Tag Archives: Immigration

The Putrid Politics of Immigration

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | JAN 31, 2024

There is no more glaring example of non-functioning government and the suffocating effect of ugly partisan politics than the illegal immigration crisis. It is a national humiliation. Immigration has been a cornerstone of our experiment in individual freedom over two centuries.

“The vast array and diversity of the people our way of life has beckoned here has helped mold the American character. It has also challenged what we stand for, what we strive to be. It is hard to calculate the benefits that flow from the American melting pot. But it is also hard to ignore the intractable problems that have spilled over the edges from unlawful entry. Now it has once again gotten away from us, out of our control.”

Those words are in quotation marks because I wrote them three years ago this April. Matters have only gotten horribly worse since then. The serious solutions proposed over the past two decades, if laid end-to-end would be, well, very long. But the courage to resolve the issues comes up very short. Continue reading →

Immigration Not a Crisis, Illegal Immigration Is

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | APR 29, 2021

“The Southern border is not under control. It’s a mad house. We have car chases on a daily basis. We have immigrants jumping off trains. We have them coming into our schools…coming through people’s yards…most of the time now when your dogs bark at night, you wonder if somebody’s getting in your car or somebody’s fixing to break into your house.” — Uvalde TX Mayor Don McLaughlin, April 2021

The frustrations and fears of people in one small Texas town epitomize but don’t really dramatize nearly enough the scope of the crisis on our Southern border. It is a real and serious crisis, President Biden and his legion of language manipulators notwithstanding. His persistent campaign to add a rosy tint to the crisis is reminiscent of President Donald Trump’s early portrayal of the COVID crisis.

Immigration is one of the perplexing and perpetual issues that have taunted the Republic since the first explorers dropped anchor here, my ancestors and likely some of yours among them.

It has been both a scourge and salvation of our successful experiment in individual, economic and societal freedom. The vast array and diversity of the people our way of life has beckoned here has helped mold the American character. It has also challenged what we have stood for, what we have strived to be. It is hard to calculate the benefits that flow from the American melting pot. But it is also difficult at times to surmount the problems that have spilled over the edges, particularly unlawful entry. Now it has once again gotten away from us; out of our control.

Continue reading →

For What Its Worth on Immigration

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

“Compromise,” as others have said before, “is not a four-letter word.” In a January 2014 column in The New York Times, Tom Friedman quoted former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson as having said: “If you can’t learn to compromise on issues without compromising yourself, you should not be in Congress, be in business or get married.”

Note: Sen. Simpson did not warn against being a columnist, being a radio host, or being a panelist on a cable TV program.
Continue reading →

Short History of Executive Orders

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The President’s power to issue an executive order is not spelled out in the Constitution.

And for the first 75 years or so of our Republic, an executive order wasn’t even made public. They were just directives sent from the White House to the various agencies, telling them what to do.

Continue reading →

Debt Limit ≠ Immigration

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Earlier this week Speaker John Boehner avoided a showdown on the debt limit through the simple maneuver of getting 193 Democrats to join 28 Republicans to pass the legislation taking the debt limit off the table until March of next year.

The Washington Post’s discussion of the whole thing called the 221-201 tally “a narrow vote” forgetting, perhaps, that the infamous vote to approve Obamacare cleared the House by an overwhelming 219-212. Seven votes.

199 Republicans voted against the debt limit bill – although I suspect there were several sitting on the edge of their pew waiting to see if their “Aye” vote would be needed. Continue reading →

Mapping the Melting Pot

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

America is a melting pot.

Successive waves of immigrants crashed up America’s shores and then scattered in different conclaves.

Germans went to cities like Milwaukee, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the Irish went to Boston, New York, and Chicago, the Scotch-Irish went to Appalachia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, the Italians went to Pittsburgh and Baltimore, the Swedes went to Minnesota, the Dutch went to Michigan and Pennsylvania, Africans were forcibly moved to the deep South.

Later waves went to many of the same cities, but in different neighborhoods. The Jews went to New York, the Poles moved en masse to Chicago, Hispanics flooded Los Angeles, etc.

The melting pot shouldn’t imply a monochromatic broth. Continue reading →

Leaders and Followers

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

At my gym, they put little inspirational quotes up on the wall to get you to work out harder (that’s the theory, at least).

“Lead, follow, or get out of the way,” was last Tuesday’s quote, attributed to the Marine’s handbook, which was a revelation to me. I always thought that Lee Iacocca was the man who first said that memorable phrase when he was trying to fix Chrysler.

This quote must haunt Congressional Republicans on both sides of the Capitol dome.

In the House, the followers aren’t following the Leaders. In the Senate, the Leaders aren’t following the followers. Continue reading →

The Right Bet on the Future

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Congressional Budget Office used dynamic scoring to predict how the immigration bill, now winding its way through Congress, would impact the deficit.

That must really piss off conservatives who have long demanded that the CBO use that scoring method (which looks beyond numbers and tries to predict future behavioral changes) to predict how tax cuts would actually bring in more revenue.

The Heritage Foundation, which has long been on the forefront of demanding that the CBO use dynamic scoring, released its own analysis a few weeks ago that came up with far different conclusions. Continue reading →

Obama in Ireland

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

It’s good that the President and the First Family traveled to Ireland, and all of these news reports that make a federal case out of the cost are missing the point.

