NOT ALL ILLEGAL ALIENS COME HERE TO WORK

You read about it in the newspapers, "They come here for a better life…they come for jobs." Today, in excess of 15 million illegal aliens now operate in the USA--not all of them come here to work. It’s not that we don’t have crime in America. Two million prisoners inhabit our prisons. However, according to the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, DC, an astounding 30 percent of those prisoners constitute illegal aliens at a cost of $1.6 billion annually. That adds up to 600,000 foreigners ripping off taxpayer dollars as prisoners sit in our cells during their incarceration period.

They shouldn’t have gotten into the United States in the first place, but the crimes they committed brought horrific death, misery and suffering to American citizens. A summer ago in Boulder, Colorado, eight illegal aliens raped eight American women. The aliens fled back to Mexico. In nearby City of Longmont, a used car dealer suffered so much theft from his lot that he went bankrupt. An illegal alien killed a California Police Officer David Marsh, last year. Robberies and break-ins have become the norm in California. They’ve become the pattern in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and dozens of other states. But the sobering realities concerning these crimes point to one fact--they are illegal aliens.

In her recent scathing report in the City Journal, ‘THE ILLEGAL ALIEN CRIME WAVE’ by investigative reporter, Heather MacDonald, demonstrates that our country suffers an imported crime wave.

A full 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide, which totaled 1,500 last year in Los Angeles, pointed to illegal aliens. Soberingly, two thirds of all fugitive felony warrants, totaling 17,000, were for illegal aliens. In 1995, a report showed that 60 percent of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang in Southern California included illegal aliens. That gang collaborates with the Mexican Mafia on drug distribution schemes, extortion and drive-by assassinations. MS-13 Salvadoran gangs from Central America, with over 8,000 members, operate in 28 American cities. They’re the guys offering free drug samples to our kids with the end result being addiction. Millions of American families spend millions reversing the drug imprint on their children.

More than $120 billion in drugs crosses our porous Mexican borders annually. While Tom Ridge’s TSA screeners pat down gray-haired ladies at airports, drug runners scurry across our borders with cocaine, heroin and marijuana. Smugglers load them up along "Cocaine Alley" with clockwork coordination that rivals Fed Ex, Greyhound, UPS and the US Postal system.

While those passengers on airplanes safely fly in the skies, our kids’ minds fly on their way to drug-induced addictive crashes. All brought to you by our Congress and president who refuse to secure our borders with troops! With over 4,000 illegal aliens crossing the Arizona sector nightly according to Time Magazine’s September report, it’s apparent the U.S. Border Patrol is outgunned, outmanned and out flanked. They catch one out of four border crossers. Congress twiddles its thumbs pretending that Homeland Security works.

How did this crime wave emerge and why is it spreading? In 1979, Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates enacted Special Order 40. Astoundingly, as if insanity took the front row seat in their minds, leaders of dozens of cities from San Francisco to New York—adopted this special order. This law prohibits police officers arresting illegal aliens. Even if it aims to avoid racial profiling, the result promotes illegal alien migration. That allows free reign by hardened criminals that know they can’t be stopped.

Boulder, Colorado practices the same ‘sanctuary’ policy for illegal aliens. Boulder’s mayor and city council encourages illegal aliens by assuring the police chief does not arrest illegals. Some of Boulder’s immigration lawyers were so bold as to offer publicly announced classes for illegal aliens on how to avoid arrest, detention and deportation by immigration agents.

Last summer, again in Boulder, two illegal aliens crashed head-on with Colorado University quarterback, John Hessler in the dead of night without lights. They fled. Hessler now works to regain his life in a wheelchair after months long coma.

Not far away in Denver last summer, an illegal alien, Javier Cruz-Caballero, purposely ran down police officer, Robert Bryant, while the officer operated a radar gun in a school walk zone. Witnesses saw the Mexican national rev up his engine while taking dead-aim at the officer. Bryant flew 30 feet through the air while suffering a broken leg and head lacerations.

This year, Governor Baldacci of Maine signed a sanctuary order for that state, which means they will be recording their own illegal alien crime wave in the coming months.

At a higher level, New York’s Mayor Bloomberg supports illegal alien crime by maintaining a ‘sanctuary policy’ in that city. In January, four illegals raped and killed a New Yorker. That crime was one of thousands of felonies committed by illegal aliens who are protected from detention and deportation.

