July 24, 2018, 1:00 PM GMT+2
In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Michael Anton, a former adviser to President Donald Trump,
called for an end to birthright citizenship.
His proposal was dramatic and ominous. “An executive order,” Anton declared, “could specify … that the children of noncitizens are not citizens.” Worded thus, such an order wouldn’t simply end birthright citizenship — it would strip citizenship from the children of green-card holders and illegal immigrants alike, leaving millions of American citizens suddenly without a country. Stripping millions of citizens of their citizenship would, by any reasonable definition, herald the end of the U.S.’s status as a liberal democracy. Although Anton backtracked on this dark proposal in a follow-up
blog post, it’s the kind of idea that, once uttered, can’t easily be forgotten.
If Trump or any other president attempted to issue such an order, it would almost certainly be blocked by the courts, since birthright citizenship is guaranteed by the Constitution’s 14th Amendment. But the mere fact that intellectuals like Anton are willing to contemplate this sort of thing in public must exert a chilling effect on anyone thinking of moving to the U.S.
Nor are threats like Anton’s — or Trump’s
harsh policies toward asylum seekers and unauthorized immigrants — the only such discouragement. Without much fanfare, the Trump administration has used rule changes to make life much harder for legal immigrants. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, for example, recently
changed its policy so that foreign workers will be targeted for immediate deportation if their petition for visa extension expires while their green-card application for permanent residency is pending. USCIS also
changed its website to make it appear that foreign students in technical fields are barred from working side jobs, even though the law still allows them to do so. Trump has
also attempted to make it much harder for H-1B work visa holders to find employment. The list of
such moves goes on and on.
In other words, Trump and his administration seem to be trying to harass skilled foreign workers out of the country. This is a terrible policy for the U.S. to be following, at a time when those workers are needed more than ever.
Across the country, states and cities are struggling with a
pension crisis. With the baby boomers exiting the workforce and the national
fertility rate below replacement level, governments are going to need much more tax revenue to continue to support the rapidly growing number of retirees:
A Shrinking Base to Support Retirees
Ratio of projected population of people age 18-64 to people over age 65
In addition, governments are going to need more tax revenue to pay for the police, infrastructure, education, sanitation and other services that their citizens demand. Immigrants, especially skilled ones, are
key to providing those revenues. Declining regions especially need immigrants to shore up their populations as they lose people to the lure of superstar cities like New York and Los Angeles.
But the U.S. needs immigrants for reasons that go beyond tax revenue and population support. Foreign workers are crucial to maintaining American technological and industrial dominance. Without a continued inflow of skilled workers, the U.S. risks losing its edge to China and other rivals.
Recent research underscores this point.
A paper by economists Gaurav Khanna and Munseob Lee takes an innovative new approach to measuring H-1B workers’ contributions. Using detailed data on which products companies sell, they found that the more H-1B workers a company hires, the more new products it sold — a sign of innovation. Additionally, they found that H-1B workers are associated with greater revenue growth. This research comes on top of
earlier findings showing that when the U.S. admits more H-1B workers, patenting activity — a rough proxy for research effort — increased. In other words, skilled foreigners are continuing
the tradition of immigrants boosting U.S. science and technology.
But in fact, the contributions of skilled immigrants to the U.S. economy probably go beyond their direct benefits to American companies. By doing their high-value work in the U.S. rather than in other countries, immigrants contribute to what economists call
clustering and
agglomeration effects.
When an Indian engineer works in Mumbai, he spends his salary at restaurants and doctors and electricians in Mumbai — but when he lives in Pittsburgh, his dollars flow to restaurants and doctors and electricians in Pittsburgh. And the more such engineers live in Pittsburgh, the more companies find it attractive to locate their research and development operations there instead of in Mumbai. That concentration of companies raises the salaries of native-born Americans working in Pittsburgh.
