Let’s Fix Immigration – Voters Demand It, And It Can Be Done

Posted on January 9, 2016 by Tom Balek Standard 2

illegal_immigration Americans are worried as hell that our country, like many other Western nations, is hurtling headlong toward third-world status or worse by failing to control our intake of legal and illegal immigrants, asylees, and refugees. I attended a Trump rally last night at a jam-packed arena, and when he promised to deal with the immigration crisis the place exploded. It is unquestionably the priority item on voters’ minds this election year.

Most of our elected leaders, and some citizens, believe that it is impossible to solve our immigration and refugee problems, and we have no choice but to accept whatever happens. As long as we have the current bunch of knuckleheads in Washington, DC, I agree, there is probably no hope.

Their standard line is, “Even if you could build a wall on the southern border, you can’t round up 10 million illegals at gunpoint and bus them out of the country.”

That kind of talk is shallow, cynical, and lazy. Nobody in his right mind would attempt an armed roundup. And there are many illegal immigrants who have been here for many years, raised families, and have become responsible Americans – we can’t treat them the same as the border-hopping drug dealers. It will take a little bit of time and work to straighten this mess out.

By the way, there are probably at least 50 million illegals in the country now, not 10 million (that statistic is at least ten years old and was grossly underestimated then). Just wait until the birth rate of the immigrants and their extended families exponentially kicks in.

The DC knuckleheads can’t do it, but if we can elect some officials who will actually listen to what the American people want, and take some firm but basic steps, it’s not impossible. Here’s what I, your humble correspondent, would do.

Stop Illegal Immigration

Build the wall.

Tighten security on the Canadian border

Abolish the TSA and turn security responsibility (including identity information technology) over to the FBI, who would contract and oversee private security companies to protect borders, airports, marine ports, and any other egresses. Build stiff financial penalties into their contracts for any security failures. Make the contractors compete for the best performance at a reasonable cost. Reward the successful contractors and terminate the weak ones. Allow them to profile travelers and use any new technology or innovation that works.

Require any foreign nations with passengers/freight to the US to cooperate and meet our standards, or refuse them direct access to our ports.

Establish a security clearance process so that US citizens who travel frequently can be vetted one time and can then move through our ports easily.

Fix Legal Immigration

Revert to the proven effective legal immigration policies of the past that favor limited numbers of immigrants, based on economic conditions, who are self-sufficient, bring needed skills and talents, and will assimilate to our American language, laws, and customs. No more floods of needy third-world, predominantly Muslim, refugees who end up in monolithic ghettos on benefits. Stop using immigration as a forced-charity program, and stop allowing asylum to anyone with a lame story who asks for it. No more H1-B mid-skilled foreigners who take jobs away from Americans.

Establish a sensible work visa system for needed temporary labor, such as seasonal agriculture workers. Enforce minimum wage laws and appropriate working and living conditions.

Have the FBI contract and oversee private IT companies to establish an electronic control system that rigidly tracks all non-citizens on US soil. Non-citizens do not have Constitutional rights and must comply with restrictions and monitoring, utilizing chipped ID cards, GPS, surveillance, or any other methods.

Deal With Illegal Immigrants or Visitors Currently Here

No more government-paid benefits of any kind to non-citizens. Period. This policy change alone would make a huge difference.

Non-citizens who are employed must obtain renewable work visas. Perform rigid enforcement and stiff penalties against non-compliant employers and non-citizen employees, enforced by the FBI. Foreign employees will pay income tax but not social security or any other benefit-related taxes.

Any non-citizen convicted of any serious crime will be deported, along with family members, and permanently barred at the borders and ports.

A few key points: Our government has proven it can not perform any real work with efficiency and effectiveness, so we must turn over the critical tasks of information management and security enforcement to private contractors with firm oversight by Congress and the FBI who should publish performance statistics on the internet. The TSA is a bloated, inept, expensive failure. It must be eliminated. Private businesses who compete with each other for profit have no problem finding process improvements and cost reductions at the same time.

It is metaphysically impossible for the United States citizens to even make a dent in the poverty and insecurity of the entire planet by bringing the poor to our country – follow this link to an amazing video for proof . Forcing taxpayers to participate in the dangerous and ineffective relocation of third-world populations to our own county in the name of charity is just plain crazy. If we think it is in our national interest to help foreigners, it makes so much more sense to use our knowledge, wealth, statesmanship, and military capabilities to help eliminate poverty and oppression where it exists.

And (against my libertarian nature) I believe it’s time for everyone on US soil, citizens and non-citizens alike, to possess a national ID card and use identification technology like other modern nations do.

