Category Archives: Insurgency

Sue Compete America, a Good Place to Start

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Imagine your own government working against it’s own citizens. Now as you read on, listen for what all politicians have to say on the matter of college educations, employment and then immigration.

Pursuit of Happiness for who exactly, worse U.S. students cannot even get a seat in a college class as foreign students have them.

Compete America posts their principles on their website. The page is titled “Compete America’s 2011 Principles for U.S. Job Creation, Innovation and Economic Growth Through Employment-based Visa Reform”, so admittedly this demonstrates the efforts against U.S. citizens. Want to know what companies participate and are members? Click here and you will see corporations you know well like Boeing, Microsoft, Coca~Cola, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

                                            

Okay now read on to learn how bad this is and what questions and actions we need to take.

NationalReview: American technology workers won a big victory in the federal courts this month. The D.C. District Court ruled that a STEM-related visa program created by the Department of Homeland Security was potentially damaging to the domestic labor market and also in violation of federal rule-making procedure. For the plaintiffs in the case, the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, however, the fight against BigTech lobbyists and Homeland Security has only just begun. DHS’s so-called Optional Practical Training (OPT) program allows foreign nationals to live and work in the U.S. on a student visa even after graduation. In a rule promulgated by DHS in 2008, foreigners graduating in a STEM field at a U.S. school had these authorizations extended to nearly two and a half years after their graduation. U.S. employers love this because, on top of the longer work period, they have a greater chance to transition them into the H-1B program, a “professional specialty worker” visa that can last up to an additional six years. Also, employers receive a tax benefit for hiring OPT participants over Americans, as they do not have to pay Medicare and Social Security taxes for aliens on student visas.
Plaintiffs’ counsel, the Immigration Reform Law Institute (which I work for), argued in court that the OPT extension, created not by statute but entirely by DHS, was really just a way to circumvent the existing H-1B cap of 65,000 annual visa grants set down by Congress years before.
Helpfully for us, DHS had already admitted that this was the purpose for the extension. As it explained in the agency rule creating the extension, “the H-1B category is greatly oversubscribed,” which, as a result, has “adversely affected the ability of US employers to recruit and retain skilled workers.” With the H-1B cap having been held up by Congress over the last few years, DHS did the next best thing. As H-1B guru Norm Matloff describes in a blog post discussing our case, the agency simply went ahead and created “a de facto expansion of H-1B.”
Let me digress for a moment on the H-1B lottery and the “oversubscription” issue. Unlike other visas, the fees for H-1B applications are refundable; there is no penalty for oversubscribing. As a consequence, heavy H-1B users, such as the outsourcing firms that supply BigTech companies as well as BigTech companies themselves, always apply for more visas than they really want in order to get close to their target. David North at the Center for Immigration Studies explains the process here. So when you hear in the press and elsewhere that “petitions have outstripped slots yet again by two-to-one,” the numbers are merely a reflection of companies’ trying to game the lottery system.
As Matloff explains, OPT is “just as harmful as H-1B.” The two programs are now similar in size, and the benefits to BigTech are also similar. Like H-1B holders, OPTs are younger than most American technology workers, and therefore cheaper. Citing the “prevailing wage” rules that technically exist for H-1Bs, Matloff notes that “the legal wage floors for H-1Bs depend on experience” (the worker’s age, in other words), “so hiring young H-1Bs in lieu of older Americans is legal.” As he says with cases such as SoCal Edison and Disney, “age was the key factor underlying the wage savings accrued by hiring H-1Bs.” See this link for information on a similar suit against Google based on age discrimination (which the company has since settled).