In other words, hire skilled workers in America, or they’ll be hired elsewhere. A
recent paper by economists Lee Branstetter, Britta Glennon and J. Bradford Jensen underscored this choice. The authors show how technology companies have globalized their research and development operations over the years, moving high-value activity to countries like India, China and Israel. An increase in the economic importance of information technology meant that the U.S. just didn’t have the sheer numbers of skilled workers required to meet companies’ needs — so they went abroad for talent.
Although globalizing R&D helped multinational companies, it represents a missed opportunity for the U.S. By letting skilled workers move in, the U.S. could reap a gigantic windfall from the increasing importance of the tech industry. Cities’ productivity would increase, as would
the wages of native-born high-skilled Americans, if more H-1B workers and skilled permanent residents were allowed to come.
Fortunately, skilled immigration is a much higher percentage of total immigration than it used to be:
But the U.S.’s current leaders threaten to put a stop to this trend. The anti-immigrant campaign being carried out by the Trump administration, and the dark nativist rumblings of right-wing intellectuals like Anton, are doing the U.S. economy an enormous disservice. Immigrants, especially skilled ones, are key to the country’s future prosperity, and keeping them out is monumental mistake.
This sounds like a bad joke. It ain’t. Its real. One fascist government helps another fascist government. Yes, I have written about fascism invading the west before – warning that the European Union (non-union) is being gradually, but ever faster turned into a fascist dictatorship under the guise of democratic protection of ‘Democracy’; and this by her unelected European Commission (EC) leaders (sic).
EU citizens are being brainwashed with neoliberal lie-propaganda into believing that they are living in the heart of democracy – that they are free and protected by police and military, 24/7.
Indeed, such protection can be seen at almost every street corner in France’s major cities; France, the country that had the audacity to make the permanent state of emergency part of her Constitution. And others are dutifully following Macron’s example.
No wonder, EU member country governments have all been ‘put in place’ by fake elections, with the help of Cambridge Analytica and other social media tricks, by now well-known around the globe – and even the myriad MSM (mainstream media). It would be a strange coincidence, if practically all of the heads of EU states are following either neoliberal or neonazi doctrines. In any case, the difference are a few details. Most obvious neonazis are depicted with the denigrating term of populists, disregarding the fact that a populist is someone who is liked by the people. Wouldn’t that be democracy?
The PM of Hungary,
Victor Orbàn, and Poland’s far-right
Andrzej Duda, fall into this category and soon Italy’s government, basically led by the far right, deputy PM,
Matteo Salvini, who calls the shots in Italy, to the detriment of the Five-Star lead party, will follow suit. Everybody who refuses to bend to Brussels’ rules is a ‘populist’. It’s that simple. And it’s no coincidence.
Back to the head-story:
An Israeli private military contractor, Elbit Systems Ltd, has been awarded a contract by the so-called EU, to Monitor European shores, as reported by the Palestine Chronicle. Israel’s private defense contractor has “won” a 68 million dollars two-year contract, renewable by another two years, to survey the Mediterranean Sea and most of European coastlines and to report to Brussels and the countries’ authorities. Universal surveillance and fascism are on the march – and running ever faster.
This ‘bidding process’ was for sure not an open competition. This was ‘one fascist hand washing the hand of another fascist. Yes, that’s as bad as we have become in Europe. And the populace has no clue, because they are comfortably seeing their freedom, their civil rights, their human rights, being eroded, ‘floated’ away, under the pretext of national security – and of course their own, the people’s security. – That’s what a few ‘false flag’ terrorist attacks can achieve – people scream for help, for police protection. The more the better. And who is better suited than a fascist state to respond to that call of desperation – to fulfill that fake role of protector?
