Universal Employment Verification

Universal Employment Verification

We need someone to introduce legislation that would establish a universal employment verification system: the purpose of the system would be to identify all applicants for employment and deter the use of unauthorized employees. In reviewing the issue of unauthorized immigrants into the country, it has become clear to me that the reason that the vast majority of these immigrants come to America is for work. Imminent Americans such as Doris Meissner, Senator Alan Simpson, Congresswoman Barbara Jordan, Presidents Carter, Reagan, & Clinton, and others who have come to the conclusion that the key to addressing illegal immigration is to internally enforce employment of immigrants.

Social security numbers are clearly the common factor among all workers and also seem to provide the most efficient clearing house for employment eligibility verification. Rosemary Jenks (Senior Fellow, Center for Immigration Studies) expressed this idea succinctly during her 1997 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee. Furthermore, there is a thirty year history of legislative attempts to reform the Social Security Administration in order to provide this function.

This 30-year history underscores how difficult it is to sort our fraudulent social security cards from the hundreds of millions of real ones. That is also the advantage of using a card that almost everyone already has. The system is well-established and only requires our concerted will to perfect. In addition, the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, the Social Security Independence and Program Improvements Act of 1994, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, the 1997 Department of Defense Appropriations Act, the 2002 Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, the Help America Vote Act of 2002, the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and the 2005 The Real ID Act all include language to make the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Card a viable, reliable system of identification.

This is obviously a very difficult problem, and no single silver bullet will solve the problems associated with the issue. It will not stop the problem of day labor where no documentation is required. These workers are also at especially high risk of exploitation because they do not have access to employment rights protection, and accrue no social benefits from their labor.

This problem also does nothing about the millions of families in the country that include a mixture of legal and illegal immigrants. Turmoil, especially for children (often American citizens) is bound to occur with any solution to illegal immigration. On the other hand, establishing a smooth-running employment verification system must be the priority before any effort is made to provide relief, read amnesty, for these folks. Putting the cart before the horse on the issue will only encourage millions of additional immigrants to enter the country illegally and expand the number of at risk families. Unfortunately, that is what all of the current legislative proposals does.

It is clear that this large influx of unauthorized immigrants is growing at a ever-increasing rate. Studies by the Pew Research Group document that a million or more immigrants have been coming into the country in recent years compared to half that number in 1994. Given that at least 12 million illegal immigrants are currently in the country, that number could easily grow to 20-30 million within a couple of generation. Delay will therefore only make it more difficult to resolve this growing crisis over time.

It is also clear that illegal immigrants are displacing Americans in the workplace & driving down the wages of American working people, especially poor working people & our youth. This is compounded by the ubiquitous practice by illegal immigrants of remitting large portions of their income back to their home country: this practice undermines the stimulative effect normally attributed to additional revenues in circulation from job growth. Recent studies have also established the obvious fact that wage rates are being driven downward as a direct result of supply outpacing the demand of labor. American families that are trying to provide for a family are at an unfair advantage in competition with groups of young men living in communal housing.

The problem of job displacement is especially serious for our youth because they are also being denied opportunities to learn basic job skills that only come with work experience. A review of the Employment-Population Ratio for 16-19 yrs shows a decline in participation among our youth both as a percentage of that population and in gross numbers. The following numbers come from the January statistics at the Bureau of Labor.


Employment-Population of 16-19 year olds
Year % 1,000s

1996 43% 6365
1997 43.1% 6595
1998 45.6% 7035
1999 44.6% 7092
2000 45.6% 7298
2001 44.6% 7104
2002 39.5% 6356
2003 38% 6088
2004 36.9% 5964
2005 36.2% 5906
2006 36.7% 6067

It is a canard to suggest that Americans do not want the jobs that illegal immigrants are taking: jobs in construction have been part of the driving force moving American working people into the American dream. Meatpacking and many jobs in manufacturing also fit this description. It is also untrue to sugges t that illegal immigrants are not committing crimes: crossing the border without authorization and using fraudulent identification constitutes an ongoing criminal pattern despite their better intentions.

I do not take the time to write out of malice for undocumented, illegal immigrants. They are hard-working, otherwise moral residents in our community, but they are here illegally and they are here at the expense of Americans that are also struggling to live the American dream.

We have a social contract with our children. We expect them to work hard for 12-16 years in school to prepare for opportunities to enjoy a standard of living that we wish for them. We expect them to be law-abiding. We encourage them to struggle against adversity. In turn we owe our youth an opportunity to succeed in life by ensuring that job opportunities at reasonable wages and salaries will be available. We break our contract, our bond, with our youth when don’t address the hard problems today that need to be resolved if they are going to have that opportunity. Furthermore, we are not being xenophobic in making this promise, and it is not a sign of nativistic bigotry to want to help create a nation that meets the needs of our citizens.

We to go back to square one on immigration reform and begin establishing a viable employment verification system and secure borders before you considering amnesty for anyone currently in the country.

