post by Jack, thanks to Peggy for source
In a bold move the Obama Administration has finally recognized we have a problem with illegal immigration and they have taken steps to warn potential violators of the consequences.
U.S. Embassy Releases Video Taking Tough Immigration Stance!
Illegal immigration is a hot topic in this country. And even though there are many in the Obama administration who refuse to recognize the need for a tough stance on it, there are those who see a need to address it. Officials at one U.S. embassy abroad seem to be catching on and joining the latter crowd.
One of our embassies has released a well-produced video warning the locals not to try to work illegally in the United States. It includes testimonials from people who got burned by unscrupulous employers and by their own greed and stupidity. It also features an agent from the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security warning, in a friendly but unequivocal way, of the dire consequences facing those who try to game immigration and visa laws, including a lifetime bar from visiting the U.S.
That’s right, the administration is finally cracking down and warning violators of the consequences (while also trying to protect them). Where’s this embassy, you wonder. Get ready….. It’s Israel.
Yes, the U.S. embassy in Israel released a video just three weeks ago warning Jewish residents to mind their immigration manners before they try anything shady regarding work and business visas:
Now, don’t get me wrong — the consular staff who made this video deserve an award for their imagination and zeal in defending our country’s interests. All those violating our immigration laws must be punished. But why isn’t this kind of campaign being mounted systematically at all consulates where the locals may consider coming here illegally? (Though it also would be nice to actually, you know, enforce the law, so our warnings aren’t dismissed.) Do you think the non-immigrant visa section in Juarez would be allowed to produce something this threatening to warn against abuse of Border Crossing Card visas? Of course not — but since Israelis are white and have Zionist cooties, the Obama administration’s appointees apparently decided to permit our consular professionals to actually do their jobs in this instance.
MEXICO CITY, July 11, 2011– As part of their ongoing commitment to safeguarding the health, dignity, and well-being of undocumented migrants during the repatriation process, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Government of Mexico today reinitiated the seasonal Mexican Interior Repatriation Program (MIRP). The first flight departed Tucson, AZ this morning en route to Mexico City, with undocumented returnees on board. Once in Mexico City, the passengers are met by representatives of Mexico’s National Institute of Migration (INM), who will assist them in returning to their homes in the interior of Mexico. Participation in interior repatriation is voluntary, and is intended to protect Mexican nationals from high temperatures and dangerous conditions near the border during the height of the summer season.
The program is costly, says U.S. embassy representative John Feeley, but that shouldn’t matter: “[W]e are committed to providing these undocumented migrants with a safe and humane return to Mexico, even at significant cost to the U.S. taxpayer. The simple fact is, this humanitarian program saves Mexican lives.”
Looking for tough immigration talk? You likely won’t find it on the front page of the website for the American embassy in Mexico. It’s riddled with posts about kids taking English classes, a border-crossing partnership, and even a congratulations-to-Mexico story. A video on its YouTube channel even shows young Mexicans dressing up as founding fathers: Isn’t that nice?
So one could probably expect a lot of cooperative language to permeate the front page of the American embassy page located in Tel Aviv, right? Yes. And there is such language. But there’s also this curious post located just four stories down under “embassy news:”
Principal human rights problems were institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Arab citizens, Palestinian residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (see annex), non-Orthodox Jews, and other religious groups; societal discrimination against persons with disabilities; and societal discrimination and domestic violence against women, particularly in Bedouin society. While trafficking in persons for the purpose of prostitution decreased in recent years, trafficking for the purpose of labor remained a serious problem, as did abuse of foreign workers and societal discrimination and incitement against asylum seekers.
Ouch!
For years, the Obama administration has refused to recognize illegal immigration from Mexico as a problem (even despite evidence that jihadists are using America’s porous southern border). Now it’s talking tough on Jewish immigrants. Makes you wonder who the administration thinks is the real problem.
Of course, your stance is ridiculous, because the Obama administration has been tougher on illegal immigration than any other U.S. administration in history.
Record arrests.
Record deportations.
Record spending on border security.
Where have you been?
Chris, I’ve been right here watching and if you think that saying Obama’s number’s qualify him for a pat on the back you’re wrong. More illegals means more arrests…duh. If you have 10X more coming in you’re bound to have more deportations, but it doesn’t mean the problem is getting better, it’s getting worse.