We have the opportunity to learn from the current and ongoing immigration disaster in Europe. Let’s not miss it. Show me where I’m wrong. Argue the details. But don’t say there’s nothing we can do about the immigration and refugee crisis.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

I hear you knockin’,
But you can’t come in.
I hear you knockin’,
Go back where you been!

I Hear You Knockin’ – Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds still sounds mighty fine.

Made in the USA – By Mexicans

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

mexican concrete crew My wife and I are building a new home. We are doing some of the work ourselves but the majority of the work is done by subcontractors, mostly hired through our general contractor. Working on a major project like this brings many current political and economic issues from the big-picture level down to the up-close and personal level.

Today, as our driveway was being installed, I had quite a discussion with the owner/operator of our concrete finishing company. Alex (not actual name) is a legal Mexican immigrant and has been doing business in the US for almost twenty years. He went through channels, got a green card, and studied English for two years. Alex pursued the American dream, and got it. He has handled several segments of our construction project, and does top quality work at a fair price. Working in the same space every day we got to know each other and today we spent some time discussing business and politics.

Alex’s business is doing well. In fact, there is much more demand for his work than he can fulfill. He would like to hire more employees and expand his business, but he can’t see a way to do it and still maintain quality. As a retired corporate manager and business owner, I offered some growth strategies and personnel practices that have worked for me. But his circumstances are quite different than mine were. You see, all of his employees are (probably) illegal Mexican immigrants.

In fact, almost all of the residential construction work in the Carolinas is being performed by illegal Mexican immigrants.

Why? Have Mexican immigrants taken all of the construction jobs because they will work for lower wages than American tradesmen? Are American men now too lazy or pampered to take on the difficult, physical work required in the construction trades? Have our schools convinced every American student that anyone who doesn’t pursue a college degree and a desk job is a failure? Did our government over-regulate our traditional construction businesses into extinction, so that only “under-the-radar” groups of illegal immigrants can function at a feasible cost?

Yes, yes, yes, and yes.

But there’s more to it than that. I talked with another general contractor today who was interested in hiring Alex and his crew for some of his projects, only to learn they are over-booked. “It’s a shame,” he said. “Most of the (American) subcontractors went broke during the housing bust five years ago, and they aren’t coming back.”

Alex and many entrepreneurial Mexicans like him are able to seize the market opportunities because they are connected to the available army of illegal Mexican immigrant workers. Alex can find them, hire them, manage them, communicate with them, and help them with the considerable personal challenges they face working in the shadows of American life. Still, his business growth is limited because he employs these men. “My business can’t grow,” he said. “None of my workers can advance to be managers because they don’t even try to learn to speak English.” He would employ English-speaking American construction workers, but there just aren’t any. It’s a very complex business model.

I had heard that Latinos are being barraged with liberal propaganda, painting conservatives, Republicans and especially Tea Party guys as hateful monsters to be avoided and feared. So I made it a point to tell my new Mexican friend Alex that I am a conservative. Tea Party, even.

Alex winced. “I’m not a monster,” I said. “I’m not a racist and a hater. You know me. You can’t believe the stuff you hear in the media.”

“Well, the conservatives don’t want to allow any immigration,” he said.

“Not true,” I countered. “We want LEGAL immigration for people who can bring value to our country. What we don’t want is dangerous, uncontrolled borders, or slackers coming here to take advantage of taxpayer-funded benefits. And we DO want our legal immigrants to assimilate – to become patriotic, law-abiding, productive Americans, not Mexicans who just happen to live in the US.”

Like you, Alex. Without you, and men like you, there would be no new homes under construction in my neighborhood right now.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Save me from this prison, Lord, help me get away
‘Cause only You can save me now from this misery
‘Cause I’ve been lost in my own place
And I’m getting’ weary, how far is Heaven?
And I know I need to change my ways of livin’
How far is Heaven?

How Far Is Heaven – Los Lonely Boys

My favorite Mexican band – Los Lonely Boys! (this song is also on my set list)

No One Ever Is To Blame

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

U.S. Capitol, Senate Office Buildings It must be great to work for the federal government.

The pay is outstanding – the CBO says wages and benefits for almost all federal workers are much higher than for the same jobs in the private sector. Federal employees get extra paid days off, like extra holidays, personal leave time, snow days, sick days, etc. They get full pay for not working whenever the President chooses to shut the government down rather than live within a budget. They can take early retirement from their federal jobs after 20 years if they are 50 years old.

Heck, while private sector managers work 45 – 55 hours per week, the upper-half of the federal food chain works only about half-time. I have offered a standing challenge for many years (and done the exercise myself many times): pick any manager-level federal employee, at random, from the government phone directory and call his or her office after 2:00 pm on Monday through Thursday, or after 12:00 pm on any Friday. You will never, never, never reach that person. Never. Try it!