Israel is known for having armed the Ukraine government which is integrated by Neo-Nazis. Israel’s purpose of policing the European coastlines is to prevent Palestine Gaza prisoners from escaping their horrible, horrible fate. Two million Palestinians need to be forcefully kept locked into this open-air concentration camp, being tortured, bombed, starved and finally killed. That’s what Zionist-Israel is all about. Mind you, that is not at all an anti-Semitic statement. There are millions of Israelis who disagree with this fascist policy. But they are being shut-up, they have no right to speak out – plus they are, like Europeans, constantly drip-by-steady-drip indoctrinated by lies, falsehoods and deceptions – that Palestinians are a danger for the survival of Israel.
This is
simply NOT TRUE. It is a flagrant lie – a lie sustained by the
United States, whose interest is permanent conflict in the Middle East to control the Middle East
’s rich resources – and Israel is an important ally – more than an ally. Thanks to Israel’s and AIPAC’s (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the strongest Washington lobby) endless flow of money to Washington’s politicians – Israel, as the paymaster of political campaigns of both parties of the US-One-Party system – calls the shots.
Israel Continues to Sow the Seeds of Discontent
By Israel, is meant Zionist-led Israel, not the common people who want nothing more than peace and a friendly and harmonious relationship with Palestine; Israelis who are aware that they are actually camping on Palestine land – Israelis, who have not been blinded by those who have since 70 years purposefully distorted history, altered schoolbooks and pretend that this Holy Land is theirs, rather than a piece of land of mutual ownership, to be shared equally and with equal rights.
These Israelis, the vast majority, are not targeted with this article, or with the accusation of being fascists. It’s their dictator leadership, those who are in lock-step with the neofascist Trump Administration – and, well, those who call the shots in Washington, in all the so-called thinktanks (sic) that make US foreign policy. Neoliberal,
cum neonazi Israel wants to eradicate Palestine, Iran, Syria, but they are in bed with the murderous Saudis – with the killers of tens of thousands of Yemeni children, with the brutal murderers of the entire Yemeni population through famine, destruction of water supply and sanitation systems, of lack-of-hygiene induced cholera and a myriad of other diseases.
Israel’s private defense contractor announced having won this monstrous surveillance contract, with the EU Maritime Safety Agency. They will patrol the Mediterranean Sea and Europe’s coastlines with drones and inform Europe’s authorities of ‘irregularities’, of refugee ships, of last-hope vessels carrying desperate people, escaping from western created misery in their lands. And Palestinian refugees are on the rise. They can no longer stand their abject fate under Israeli’s inescapable rules governing the Gaza Extermination Camp. Yes, that’s what Gaza has become. They seek refuge in Europe, paradoxically, they go to their hangman seeking shelter. But where else to go?
So, these unmanned Israeli military aircraft will automatically signal the defense forces of Israel to intercept any attempt of escaping Palestinians – to bring them back to Gaza, to their open torture chamber, and – with for sure – further punishment to follow. – Gaza’s terror conditions have become the utter “normality” seen from the western populace, especially Europeans. They will just watch Palestinians being slaughtered into fear of escaping from their open-air prison, called Gaza. –
This past weekend’s latest Gaza military incursion, instigated by Israel’s War Minister,
Avigdor Lieberman, a neonazi hawk of the worst kind, followed obviously by a Hamas response – which then triggered what was planned from the very beginning – Israeli batteries of rockets launched from Ashkelon and mass bombing of what’s left of the ruins called Gaza. – did you know that a large percentage of children in Gaza have amputated limbs? – What a future, even if peace was to break out one day.
All the while Netanyahu conveniently was celebrating the Hypocrisy of the Century – the end of WWI with a bunch of hypocrites like him, Netanyahu – except for Putin, whose attendance of this fake celebration and naval-gazing I don’t understand.
That’s what the west has become, or as renowned author and journalist
Andre Vltchek, would say, they have colonized, enslaved and raped Asia, Africa and Latin America for at least a thousand years – why would you expect them to change? They have gotten away with murder for so long – why would they change?