But more horrific in impact of this loss of the rule-of-law, former Mayor Guiliani practiced Special Order 40. Several illegal aliens protected by the Order participated in 9/11. Traffic police stopped terrorist Atta two weeks before 9/11. He produced an expired visa. He was not detained. He drove an airplane into the World Trade Center. The death toll reached 2,800, but the impact on our nation reverberates today. Yet, Special Order 40 continues full force in protecting an estimated 15-20 million illegal aliens in our country. They can’t be checked, detained or deported because of it. They enjoy carte blanc freedom to continue their crime spree. No thanks for the memories Mr. Guiliani--and what may come again Mr. Bloomberg!

Multiply the aforementioned individual crime stories times tens of thousands across America. It casts a different light on illegal aliens coming to America, "To do the jobs Americans won’t do."

These examples of illegal immigrant crime depict a growing menace to our functioning society. While a sleepy American public watches idly and Congress refuses to secure our borders and mayors adopt the ‘sanctuary policy’--we citizens receive an average of 4,000 illegals every 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days per year—in the Arizona sector, ALONE! It amounts to 10,000 per night on our northern, eastern, western and southern borders. That equals three million in 2004 according to Pulitzer Prize winning authors Donald Barlett and Jim Steele of Time Magazine’s, September 12, 2004 report, "Who Left the Door Open?" A copy of this expose’ may be obtained by writing to www.frostywooldridge.com

Where does that leave you? If you’re in California, you’re planning on moving to Idaho or Montana because it’s already too late. With over 3.5 million illegals, the crime wave is beyond stopping. Over 800,000 Californians fled the Golden Bear State last year. If you’re in Georgia, you’re probably stewing under your breath, but you don’t have a clue that it’s going to get worse. Another kind of crime hit them last year. Georgians paid $230 million to pay for illegal alien kids in their schools at $7,161.00 per child. In Chicago, they take jobs, rob banks and arrange drug, prostitution and theft rings. It grows worse in every city in America.

It’s called ‘THIRD WORLD MOMENTUM.’ The key is to understand that in the Third World--corruption, crime, child prostitution, bashing in peoples’ heads and worse is the norm. Look at Bogata, Columbia for mayhem and general chaos. Why? Because the rule-of-law no longer applies! THAT kind of corruption burrows itself into America because mayors, governors, senators, congressmen/women and corporations at the highest levels--aid, abet and encourage illegal immigration. Other than Congressman Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Charles Norwood and Nathan Deal of Georgia, the sickening majority of our Congress refuses to do its job. Today, in America, concerning illegal immigration, our public officials sworn to uphold the Constitution eschew their oaths of office.

The American public still hasn’t grasped the gravity of this situation or keeps thinking it will go away on its own. IT WILL GET WORSE—MUCH WORSE.

We’re as vulnerable as before December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001 because our leaders refuse to uphold our immigration laws.

Lack of leadership at the highest levels in this country aids, abets and encourages our illegal alien crime wave and the loss of the rule of law.

History books have recorded how Rome burned while Nero fiddled. America’s history will record elected leaders at the highest levels fiddling while America burned. Not to be outdone, the majority of Americans sit, watch, wait and pay more attention to Monday Night Football while their own communities, towns, cities and country swirl down the toilet.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." -- Edmund Burke 1797

Source - http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty8.htm

Bush revives bid to legalize illegal aliens

President Bush yesterday moved aggressively to resurrect his plan to relax rules against illegal immigration, a move bound to anger conservatives just days after they helped re-elect him.

The president met privately in the Oval Office with Sen. John McCain to discuss jump-starting a stalled White House initiative that would grant legal status to millions of immigrants who broke the law to enter the United States.

The Arizona Republican is one of the Senate's most outspoken supporters of expanding guest-worker programs and has introduced his own bill to offer a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

"We are formulating plans for the legislative agenda for next year," said White House political strategist Karl Rove. "And immigration will be on that agenda."

He added: "The president had a meeting this morning to discuss with a significant member of the Senate the prospect of immigration reform. And he's going to make it an important item."

While the president was huddling with Mr. McCain, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell was pushing the plan during a visit to Mexico City.

"The president remains committed to comprehensive immigration reform as a high priority in his second term," he told a meeting of the U.S.-Mexico Binational Commission. "We will work closely with our Congress to achieve this goal."

But key opponents in Congress said Mr. Bush's proposal isn't going anywhere.