But the best thing of all about working for the federal government is: nobody ever gets fired. Once you land a federal job, you will get your full paycheck, pay raises, ever-growing benefits, and bonuses for the rest of your life, no matter how poorly you perform. Turnover is virtually non-existent. Even the guy who was written up for farting at employees 61 times in 17 days was not reprimanded.

Jeff Neely, the GSA executive who helped put together the million-dollar conference in Las Vegas for his 300 hard-working office jockeys, is a rare exception – he actually got fired. But he was reinstated eleven months later with full back pay.

My Congressman, Mick Mulvaney (R-SC), at one of his outstanding recent town hall meetings, told us, “The Veteran’s Administration has 330,000 employees and only about 500 have been fired in the last ten years.” Meanwhile executives in the VA received bonuses based on fictitious reports about their pristine performance while soldiers died waiting for health care. Director Eric Shinseki was powerless to fire anybody, and committed political hara-kiri by resigning.

Congressman Mulvaney told another stunning story about a meeting he had with an upper-level HUD executive. He was grilling her about some problem in her agency, and she was having none of it. “Don’t give me a hard time,” she said. “I don’t make that much money and it doesn’t matter whether I do a good job or not.” She had absolutely no fear of discipline from a United States Congressman. Is that job security, or what?

And it’s not just the mid-level federal employees who are totally unaccountable. When pressed for evidence that she knew would implicate her in a world-class corruption scandal, IRS director Lois Lerner made up a story about seven simultaneous hard-drive failures that ate her e-mails. The odds of that happening are one in 79 billion. Nobody has been held accountable.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is made of Teflon, too. She never has recanted the lame excuse that terrorists murdered our Libyan ambassador and his brave defenders because they were upset about a Hollywood video. One of the terrorists admitted planning and executing the Benghazi attack, but knew nothing about any video, and the CIA was listening in on terrorist phone activity during the attack, which never mentioned any video. She still deflects questions about her failure to provide adequate protection after it was requested, saying “what does it matter?” And nobody has even asked yet why the ambassador was in Benghazi in the first place. Not only is she not accountable for the fiasco, Clinton is the current leader in the 2016 presidential race.

President Obama carries a long list of excuses for the many failures of his administration. Most of them blame his predecessor. The latest failure is the border crisis that resulted from his open invitation to illegal immigrant children to enter our country and enjoy the amenities. When he finally did go to Texas to meet with Governor Perry, who is trying to deal with the situation, he spent most of his time shifting the blame.

I seldom agree with John Boehner any more, but I jumped up and cheered when, in utter exasperation with the Obama administration, he cried, “He’s been president for five and a half years. When is he going to take responsibility for SOMETHING!”

But hey, it’s the government. No one ever is to blame.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Doctor says you’re cured but you still feel the pain
Aspirations in the clouds but your hopes go down the drain
No one ever is to blame.

Howard Jones – No One Is to Blame

I want to thank all the many great songwriters and performers who inspire and enrich my blog topics. This is one of the best “fits” – music to message – yet, I think! Here’s a great live performance by Howard Jones, very much enjoyed by his audience.

Hooray! Liberal Democrats Might End Their “War on Children”

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 2

illegal-immigrant-children-packed-like-sardines

Photo courtesy Breitbart News

Congresswoman Sheila Jackson (D-Texas) handed out lollipops to the hordes of illegal immigrant children squished into detention centers in Texas this week. Is this an omen?

Could it be that LIBERAL DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY CARE ABOUT CHILDREN?

5-star liberal Nancy Pelosi (D-California) said, “If you believe as we do that every child, every person has a spark of divinity in them, and is therefore worthy of respect — what we saw in those rooms was [a] dazzling, sparkling, array of God’s children, worthy of respect.”

What’s that, Nancy? Year after year, liberal Democrats have waged a WAR ON CHILDREN.

Millions of babies (babies are children, aren’t they?) died as Nancy and the liberal Democrats promoted abortions and fought tooth-and-nail every attempt to save unborn and about-to-be-born American babies. 1,350,000 per year. One killed every 24 seconds. War on children.

Graduation rates continued to nosedive as schools failed yet another generation of children by wasting their valuable time on social nonsense and political propaganda pumped into the curriculum by liberal Democrats. The world-competitive, productive, job-ready curricula of physics, advanced math, history, and grammar has been crowded out of our childrens’ class schedules by gay rights, global warming, and diversity/victimhood. War on children.