In the case of OPTs, however, this “wage floor” isn’t even available; being recent graduates, they’re all young (and cheap). Further, OPT participants are even cheaper to employ because, as stated earlier, aliens on student visas are exempted from Social Security and Medicare.
Fundamentally, the OPT program, like H-1B, allows BigTech firms to flood the labor market, creating artificial competition and pressuring the standard of living we’ve earned through decades of hard-fought democratic and labor reforms. The cost savings, meanwhile, get siphoned up by private technology firms, many of which grew out of taxpayer-funded military programs. Thankfully, much of this wasn’t lost on the judge. DHS had asserted that our plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue because (a) they couldn’t prove an OPT participant actually took one of their jobs (an impossible and unfair demand) and, in the alternative, (b) the plaintiffs were currently employed and so couldn’t show any injury — all are employed, mostly in contract positions. The judge knocked down both arguments by pointing out that “an influx of OPT computer programmers would increase the labor supply, which is likely to depress plaintiff’s members’ wages and threaten their job security, even if they remain employed” (emphasis added).
More concrete evidence was also offered. Plaintiffs showed examples of job advertisements where only OPT participants were requested to apply. As Matloff likes to note, these companies are not just using H-1Bs and OPT participants to replace American workers, as in the SoCal Edison and Disney cases; they’re also hiring them instead of American workers. And many times, it isn’t “highly skilled” types that are being imported but simply “ordinary people, doing ordinary work.” The benefits of circumventing the H-1B program are apparently big. Arguing that DHS’s chosen 29-month extension period was an arbitrary and therefore invalid decision, plaintiffs showed the court that industry lobbyists CompeteAmerica, lobbyists from Microsoft and the Chamber of Commerce, and others had all been in contact with DHS requesting the same 29-month extension. And showing just how eager it was to comply, DHS implemented the rule without going through the statutorily mandated notice-and-comment period, a window of time in which the public can criticize agency action.
DHS tried to argue in court that skipping the process was necessitated by a looming “fiscal emergency” in the U.S. economy that could be ameliorated only by letting “tens of thousands of OPT workers” join the tech industry. Whose economic analysis did DHS cite to back this up? Studies from the technology industry itself. Ultimately, although the court knocked down the OPT extension on procedural grounds, the victory is only temporary. DHS can open up the rule to notice-and-comment and try again.
Further, the judge rejected our argument that the program violates the law on other, more substantive (and less procedural) grounds. According to congressionally made statute (Immigration and Naturalization Act § 1101(a)(15)(F)(i)), student visas cannot be allocated for working purposes and may be allocated only to “bona fide students . . . solely for the purpose of pursuing such a course of study . . . at an established . . . academic institution” (emphasis added). But again, OPT, entirely a DHS creation, purports to let student-visa holders join the workforce. By ignoring the stipulations of Congress, the program exceeds DHS’s statutory authority.
By giving DHS the authority to redefine what a “student” is, the court is allowing the agency to set the duration and conditions of a student’s stay, potentially letting them occupy the labor market for years upon years. Good for the foreign “student,” good for the trillion-dollar

