Laocoön of Troy Steprock
3 hours ago
We've done this before...

From March 16, 1916, to February 14, 1917, an expeditionary force of more than fourteen thousand regular army troops under the command of Brig. Gen. John J. "Black Jack" Pershing operated in northern Mexico "in pursuit of Villa with the single objective of capturing him and putting a stop to his forays. Another 140,000 regular army and National Guard troops patrolled the vast border between Mexico and the United States to discourage further raids. //

anon-pkys Laocoön of Troy
36 minutes ago
Back in the 1840s the U.S. declared war on Mexico. We had two small armies that attacked, one from the north across the border, and one by sea from Vera Cruz. Our troops, although greatly out numbered kicked A$$ and took names in several battles with the Mexican Army. We conquered and held Mexico City in a battle in which we were outnumbered. Texas Rangers served as Scouts for the Army and as shock troops. They were hated and feared by the Mexicans. To this day the Mexican people have no love for the Texas Rangers. During the 1870s-80s the Texas Rangers guarded much of the border with Mexico. They were not afraid to go into Mexico after Mexican rustlers.

Error #1: The citizenship clause merely adopted the pre-Dred Scott common law rule that everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen.

In 1856, the Supreme Court held in the infamous case of Dred Scott v. Sandford that the U.S.-born descendants of African slaves were not and could never become citizens, even though under the traditional common law rule, a person automatically became a citizen of the nation on whose soil he or she was born. The plaintiffs contend that the 14th Amendment’s citizenship clause was intended to restore this earlier common law rule of universal birthright citizenship.

They support this claim with a single, highly edited quotation from Sen. Jacob Howard, a Republican from Michigan, who was instrumental in drafting the citizenship clause: “This amendment … is simply declaratory of what I regard as the law of the land already, that every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is … a citizen of the United States.” //

Instead, Howard was referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which was valid federal law. That act was Congress’s first attempt to override Dred Scott, and statutorily defined birthright citizenship for the first time in American history: “[A]ll persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States.”

Far from being an adoption of common law universal birthright citizenship, the Civil Rights Act intended to bestow birthright citizenship only on the children of those who, like the newly freed slaves, owed complete allegiance to the United States and were subject to the fullest extent of its political jurisdiction. //

Indeed, the most damning indictment of the plaintiff’s contention comes from the very quotation they use to support it—at least when that quotation isn’t disingenuously edited. The very next line of the quote, which the plaintiffs in this lawsuit conveniently cut, reads: “This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of embassadors [sic] or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.”

This clearly demonstrates that Howard believed they weren’t constitutionalizing the common law rule, but rather a rule that—consistent with the Civil Rights Act’s focus on allegiance to foreign powers—was much more selective in its bestowal of birthright citizenship. //

Error #2: This is an unprecedented action—the executive branch has long recognized that it can’t deny citizenship to children based on the immigration or citizenship status of their parents.

This assertion is only true if history begins in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately for the plaintiffs, it doesn’t. In the decades following the ratification of the 14th Amendment, the federal government regularly articulated a view of the citizenship clause that’s remarkably similar to that espoused in Trump’s order, and the executive branch issued citizenship documents accordingly. //

Error #3: The Supreme Court confirmed in Wong Kim Ark that the citizenship clause automatically bestows citizenship on the U.S.-born children of noncitizen parents.

Contrary to popular assertions, this is not what the Supreme Court held in the 1898 case of Wong Kim Ark v. United States. The question decided by the court in that case was far narrower: whether a child born in the U.S. to lawfully present and permanently domiciled immigrant parents was a U.S. citizen. And the court concluded that, indeed, the U.S.-born child of this narrow and specific subset of noncitizen parents is a citizen. //

In fact, the court repeatedly emphasized the lawful and permanent domicile of Wong Kim Ark’s parents, factors that are utterly irrelevant under the common law. A true common law opinion would have said, “He was born on U.S. soil, his parents aren’t diplomats or part of some invading army, so therefore he is a citizen.”

This is also why, for decades after Wong Kim Ark, leading constitutional law scholars continued to articulate a distinction between American birthright citizenship—“where the alien must be permanently domiciled”—and birthright citizenship under English common law, which applied even to temporary sojourners. //

Error #4: The president’s order will leave many children deportable and stateless.

It would rarely, if ever, be true that a U.S.-born child of illegal or nonpermanent resident aliens would be left stateless simply because he or she isn’t automatically granted U.S. citizenship. Virtually every nation (including the United States) recognizes some manner of citizenship “by blood,” under which a child is automatically eligible for citizenship when one or both parents are citizens, even if that child is born abroad. //

The plaintiffs, meanwhile, don’t bother articulating a single set of circumstances under which a U.S.-born child of foreign nationals would ever be completely ineligible for—or disqualified from—citizenship or nationality in every other country the world due to a confluence of legal technicalities and the fact of his or her birth on U.S. soil.

