Double Barreled Opinions

EO: AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

Here's the text of 2(c), which this EO now has applying to INTERPOL:

(c) Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable.

OBAMA HEALTH PLAN TO COVER 12 MILLION ILLEGALS

Tell Congress No Health Insurance for Illegal Aliens

Alert: Democrats moved one step closer to giving free health insurance to the nation's estimated 12 million illegal aliens when they successfully defeated a Republican-backed amendment, offered by Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev., that would have prevented illegal aliens from receiving government-subsidized health care under the proposed plan backed by House Democrats and President Barack Obama.

The House Ways and Means Committee nixed the Heller amendment by a 26-to-15 vote along straight party lines, and followed this action by passing the 1,018-page bill early Friday morning by a 23-to-18 margin, with three Democrats voting against the plan.

The Democratic plan will embrace Obama's vision of bringing free government medical care to more than 45 million uninsured people in America a significant portion of whom are illegal aliens.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, costs under the Obama plan being proposed by the House will saddle citizens with $1.04 trillion in new federal outlays over the next decade.

Congressional Democrats and Obama have argued that their health plan is necessary to contain rising health care costs.

But, last Thursday, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf testified before the Senate Budget Committee and warned lawmakers that the proposed legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs."

A key factor increasing costs is that Democratic plan provides for blanket coverage to as much as 15 percent of the U.S. population not currently insured, including illegals.

Democrats had insisted throughout the health-care reform debate that illegals would be ineligible for the so-called public option plan that is to be subsidized by taxpayers.

"We're not going to cover undocumented aliens, undocumented workers," Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters in May. "That's too politically explosive."

Republicans, however, point out that the Democrats, by refusing to accept the Heller amendment, would deny health agencies from conducting simple database checks to verify citizenship. Many states give illegals driver licenses, which will be sufficient to get free health care under the plan.

Critics also contend that millions of illegals who already have counterfeit Social Security cards or other fraudulent documents. There is no enforcement mechanism in the legislation, experts say, to prevent illegals who use fake IDs to obtain jobs from also obtaining taxpayer-subsidized health insurance.

GOP representatives introduced the amendment to provide a way to weed out non-citizens from the program.

A description of the amendment on Heller's Web site state it would "better screen applicants for subsidized health care to ensure they are actually citizens or otherwise entitled to it."

The Web post added, "The underlying bill is insufficient for the purpose of preventing illegal aliens from accessing the bill's proposed benefits, as it does not provide mechanisms allowing those administering the program to ensure illegal aliens cannot access taxpayer-funded subsidies and benefits."

The Heller amendment would have required that individuals applying for the public health care option would be subject to two systems used to verify immigration status already in use by the government: The Income and Eligibility Verification System (IEVS) and the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program.

The two systems cross-reference Social Security numbers and employment information to establish whether an individual is a U.S. citizen.

Critics: Free Health Care Means More Illegals

A recent Rasmussen Reports poll found that an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans oppose covering illegals in any public health care bill.

Anti-immigration activists say the availability of low-cost benefits, including health insurance and in-state tuition, will only lure more immigrants to come to the United States.

Political analyst Dick Morris, in his recently released best-selling book Catastrophe, warns that giving illegal free health care will lead to a flood of new illegals who can take advantage of such a benefit not offered in their home countries.

William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration, agrees with that sentiment, writing, "Each state and federal elected official must know that illegal aliens should not be given licenses, in-state tuition, mortgages, bank accounts, welfare, or any other benefit short of emergency medical care and law enforcement accommodations before they are deported."

But a small fraction of illegals end up deported, as many make widespread use of fake IDs to easily gain access to government benefits programs.

"Experts suggest that approximately 75 percent of working-age illegal aliens use fraudulent Social Security cards to obtain employment," wrote Ronald W. Mortensen in a recent Center for Immigration Studies research paper. Mortensen says one of the big misconceptions about illegals is that they are undocumented.

James R. Edwards Jr., co-author of The Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform, recently wrote on National Review Online that "it's hard to envision how health reform can avoid tripping the immigration booby trap."

Edwards says none of the legislation under consideration actually requires any state, federal, or local agency to check the immigration status of those who apply for the program.

The assumption is that companies have vetted their employees to ensure they are eligibility for legal employment a difficult task for employers given the active market in fraudulent documents. Thus Edwards maintains "some of the money distributed ... inevitably would go to illegal aliens."

