, they could be on the path to citizenship. To participate, go to http://www.RAC.org/ReformCA to send a letter to your state senator and Gov. Jerry Brown to tell them that you support the TRUST Act.

From the press release in 2013:

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that EARL SETH DAVID was sentenced today in Manhattan federal court to five years in prison for running an immigration fraud mill through his Manhattan-based law practice. As part of the scheme, DAVID and his co-conspirators applied for legal status for tens of thousands of illegal aliens based on phony claims that they had been sponsored for employment by U.S. employers. DAVID was indicted in October 2011, and extradited to the United States from Canada in January 2012. He pled guilty in April 2012 to one count of conspiracy to commit immigration fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. DAVID was sentenced today before U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara stated: “Earl David abused his attorney’s license to exploit his alien clients who were seeking the American dream and to perpetrate a fraud on the federal government. He is now the 12th defendant in this sprawling scheme to be punished.”

According to the Superseding Indictment and statements made during court proceedings:

U.S. law permits an alien to petition for legal status if the alien has obtained a certification from the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) certifying that a U.S. employer wishes to employ, or “sponsor,” the alien. An alien who obtains the DOL certification can then use it to petition the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to obtain legal status in the United States.

From 1996 until early 2009, DAVID operated a Manhattan-based immigration law firm (the “David Firm”) that took in millions of dollars in fees from its alien-clients for purportedly securing them legal immigration status. In return for fees of up to $30,000 per alien-client, the David Firm applied for and obtained thousands of DOL certifications based upon phony employment sponsorships and fabricated documents, including fake pay stubs, fake tax returns, and fake “experience letters,” purporting to show that the sponsorships were real and that the aliens possessed special employment skill sets justifying labor-based certification by DOL. In reality, the sponsors had no intention of hiring the aliens, and the sponsor companies often did not even exist other than as shell companies for use in the fraudulent scheme. As a result of the fraud, DOL issued thousands of certifications, and immigration authorities granted legal status to thousands of the David Firm’s clients, when such adjustments were unwarranted and otherwise would not have been made. The Government has identified at least 25,000 immigration applications submitted by the David Firm – the vast majority of which have been determined to contain false, fraudulent, and fictitious information.

In furtherance of the scheme, DAVID and his employees recruited many people to participate, including dozens of individuals who, in exchange for payment, agreed to falsely represent to DOL that they were sponsoring aliens for employment; corrupt accountants who created fake tax returns for the fictitious sponsor companies; and a corrupt DOL employee who helped ensure that DOL certifications were granted based upon the fraudulent applications.

DAVID continued to operate the scheme even after he was suspended from the practice of law in New York State in March 2004. He fled to Canada in 2006 after learning that his firm was under federal criminal investigation. However, illicit profits from the scheme continued to be funneled to him in Canada, including through a bank account in the name of a biblical treatise he had authored entitled “Code of the Heart.” The David Firm ceased operations in early 2009, when federal search warrants were executed at several locations associated with the firm.

To date, a total of 26 individuals have been charged with participating in the scheme. Twenty-four defendants have been convicted, and two – Ali Gomaa and Sariel Sabale – remain fugitives. The charges against Ali Gomaa and Sariel Sabale are merely accusations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. DAVID is the twelfth defendant to be sentenced.

Comments to Failed Messiah:

* It is a well known fact that American Haredim massively abuse immigration laws. 90% of holders of Visa Type “R”, designated for Ministers (pastors, priests, imams, rabbis) are young Haredi from Israel or former USSR. In absolute majority of cases, their Rabbinical ordination is fake or semi-fake. As well, absolute majority of them are employed in jobs that far away from Minister/Rabbinical duties. They work in slaughterer houses and in kosher food production lines (and not only as Mashgichim or Shochtim which is some-how can be called Rabbinical position, but also as simple workers), they teach in Jewish schools (without teacher’s certification under the fake claim that they are actually Rabbis and teach part-time as a part of Rabbinical performance), ect ect. If everybody knows it, I guess that Homeland Security also knows it. Why they remain quit about it-I do not know.

“Rabbi Morris Allen serves the Beth Jacob Congregation in Mendota Heights. Vic Rosenthal is executive director of Jewish Community Action.”

