Diane Alden
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003

Part I: Dumping the Third World on the West
Part II: H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class
Part III: States of Disunion

V.I. Lenin said that for a profit, the capitalist would sell the rope used to hang him. Cross out capitalist and put in corporatist, federal power structure, immigration lobbyist or trial lawyer, and old Vladmir may have had a point.

You are asking, has Alden flipped and gone over to the dark side? Not on your life. Collectivism in its many forms, from Lenin to Hitler, is anti-human, anti-freedom, as well as soul-destroying, not to mention it doesn't work.

But statism is no better than collectivism, and corporatism is nearly as evil as communism or socialism. In the end, all these forms crush the individual and have the potential for destroying free societies along with it.

More and more often in these United States, justice, citizenship and even residency can be bought for a price. But the price is at a high cost to the best interests of the nation and its people. The anything-for-a-buck philosophy is winning out, corruption is rampant, and the system is busted. Nonetheless, failure by our leaders to reform it is also politically and economically expedient.

It forces us to ask: whatever happened to our ethics and virtue, not to mention our moral fiber? Whatever happened to Adam Smith's moral imperative required of capitalism and good government in order for it to thrive and survive? Has all that been shoved over the relativist cliff as we become globally disconnected whores who will do anything for a buck?

The immigration lobby in the U.S., including the cheap-labor lobby, along with the Pharisaic trial lawyers, politicians and others who benefit, are helping to deconstruct the nation under the guise of globalization, politics, diversity, compassion, or the free market. The taxpayer and the social, economic and political and philosophical cohesion of America are suffering because of it.

So what does all that have to do with visa roulette? Quite a bit, actually. Like Russian roulette, visa roulette is a dangerous gamble. Over the long haul, the odds are not in favor of any of the players.

Cost of Immigration

George J. Borjas is the Pforzheimer Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research and author of “Heaven's Gate,” as well as “Wage Policy in the Federal Bureaucracy, Friends or Strangers,” “The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S. Economy, and Labor Economics,” and over 100 articles in books and scholarly journals.

In "Heaven's Gate," Borjas maintains, "Despite estimates that range into hundreds of billions of dollars, net annual gains from immigration are only about $8 billion.

Furthermore, "In dragging down wages, immigration currently shifts about $160 billion per year from workers to employers and users of immigrants' services. ... [I]mmigrants today are less skilled than their predecessors, more likely to require public assistance, and far more likely to have children who remain in poor, segregated communities."

Statistics from FAIR and the Center for Immigration Studies show that average adult Mexican immigrants will consume throughout their lifetimes $55,200 more in services than they contribute in taxes. The studies show that immigrants without high school educations consume $89,000 more in benefits and services than they pay in taxes. Households in California, where most Mexican immigrants arrive, have to pay on average $1,178 more in taxes each year to subsidize these immigrants.

Remember that a recent, little-publicized study commissioned by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and reported by the Washington Times concluded that between 2.95 million and 5.45 million illegal aliens cross undetected every year into the United States through guarded ports of entry. Only 1 in every 9 of these illegals is detained. This total does not include an estimated 3 million to 5 million illegal aliens who annually cross into our country through unguarded areas along the border.

Numbers aren't the only problem. Supreme Court cases dealing with illegal immigration, such as Plyer vs. Doe, tell us that because the U.S. does nothing effective to keep millions of illegals out, therefore they constitute a shadow population with rights as "persons" under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as well as the 14th Amendment.

Justice William Brennan interpreted the 14th Amendment to include illegal aliens as "persons" who are entitled to certain benefits in the U.S., benefits such as free public education, which is paid for by the states.

Meanwhile, in Texas, public health care expenses are approaching a third of the state budget. In the Harris County Hospital District, the cost of free medical care to illegal immigrants over a three-year period was $330 million.

In California, one year of emergency room care for illegals last year came to $325 million – that is after welfare reform. In 1993, it was estimated that the state paid $1 billion in emergency and pregnancy-related services for undocumented aliens. This figure was up almost 43 percent from the $700 million paid in 1992. (Source: State Department of Health Services)

All across the border states and America, the failure of Mexican culture and society to improve the lot of the Mexican people is being absorbed by the United States, often at the expense of our own poor and middle class. Some hospitals in Texas are turning down local citizens because they are overwhelmed with illegals. Many hospitals nationwide are on the verge of bankruptcy because of the impact so much humanity has on the system.

