The  2020 Census citizenship question is one of the  battles taking place in congress right now that isn't being publicized.

Simply put, the Trump Administration wants a citizenship question on the 2020 census, something the Democrats are fighting tooth and nail.

If anyone needed proof that voter fraud exists and that illegal migrants are voting in Democrat ruled fiefdoms like California and a number of cities, there it is. There's no other reason to oppose census workers asking that question. What we're seeing here is nothing less than the flagrant use of non-citizens, including illegal migrants to increase the political power of the Democrat party so that it can decrease the choices, freedom and political power of other Americans.

What's even more comical is that the proposed law itself is useless as it stands. Let's say you're an illegal migrant and the census worker comes to your door. Maybe you just jumped the border awhile ago. Or maybe you were a beneficiary of catch and release who conveniently forgot about that court date and are now in another state. Maybe you're getting social welfare benefits in addition to your off the books job in a restaurant as a busboy.

When you get asked if you're a citizen, what would you say? Would you jeopardize the nice deal you have going?

Of course, you'd say yes, or refuse to answer the question. After all, when you registered that car you bought, you left that box at the DMV unchecked and now you're getting campaign adds and sample ballots.* So why not say yes? Or refuse to answer?

So we've established that both sides of this Census Citizenship question for 2020 is ridiculous. Is there something that would work far better to tell citizens from non-citizens?
Sure there is, although it would be a real hell raiser.

First, require the courts to release the names of all catch and release beneficiaries who either skipped out on their court hearings or have hearings scheduled on the court's calendar. When these names are cross referenced with things like DMV records, the census workers would thus save time knowing where not to ask the Census Citizenship question and ICE would know where to find people who skipped out on their court hearings.

The State Department could likewise required to release the names and IDs of all Visa overstayers.
Second, an old idea of mine. Require all illegal migrants to register with ICE within 60 days. Those who registered would have a pending status and would be considered for residence permits, depending on their conduct here in America. Those who did not would be deported with no right of appeal. Compare those names with the voter registration lists and you go a long way towards solving two problems, illegal migration and voter fraud.

*The official policy of the California DMV is that if an applicant for a license or someone registering a vehicle fills out everything but leaves the box asking if they are a citizen unchecked, it is considered a 'mistake' or 'omission' and they are automatically registered to vote unless they specifically ask not to be.






Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

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Forum: Who Wins The War Between Trump And California's Sanctuary Policies?

Every week, the WoW! community and our invited guests weigh in at the Watcher's Forum, short takes on a major issue of the day, the culture, or daily living. This week's question:Who Wins The War Between Trump And California's Sanctuary Policies?

Dave Schuler:Honestly, I have no idea. I think that while it's possible for the federal government to win the fight it's likely that California will. It's also possible that California's politicians will overreach, make a misstep, the president will invoke the Insurrection Act, and California's state government will be removed.

I think it's clear that California is presently an outlier in an number of ways ranging from politics to demographics to economy. Under the circumstances just about anything can happen.

Rob Miller : First, it's important to look at the real issue here. And it isn't some kind of humanitarian 'immigration' issue. It's about ethnic politics and political power.

Over the past three decades or so, the state's population has largely been deliberately replaced, especially in the coastal areas where the population is. It was done using open borders, sky high taxes, massive and complex 'regulations' on businesses and punitive laws favoring illegal migrants and 'takers' rather than makers.

Well funded political organizations like MeCHA, La Raza and MALDEF based on creating and exploiting ethnic grievance also played a role. As things rolled along, laws making it easy for voter fraud to occur and for illegal migrants to vote have exacerbated things. Meanwhile, small business owners, new college graduates, and many working families have simply left because of the artificially created high cost of living and doing business. Large corporations are also starting to leave the not-so-Golden State, because of the high taxation, strangling regulations and the difficulty in attracting employees because the high cost of housing and daily living. Even Silicon Valley has started to move to places like Boise, Idaho,Texas, Phoenix and Colorado among other places.

My point is that this is a political issue that has nothing to do with immigration or humanitarianism.

So who wins? Well, the Constitution says plainly that immigration is one of those powers the Federal Government has reserved for itself, like coining money or issuing postage stamps. Since California's sanctuary laws are in violation of federal immigration laws, it would seem that once this gets to the Supreme Court, if it does, that President Trump wins this one. However, since a lot of appellate judges, especially Obama's appointees seem far more concerned with political posturing rather than the law, it's likely to be a real cobra vs. mongoose battle.

One thing the president could do to bring things to a head is to send federal marshals to Oakland to arrest the mayor, Libby Schaaf for obstruction of justice (a felony) prosecute her, and sentence her to a jail term. Ms. Schaaf is the mayor who warned illegal migrants of ICE activities that she was informed of in advance by ICE. Because of her actions, an estimated 800 illegal migrants with felony convictions are still running around loose. I believe that putting a few examples like Ms. Schaaf in prison would do a great deal to end this standoff, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if President Trump does just that. If I were placing a bet, I'd put it on President Trump to win this one.