Dual Citizenship

Dual Citizenship

A Threat to National Security

Dual citizenship poses a threat to our ability to act as a sovereign nation in our own national interest. It makes it much more difficult to deal with problems in our foreign relations and in domestic policies. It is a problem because those Americans in this status have conflicting national loyalties for this country and another country. In turn, these conflicting loyalties are manipulated by those foreign countries in the national interest of those countries. It is an issue that has been ignored by the media and most political organizations. The problem is especially important in our relationship with Israel and Mexico. On June 16, India also became part of the problem when the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) conferred dual citizenship on Indian national settled abroad.

People with dual American-Israeli citizenship have riddled the foreign policy apparatus of recent administrations dating to Truman, and do so most pervasively in the current GWB administration. These people are using their position to drive American foreign policy to defend Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, the invasion of Iraq, and otherwise sway our policies in the national interest of Israel and at the expense of American national interests.

The Israeli government has also appealed to Jewish Americans-the vast majority of whom are patriotic Americans- by offering them dual citizenship and then appealing to their Israeli nationalism to blindly support Israel. The following people have been offered dual American-Israeli citizenship and have held high positions in the GWB administration:

· Dov S. Zakheim- Former Under Secretary of Defense, Comptroller, and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Department of Defense
· Stephen Cambone-Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence
· Richard Perle-"Prince of Darkness"
· John R. Bolton-Under Secretary, Arms Control and International Security
· Robert Zoellick-recently (2005) promoted to Deputy Secretary of State
· Douglas Jay Feith-Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor and number 3 man at the Pentagon.
· I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby-Cheney's chief of staff
· Paul Wolfowitz-Defense Department
· Philip D. Zelikow -Executive Director, 9-11 Commission
· Michael Ledeen-A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. In 1983, on the recommendation of Richard Perle, Ledeen was hired at the Department of Defense as a consultant on terrorism. While being investigated as a security risk by his supervisor, Noel Koch, it was learned from the CIA station that Ledeen had been carried in Agency files as an agent of influence of a foreign government: Israel.
· Elliott Abrams-National Security Council Advisor.


Dual citizenship also influences an agenda to defend the transfer of our job market to foreign job seekers, both legally and illegally in the country. These people are taking unskilled, semi-skilled, and skilled jobs at wages below what an American family needs to sustain itself and provide a stable future for our children. Dual citizenship conflicts the motives of worker, civil rights advocates, government employees, and private employers who should be taking on the issue; furthermore, the Mexican government is exasperating the situation with blatant attempts to influence our domestic agenda.

The threat from India is important because thousands of Indian nationals are using H-1 visas to legally come to America and take high tech jobs at the expense of our citizens. US employers are even advertising job openings in this country that blatantly give preference to H-1 visa holders.

Let me be clear; it is the job of unions to organize all workers. The evolution of the American labor movement to organize foreign workers has been a progressive step. On the other hand, as citizens, progressives in the labor and civil rights movements are also obligated to insure that our country act to promote the general welfare of our nation and generations to come. It is not inconsistent, therefore, to advocate for organizing all workers in this country and simultaneously advocate that preference be given to citizens for jobs. Furthermore, citizens should be speaking with one voice at a time when corporate executives without allegiance to our country exercise so much influence on our government. Those executives place profit far above the interests of the nation when it comes to the availability of cheap labor.

Unfortunately, the only political forces in this country that are seriously addressing the issue are the far and extreme right. An internet search will largely bring up web sites that vilify Jews and foreigners for our problems. Such bigots will find only wrath in my presence. Ironically, the other major categories of folks who post sites are people that are advocating for the immigrants or attorneys who want to make a buck on them. The frustration of Many Americans is leading many to go down to the Mexican border and draw attention to people illegally crossing the border. The majority of these people do not seem to be jingoists who vilify those crossers, but taking the actions that they are is putting them on the ground with people that do.

Americans should be required to choose a single national citizenship. For progressives, taking on this issue truly means speaking truth to power: it is not easy to challenge our own conflicted colleagues in this predicament. Because Jews and Latino immigrants are among the most abused scapegoats in modern history, many will try to suppress attempts to address the problem from the redoubt of misanthropy. Still, the corrupt influence from dual citizenship is happening right under our noses at a time when the very social fabric of American communities is crumbling from neglect, and no one is talking about it. Ending dual citizenship will not end the problems addressed here, but it will make it possible for us to address them without the direct interference of other governments and residents with conflicted loyalties.

Fresh Start in Foreign Policy

We Need a Fresh Start

We need a fresh start. The United States needs to completely review our foreign policy objectives and strategies. It is in our long term national interest to help the under-developed world on its feet: we should also stop trying to control the world militarily instead of influencing the world with our ideas and practice.

The Cold War was a mistake: we should have reached out to all people that were devastated by WWII instead of limiting our help to the non-Communist world. We should have reached out to third world countries that were emerging from Colonialism and offered to help them get on their feet so that they could provide for the general welfare of their countrymen.