And what could be more damaging to a child than knowing that his mother is not willing to provide him with food? Liberal Democrats believe schools must provide breakfast, lunch, and in some cases weekend and summer meals to children because otherwise they would go hungry in spite of $400+ per month food stamp subsidies. Failure to feed one’s child is egregious, criminal negligence. Liberal Democrats not only tolerate this abuse, they encourage and subsidize it. War on children.

Our children face a bleak future, because our liberal Democrat leadership does not think our economy matters. We could be the energy leaders of the world, with full employment, low costs of production and consumer prices and a growing economy. But the liberal Democrats are willing to forego the prosperity of future generations to preserve their political power. War on children.

But now, NOW! Suddenly liberal Democrats love children. Their immigration / border policies have resulted in a “humanitarian crisis”. Now we must care for the children. My God, man, have you no heart!? They are just children! You can’t turn them (and their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, drug dealers, gang bangers, terrorists, and lepers) away from our border! They need our government support! They depend on us! And they will VOTE for us!

Isn’t it reassuring that finally, after all these years of WAR ON CHILDREN, the liberal Democrats have had a change of heart?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Some day, yeah
We’ll get it together and we’ll get it all done
Some day, when your head is much lighter
Some day, yeah
We’ll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun
Some day, when the world is much brighter

Ooh Child (Things Are Gonna Get Easier) – The Five Stairsteps

Thanks to “Soul Train” and Don Cornelius for presenting so many great musical groups! I have not had cable or satellite for a couple of years and I catch Soul Train on the Bounce channel every once in a while . . .

Illegal Immigration – Problem Solved!

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard 1

We conservatives are repeatedly blasted in the press for being too rigid in our positions. They say we impede progress because we refuse to negotiate with our political opponents. Today I am going to reach across the aisle. I’m now willing to compromise with the liberal Democrats and the spineless, shivering Republican leadership in Washington, DC. (I’ll probably skip Eric Cantor, no time for lame ducks.)

Today I agree with the liberals: let’s continue Obama’s open-border policy. All the hordes of undocumented Central American and Mexican aliens walking across our southern border? Let ’em in, I say. The 60,000 helpless illegal immigrant kids expected to enter our social welfare system this year? No problem. illegal-immigrant-children

“Well,” you ask, “what are we going to do with all of these uneducated, destitute adults and wave after wave of homeless, hungry children?”

I have the answer! Let’s send them all to Washington!

We recently visited Washington, DC and saw hundreds of very large. solid federal buildings with plenty of space, good heat and air-conditioning, modern bathrooms and food facilities. Surely our liberal friends in Washington would have no problem inviting the people they so cherish to share their space, their food, and their bathrooms.

The Capitol building, for instance, has many large open areas. Since President Obama is pulling our armed forces out of the Middle East anyway, he could move all the unused beds and equipment from the barracks right into the Capitol complex, so the immigrants could share space with the congressmen and senators. Harry Reid would love having the kids running around and playing in the offices and chambers. Heck, Nancy Pelosi would probably volunteer to do some diaper duty in the nursery!

And on our visit we also saw many thousands of federal employees, almost all of whom vote for and support the liberal Democrats. I’ll bet they support open borders and unrestricted immigration, too. They wouldn’t mind giving up their jobs pushing elevator buttons, sweeping the halls, and queuing up lines of tourists to these poor, needy Central Americans, would they? Our federal government workers are so highly skilled and motivated that they could easily get jobs in the private sector.

Federal officials, you can stop busing load after load of illegal kids from Texas to Arizona. Just send them to Washington, DC where they will be wanted and loved.

And what a great example those compassionate DC people will set! Why, I’ll bet the Hollywood liberals will follow suit and open their homes and workplaces up to the incoming hordes of homeless immigrants, too. The new hombres y mujeres would be welcomed to take over all the jobs on the sound stages and studios, and the Democrats who currently work there could go milk cows in Wisconsin or something. I’ll bet some of the immigrants would make great actors and actresses, too. Who needs George Clooney and Tom Hanks? We can all read subtitles.

You know, I think I like this “compromise” stuff. The DC bunch can get what they want: lots and lots of illiterate future Democrats, right there in Washington, DC where they can be cared for and controlled. Meanwhile, out here in the states we can have jobs for our taxpaying citizens and balanced budgets in our governments.

Problem solved! Send all the illegal immigrants to Washington, DC where they can live together with their superheroes.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Tell me why, tell me why, tell me why
Why can’t we live together?
Everybody wants to live together!
Why can’t we live together?

Santana – Why Can’t We Live Together?

Tell Me Again – Why Do You Support Amnesty and Illegal Immigration?