In addition, California and its regional governments spend more than $500 million a year to arrest and imprison illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes. Total legal costs of crimes committed in California by people who are not legal U.S. residents are estimated to be between $1 billion to $1.5 billion a year. (Source: "The Criminal Alien," a report by the California Joint Committee on Prison Construction and Operations)

An investigation of California's Medi-Cal program to provide medical services to 5 million poor and disabled Californians has found it rife with fraud. The extent of phony charges to the system may be higher than $1 billion annually.

In fact, most of the costs of immigration are dumped on the states, which must pick up the social costs in increased medical and educational costs, crime and destabilization, not to mention the impact on the wages of America's own lower and middle classes.

Lest we forget, the Center for Immigration Studies says that most taxes paid by legal and illegal immigrants, residents, asylum seekers, or refugees, go to federal coffers. Very little is sent back to the states, which must absorb the cost of yet another unfunded federal mandate.

For many reasons, it is obvious the system is broken and rife with corruption. Last year, a report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) revealed that immigration benefit fraud in the United States is a continuing problem. The report, “Immigration Benefit Fraud: Focused Approach Needed to Address Problems,” was conducted at the request of Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. George W. Gekas, chairman of the committee's Immigration and Claims Subcommittee. (Gekas lost his bid for re-election in November.)

It concludes that immigration benefit fraud has resulted in allowing a large number of foreign nationals to reside in the U.S. without legal documentation. The report alleges that applicants who have been denied benefits at one office apply and receive those same benefits at another office. The report states that approximately 25 percent of applications filed at offices around the country are fraudulent.

Visa System Bingo

How many different kinds of visas are there?

Immigrant visas (permanent residence)
These are issued to those who qualify for residence in the United States.

There are various applications for permanent residence; some are listed below:

Family Relations Visa
Lottery Diversity Visa
Religious Worker Visa
Refugee/Asylum/Protected Status
Investors/ Entrepreneur Visa
Temporary Worker (H1B)
Visitor Visa (B1/B2)
Priority Worker
Student Visa (F)
Green Card (DV)
Marriage and Fiancée
Affidavit Support
Investor Visa
Exchange Student
NAFTA Professional
Religious Visa
Advance Parole
Int'l Adoption

The Big Carpet Bag of Visas

The grab bag includes:

A-1. Ambassadors, public ministers or career diplomats and their immediate family members.

A-2. Other accredited officials or employees of foreign governments and their immediate family members.

A-3. Personal attendants, servants or employees and their immediate family members of A-1 and A-2 visa holders.

B-1. Business visitors.

B-2. Tourist visitors. Tourists from certain countries are permitted to come to the U.S. without B-2 visas under what is known as the Visa Waiver Program.

C-1. Foreign travelers in immediate and continuous transit through the U.S.

B-1. Crewmen who need to land temporarily in the U.S. and who will depart aboard the same ship or plane on which they arrived.

E-1. Treaty traders.

E-2. Treaty investors.

F-1. Academic or language students.

F-2. Immediate family members of F-1 visa holders.

G-1. Designated principal resident representatives of foreign governments coming to the U.S. to work for an international organization, their staff members and immediate family members.

G-2. Other accredited representatives of foreign governments coming to the U.S. to work for an international organization and their immediate family members.

G-3. Representatives of foreign governments, and their immediate family members who would ordinarily qualify for G-1 or G-2 visas except that their governments are not members of an international organization.

G-4. Officers or employees of international organizations and their immediate family members.

G-5. Attendants, servants and personal employees of G-1 through G-4 visa holders and their immediate family members.

H-1B. Persons working in specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in on-the-job experience, and distinguished fashion models.

H-2A. Temporary agricultural workers coming to the U.S. to fill positions for which a temporary shortage of American workers has been recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

H-2B. Temporary workers of various kinds coming to the U.S. to perform temporary jobs for which there is a shortage of available qualified American workers.

H-3. Temporary trainees.

H-4. Immediate family members of H-1, H-2 or H-3 visa holders.

I. Bona fide representatives of the foreign press coming to the U.S. to work solely in that capacity and their immediate family members.

J-1. Exchange visitors coming to the U.S. to study, work or train as part of an exchange program officially recognized by the United States Information Agency.

J-2. Immediate family members of J-1 visa holders.

