Tag Archives: immigration reform

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 →

The Border Crisis Continues

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | OCT 1, 2021

There are anywhere from 19,000-60,000 more immigrants headed for the southern border of the US. In addition, immigrants recently deported to Haiti are ready to make another try at getting in here.

The crisis at our southern border isn’t going away. It is getting worse, and the Government has seemed helpless in trying to do something about it.

In September an estimated 30,000 migrants crossed into the country. Many of them forded the Rio Grande River and set up a makeshift encampment under the bridge connecting Mexico and the United States at Del Rio TX, hoping for an open gateway into their promised land.

Now they’re gone. All 30,00 of them. Half of them disappeared in a matter of a few days, along with the telltale signs of their squalid encampment. You would think you were watching a television sci-fi series. They were there at the beginning of the week and gone by the end of it. Poof!

“They want those people out from under that bridge so they can’t be seen anymore. It’s an optics thing,” unnamed Department of Homeland Security (HS) officials told the Washington Examiner. “They are moving them around for process and release. They’re going to have everyone at the bridge gone in the next two days.” Continue reading →

Immigration: A Checkered Past, a Challenging Future

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON | SEP 1, 2021

Part II of II — Read Part I

On the first day of the new year 1892, Annie Moore, a teenager from County Cork, Ireland, became the first immigrant admitted to the US through Ellis Island. It was the day the new gateway to a new world opened to an old world of people with hope in their hearts of a bright future. After a 10-day ocean crossing from her native land, Annie was welcomed by immigration officials and given a ten-dollar gold piece.

She was among 700 immigrants, including two brothers, who passed through the Island that day and among 450,000 admitted in that first year of operation. She and her brothers were soon reunited with their parents, already in New York.

Before Ellis Island was closed in 1954, more than 12 million people from all over the globe—Russia, Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, and others—made their way through Ellis in a never-ending stream of humanity. They came in search of something better than the poverty, famine, economic depression, dislocation, or religious persecution in their homeland. Continue reading →

Upsides to Passing Immigration Reform

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

So, you want all of the illegal aliens to leave your local school? Then you should support common sense immigration reform.

Stanford historian Ana Raquel Minian completed an exhaustive study, consistent with other research, which found that the more the border was militarized, the more immigrants who arrived here without documentation decided to stay in America. Continue reading →

Kristol is Wrong & It Ain’t the First Time

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I like Bill Kristol and I think he generally has some informed opinions on most subjects. But he is not infallible.

He was an early and eager proponent of Sarah Palin, for example. He believed that Dan Quayle would be a good President. He is also too neo-conish for my taste. He pushed hard for the Iraq War, and if he had his way, we would be dropping bombs on Iran yesterday.

Continue reading →

August Is Here!

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

What issue will dominate August of 2013?

1. Will it be war?

In 1914, as Barbara Tuchman wrote in the Guns of August, war dominated the discussion, more specifically, the First World War. The Great War, as it was called until the Second World War, forever ushered in modernity, with all of its terrifying warts.

We were allies of the British in those wars, but in the War of 1812, they burned the Capitol building in August.

When I first started on Capitol Hill, war invaded August when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Viet Nam War officially started in August when the Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. Continue reading →

Confab on Immigration

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Republicans are having a confab on immigration as I write this entry.

I imagine that none of them like the Senate product. I don’t blame them. I don’t like what the Senate produced, even though, had I been in the Upper Body, I would have voted for it.

The bill needs to be fixed.

The border surge is a complete waste of money. The internal security stuff is way too intrusive. I don’t like the e-verify provisions, especially on small businesses. I don’t think the Senate bill does enough on assimilation. You should have a conversational understanding of English if you are going to be a citizen. You should understand the basics of Continue reading →

Conservative Movement in Crisis

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

Conservatives are getting their butts kicked and if they don’t start changing their tactics and their approach to issues, liberalism will dominate the mainstream for years to come.

On gay marriage, abortion, immigration reform, the Farm bill, simple governance, the left-wing has momentum and a plan.

Look what is happening to George Zimmerman. He is being railroaded by an all too eager media.

Look at the response to the Gay marriage decision. You would think that we had just won the Second World War. This wasn’t V-J Day though. With V-Gay Day. And conservatives could only shake their heads and wonder what happened to American society. Continue reading →

Friends & Enemies

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Human beings need enemies. Often for good; sometimes for ill. But having an easily definable enemy is very helpful.

Organizations need enemies to send you mail and call your home asking for donations. The March of Dimes was established by Franklin Delano Roosevelt to combat the crippling disease of polio.

With the advent of the Salk and later the Sabin vaccines, polio was effectively wiped out in the United States and the March of Dimes needed a new cause. It found one in preventing birth defects later expanding into helping women have healthy pregnancies.

During World War I and World War II the enemies were easy to identify. They wore uniforms that called out “I am your enemy” and combatants generally stayed on their own side of the battle line. Continue reading →

Rubio is Right. National Review? Not so Much.

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

I have long been a fan of the National Review.

When I was in college, I would read the National Review to annoy the teachers. I had friends and mentors who wrote for the iconic magazine. I drew inspiration from William Buckley, who was the Godfather of the conservative movement. And you will always be entertained when you pick up a copy of the magazine.

Buckley broke with several conservatives when he came out in favor of legalizing drugs and when he expressed some real doubts about the Iraq war. But that was a while ago, when the conservative magazine marketplace wasn’t very crowded.

Now that publishing niche is very crowded indeed. Weekly Standard has been siphoning off some of its readers. Daily Caller has become the American political version of the Daily Mail. And of course, the Drudge Report, the conservative news aggregator is the king of all things conservative. Continue reading →

Regular Order on Immigration

BY JOHN FEEHERY
Reprinted from TheFeeheryTheory.com

The goal for John Boehner and pro-immigration reform House Republicans should be to get a vehicle to conference.

It is not to pass the perfect bill. It is not to pass the Senate bill.

The Senate frequently likes to forget about the House. Those pesky House members, who have to face reelection every two years in districts that are mostly packed with partisans, annoy the Upper Chamber to no end. Continue reading →

The Gun Vote

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

This column is about the vote on Wednesday in the U.S. Senate on the amendment to the gun control bill which had two main sponsors: Democrat Joe Manchin (WVa) and Republican Pat Toomey (Pa).

The effect of the amendment would have been, among other things, to have increased background checks on people buying guns to include gun shows and internet sales.

I don’t want to discuss the merits of the amendment; I want to chat about why it failed in the face of overwhelming popular support. Continue reading →

Amateur Hour

BY RICH GALEN
Reprinted from Mullings.com

Quick! What’s the name of the White House Chief of Staff?

I didn’t know, either. It’s Denis McDonough.

He was only appointed to the post by President Barack Obama January 25, meaning he has been on the job for less than a month. Yesterday he showed being a foreign policy expert does not a political expert make when he got himself involved in immigration reform. Continue reading →

O’Malley Playing Word Games with Immigration

BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Reprinted from Washingtonexaminer.com

Benonia Brown immigrated to the United States from Europe and settled in Southhampton, MA somewhere around 1800. He and his wife, Sibbel, moved to Ohio and Benonia enlisted in the First Regiment of the Ohio Militia to fight for this country in the War of 1812. He was my great, great, great-grandfather. I bring up Grandpa Brown for the benefit of Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, who is terribly confused about who is and who isn’t a new American.

Continue reading →