"An amnesty by any other name is still an amnesty, regardless of what the White House wants to call it," said Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

"Their amnesty plan was dead on arrival when they sent it to the Congress in January, and if they send the same pig with lipstick back to Congress next January, it will suffer the same fate," he said.

With the House and Senate already clashing over border security and deportation provisions in the pending intelligence overhaul bill, some Capitol Hill aides said it's almost impossible that Congress could agree on a broader immigration proposal.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), said he "suddenly went from calm to stressed out" after learning of the president's renewed push for immigration relaxation.

He predicted the plan would continue to meet vigorous opposition from House Republicans.

"If the House wouldn't deliver this bill before the guy's election, when he claimed he needed it for the Hispanic vote, why would they deliver it after the election, when their constituents overwhelmingly oppose it?" he said. "Why would House leaders follow the president over a cliff?"

White House officials insisted the move was not "payback" to Hispanic voters who supported Mr. Bush in greater numbers last week than in 2000. Although the president first proposed relaxing immigration shortly after taking office, he mothballed the idea after September 11, 2001, and downplayed it on the campaign trail.

"The president has long believed that reforming our immigration system is a high priority," White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan said yesterday.

Mr. Stein said Mr. Bush is already a "lame duck president" whose proposal "has no credibility." He expressed astonishment that the president resurrected the plan before pushing other second-term agenda items, like tax simplification or Social Security privatization.

"There's a sense of obstinacy in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a losing approach," he said. "I mean, the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result."

Though most members of Congress agree on the need for a guest-worker program to fill unwanted jobs, House Republican leaders, including Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, have panned other parts of the president's proposal as an amnesty.

Mr. Bush has not sent immigration legislation to Congress, though seven bills have been introduced by members of the House and Senate, according to Numbers USA, an organization that lobbies for stricter immigration controls.

They range from a proposal to give legal status to fewer than 1 million agricultural workers to a bill that could legalize most of the estimated 10 million illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. But none of the bills has passed even one chamber.

Mr. McCain is sponsoring a bill, along with Reps. Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake, both Arizona Republicans, that would go further than the president's principles by explicitly allowing those now here illegally to enter a guest-worker program and eventually apply for permanent residence.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president wants to "provide a more humane treatment" of illegal aliens from Mexico.

"America has always been a welcoming society, and this is a program that will match willing workers with willing employers," he said. "It will promote compassion for workers who right now have no protection."

He added of Mr. Bush: "It's something that he intends to work with members on to get moving again in the second term. It's something he believes very strongly in."

Mr. Powell yesterday insisted that security is an important part of his boss's proposal.

"We must also be innovative in our efforts to stop those who abuse the openness of our societies along the border, who would use this openness to harm our citizens through trafficking in drugs, or trafficking in human beings, or by committing acts of terrorism," Mr. Powell said.

Some on Capitol Hill said Mr. Bush may be emboldened by the fact that he didn't appear to lose support among conservatives in this year's election, and several Republicans who did support guest-worker programs defeated primary challengers, including Mr. Flake, Mr. Kolbe and Rep. Christopher B. Cannon, Utah Republican.

"I think a lot of members around the country saw those results and realized that voters are more interested in a serious solution to this problem," said Mr. Flake's spokesman, Matthew Specht. "So I think that certainly improves the chances for reform next year."

In a 90-minute interview Sept. 22 with editors and reporters of The Washington Times, Mr. Rove said a Bush victory would "be an opportunity" for the president's guest-worker proposal for immigrants, although he declined to call it a "mandate," as he did on such issues as Social Security reform and tax cuts.

Source - http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2004/nov/10/20041110-123424-5467r/

On the payroll: illegal aliens

Long before he left his native Guadalajara, Mexico, Ricardo Robles heard he could easily find a good-paying job in the United States.

So it came as little surprise to him that almost as soon as he arrived in San Francisco two years ago, undocumented and penniless, he was earning $10 an hour pouring concrete for a building contractor, helping construct an apartment complex.

He earned more money in a day than he could in a week doing construction work in Mexico. All he had to do was stand on a street corner with other day laborers, and employers came to him. Best of all, he said, they didn't seem to care about his immigration status.

"They never asked me for my papers," said Robles, 36, who after a brief visit home was recently in Tijuana, waiting to cross the border again. "It was easy to get work."

The U.S. government has spent billions of dollars during the past decade trying to deter illegal immigration along the Southwestern border, installing fencing, setting up sophisticated surveillance equipment and hiring thousands of Border Patrol agents.