tech industry, but bad for the American worker. — Ian Smith is an attorney who works for the Immigration Reform Law Institute.

Oh Look, an Illegal Immigrant Summer Camp

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As written on this blog that we must watch Germany when it comes to protests over immigration, it appears that things are spooling that activism here in America is in our future.

Who would imagine summer camp involves teaching activism and we are to accept this as a good thing?

This summer camp just churned out 80 activists

LATimes: Growing up in wealthy Marin County, Yaqueline Rodas didn’t know many people like herself: a young immigrant from Guatemala in the country without legal status. She knew even fewer political activists.

So it was with amazement and a little anxiety that she found herself standing one morning in June in a circle with 82 strangers, each of whom had also been brought to the U.S. illegally as a child, and each of whom was now officially an activist-in-training.

It was the first day of Dream Summer, an annual program that brings young immigrants from across the country to Los Angeles for a 10-week crash course designed to produce the next generation of immigrant rights leaders.

As the students sipped coffee and exchanged shy introductions in a meeting room in the basement of a Koreatown church, Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Labor Center, which organized the program, explained the objective.

“It is to build a powerful social justice movement that will transform this country,” Wong said. He cracked a smile: “No pressure.”

Dream Summer, which concluded its fifth year Thursday with a graduation ceremony in downtown Los Angeles, has already changed the immigrant rights movement. Its alumni include many leading “Dreamer” advocates, including several who led the push for President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (DACA, as it is known, granted temporary deportation protection to more than half a million young immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.)

The program includes two weeks of workshops in Los Angeles on topics as varied as public speaking, the immigrant detention system and the history of the NAACP. Participants also spend eight weeks in internships at social justice organizations around the country.

The idea is for them to learn what has worked for other social movements. But the program’s biggest value, those involved say, may be the connections forged by young immigrants from different regions with similar backgrounds, similar frustrations and similar dreams.

“Look around the room,” Wong urged the students that first day in June. “Now you’re a part of a whole network, a whole community.”

Rodas, who applied for the program on a whim after a classmate at UC Santa Barbara recommended it, said the summer had changed her sense of place in the world.

It helped her realize that there were others like her who had experienced discrimination, and who also were bothered by their parents’ struggle to find well-paying work. And it helped her find a purpose.

“Now I know I want to do something to help my community,” said Rodas, who spent the summer helping immigrants without legal status sign up for health insurance.

Chando Kem, 21, spent the first few days of the program commuting from his home in Long Beach. But soon he was spending nights on the floor of the hotel rooms of the out-of-town participants to maximize the time with his new colleagues.

During his internship, at the Filipino Migrant Center in Long Beach, Kem was asked to produce video testimonials featuring immigrants who had experienced wage theft. During the process, he realized that he should interview his own father for the film.

When his family arrived from Cambodia, when Kem was 7, his dad worked at a Chinese restaurant where he was underpaid and denied proper lunch breaks, Kem said. “Before I thought, ‘OK, this is the way things are,'” he said. “Now it’s like no, that’s wrong.”

The organizers of Dream Summer say it was born out of failure and frustration.

They started the program in 2011 after Congress failed to pass the federal Dream Act, which would have given people who came to the United States before the age of 16 a pathway to citizenship. Opponents said it would have rewarded immigrants who broke the law.

That year, several of the program’s young participants were placed with campaigns working on behalf of the California Dream Act. It passed later that year, allowing youth to apply for state financial aid at universities.

Other Dream Summer alumni would go on to lead efforts against Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, known for controversial policies targeting immigrants in the country illegally, and to take on Obama’s deportation record. One graduate, Lorella Praeli, is now Latino outreach director for Democratic hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign.

The program is not only for new activists.

At 33, Paulo Jara-Riveros was one of the oldest participants this summer. Brought to the U.S. from Peru at age 15, he returned to Peru to pursue his studies in 2011.

Two years later, Jara-Riveros was a part of a major protest in which two dozen young people with long ties to the U.S. surrendered to federal authorities at the Texas-Mexico border to protest American immigration policies. Jara-Riveros, a transgender man who says he faced discrimination in Peru, has applied for asylum and is waiting for a ruling in his case.

This summer he worked for a health organization that serves transgender immigrants. The experience was emotionally trying, he said. His takeaway: Activists must also tend to their own needs.

“Sometimes when you’re working in activism you get caught up in the work and you forget to take care of yourselves,” he said.

For Miguel Bibanco, a 20-year-old from Fresno, the program was not just about changing immigration policy. It was also about modeling an ideal society. He pointed to workshops that highlighted the experiences of minorities within the immigrant community, including lesbians, gays and transgender people and immigrants from Asia.

“It’s not just Latinos,” Bibanco said. “If we want a society that is inclusive, we need to start by including them in the activism process.”

On Thursday, he and Rodas snacked on taquitos and quesadillas at the program’s graduation ceremony, held at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

As the participants posed for pictures with their diplomas, they heard from Los Angeles City Councilman Gil Cedillo, who wrote the California Dream Act while he was a state assemblyman.