K-1. Fiance(e)s of U.S. citizens coming to the U.S. for the purpose of getting married.

K-2. Minor, unmarried children of K-1 visa holders.

L-1. Intracompany transferees who work in positions as managers, executives or persons with specialized knowledge.

L-2. Immediate family members of L-1 visa holders.

M-1. Vocational or other nonacademic students, other than language students.

M-2. Immediate families of M-1 visa holders.

N. Children of certain special immigrants.

NATO-1, NATO-2, NATO-3, NATO-4 and NATO-5. Associates coming to the U.S. under applicable provisions of the NATO Treaty and their immediate family members. NATO-6. Members of civilian components accompanying military forces on missions authorized under the NATO Treaty and their immediate family members.

NATO-7. Attendants, servants or personal employees of NATO-1 through NATO-6 visas holders and their immediate family members.

O-1. Persons of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics.

O-2. Essential support staff of O-1 visa holders.

O-3. Immediate family members of O-1 and O-2 visa holders.

P-1. Internationally recognized athletes and entertainers and their essential support staff.

P-2. Entertainers coming to perform in the U.S. through a government-recognized exchange program.

P-3. Artists and entertainers coming to the U.S. in a group for the purpose of presenting culturally unique performances.

P-4. Immediate family members of P-1, P-2 and P-3 visa holders.

Q-1. Exchange visitors coming to the U.S. to participate in international cultural-exchange programs.

Q-2. Immediate family members of Q-1 visa holders.

R-1. Ministers and other workers of recognized religions.

R-2. Immediate family members of R-1 visa holders.

S-1. People coming to the U.S. to supply critical information to federal or state authorities where it has been determined that their presence in the U.S. is essential to the success of a criminal investigation or prosecution.

S-2. People coming to the U.S. to provide critical information to federal authorities or a court, who will be in danger as a result of providing such information, and are eligible to receive a reward for the information.

S-3. Immediate family members of S-1 or S-2 visa holders.

Visa Roulette or Bombing the Middle Class

In Part II of this series on immigration, “H-1B: Bombing the Middle Class,” we learned that one of the biggest visa scams is the H-1B and L-1 visas. H-1B applies to "Persons working in specialty occupations requiring at least a bachelor's degree or its equivalent in on-the-job experience, and distinguished fashion models."

H-1B is used by the cheap-labor lobby as a tool to manipulate the labor market in its favor. They call it reducing costs, but in fact it ends up costing more.

While they constantly moan and complain about a shortage of technical workers, companies like Siemens, Aetna, American Express, GE Capital and Microsoft, to name only a few, actually only hire 2 percent of the thousands of applicants who apply.

What the corporations really want are immigrants who are willing to work for a third to a half less than American counterparts. To add insulate to injury, most of the time they ask the American workers to train their replacements, threatening them with loss of their severance packages if they don’t.

Additionally, the visa holder has the status of an indentured servant, as his visa applies only to the hiring company. If he transfers or is fired, he is deported or must start the process all over again – that is, unless he slips through one of the loopholes.

L-1 visas allow companies from overseas to act as "consultants" who "rent" foreign programmers to American corporations, thus adding more numbers of programmers and analysts to the cheap-labor pool.

L-1 allows companies to outsource without pay restrictions. There are also no caps on the number of workers who can be indentured under L-1, as there are under H-1B. In effect, this practice has crowded out thousands of American-born workers.

When the immigration lobby or your friendly local politician who is in hock to the cheap-labor lobby tells you that H-1B or L-1 visa holders, for instance, take only jobs that Americans don't want, or that they are filling a labor shortage, they are lying through their teeth.

Dr. Norm Matloff, University of California-Davis, maintains that corporate interests and groups like ITAA are manufacturing a technical labor shortage. He says:

"Software employers, large or small, across the nation, concede that they receive huge numbers of résumés but reject most of them without even an interview. One does not have to be a 'techie' to see the contradiction here. A 2 percent hiring rate might be unremarkable in other fields, but not in one in which there is supposed to be a 'desperate' labor shortage."

Matloff says that "American programmers who work with H-1Bs indicate that rather than having work experience in the given skill, many H-1Bs either have only had a quick course or are learning the skill on the job. Ironically, the latter is what I recommend that the employers have older American programmers do, but the difference is that the H-1Bs are much cheaper than the older Americans, so the employers do this with the H-1Bs but not with the older Americans."