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Tom Balek Standard Reply

ramirez10 So tell me again – why do we want to offer amnesty to illegal immigrants and encourage even more legal and (mostly Mexican) illegal immigration? (statistics from Mark Levin’s outstanding book “Liberty and Tyranny”, comments by me)

Mexico only requires school attendance through the eighth grade. One third of Mexican immigrants to the US have not graduated from high school. Any wonder why our literacy statistics are headed south? Or why the flood of unskilled and uneducated immigrants is pushing down pay rates in the US?
One third of immigrant-headed households are on at least one major welfare program. No problem, we can just print more money, right?
One third of immigrants lack health insurance. These are the uninsured “Americans” that we are compelled to cover under ObamaCare.
Over one half of Mexican immigrants are here illegally. If our federal government and “sanctuary cities” do not enforce immigration laws, we encourage even more illegal immigration.
9 percent of the population of Mexico was living in the US in 2004, and in 2007, 27% of Mexico’s labor force was working in the US and sending home $20 billion per year. Mexico’s corrupt government and dysfunctional economy cannot sustain its growing population, so they export their labor force to the US, and the proceeds are sent back to Mexico – representing a major proportion of that nation’s income.
One out of five students in 2006 was Hispanic, and at current growth rates by 2050 the majority of US students will be Spanish speakers. The stress put on US schools by immigration is reaching crisis proportions.
More than 55 million individuals in the US speak a language other than English at home – 34 million speak Spanish.
The current level of assimilation of all recent immigrant groups is lower than at any time in US history, and Mexicans are the least assimilated of any group. Immigration no longer produces the “melting pot” of grateful and talented immigrants who became patriotic Americans and made our nation great. Instead, we are rapidly becoming a balkanized, polarized country.
Mexican adolescents are imprisoned at rates 80 percent greater than the general immigrant adolescent population. The US already has by far the greatest incarceration rate in the world.
Hispanic women have the highest unmarried birthrate in the country – over three times that of whites and Asians, and nearly 1.5 times that of black women. We already know how destructive the increased number of unwed mothers is to our economy.

I will be accused of racism for reporting these truths. Believe me, I have no ill will toward Mexicans or any other ethnic groups. My only aim in presenting this argument is the economic survival of the United States. Mexico certainly does not allow illegals to cross their borders.

The percent of US residents actively working is now at an all-time low. Wage rates continue to decline. Our competitive edge against other nations is gone due to our relative lack of skills and education. What could possibly justify encouraging and allowing more unskilled and needy immigrants to move in? If we stopped the flow of low-wage unskilled workers into our economy, businesses would adjust – they would increase labor rates and/or efficiency. As long as we tolerate the status quo, businesses will take advantage of the profit opportunity – and the immigrants.

Obviously there is only one justification for amnesty and tolerance of illegal immigration, and it applies only if you are a liberal politician or bureaucrat who cares nothing for the future and security of American families. You want to accumulate as many bodies as possible to be dependent on you, to vote for you, and to keep you in your permanent political positions of power.

Ugly, isn’t it?

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Tell me why you cried
And why you lied to me!

Tell Me Why – the Beatles

Amazing colorized footage of the Beatles from their first movie “A Hard Day’s Night”

Isn’t Mexico A Foreign Country?

Posted on October 23, 2012 by Tom Balek Standard 2

Have we completely forgotten about our neighbors to the south? In last night’s “foreign policy” presidential debate, Mexico was not mentioned.

At least 60,000 have died in Mexico’s drug war over the last five years.

Repeat, and pause. At least 60,000 have died in Mexico’s drug war over the last five years.

Moderator Bob Schieffer doesn’t think Mexico is important enough to justify wasting a question. Neither Obama nor Romney took an opportunity to mention Mexico, or illegal immigration, or violence on the border, or the flight of US manufacturers across the border, or our dependence on Mexican oil, or our lust for Mexican drugs. The Hispanic vote does not seem to be of concern to anyone. Apparently, neither is the ongoing human carnage.

The focus of the entire debate was the Middle East. Watching the proceeding, one would never know that just a stone’s throw from U.S. soil our Mexican neighbors suffer and die every day at the hands of criminal thugs and a corrupt legal system. Or that Latinos, primarily of Mexican descent, will make up a third of our population by 2050.

Like it or not, our country is becoming browner. Our future is intertwined with Mexico’s. The nation, while sadly adrift, is not without merit, talent or resources. It seems to me that even a little bit of attention paid to Mexico could deliver rewards – plus, we should sleep better at night. We ignore Mexico at our peril.

Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side

Never mind your name, just give us your number
Never mind your face, just show us your card
And we want to know whose wing are you under?
You better step to the right or we can make it hard

On the Border – the Eagles