The Federal Observer

President Obama visited Chandler, Arizona recently in order to give a speech at the $5 billion Intel Fab 42 plant under construction there. I live a short distance from Intel­co – founded, as we are incessantly told, by Andy Grove, an immigrant from Hungary­ so I decided to go to see if there were any visible demonstrations either for or against Obama.

I have a personal interest in seeing how the public would react to Obama’s Intel visit. I’m an engineer with many qualifications for working there. My test engineer background and semiconductor design experience should be in high demand ­if Obama is right that there is a shortage of high tech workers.

But that hasn’t been my experience. Except for a couple of short-term contracting jobs, I have found it nearly impossible to get interviewed at Intel. That company is far more interested in hiring cheap foreign workers than hiring local talent. (See this page to see how Intel gets away with hiring foreign workers even when qualified Americans are available).

Obama Officials Ignoring Immigration Laws

President Barack Obama is ignoring the country’s immigration statutes despite saying in an interview last week that no occupant of the Oval Office has the right to bypass the law, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith charged Monday.

“Throughout the three years of his administration, Obama has waived applying several of our immigration rules and has refused to enforce other immigration laws,” said the Texas Republican. (Read entire story)

Illegal Immigration Is Immoral

Illegal immigration has been in the news daily during the Republican primary campaign, even though a depressed economy here, stronger border enforcement, and vast new finds of petroleum in Latin America may soon radically curtail the number of illegal entrants into the United States. But for now, conservatives are warned that coming down hard on illegal immigration (i.e., enforcing federal statutes) would lose them the all-critical Hispanic vote. Meanwhile, in California, some legislators want to grant de facto state amnesty to illegal residents. But lost in the continuing furor, pro and con, is the moral dimension. The strange notion has developed that supporting something as immoral as illegal immigration is somehow ethical. It is not, and there are several reasons why. (Read entire story)

Illegal immigration and amnesty erode rule of law; New IDEA will help restore it.

America’s success has taught a lesson to historians. The “American experiment” has, from its very beginnings, required the rule of law. Respect for the law is at the core of our culture and is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism. Our Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in significant part to enshrine the rule of law, and they designated the document itself as “the supreme Law of the Land.”

When laws that are on the books are ignored, it breeds contempt for the law. If laws are not enforced, many people get the impression that obeying the law is optional. It is no longer a moral obligation; it is now but a business decision, in which they may weigh the risk against the potential for profit. (Read More)

NOTE: The following was written by reader, Dave Francis as a rebuttal to J.D. Longstreet’s recent column What About Illegal Immigration? (Ed.)

All the Republicans who are speaking out on the core issues have approached the alarming problem of illegal immigration in different ways. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has already presented himself as a passive politician and caused public uproar. We already have government policies with court enacted laws forcing the 50 states to extend public assistance programs, opening them up to 20 million plus illegal alien populace within our country. These persons have slipped past border agents or jetted here from other nation and then we are forced to support them? Gingrich, as a potential President paralyzed a large proportion of his audiences prior to the Iowa caucus, stating he would even entertain some path to legitimacy, but devoid of citizenship. This is certainly not agreeable with the millions in the TEA PARTY member, as this would just pilot to an even larger avalanche of poor people from other countries. Mitt Romney and Michelle Bachmann jumped, almost instantly on Gingrich plan as “amnesty” which it most certainly is, as it just adds up to pardoning people who criminally stole in this country, without permission.

That is what immigration laws are for and must be observed. (Read More)

I believe story telling to be an art form, certainly verbal record is the oldest form of recording history and recognized by historians worldwide. There is an old adage among those who love to tell a good tale, “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” And yet there are times when the truth is even more fantastic than exaggeration. What I write here is the truth, plain and simple.
I reside on, and manage a large cattle ranch in the far southeastern corner of Arizona. I’ve been here for 13 years and in that time frame have become far too familiar with the illegal trafficking in human beings, marijuana and other illicit drugs. Some have called it “the wetback culture” or “America’s border problem”. Lately it’s been taking steroids.

The recent murder of Robert Krentz by an illegal alien has received massive amounts of publicity worldwide. I live on the ranch bordering the Krentz ranch to the east and north. I can see the Krentz home looking out of my front door approximately 10 miles away. The day after Rob’s death I was involved in tracking the outlaw into Mexico. I saw the outlaw’s footprints where he crossed the border fence. I mention this to say I feel that I’m qualified to speak about current border issues. (Read More)

Now that Newt Gingrich has become the latest in a series of Republican front-runners, he is getting the kinds of scrutiny and attacks that have done in other front-runners.

One of the issues that have aroused concern among conservative Republicans is that of amnesty for illegal immigrants, especially after Gingrich said that it would not be “humane” to deport someone who has been living and working here for years.

Let’s go back to square one. The purpose of American immigration laws and policies is not to be either humane or inhumane to illegal immigrants. The purpose of immigration laws and policies is to serve the national interest of this country. Read More

Explaining our illegal immigration problem is simple, yet few get around to actually doing it. Simply, it is the result of decades of bad border policy plus a few supply and demand realities. Understanding this is the key to figuring out a solution, yet so many get sidetracked by emotional tangents instead.

And with liberals rolling in the aisles watching the Republican Party implode over what are ultimately inconsequential differences around illegal immigration, the Republic continues to burn — thanks to rampant statism foisted on us by those same liberals.

So perhaps it is time to soberly focus on why we are where we are and realistically what can be done to address it and to do so outside of the utopian visions of fantasy induced purities. And what cannot be done is anything that will at the snap of a finger make 60 or 70 years of mistakes go away. Like mass deportations Rapture style – ala the Left Behind series. This will not and cannot happen under any circumstances – primarily for reasons of logistics and costs – and the sooner we admit that the better. It’s ok to want it, just understand it cannot happen regardless of who is in power.

November 6, 2011 marks a dubious anniversary in the history of America. On that day 25 years ago President Ronald Reagan signed into law the Immigration Reform and Control Act, IRCA. Also known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Act, it was an amnesty for illegal aliens, the effects of which we live with today.

IRCA was the most comprehensive reform of our immigration laws since 1952. In 1981 the Reagan Administration asked Congress to pass a comprehensive legislative package that included employer sanctions, other measures to increase enforcement of immigration laws and the legalization of illegal aliens. The Employer Sanctions program was supposed to be the key element that would remove the incentive for illegal immigration by eliminating the job opportunities which was, and is, the number one reason that illegal aliens come to our country.

Whatever its intention, it is undeniable that the IRCA Amnesty of millions of illegal aliens failed to solve the problem of illegal immigration. Instead, the legalization of people who broke our laws and sneaked into our country and were allowed to jump the line in front of legal immigrants only encouraged more illegal immigration by creating a worldwide expectation that if you could just get to the United States, that you too would eventually get amnesty.

The plan was controversial at the time. There were doubts that it would work. It was remarked by some that the bill was proceeding amid massive confusion about how it would work, how much it would cost and how many people it would amnesty.

We have often been told that “America was built by immigrants.”

Certainly our nation has been one of the most welcoming nations in the world if not the most welcoming nation. Anually, the United States grants lawful immigrant status to more than 1.1 million aliens — immediately placing them on the pathway to United States citizenship.

The issue is that those who advocate open borders and unlimited immigration have seized on that phrase about America having been built by immigrants as a way of persuading as many people as possible — among them our fellow Americans as well as our leaders, that the American Dream was the result of this massive influx of immigrants. If you accept this hypothesis that the American Dream is largely attributable to huge numbers of immigrants being admitted into the United States, it becomes easy to then presume that even more immigrants will create even more success for our nation and our citizens.