In fact, in his treatise, "Debunking the Technical Labor Shortage," Matloff concludes: "Employers are shooting themselves in the foot with their current hiring policies, actually increasing their labor costs rather than reducing them, and increasing time-to-market for their products, rather than reducing it."

Did Dr. Matloff just tell us that the practice of replacing American workers with foreign counterparts is a DUMB way to keep costs down? Go figure, 'cause the corporations can't.

The Price Tag for a Green Card

Jeff Elkins in his report "Greenbacks for a Green Card" notes that in some cases green cards are for sale.

"Congress, which in 1990 created the so-called investor or EB-5 visa program, unwittingly designed an open invitation to bribery and fraud that allows foreigners to purchase permanent green cards by "investing" as little as $500,000 in an American business. Elkins refers to the recent case of federal immigration judge D. Anthony Rogers.

The original story, by Walter F. Roche Jr., appeared in the Baltimore Sun on Jan. 10, 2003, under the headline "Immigration judge sought business with visa vendors. Tape recording seized in U.S. visa fraud probe shows apparent conflict."

Judge D. Anthony Rogers presides in Federal Immigration Court in Dallas. He is in charge of sensitive visa and deportation cases. A sting operation conducted by the feds in 1998 found Judge Rogers seeking a financial partnership with a Virginia firm whose green card seeking foreign clients could end up before him in court. The feds got it all on tape.

The Sun report continued:

In the taped conversation, the judge bragged that his business relationship with an Arab sheik would generate millions of dollars in business and said that a $20,000 fee for referring each potential client to the Interbank Group was not sufficient. The Herndon, Va., firm helped foreign residents gain permanent U.S. residency under a federal program that required them to invest at least $500,000 in an American business.

The tape recording caught Rogers saying to two officials of Interbank, who are now serving time for immigration fraud: "Let me go ahead and just be as abrupt as I can about it. If you think for some reason or other I am going to bring you $30 million worth of potential investors for a $20,000-a-head pop, I'm not interested in doing that. I'm not that dumb."

The Sun article related that "Interbank was one of a handful of companies set up to market a little-known investor visa program created by Congress in 1990. Under the program, foreigners were to invest $500,000 in American businesses in return for lifetime U.S. residency rights. But Interbank clients actually invested just $125,000, with the balance accounted for by what federal prosecutors charged was a phony loan."

Apparently, Judge Rogers was not acting in his capacity as an immigration judge in the federal courts, but rather as one of the approximately 15,000 to 20,000 immigration lawyers practicing in the U.S. Rogers’ complaint with Interbank was that he was not happy with the "usual sliding scale of referral fees that Interbank was offering to immigration lawyers – fees that ranged from $12,000 to $20,000 per referral, depending on volume."

In a taped conversation, Rogers stated, "I believe that we were talking about a more coordinated and partnership approach to a relationship with you all in which we were going to be able, theoretically, to provide you all with a significant amount of investor money."

Judge D. Anthony Rogers still collects his $132,000 salary and he still sits on the federal bench to which he was appointed in 1993. Investigators for the INS express concern and exasperation that he remains on the bench in Dallas.

One bad apple, you say? Or is Judge Rogers just one of many trying to make money off of the immigration and visa system? They include those who smuggle aliens into the U.S. as well as federal court judges, corporate America, trial lawyers, drug dealers – anywhere a buck is to be made.

The cost to Americans, taxpayers, citizens, and the social, moral, economic and political cohesion of the U.S. is immense. When we fail to reform the immigration and visa system, we invite corruption and disintegration.

The late African-American congresswoman Barbara Jordan, co-chair of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, may have said it best:

"We disagree with those who would label efforts to control immigration as being inherently anti-immigrant. Rather, it is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest."

Next time, Part V – Immigration and the Poor: How the states, the poor, the middle class, African-Americans, earlier immigrants are paying for the failures of our immigration policy vis à vis the Third World. How affirmative action and SBA loans benefit immigrants more than blacks. Why is Congress so sluggish in addressing this most serious problem? Why do Georgia, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nebraska have to pay for failures of American foreign policy? How did the U.S. fall into a trap based on a distorted view of "compassion" for any person from the Third World who shows up on our doorstep?

To comment, write alden@newsmax.com or visit my Web site at www.aldenchronicles.com.

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