The estimates of illegal aliens in the United States without health insurance vary. The most commonly cited statistic, attributed to the Center for Immigration Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau, holds that 15 percent to 22 percent of the nation's 46 million uninsured are illegal aliens. That would be between 6.9 million and 10.1 million people. During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama claimed the nation United States has 12 million or more undocumented aliens.

John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a health care consulting firm owned by UnitedHealth Group, recently told National Public Radio that about 6.1 million illegals about half of all illegals in the United States lack documentation and therefore would not be legally eligible for benefits under the current health care reforms.

Sheils says the other half of the nation's illegals 5 million to 6 million use false documents to obtain on-the-books employment. Many of them are already insured under their employers' plans, he added.

"A lot of those people are getting employer health benefits as part of their compensation," Sheils told NPR.

Certainly, some contend that undocumented workers who are gainfully employed and receiving benefits such as health insurance are contributing to society. But the fact remains that, once equipped with a fake ID, a person in the United States illegally can obtain both a job and the benefits that go with it.

Estimates of the cost of providing illegals with medical care vary. Most uninsured illegals who need medical attention obtain it from hospital emergency rooms. And several states are already straining under the huge burden of paying for the health costs of illegal aliens.

According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in 2004 California's estimated cost of unreimbursed medical care was $1.4 billion. Texas estimated its cost at $850 million annually, and Arizona at $400 million.

Non-border states shoulder heavy burdens as well. Virginia's annual cost of providing health care for undocumented workers is approximately $100 million per year, FAIR reports, while Florida's health care cost is about $300 million annually.

One of the ironies of the proposed legislation is that it would fine American citizens who opt not to purchase insurance coverage, but would exempt illegals from such fines. This is presumably due to the fact that they are not supposed to participate in the program anyway.

Even if no illegals were likely to benefit from health care reform, Democrats have made it clear that amnesty is the next item on their ambitious legislative agenda.

"I've got to do health care, I've got to do energy, and then I'm looking very closely at doing immigration," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., declared in June.

Reid explained the urgent need for amnesty in terms very similar to those that Democrats have used to press for health care reform. "We have an immigration system that's broken and needs repair," Reid said.

Immigration expert Edwards, for one, says health-care reform may itself need serious medical attention before it is healthy enough pass through Congress.

"The American people may soon realize how much health reform will benefit immigrants and cost the native-born," he writes. "When that happens, the volatile politics of immigration could derail universal health care." (Newsmax)

TAKE ACTION: You can FAX to ALL 535 Congressman NOW! To visit FaxDC.com, click here: FaxDC.com.

Immigration reform is now at the urgent stage
Thank you for the June 12 guest column by Janyth Fredrickson, "Making the leap to legal and right."

When we see or experience an injustice, we think "America won't let something like that happen again," yet as the author mentions immigrants are being dehumanized in our nation just as African Americans were during the Jim Crow Era (and often still are). Immigrants come to the "land of dreams" seeking a better life and offering the best of themselves; however, this nation is receiving them with a hostile environment. Our society mistreats immigrants: willingly profiting from their labor, yet abusing and exploiting them. This country is known for giving a hand to nations in need but is not doing anything to help the undocumented community within its borders. These communities need help to get out of the shadows and to be heard.

A comprehensive immigration reform has been needed for years and it is urgent now! We cannot wait for a higher wall or increased border security because that won't fix the problem. There is currently no way to achieve legal status for the approximately 12 million undocumented residents of the United States. We need a reform that will ensure family unity, a path to legalization, a reform that will address the future flow of immigrants and that will fix the backlog of cases. Immigrants contribute to the economic and cultural growth of this nation and only want a better future for their families just like any other American parent.

Our challenge is to ensure that our laws reflect our morals and the best of who we are.
Yazmin Garcia
Burlington, NC

Immigration: Making the Leap to Legal and Right
By Janyth Fredrickson

Growing up in the 1950s, I remember the strange feeling of entering a restaurant with my parents that had a "whites only" sign in the front window. That same sign appeared at the dime store on the drinking fountain and the restroom doors.

Since my parents didn't talk about segregation at home, I had no idea how it impacted the lives of the few African-Americans living in my small Texas town. But years later, I met two women from there and learned that their challenges went far beyond exclusion from the local diner. Just to attend high school, they had to travel 70 miles each way to the nearest "blacks only" school while mine was in walking distance.

That was legal at the time, but it wasn't right.

I believe every generation responds to challenges in ways that society will later look back on and judge with a moral compass. One of our challenges today, of course, is immigration. We won't "solve" it any more than we "solve" education or national security. People have always moved for a variety of reasons, mostly economic, and always will. Rather, we seek to manage it wisely, and the way we do that tells a lot about who we are and what we value.