It is safe to say that Mr. Obama would have never made it to the White House if it weren’t for two prominent Irish Americans.

Ted Kennedy gave the Illinois Senator the critical boost he needed when he endorsed him for President. And Richie Daley, the iconic Mayor of Chicago, gave the former community organizer the backing of his machine and its critical resources to help first get to the Senate and then make the leap to bigger things. Continue reading →

Tread Carefully on E-Verify

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Republicans have rightly condemned both the costs and the intrusiveness of Obamacare. They believe, and I agree with them, that the new law will increase health premiums, hurt innovation, cost a boatload of money (actually, more than a couple boatloads), drive down quality, and put the power of health care decisions in the hands of government bureaucrats.

Republicans have a healthy skepticism of an overbearing and expensive government, and they have consistently voted to defund it or repeal it on dozens of occasions.

If too much government is a bad thing when it comes health care, why is it suddenly a good thing when it comes to hiring a nanny, getting some help with the lawn, or hiring a short-order cook at the local deli. Continue reading →

How Boston Will Impact Washington

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The Boston attacks will have an inevitable, if unpredictable, impact on the debates in Washington D.C.

We now know that the perpetrators were legal residents, that they were Muslim, that they were Chechen, that they were pretty young. We know the older one was disaffected and unhappy with living in America. We know he was radicalized to become anti-American.

We surmise that the younger one was less radical but perhaps more prone to being influenced by his big brother. Continue reading →

The Rule of Three’s

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Why do these things always happen in threes?

First, the Boston attacks at the conclusion of the Marathon. Then, the ricin letter sent to Senator Wicker. Finally, the explosion in Waco.

What the Hell is going on here?

There is no connection between the three. The crackpot in Mississippi had nothing to do with the Boston Massacre, and I doubt whatever happened in Waco had any connection to either event. Continue reading →

Immigration Is Just a Start

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

On Dec. 5, 1933, right after dinner bells rang across the country, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed a proclamation that ended Prohibition and solidified the vast majority of Catholic votes for the Democratic Party for 40 years.

The first time Catholics voted overwhelmingly Democratic was in 1884, when a spokesman for a group of New York preachers, a guy named Samuel Burchard, condemned Grover Cleveland for being from a party that represented “rum, Romanism and rebellion.” That little statement energized German and Irish Catholics to swing the vote against James Blaine, giving a close election to Cleveland. Continue reading →

The Coming Nanny State

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The welfare state begets the nanny state.

I was thinking about this fact in the context of the Mayor of New York, the immigration debate, and our national debt.

Michael Bloomberg may or may not care about the personal health of his constituents. What he definitely cares about is the rising cost of health care in his city, and that is why he is doing his level best to create the world’s largest day-care center in the Big Apple.

Bloomberg is trying to get New Yorkers healthier by banning trans-fat, cutting down on the amount of soda pop consumed, and by keeping cigarettes out of the sight of those who might be tempted to smoke merely by the sight of smokes. Continue reading →

Obama Revealed

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Free from the burdens of a reelection campaign, presidents who win second terms reveal themselves when they come to Congress to give their fifth State of the Union address.

They can’t say the same thing that they just said in their inaugural address, because that would be really boring (not that most States of the Unions aren’t boring. They are.)

George W. Bush revealed himself to be a confident gambler who decided to bet all of his chips on Social Security reform. Bill Clinton revealed himself to Continue reading →

Still Leading From Behind

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

In another example of his highly developed strategy of “leading from behind,” President Barack Obama gave a speech in Las Vegas coming out in favor of Immigration Reform just a day after a group of Senators announced the outlines of a bipartisan plan for … Immigration Reform.

Get used to this. In his first four years in office, President Obama pretended he had nothing to do with almost anything going on with the economy or in foreign policy. If it was going badly – whatever “it” might have been – it was all George W’s fault. Or the Republicans in Congress. Or both.

If it was going well – whatever “it” might have been – it was a first person victory “I did it,” or “My administration did it.” Continue reading →

Immigration From Tribulation to Triumph?

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

“Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.”

There is as much truth as humor in those words from my friend and former colleague Bob Orben, a brilliant political speechwriter and comedy script craftsman (sometimes they are one and the same, but I digress).

The point is that Americans have been both immigrants and native population. Many of us are the progeny of immigrants. But despite our heritage, we still struggle with immigration, both legal and illegal, how we feel about it and what we should do or not do to integrate new arrivals into a burgeoning and diversifying American society.

Continue reading →

Tragedy of Our Time: Immigration

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Reprinted from washingtonexaminer.com

Carlos Martinelly Montano is an illegal immigrant from Bolivia. On August 1, he was allegedly driving drunk on a Prince William County, Virginia, road and slammed into another car, killing Sister Denise Mosier and injuring two other Catholic nuns.

There’s nothing that makes you think more soberly and seriously about the illegal immigration crisis in this country than a senseless human tragedy in your own back yard.

The tales run the gamut. There are seemingly endless horror stories of brutal killings along the Mexican-American border spawned by trafficking in drugs, guns and human beings, up against the story of the young student at Harvard, also here illegally, but on the precipice of becoming a valued member of American society.

Continue reading →