The immigration problem has been acute since Clinton. Bush was soft on immigration although he did create ICE. Democrats have not been serious about curbing the problem and the more new legal citizens we have here with a close link to Mexico that go into government and into our education system the more resistance is created towards fixing the illegal alien problem because in their minds it is NO problem. But, it is and it’s been causing us serious economic problems for years now. It’s at crisis level and no wonder the immigration stats are high…there’s over 15,000,000 illegals here as of right now! Sometimes I think we might be better off to adopt Mexico, add another 10-15 news states and be done with it. However, most illegals wouldn’t like that. They want to make their money here and take it home where it goes so much farther. Couldn’t do that if they were forced to pay into our system. Drug lords would hate being assimilated too, they would become first to be taken down. So no, bringing in Mexico under our flag wouldn’t work very well…better to deport 15,000,000 and let them improve Mexico to our standards, rather than bringing us down to Mexico’s.
I won’t argue with Chris’ touting of administration propaganda. I haven’t found anyone who has poked a good sized hole in it. Yet.
One can only wonder if it is as real as his grandiose, heavily touted, infra-structure rebuilding prevarications since the only significant “shovel-ready” projects ever to emerge under the current leadership are the shovel loads tossed daily by the Obama administration.
Obama has continued a trend begun in the second half of the Bush administration where illegal immigration prosecutions suddenly doubled over previous years and then doubled again in Bush’s last year in office.
In 2009 such prosecutions rose again from just under 80,000 under Bush to just over 90,000 under Obama.
One can only wonder how the current prosecutorial policy jibes with Obama’s statement about how “our deportation of non-criminals are down” (likely a convenient invention of the moment) and about how “non-criminal” illegal aliens who are “going to school, doing all the right things, we want them to succeed.”
(You have to admire such magnificent doublespeak. “Non-criminal” criminals. The disconnect makes any satire impossible and completely superfluous.)
Whatever Obama’s real record and real policy on immigration may be does not dull the abject absurdity of funding of a costly, highly questionable (if not absurd), touchy-Feeley, voluntary Mexican repatriation program or going out of the way to warn those pesky Israeli’s not to attempt to immigrate illegally. Whew, I feel safer already.
I suppose I should be grateful, at least it appears that the current administration is ahead of the curve in preventing the US from being flooded by masses of illegal immigrants from Israel.
I have to say, again, that you are all being very dim.
Us progressives have already taken note: the OA has been very aggressive re illegal immigration, on all fronts. The buses from Sansome & Jackson to the border and/or the airport and/or the port have been running 24/7.
You see only what you want to see … and so, refuse to pay for what must be paid for.
So annoying.
On a related note:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/07/new-survey-finds-young-hispanics-open-conservative-values#ixzz1S6gdBq6T
“New survey finds young Hispanics open to conservative values” By: Mark Tapscott | Editorial Page Editor
Polls don’t mean a lot but I found the results interesting.
Jack: “More illegals means more arrests…duh. If you have 10X more coming in you’re bound to have more deportations, but it doesn’t mean the problem is getting better, it’s getting worse.”
Of course, the big, glaring problem with your response is that 10X more illegal immigrants are NOT coming in…in fact, the number of people immigrating illegaly has gone way, way down in recent years due to the poor U.S. economy.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/the-number-of-illegal-immigrants-living-in-the-us-plummeted-to-108-million-in-2009-from-116-million-the-previous-year-ma.html
You act so concerned with this issue, Jack. How is it at all possible that you didn’t know this?
Or perhaps you did know it, and you’re stating a falsehood on purpose?
Libby is right, it’s clear that many people react purely emotionally to this issue, and don’t attempt to look up the facts. You’re either one of those people, Jack, or you’re someone trying to manipulate those people.
Re: You’re either one of those people, Jack, or you’re someone trying to manipulate those people.
Jack, will you puhleeeeease STOP TRYING TO MANIPULATE ME! It gets me soooooooo emotional.
By the way, 11.6 million to 10.8 million is not “way way down” by any stretch of the imagination. But it is in Chris’ odd little universe.
Of course, any effort to put a number on this population is problematic and fraught with uncertainty.
Nevertheless, the same agency from which Chris indirectly gets his stats (Department Of Homeland Security) places the 2010 illegal immigrant population at 10.8 million, unchanged from 2009.
Of course, “the big, glaring problem” with Chris’ response to Jack is that by no reasonable stretch of the imagination has the illegal immigrant population “gone way, way down” in recent years.
In fact, it changed little from 2008 to 2009 and not at all from 2009 to 2010 according to the DHS estimates.
Pie, of course you would take more issue with my error (I should have said “down,” not “way, way down”) than Jack’s far bigger error (he said that illegal immigration has increased tenfold!).