Cedillo evoked the heated rhetoric nationally around immigration. This summer, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has ratcheted up his crusade against illegal immigration, calling this month for a revocation of the constitutional amendment that guarantees citizenship to those born in the U.S.

“We’re being vilified,” said Cedillo, who called this “one of the most critical times in our country.”

He told the participants in the program that they were model members of the community. They were “hopeful, not hateful,” he said, “optimistic, not pessimistic.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You’ve shown up.”

The U.S. Refugee Immigration Costs Back to 1997

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES ADMINISTRATION FOR CHILDREN AND FAMILIES REFUGEE AND ENTRANT ASSISTANCE report is full of the budget numbers. You have no concept of what bad law and policy has cost the American taxpayers. Imagine these decades of dollars as well as grants, USAID, the Merida Initiative, State Department programs, military assistance and the Millennium Challenge dollars added in, we effectively own these countries.

 

Unaccompanied Alien Children: An Overview

Summary

In FY2014, the number of unaccompanied alien children (UAC, unaccompanied children) that were apprehended at the Southwest border while attempting to enter the United States without authorization increased sharply, straining the system put in place over the past decade to handle such cases. Prior to FY2014, UAC apprehensions were steadily increasing. For example, in FY2011, the Border Patrol apprehended 16,067 unaccompanied children at the Southwest border whereas in FY2014 more than 68,500 unaccompanied children were apprehended. In the first 8 months of FY2015, UAC apprehensions numbered 22,869, down 49% from the same period in FY2014.

UAC are defined in statute as children who lack lawful immigration status in the United States, who are under the age of 18, and who either are without a parent or legal guardian in the United States or without a parent or legal guardian in the United States who is available to provide care and physical custody. Two statutes and a legal settlement directly affect U.S. policy for the treatment and administrative processing of UAC: the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-457); the Homeland Security Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-296); and the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997.

Several agencies in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS’s) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) share responsibility for the processing, treatment, and placement of UAC. DHS Customs and Border Protection (CBP) apprehends and detains unaccompanied children arrested at the border while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) handles custody transfer and repatriation responsibilities. ICE also apprehends UAC in the interior of the country and represents the government in removal proceedings. HHS coordinates and implements the care and placement of unaccompanied children in appropriate custody.

Foreign nationals from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico accounted for almost all UAC cases in recent years, especially in FY2014. In FY2009, when the number of UAC apprehended at the Southwest border was 19,688, foreign nationals from Mexico accounted for 82% of all UAC apprehensions at the Southwest border and the three Central American countries accounted for 17% of these apprehensions. In FY2014, the proportions had almost reversed, with Mexican UAC comprising only 23% of UAC apprehensions and unaccompanied children from the three Central American countries comprising 77%.

To address the crisis, the Administration developed a working group to coordinate the efforts of federal agencies involved. It also opened additional shelters and holding facilities to accommodate the large number of UAC apprehended at the border. In June 2014, the Administration announced plans to provide funding to the affected Central American countries for a variety of programs and security-related initiatives; and in July, the Administration requested $3.7 billion in supplemental appropriations for FY2014 to address the crisis. Congress debated the supplemental appropriations but did not pass such legislation.

For FY2015, Congress appropriated nearly $1.6 billion for the Refugee and Entrant Assistance Programs in ORR, the majority of which is directed toward the UAC program (P.L. 113-235). For DHS agencies, Congress appropriated $3.4 billion for detection, enforcement, and removal operations, including for the transport of unaccompanied children for CBP. The Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, FY2015 (P.L. 114-4) also permits the Secretary of Homeland Security to reprogram funds within CBP and ICE and transfer such funds into the two agencies’ “Salaries and Expenses” accounts for the care and transportation of unaccompanied children. P.L. 114-4 also allows for several DHS grants awarded to states along the Southwest border to be used by recipients for costs or reimbursement of costs related to providing humanitarian relief to unaccompanied children.