Of course we can't open our borders to everyone who wants to live here, but we can - and must - enact comprehensive immigration reform at the national level that addresses wrongs that exist today. While our maze of immigration regulations works for some, it prevents other worthy immigrants from ever gaining legal status. Instead, they face a grab-bag of local, state, and national ordinances that don't reflect the American values I cherish.

Here are a few examples of what some immigrants in Alamance County face.

Undocumented people can't get drivers licenses in North Carolina. So when a father goes to the grocery store to buy milk or eggs, he risks being stopped for a license check, apprehended, led away in handcuffs, found guilty of anything from driving without a license to security theft, jailed without bail somewhere in the nation for days or months, and deported without ever being allowed to return to his U.S. home. He has no rights to a lawyer unless his family can piece together many thousands of dollars for legal fees, an impossibly high barrier for most.

Undocumented immigrants are perfect victims for crimes. They aren't covered by workplace safety laws or minimum wage laws or child labor laws. If he is robbed, if she is raped or abused, the response after reporting the crime could be immediate arrest, imprisonment, and eventual deportation. Small wonder why some crimes go unreported.

But to me, the most compelling reason for comprehensive immigration reform is the children caught in the crossfire.

Consider 9-year-old Benjamin, an American citizen, who watched his dad taken from the house in handcuffs early one morning before school, not to return. His father was the lay minister of a small North Carolina church and had lived here for 20 years with a clean record. The youngster now sees law enforcement officers as bad men who take away parents. That isn't healthy for him or for our community.

Or the three young children whose dad pulled into a parking lot when his car overheated and was taken away in handcuffs after an officer stopped to see what was going on and questioned his documents. Without their father, the children - all American citizens - have begun to fall behind with schoolwork and experience hunger for the first time, since he was the family's sole support.

Or 16-year-old Ana, considered an "illegal alien" or "criminal" by some because she was brought to North Carolina without papers as a baby by parents hoping to give her a better life than she would have had in their dirt-poor village in Salvador. Soon she will graduate from a local high school - or not - and face a grim future. Legally, she cannot drive or work or have a social security card or get financial aid to continue her education, as her American friends are doing. Since this is the only home she knows, she will stay here and live in the shadows. If she is caught, she will be deported to a country she doesn't know.

I think of Ana and the dozens of other children brought to Alamance County as babies without proper documentation as "throw-away kids." I look into her face and don't know what to say. I want to shout, "This is not how America treats children." But it is how we're treating kids without proper papers.

It's legal but it isn't right.

Hopefully for the children, our representatives in Washington will act soon on comprehensive immigration reform. Until they do, it's our interactions with them and their parents that define what our values are, just as they did for my parents' generation during the time of segregation.

Janyth Fredrickson lives in Burlington.

This is in response to Yazmin Garcia's letter on Immigration Reform.

Stop with the hostile environment guilt trip. Americans welcome immigrants - LEGAL immigrants.

Illegal immigrants are criminals and SHOULD face a hostile environment. This is analogous to a group of thieves picketing banks because they lock their doors and the close the vault at night. In fact, the whole argument for making a path for criminals to become legal citizens is just ludicrous. It's the same as saying there are so many thieves robbing the bank that we may as well just let them have everything in the vault.

Yes it's heartbreaking to deport members of a family, but that's the price of breaking the law. If I decide to murder someone, I'll go to jail. Will the judge and jury overlook my crime and let me go free because I have a family - no. No one with any common sense would, yet we're asked to this very same thing because illegal immigrants and their supporters want family unity for criminals. There is a way for illegal immigrants to get legal status: return to your home country and apply for legal entry into this country.

Drawing a comparison between illegal immigrants and African Americans during the Jim Crow Era is flawed: a large portion of the ancestors of African Americans came to this country against their will chained to the ships that brought them. They didn't come to this "land of dreams" willingly, illegally, seeking a better life.

Illegal immigrants place a huge drain on our economy, not contribute to it. Our schools have been made to accommodate children who do not speak English, at the expense other classes and programs. Our medical system is strained treating people who are in this country illegally. Legitimate businesses have had to close, or are near closing because illegal immigrants operate businesses that do not pay taxes nor have to deal with the same rules and regulations a legal business does. Illegal immigrants get food stamps, welfare, and free medical care.

The urgency is that our laws need to be changed to protect American citizens, not illegal immigrants (criminals).

Fred Black
Burlington, NC