The centerpiece of this border strategy has been Operation Gatekeeper. After its implementation in October 1994, Gatekeeper largely sealed off the once-busy crossing zones that led into urban San Diego County, pushing immigrant traffic into the desert and mountains. Nearly 3,000 people have died attempting to cross the border illegally since January 1995, many of dehydration and exhaustion along the remote trails now favored by smugglers.

Yet U.S. employers across the country continue to hire undocumented immigrants in violation of federal law, providing an economic incentive that undermines efforts to curb illegal immigration through border enforcement. Some employers do so knowingly, taking advantage of workers' illegal status to keep wages low and costs down. Others are duped by job applicants with fraudulent documents or turn a blind eye when presented with them.

Legal loopholes place the burden on immigration authorities to prove wrongdoing on the employer's part, so relatively few who get caught are penalized. Sanctions against employers who break the law have declined sharply in the past decade, with the number of fines imposed on employers falling nearly 99 percent from 1992 to 2000.

Politically, enforcement is skewed heavily toward the border, not business. Although talk of national security dominated the presidential campaign this year, there was scant mention of enforcing immigration laws in the workplace.

Meanwhile, as the Border Patrol has roughly tripled in budget and size since the early 1990s, so has the undocumented population in the United States. According to the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan economic and social policy research group, there were about 9.8 million undocumented immigrants living in the country as of last year, up from 3.5 million in 1990.

At least 800,000 people are estimated to enter the country illegally each year. They readily find work in labor-intensive industries such as agriculture, where, according to a federal Department of Labor survey, at least half the work force in the late 1990s was unauthorized to work. They also flock to jobs in construction, manufacturing, meat packing, cleaning, hotels and restaurants, all industries that depend on low-wage help.

"If the federal government really wanted to stop illegal immigration, then they know how to seal a border," said Lilia Garcia, director of the Los Angeles-based Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, a union-funded watchdog group that investigates illegal practices in the cleaning industry. "The hypocrisy is that they allow for a steady stream of migration to maintain these service industries running because these workers are the engines of these industries."

Finding a way to work

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 granted amnesty to more than 3 million undocumented immigrants already in the country. It also made it illegal to knowingly hire undocumented workers, establishing penalties that include fines of as much as $10,000 per worker and six months in prison for violators.

But the operative word is knowingly. While job applicants must present identification proving their eligibility to work in the United States, employers are not required to verify its authenticity.

"In 1986, we basically said that you are off the hook if you get documents, which can easily be forged," said Philip Martin, a University of California Davis expert on immigration and labor issues. "We didn't quite say that, but it came close."

Many undocumented workers earn a living in the underground economy, although at least half are thought to be on employer payrolls, having presented phony or stolen Social Security numbers, alien identification cards or driver licenses purchased on the black market.

Some employers are fooled by high-quality fakes, according to immigration officials. Others aren't but pretend to be.

Those who know their workers are undocumented sometimes take advantage of the situation, knowing the employees aren't in a position to complain about skimpy wages or unpaid overtime.

In August, a contractor who provided janitors to Target stores agreed in a settlement with the Department of Labor to pay workers $1.9 million in back overtime. In late 2000, janitors working for a contractor who provided employees for more than 600 Albertsons, Vons, Safeway and Ralphs stores in California sued the stores, along with their employer, on similar grounds; a tentative settlement has been reached.

Although the workers' immigration status was not an issue in either case, there were janitors involved who did not have authorization to work.

One 34-year-old San Diego janitor, who identified himself only as Roberto because of his illegal status, recalls working seven days a week for a year with no overtime, sweeping and mopping grocery store floors. He was eventually given one day off every two weeks.

"You need to work, so you have to take it," he said.

The cleaning industry is rife with subcontractors who provide a layer of immunity for their clients. After immigration authorities found more than 250 contracted janitors working illegally in Wal-Mart stores last year, Wal-Mart officials denied knowledge of any wrongdoing, even though several of the company's cleaning contractors had admitted to hiring undocumented workers in the past.

Employers in industries that attract undocumented workers say they do what is required to comply with the law.

"The employers themselves are not standing at the border to decide who should come across and who shouldn't," said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau. "The employers do everything they possibly can."

But some are all too aware of how their workers entered the Unites States.

While investigating the grocery store contractor last year, Garcia, of the Maintenance Cooperation Trust Fund, came across a suspicious payroll document. Next to a deduction of $200 taken from a janitor's pay was written "prestamo coyote," Spanish for "smuggler loan."