Congressional activity on two pieces of legislation in the 114th Congress (H.R. 1153 and H.R. 1149) would make changes to current UAC policy, including amending the definition of UAC, altering current law on the treatment of unaccompanied children from contiguous countries, and amending several asylum provisions that would alter how unaccompanied children who assert an asylum claim are processed, among other things. Several other bills have been introduced without seeing legislative activity (H.R. 191/S. 129, H.R. 1700, H.R. 2491, and S. 44). The full report is here.

 

America, Take Notice of Germany’s Refugee Protests

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German Politicians Condemn Violence Against Refugees

Right-wing anti-immigrant militants attack police guarding an emergency shelter for second night

WSJ:

BERLIN—Germany condemned fresh violence against migrants after right-wing militants attacked police guarding an emergency shelter for migrants two nights in a row.

The weekend attacks, in which 31 officers were injured, took place in Heidenau, a small town near Dresden in the eastern state of Saxony. They were the latest in a series of violent right-wing protests amid the largest wave of migrants to arrive in Europe since World War II.

Germany, the largest and wealthiest member of the European Union, is carrying a large share of the burden of caring for the influx of people, and public opinion has been divided. A majority of Germans back an open-door policy for refugees fleeing war and terrorism, but a small group of neo-Nazi activists has been inciting violence.

“This is indecent and unworthy of our country,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said in an interview that appeared in the weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag, reacting to the violence in Heidenau.

The attacks began late Friday in Heidenau after a tense but largely peaceful demonstration of about 1,000 people that was organized by the neo-Nazi NPD party. As buses carrying a group of migrants neared the town, local police broke up a group of about 30 demonstrators trying to stop their arrival by erecting barricades on a street leading to the shelter.

In response, some 600 demonstrators marched on the emergency shelter and were blocked from approaching the building by about 136 police in riot gear, according to local police. In what the police described as an organized attack, a small group of militants mixed within the larger crowd pummeled the police with stones, bottles and powerful firecrackers.

The police fought back, repelling the crowd with tear gas. They ultimately dispersed the militants and cleared the way for the buses to bring 120 migrants to the shelter, a former do-it-yourself building-materials store that has been turned into temporary refugee housing.

Clashes flared up again on Saturday evening, police said, as about 120 right-wing protesters attacked police and tried to stop buses of migrants from reaching the shelter in Heidenau. About 250 migrants were expected to arrive over the weekend and local politicians warned citizens to refrain from violence or face the full force of the law.

“Anyone who throws stones, bottles and fireworks at police is not a ‘concerned citizen’, but rather a right-wing criminal,” said Henning Homann, a Social Democrat deputy in Saxony’s state parliament.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said in a Twitter post on Saturday that Germany can never “tolerate attacks and threats against people in our country,” promising that Germany will respond to such attacks “with the strong arm of the law.”

German leaders have repeatedly condemned the right-wing violence and called on the public to show empathy for about 800,000 people expected to arrive in Germany this year, many of whom have been forced to flee war-torn regions such as Iraq and Syria. In a television interview earlier this month, Chancellor Angela Merkel called anti-immigrant violence “unworthy of our country.” More details here.

Then, it appears that German business are possibly exploiting the immigrants and refugees to the benefits on both sides?

DRESDEN, Germany (Reuters) – Ashamed by the rise of anti-Islam group PEGIDA in Dresden at the end of last year, local businesswoman Viola Klein was determined to send a signal that not everyone in the eastern German city was hostile to immigrants.

“We spoke with our staff and said we have to do something to counter the view that foreigners have no business here,” said Klein, manager of software developer Saxonia Systems, which has funneled between 80,000 and 100,000 euros ($92-115,000) into refugee projects.

Klein is just one of many entrepreneurs who are using their capital and business skills to help a record-breaking number of refugees integrate into Europe’s biggest economy.

Their efforts come as local authorities brace for the number of asylum seekers to quadruple this year to 800,000 — more than the population of Germany’s fifth biggest city Frankfurt am Main.