Our work includes persuading those who harbor suspicions of those wishing to be in America.

…We must engage with those who continue to harbor suspicions of immigrants, hear them and help them to understand a different story. We must help them appreciate that, rather than being “illegal,” these people have provided this country with work that would otherwise not have been done. We must seek reconciliation with those who fail to understand that the greatness of America and indeed of humanity is our diversity and our own uniqueness.

We have reached the time to finally pass comprehensive immigration reform. Comprehensive reform must not be punitive; instead, it must reflect the truth that for too long business and corporate farmers have depended on immigrant workers but have assumed no real responsibility for their well-being. Real reform means that the industries that employed these workers should share in responsibility of advocating for a pathway to citizenship, share in any fines and work toward the restoration of human dignity.

In Minnesota, and across the country, business, labor and the faith community are working together to pass immigration reform. This must include worker protections and opportunities for workers to move from job to job and still stay on a path to citizenship.

Immigration reform must include a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented immigrants without punitive conditions. Comprehensive reform must unite families that have been separated for years, including parents, children, spouses, siblings and grandparents. We also believe that immigration reform should include LGBTQ family members as well.

Real reform means that children who were born here should never fear that they are less than American citizens, and that children who were brought here and who grew up here are able to secure the same promise of any child who sat next to them in school — for these children had the same dreams as any American child.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has passed legislation that has many of the most important components of real immigration reform. The Jewish community in Minnesota, led by Jewish Community Action, is working closely with other faith communities, organized labor and the business community to make sure that this time, this year, comprehensive reform will pass.

Rabbi Jonathan Prosnit has a recipe for destroying America (but he leaves Israel out of his recipe for national collapse):

In every generation we are obligated to see ourselves as though we personally went out from Egypt. The call to this generation is now. Immigration Reform is one of the pressing issues of this time and our community has an obligation to be a part of conversation. It is the merging of both our Jewish tradition with the highest of American ideas that we espouse. The mitzvah of caring for the stranger is greater than most any other commandment. The Torah discusses protection of the stranger no less than 36 times. We know well the words of the Polish Jewish immigrant Emma Lazarus that welcome us to New York Harbor. At the foot of The Statue of Liberty – across from Ellis Island that welcomed hundreds of thousands of Jewish immigrants to America – her poem reads:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door

With these words in mind, it is imperative that Jewish Americans speak out with regard to the moral dimension of public immigration policy and lend an active hand to organizations committed to welcoming the stranger and aiding the immigrant. Modern day undocumented immigrants living in San Jose came to America for the same reason that our ancestors crossed the Atlantic 100 years ago. The stories of Haitians and Mexicans and Filipinos today are the stories of our Czech, German and Polish ancestors. Senator Lindsay Graham – a man I rarely agree with – spoke to our group in DC earlier this week and said: “America’s an idea nobody owns – let’s allow people to become part of it!”

I’m thrilled that this Sunday at 4:00 pm Beth Am is hosting a program on Immigration Reform. The program is called: “From Stranger to Neighbor” in which we will be exploring immigration reform locally, nationally and Jewishly. We’ll explore Jewish texts on immigration, we’ll hear from experts on statewide and national immigration reform policy, and we’ll hear Beth Am members sharing their personal immigration stories. We’ll also hear from some of our own neighbors – including the story of Jose Arreola, an immigration advocate, and an undocumented Immigrant who graduated a few years ago from Mountain View High School.

Not only our synagogue, but our movement is out front on the issue of Immigration Reform via a coalition of Jews called Reform CA. Reform CA is ensuring fair and comprehensive immigration reform through a public policy perspective. Reform CA, is talking with our representatives in Sacramento and organizing lobbying days – to ensure passage of the Trust Act – which will assist undocumented Immigrants during some of their most vulnerable periods. This is a movement each of us can be a part of – through lobbying, lettering writing, and joining Reform CA in Sacramento. We do this not only as concerned citizens – but deeply rooted in Jewish tradition – standing on the shoulders of the commandment – from Leviticus Chapter 19 which reads: “When strangers sojourn with you in your land, you shall do them no wrong. The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love them as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”