We should have embraced Castro. The young man and his cohorts would have been receptive to establishing Democratic institutions were it not for American efforts to maintain control of the Island. Castro was part of that vanguard of colonized peoples that demanded freedom. An alliance with Cuba would greatly improve our relationship with peoples in the Western Hemisphere. Instead, we got on the wrong side of history.

Obviously, we should have avoided engagement in Southeast Asia: Ho was also receptive to Western progressive thought regarding Democracy. Toppling Mosaddeq in Iran in 1953 was a terrible, short-sighted blunder, and overthrowing the Guatemalan government the following year only made matters worse. It’s pretty obvious that arming Hussein was a mistake.

Our relationship with Israel is one of the worst mistakes in recent memory. I mean by that, not a commitment to provide shelter for the traumatized people reacting to the holocaust, but our acceptance of the genocide of the Palestinian people by Zionists in order to establish the new country: we have blindly stood by while Israel militarily extended its borders and expelled the existing people from those lands in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria.

Sentient beings across the planet knew the conquest of Iraq was an enormous travesty but had to watch it unfold on TV any way. Now, we see that George wants to extend his war machine into Persia, and Democrats are chafing at the bit to show that they can be just as jingoist.

We need to understand the Iranian Revolution: it was a massive public uprising of the Iranian people. They wanted to end the brutal dictatorship of our puppet in the country. Carter failed to grasp the significance of that. He should have embraced the revolution without support for any faction in the country. Those Democratic forces in the country were isolated by continued US hostility. He should have promised to step aside while the international community helped them establish Democratic institutions that would make it possible for Iran to choose a new social order. They would likely have supported those Democratic institutions as a means of expressing those preferences. Our bungling set back that struggle for decades.

We had enjoyed very close ties with the Iranian public for decades before the revolution. Immigration into America was one of the ways that we bonded with one another. Many of us from that generation have fond memories of those friendships. There is every reason to believe that we could use that old relationship to rekindle the warm relations we once enjoyed.

Before closing, I want to review two issues: Israel and Democracy. We have to be very careful to avoid creating instability when we change our policy toward Israel: we should extend any military or other alliances that we have to all of Palestine with a proviso that our aid may not be used against the people of Palestine or its neighbor as part of an effort to keep confiscated land. I mean by Democracy, popular control of government: I do not mean to equate Democracy as a political system with Capitalism which is an economic system.

We need to announce to the Middle East that we need to withdraw our military apparatus from the region and promise to help build Democratic institutions from afar. We need to couple that with a commitment to invest billions in alternative energy in order to overcome the basis for our behavior.

Moderation

Moderation is a political philosophy based upon the premise that individuals and society face a variety of distinctive, complex, multi-dimensional issues, problems, and conflicts. Resolving those issues and conflicts, solving those problems demands a balanced, multi-dimensional, flexible, and dynamic perspective. Some issues require immediate revolutionary change. Other issues involve enduring principles that require ongoing protection. Other issues require careful planning & ongoing re-evaluation.

The guiding principals of Moderation are justice, equality, security, and freedom for all of God’s children. Moderation presumes that we must always strive to form a more perfect union. It presumes that we can and must constantly strive to pursue goals while being vigilant to protect the progress that we have attained. It presumes that we attain and maintain a more perfect union through struggle.

Moderation accepts that resolving complex issues may require a combination of both short and long term steps in order to reach a goal. It argues, however, that those steps should be formulated as a complex, principled whole rather than as negotiated, piecemeal, short-term goals without agreement on final resolution.

Moderation postulates that we must temper our approach to a problem by the nature of the problem rather than by crafting rigid templates for addressing every issue or problem. The solutions to some problems require immediate and radical resolution while other problems require caution and careful planning. Inequality among our citizens requires immediate, unmitigated resolution. On the other hand, providing a social infrastructure, preserving our natural resources, or planning for energy sources requires careful long term planning and review. At the same time, Moderation recognizes that resolution of inequality, injustice, or wage and chattel slavery requires that thoughtful solutions need to be crafted which truly resolve problems.

Moderation presumes that people are essentially good in intent, if not inherently good. This view also presumes that humans are capable of determining their own fate as individuals, communities, nations, or a civilization.

Moderation views the role of Government to be a tool to achieve the common good but recognizes that we must constantly be vigilant to ensure that Government cannot be used as an instrument of oppression by one group or class against others. Our Constitutional mandate to promote the general welfare is a succinct expression of that role. The public should determine the appropriate role for government. Government should provide for the common defense. It should ensure the preservation and nurturing of Mother Earth. It should be responsible for our infrastructure. It should ensure public education of its citizens. It can be delegated responsibility for ensuring the common good. It can and should be used to maintain a safe environment that is suitable for individuals and society in order to achieve prosperity and self-realization.

Moderation is a political philosophy that is appropriate both for struggling for power and for governing. While governing, it recognizes an obligation to attempt to reconcile differences between conflicting factions in order to ensure Democratic rule while protecting the rights and interests of minority factions. It also recognizes the existential need to accept criticism and to exercise self-criticism in order to both improve our approach to any given problem and to avoid developing institutional paralysis.