PEGIDA’s weekly anti-Islam, anti-immigrant rallies that attracted large crowds late last year have fizzled out, but the high number of migrants arriving this year is again causing unrest, particularly in eastern Germany, where attacks against asylum shelters are on the rise.

Over the weekend, right-wing protesters pelted police with bottles, stones and fireworks as they were escorting refugees to a shelter in the town of Heidenau, south of Dresden.

After initially putting on language courses for asylum-seekers, Klein noticed around 80 percent owned a smartphone. Drawing on her firm’s expertise, she worked together with local developer Heinrich & Reuter Solutions to develop a free app to help new arrivals negotiate German bureaucracy.

Available in five languages, the ‘Welcome to Dresden’ app gives users assistance on how to apply for asylum, use public transport or find a doctor.

Mohamad Abou Assaf, a 29-year-old Syrian who arrived in Dresden five months ago after traveling overland through eastern Europe, said the app would be helpful for those coming with little grasp of the language.

Iran is on a Peace Through Strength Mission

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Sheesh

When it comes to those in Congress supporting the White House Iran nuclear deal, those in favor have countless reasons to bow out and vote no.

The Iran deal facts are here.

Iran unveils new missile, says seeks peace through strength

Reuters: Iran on Saturday unveiled a new surface-to-surface missile it said could strike targets with pin-point accuracy within a range of 500 km (310 miles) and it said military might was a precondition for peace and effective diplomacy.

The defense ministry’s unveiling of the solid-fuel missile, named Fateh 313, came little more than a month after Iran and world powers reached a deal that requires Tehran to abide by new limits on its nuclear program in return for Western governments easing economic sanctions.

According to that deal, any transfer to Iran of ballistic missile technology during the next eight years will be subject to the approval of the United Nations Security Council, and the United States has promised to veto any such requests. An arms embargo on conventional weapons also stays, preventing their import and export for five years.

But Iran has said it will not follow parts of the nuclear deal that restricts its military capabilities, a stance reaffirmed by President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday.

“We will buy, sell and develop any weapons we need and we will not ask for permission or abide by any resolution for that,” he said in a speech at the unveiling ceremony broadcast live on state television.

“We can negotiate with other countries only when we are powerful. If a country does not have power and independence, it cannot seek real peace,” he said.

The defense ministry said the Fateh 313, unveiled on Iran’s Defence Industry Day, had already been successfully tested and that mass production would start soon. More threat details here.

Then comes the other demands Iran is making now, a prisoner release.

Tehran official: Diplomats seek release of at least 19 Iranians held in U.S.

WaPo: A senior Iranian diplomat said the country is working through third-country channels to seek the release of at least 19 Iranians jailed in the United States, according to a report Friday, even as U.S. officials press Tehran to free Americans held in custody.

The comments by Hassan Qashqavi, a deputy foreign minister, did not identify the Iranians he claimed are being held in the United States, but he described them as “political prisoners,” Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

Last month, the head of the Iranian parliament’s foreign policy and national security committee, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, ­issued a letter urging Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif to demand the release of “a considerable number” of Iranians he claimed had been “unfairly jailed” by U.S. authorities for alleged sanctions violations.

Deeper dive on doing business in Iran is noted here. Remember Barack Obama waived sanctions and you will be fascinated with some of these facts.

Despite Sanctions, a Constellation of Business Seen in Iran

Decades of increasing sanctions against Iran have taken a toll on the Iranian economy and kept most companies out. But a broad range of organizations, from medical companies such as GE Healthcare to aerospace firms such as Lufthansa Technik, as well as educational institutions such as Harvard University, have obtained permission to operate in the country, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of sanctions licenses issued by the U.S. Department of Treasury in the first three months of 2014.

Below are a selection of 296 licenses, either granted or amended, for organizations to conduct business with Iran, demonstrating a sweep of legal commercial and non-profit activities that continue despite sanctions.  A must read to the end, click here.