A small employer could easily be bankrupted by fines, so Garcia sees only one explanation for such boldness.

"I think it's because enforcement is weak," she said. "There is no fear of government."

Work-site enforcement

If an employer gets caught, the worst punishment usually befalls the undocumented workers, who are deported. Federal audits of San Diego military contractors turned up nearly 160 undocumented workers during the past year, but none of the contractors was penalized.

Nationwide, work-site enforcement has declined significantly since the early 1990s, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Fines imposed on employers for breaking the law dwindled from 1,063 orders in 1992 to only 13 in 2002. Work-site arrests, warnings issued to employers and cases completed also dropped off sharply during this time.

More recently, from 1999 to 2003, criminal employer cases presented for prosecution decreased to 4 from 182. Only two employers in the city of San Diego have been referred to the U.S. Attorney for prosecution since 2000.

Immigration officials say some of the latest numbers don't reflect investigations still in progress or the recent focus on counterterrorism.

Recent work-site investigations have targeted industries such as airports, power plants and military contractors, which, while they present security risks, do not typically attract undocumented workers. These efforts may not uncover as many violations as audits of "mom and pop" businesses in service industries, said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees work-site investigations.

Perhaps most tellingly, investigators are spending less time going after employers: Since 1999, investigative work hours dedicated to work-site enforcement have decreased by more than half. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents spent a total of 471,210 work hours investigating employers in 1999. They spent only 177,975 work hours doing so last year.

Some immigration experts say enforcement is weak because lawmakers find it more politically acceptable to reinforce the border than to crack down on businesses.

"Congress was committed to passing a toothless employer sanctions law," said Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California San Diego. "It was the only way they could get it through. . . . There was a lot of pressure from business lobbies, from agribusiness, restaurants, hotels."

Over the years, politicians have intervened on behalf of a number of employers caught hiring undocumented immigrants. Some employers who have come under fire are generous political contributors, such as Wal-Mart, which has criminal and civil cases pending.

Last month, President Bush signed a Homeland Security budget for fiscal year 2005 that granted $74 million for additional Border Patrol technology, including $10 million for unmanned aerial drones. Only $5 million was granted to strengthen work-site enforcement, a fraction of the $23 million enhancement initially requested. The Border Patrol's parent agency, Customs and Border Protection, was granted in full its overall budget request for fiscal year 2005. By contrast, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has faced spending constraints this year, requested a little over $4 billion but received $3.6 billion.

Priority is given to the border, but it's not because politicians are soft on business, said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, a proponent of Operation Gatekeeper.

"I agree that having major busts of employers who have hired illegal immigrants would help cut down the magnet," said Hunter, who still supports border-enforcement initiatives. "You have to balance those two priorities, but the main priority has to be the border. . . . Particularly in this time of terrorism, it is important to have barriers."

Congress did vote last year to extend a pilot Homeland Security program that allows employers to verify workers' documents on a federal database at no cost. The program, used in California and five other states, is expected to be available nationwide beginning Dec. 1.

But participation is strictly voluntary. This is perhaps why only 127 employers in San Diego County use it despite the fact that the program has existed in California since the late 1990s.

Some employers have complained of long waits for results, although the program is supposed to verify documents immediately. There also have been reports of inaccuracies.

"For the meantime, having it voluntary is still the preferred way to go," said Rep. Susan Davis, D-San Diego.

Searching for answers

Numerous guest-worker proposals have been discussed this election year, ranging from a Bush administration idea that would grant foreign workers only temporary stays to Democratic proposals calling for "earned amnesty" for longtime undocumented workers who meet certain criteria.

But regulating the inbound flow of workers will still be difficult without finding a way to reduce the outbound flow from Mexico, where the majority of undocumented immigrants come from. Many are fleeing the effects of economic and trade policies that have failed to produce enough jobs to keep them home and in some cases have cost them their jobs.

"If Mexico were getting a lot richer and cooperated in stopping other people from coming through, that might do something," said Martin of UC Davis. "But I have a feeling that until we come up with an effective internal strategy, you can't put it all at the border."

Until that happens, immigrants who have an economic incentive to cross the border illegally will continue to do so, finding ways around the barriers put up to keep them out.

"There, it's easy to find work," said Robles, the hopeful border crosser in Tijuana, pointing north across the fence. "In Guadalajara, there is no work."

Source - http://legacy.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20041107-9999-8n7jobs.html