Fun fact: It's no secret that one of the Supreme Court justices is planning to retire this summer, and the name that keeps being mentioned is 81-year-old Anthony Kennedy. A Trump nominated justice definitely affect how this goes.

Laura Rambeau Lee: The majority of Americans understand we have a very real problem with illegal immigrants who have entered and are continuing to enter our country. They are undermining the fabric of our society; driving down wages for low income and mostly minority workers; and bankrupting our states with the additional costs expended for education, medical care, and other government entitlements paid out to them. It seems daily we are hearing reports of illegal immigrants committing crimes against American citizens and getting away with them. All too often our system is protecting the criminals and not delivering justice to the victims.

This battle being fought between the Justice Department and the State of California presents a constitutional crisis for our country. California has officially become a sanctuary state and recently passed three laws which the Justice Department says violate the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution. California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra, a son of legal Mexican immigrants, not only refuses to comply with federal immigration policies, he recently asserted his department would prosecute any business that willingly complies with federal law by allowing federal immigration officers on their property.

Putting an end to illegal immigration was the primary issue of Trump’s campaign and the reason he won. We know the majority of Americans are behind him and his efforts to build the wall, end illegal immigration, and find an acceptable solution to deal with the illegal immigrants already living here.

The federal government must win this war.


Well, there it is!

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How Israel Handled Its Illegal Migrants Problem

 

One of the frequent talking points about illegal migrants, especially in Europe is that it's 'inevitable and we have to accept it.'

Israel is a first world, prosperous nation in the midst of a number of countries who are anything but that.It had a similar problem with illegal migrants. Here's how they solved it.

It should be mentioned that aside from being a haven for Jews, Israel has been relatively generous to real non-Jewish refugees*, considering how small the country is. In the 1970's, Israel took in a number of Vietnamese boat people fleeing communist gulags and they're still there. They also took in a number of Muslim Bosnian refugees, some who stayed and some who returned after the war ended. Israel is also the only country in the Middle East where the Christian population is actually growing. Israel is also home to the headquarters of the Baha'i faith, who were horribly persecuted in Iran once the ayatollahs took over in 1979.

That said, let's move on and see how the problem developed and how Israel solved it.

Almost all of the illegal migrants were Muslims who came from Sudan, Eritrea and other countries in the region. As in Europe, they came to enjoy Israel's welfare benefits but showed few signs of ever assimilating. They mostly came through Israel's back door, its border with Egypt and Gaza.

At first, the Israeli government didn't devote much attention, which meant that the numbers began to increase. Many of the migrants gravitated to South Tel Aviv, where they terrorized the local inhabitants and became a major factor in the area's increase in crime, especially thefts, sexual assaults, murders and muggings.

The Israeli government finally took action and built a fence across the part of its Egyptian border not covered by the border wall with Gaza. That cut the number of illegal migrants to zero. But before the fence was finished, The number of illegal migrants reached about 50,000, and were still a problem to be dealt with since their behavior hadn't changed.

These illegal migrants, by the way were referred to as 'infiltrators' by many Israelis in and out of government since they had penetrated the borders illegally in a very security conscious country. No one to my knowledge, not even the Israeli Left referred to them as 'immigrants'. The Left preferred to call them 'refugees' in an attempt to equate them with the other refugees Israel had given a home to, both Jews and non-Jews. However, the Left is not exactly ascendant in Israel these days.

Originally, the government put together a detention center to try and evaluate actual refugees from criminals and welfare scroungers. Israel's Supreme Court originally ruled against that, which meant that a different solution was called for. What the Israelis finally did was simply to identify refugees who had real claims for asylum because they came from a war zone and give them a different status than the others. The ones from Eritrea and Sudan are mostly bring returned immediately to their home countries, which takes care of the majority of the illegal migrants. Any of the others who put in a legal request for asylum by Dec. 31, 2017, and whose request has not yet been processed, especially if they came with children won't be deported until a decision on their status is reached. A total of 14,700 asylum requests were submitted in 2017,over half of them from Ukrainians.

The other illegal migrants are being given a choice. They can leave voluntarily before March 31st, receive free air fare and the equivalent of $3,500 USD. A couple of African countries have offered to take them in (which probably required some additional baksheesh from the Israeli government). Or they can refuse to leave and be detained in Holot Detention center until they're deported.

The Israelis will probably allow most of the 14,700 asylum seekers to stay if they have a legitimate claim, especially if they came with children. Israel can easily absorb them, and they will become another part of Israel's fascinatingly diverse population. It never fails to crack me up when some idiot who has never been to Israel calls it 'apartheid.'