Today, they continue with different, more sophisticated methods – its financial slavehood. It’s the epitome of shameless criminal neo-colonialism. The “two to four- year contract” of Israel’s defense contractor serves as a mere proxy for EU’s terror, inhumanity and lack of compassion. Mind you, the United States is just the heritage of Europeans migrated across the Atlantic.
The company, Elbit Systems Ltd, will provide European Union countries with maritime unmanned aircraft patrol services and in theory with nothing more -which is, of course, a flagrant lie. They will ex-contractually confiscate refugee boats, as miserably rickety as they may be, contributing to more refugee deaths. By September 2018, UNHCR, Mediterranean refugee transfers have been deadlier than ever this year, having reached more than 1,600 so far.
“Rocket News” reports, “in October, Israeli companies signed purchase agreements with the United Nations for the provision of water and security service to UN forces in Africa. Israel also “won” [quotes by author] a $777 million contract for the supply of India’s missile defenses, as well as [Israel] being revealed as a lead exporter of tools for spying on civilians being used by dictatorships or authoritarian governments around the world.”
Rocket News continues,
“Such deals and multi-million-dollar contracts over a variety of regions are seen as not only a benefit to the Israeli economy but also [as proof for] the reliability of its [Israel’s] services and the subsequent potential increase of its international credibility.”
According to the Western media, whatever Zionist-Israel does, the Chosen People, it’s for the good of Mother Earth. How long will it take until the populace inhabiting Mother Earth wakes up, screaming for fear and agony, bringing an end to this farce.
Rebecca Plevin Palm Springs Desert Sun Published 10:25 PM EST Nov 15, 2018
A Honduran immigrant with her child is escorted by Mexican Federal Police to safety. The migrants, who had set up a makeshift camp at "Friendship Park" in Playas De Tijuana were confronted by Mexican residents as they demanded that the the migrants leave the area and threaten the migrants if they did not leave. Federal and Municipal Mexican police kept both groups separated and some incidents of violence broke out throughout the day.
Hundreds of people who arrived in Tijuana with the first wave of the migrant caravan planned to spend Wednesday night in a makeshift camp by the Pacific Ocean, steps from the tall border fence that separates Mexico and the United States. But those plans shifted in the evening, after local and state officials opened a temporary shelter – and about 300 local residents gathered by the encampment to demand the migrants leave the upscale Playas de Tijuana neighborhood and go to the facility.
During a confrontation that lasted more than three hours, area residents sang the Mexican national anthem and waved Mexican flags. They chanted “Mexico! Mexico!” each time a bus transporting migrants left the beach for the temporary shelter. Mostly women and children went to the shelters, while young men from the caravan said they were determined to stay together at the beach and await the estimated 2,000 more caravan members on their way to Tijuana.
Pushing, shoving, kicking and a couple of blows broke out between masses of residents and migrants, illuminated by the crescent moon and mobile light towers, set up by authorities on the beach on the U.S. side of the border. More than three dozen municipal and federal police watched, separating people and trying to prevent the situation from devolving into fistfights and chaos.
After midnight, residents assaulted journalists, injuring at least three, according to reporters on the scene.
More: The first waves of the migrant caravan have arrived at U.S.-Mexico border; thousands more expected in coming days
More: Hundreds of members of migrant caravan are camped on the beach in Tijuana; steps away from the border
By Thursday, the migrants had left the beach and joined hundreds of caravan members at a temporary shelter at the Benito Juarez sports complex. The complex has room for 3,000 people to sleep on thin mattresses on the floor of an indoor basketball court, in large, communal tents and in individual camping tents, according to a local official.
“The message to the migrant population is very clear,” Francisco Rueda Gómez, secretary-general of the state of Baja California. “We are providing them with humanitarian support, health care and food, however the need to take into consideration the rules of the shelters so they can coexist in harmony with the local population.”
Rueda Gómez said it will cost about $4 million to care for the migrants for two months, including providing food and medical care. He said the state government can only afford to fund this work for 10 days at the most, so he has asked the federal government for support.
The violent night marks the latest in rising tensions as waves of migrants arrive in the border town south of San Diego, culminating a month-long journey across Mexico.
The conflict was foreshadowed earlier in the day at the beach. By the afternoon, two large groups of migrants – a total of about 750 people – had arrived in Tijuana. The city’s migrant shelters had limited space when the caravan arrived. A large portion of the migrants said they didn’t want to be separated, opting instead to sleep at the beach.
On Wednesday evening, city and state officials announced they were opening a temporary shelter at the Benito Juarez sports complex, where 360 migrants could sleep on thin mattresses in an indoor basketball court. They started offering buses from the beach to the shelter around 6 p.m.
Meanwhile, Playas de Tijuana residents marched through the neighborhood to call for security and demand the migrants go to the shelters.
By 8:30 p.m., hundreds of residents and migrants had congregated by the beach, with local residents demanding the immigrants leave the public space at the beach.
“This is not an appropriate place for them,” one local resident said. “There are appropriate places for them.”
Honduran immigrants look on as Mexican residents of Playas De Tijuana confronted the migrants who had set up a makeshift camp at "Friendship Park" in Playas De Tijuana. The Mexican residents demanded that the the migrants leave the area and threaten the migrants if they did not leave. Federal and Municipal Mexican police kept both groups separated and some incidents of violence broke out throughout the night.
One Honduran migrant, Jairo Sorto, told residents that throughout their long journey through Mexico, people had welcome and supported them – until now.
“We’ve walked across Mexico and not one state said, ‘we don’t want immigrants in this country,’” Sorto said. He asked why area residents were treating the migrants differently.
The last bus left for the temporary shelter around 11 p.m., leaving about 200 locals and about 100 migrants gathered by the beach. Some migrants tried to sleep through the commotion, sprawled on patches of grass, with blankets pulled over their heads.
A Honduran immigrant boards a bus taking them to a shelter as Mexican residents of Playas De Tijuana confronted the migrants who had set up a makeshift camp at "Friendship Park" in Playas De Tijuana. The Mexican residents demanded that the the migrants leave the area and threaten the migrants if they did not leave. Federal and Municipal Mexican police kept both groups separated and some incidents of violence broke out throughout the night. As the conflict intensified, Irineo Mujica, an immigrant activist who helps organize migrant caravans, said the migrants still at the beach – and the ones en route to Tijuana – wouldn’t go to the shelters. He referred to them as “jails” with strict curfews. He said he was concerned that non-governmental organizations wouldn’t be allowed into the shelters, making it harder for the migrants to remain organized as one collective.
“For this reason – because this is oppression – we prefer to be in the streets, in the cold, rather than in a jail,” Mujica said.
There are at least three separate migrant caravans snaking their way through Mexico. Nearly 900 people from the first caravan arrived in Tijuana this week and on Wednesday night, local and state officials estimated 2,000 more were on their way. Several hundred of those 2,000 arrived Thursday morning, according to local reports. A second caravan started arriving in Mexico City Tuesday and as of Wednesday, a third caravan was traveling through Veracruz, on the eastern side of Mexico.
Honduran immigrants look on as Mexican residents of Playas De Tijuana confronted the migrants who had set up a makeshift camp at "Friendship Park" in Playas De Tijuana. The Mexican residents demanded that the the migrants leave the area and threaten the migrants if they did not leave. Federal and Municipal Mexican police kept both groups separated and some incidents of violence broke out throughout the night.
Rueda Gómez, with the Baja California government, said Tijuana’s migrant shelters currently have space for 700 migrants, in addition to the 3,000 spots at the sports complex.
Gustavo Magallanes, who oversees migrant affairs for the state of Baja California, said the arrival of the caravans in Tijuana is not a humanitarian crisis. The challenge, he said, is that so many people are arriving in such a short period of time. On top of that, he said, there are limited resources available for the migrants, as state and local governments are nearing the end of their fiscal years.