The others will eventually be sent home, and since no more infiltrators are coming in...well, problem solved.

Just imagine if the Europeans and the U.S. solved their problems with illegal migrants like that!

* For the record, I do not consider those refugees who are serviced by UNRWA and call themselves 'Palestinians' to be real refugees, not after 70 years. There are actually only about 20,000 Arabs that could be called 'refugees' from 1948 left alive today, and for a significant number of them there's no real proof they ever resided in what became Israel anyway, since by its own admission UNWRA never checked.

Your results may differ.

A Humane And Fair Solution For DACA

 

DACA, as most of you might know, stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It was a policy President Barack Hussein Obama implemented by executive order. It allows allows illegal immigrants who entered the country as minors, to receive a renewable two-year period of deferred action from deportation and makes them eligible to legally work in the United States.

DACA was presented by the former president and his allies in the press as both just and humane. After all, these 'Dreamers,' to use the catchy label coined by the president and the policy's exponents, had come here as children, this was the only country they knew and of course they should be allowed to stay, shouldn't they?

But that was only the beginning. The president's next step, in November 2014 was DAPA (Deferred Action For Parents of Americans) which was supposed to give a similar de facto amnesty to parents of the Dreamers. That led to a major influx of unaccompanied minors coming across our borders, mostly male teenagers or in some cases older and posing as teenagers. The idea was to get here, get Dreamer or refugee status and then, send for the rest of the family including Auntie, Grandpa, distant cousins and pretty much anyone else thanks to America's very lenient family reunification programs.

DAPA was merely announced by President Obama. It wasn't even dignified by a Presidential executive order, nor even a regulatory ruling. The President may have misplaced his pen, because he simply announced it, and that was that,banana republic style. A few months later, in response to lawsuits from several states, an injunction was issued stopping the DAPA program in February 2015, and President Trump finally put an end to it in 2017.

So what is to be done about DACA? The Pew Trust,whose numbers may be somewhat inflated says that 1.7 million people might be eligible, although U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) only has received about 850,000 applications. As an aside, each application costs $450, and that amounts to a total of $382,500,000. I'd certainly like to know where that money went, wouldn't you?

President Trump has announced he is considering ending DACA. Part of his motivation is an agreement he made with 19 State Attorney generals to postpone a pending lawsuit declaring DACA illegal and unconstitutional (which it actually is) and demanding redress from the Federal Government for state funds expended because of it. The president asked them to hold off until he has a chance to study the issue a bit more. But as these states have informed the president, their patience is running out.

There are several ways this could go. The President could keep the program in force in exchange for things he wants from congress like tax reform, and ObamaCare repeal and funding for his budget. But if he does, he will lose political support from his base and get no credit from the pro amnesty Left anyway, as well as dealing with that lawsuit. Or he can curtail it,in which case he loses nothing, because the pro amnesty Left and their RINO allies will throw a tantrum no matter what he does.

The fact is that DACA is illegal. It is yet another piece of fallout from America's refusal to protect its borders and base immigration on its needs rather than allowing a tsunami of illegal migration.

On the other hand, there undoubtedly are illegal migrants who were brought here as young children illegally and consider this their home. It would be tremendously unjust to give these migrants preference simply because of their proximity to our border over the many people who want to come here and are stuck in the bureaucratic nightmare that involves. An illegal migrant is still an illegal migrant, not an 'immigrant.'

Still, I think there's actually a solution to this problem that works as far as respecting America's migration laws, retaining fairness for legal migrants and addressing the humanitarian issue posed by some DREAMers.

First of all, DACA needs to be ended. There's no question that it's both illegal and unjust. And even worse, holds people in limbo, so it solves nothing.

Some of the DREAMers could be allowed to stay under certain conditions. They would have to be able to document 10 years residency in the United States from what I call unimpeachable sources; school records, health records, employment records, DMV records if available,tax returns, that sort of thing.

They would be of good character, have committed no crimes,not be members of any questionable groups or organizations,  have learned to speak English, and not be on public assistance. They would not be eligible for U.S. citizenship but would receive a special permanent residence permit that would allow them to live and work in America.The citizenship restriction would not apply to illegal migrants who have served in our military and who otherwise qualify.

And it should clearly be understood that this residence permit is a one time act of clemency, not an entitlement or precedent. If necessary, legislation would need to be passed clarifying this.

 

As non-citizens, they would not be allowed participation in any family reunification program to bring relatives to America from overseas, to hold public office or to vote.

While it might be wise to put a numerical quota on these residence permits, I believe that anywhere from 30-50% of the DREAMers would qualify to stay in America should they choose to. It would mean they have forfeited certain rights given to legal migrants, but that they could continue to live in America.