Think of it this way. Someone from Great Britain visiting the United States is subject to our laws while here, which is to say subject to our partial or territorial jurisdiction. He must drive on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left, for example. But he does not thereby owe allegiance to the United States; he is not subject to being drafted into our army; and he cannot be prosecuted for treason (as opposed to ordinary violations of law) if he takes up arms against the United States, for he has breached no oath of allegiance.

So which understanding of “subject to the jurisdiction” did the drafters of the 14th Amendment have in mind?

Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”

Happily, we don’t need to speculate, as they were asked that very question. They unambiguously stated that it meant “complete” jurisdiction, such as existed under the law at the time, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which excluded from citizenship those born on U.S. soil who were “subject to a foreign power.”

The Supreme Court confirmed that understanding (albeit in dicta) in the first case addressing the 14th Amendment, noting in The Slaughterhouse Cases in 1872 that “[t]he phrase, ‘subject to its jurisdiction’ was intended to exclude from its operation children of ministers, consuls, and citizens or subjects of foreign States born within the United States.” It then confirmed that understanding in the 1884 case of Elk v. Wilkins, holding that the “subject to the jurisdiction” phrase required that one be “not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction, and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.” John Elk, the Native American claimant in the case, did not meet that requirement because, as a mem­ber of an Indian tribe at his birth, he “owed imme­diate allegiance to” his tribe and not to the United States.

Thomas Cooley, the leading treatise writer of the era, also confirmed that “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States “meant full and complete jurisdic­tion to which citizens are generally subject, and not any qualified and partial jurisdiction, such as may consist with allegiance to some other government.” More fundamentally, this understanding of the Citizenship Clause is the only one compatible with the consent of the governed principle articulated in the Declaration of Independence.

The decision to move troops to the border is superb, both in adding resources to an overstretched Border Patrol and in the symbolic message it sends. To make this deployment truly effective, it must work under a headquarters equipped to carry out the mission. Dumping yet another mission on a headquarters with a vast area of operations and a law enforcement focus doesn't seem like the best way to go. //

Laocoön of Troy
13 hours ago edited
"... Former RedStater Colonel (ret.) Mike Ford has an excellent solution to the problem. The US Army already has a logistics headquarters that is battle-tested, structured, and staffed for precisely this mission.

A Theater Sustainment Command (TSC) is an Army logistics headquarters commanded by a 2-Star General. When augmented with the appropriate subordinate commands, it is capable of providing logistical support to over 300,000 personnel. ..."

You sold me. Col Ford is on his game as always. TSC it is.

HOMAN: We're gonna take a lot of hate, we're going to be sued. Every day, numerous times.

I think you'll see the left try to control the media. They're going to show the first crying female, the first crying child. Say how inhumane we are. But, they won't talk about the 340,000 children that they've failed to take care of. They're not gonna talk about the young women who've been murdered in this country at the hands of criminal cartels.

Somali-born Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar decided to lecture Americans on Wednesday about what it means to be “American,” calling an immigration law signed by President John Adams “un-American.” But her comments only prove why some foreigners should never hold office in the United States.

President Donald Trump said during his inaugural address that he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to protect Americans from “foreign gangs and criminal networks.” The act allows the president to deport foreigners of an enemy nation. But Omar condemned the act as “un-American.” Yes, a Somali immigrant is telling Americans that one of America’s founders, John Adams, was acting in a way that was “un-American.”

Omar also claimed Trump’s immigration agenda is “a threat to immigrants” and that we must “restore basic humanity to our immigration system.”

Here’s the thing, however: Being “American” isn’t about making foreigners feel comfortable — it’s about protecting our sovereignty, our values, and our people. But Omar’s remarks prove she has no grasp of what it means to be “American” and therefore should be disqualified from holding American office.

But why does Omar not understand what it actually means to be American? Because she’s not an American. She’s a citizen of America, but her complete and total allegiance will never be just to America. It’s why she told supporters in her district that she would use her position of power to help benefit her homeland.

But the survival of our republic depends on national unity, and the admission of foreigners — both legal and illegal — threatens to undermine that. Alexander Hamilton explained as much in 1802 when discussing the “consequences that must result from a too unqualified admission of foreigners, to an equal participation in our civil, and political rights.”

“The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common National sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias, and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

Hamilton further noted how it is “extremely unlikely” that foreigners “will bring with them that temperate love of liberty, so essential to real republicanism” and that foreigners will “entertain opinions on government congenial with those under which they have lived.” //

Members of the Constitutional Convention debated on Aug. 13, 1787, about how long an immigrant needs to be a citizen before he could become a member of the House of Representatives. Elderbridge Gerry “wished that in future the eligibility might be confined to Natives. Foreign powers will intermeddle in our affairs, and spare no expense to influence them. Persons having foreign attachments will be sent among us and insinuated into our councils, in order to be made instruments for their purpose.”

But beyond the legal arguments there is a pressing moral argument about citizenship and nationhood that lies at the heart of our current debates about the 14th Amendment and birthright citizenship. The moral argument engages a different and arguably more important set of questions. What is an American? Who is America for? What is the purpose of immigration? What do immigrants or would-be immigrants owe to the native-born population? //

Contrary to what has been drilled into most of us since grade school, not everyone can really become an American. Being an American means more than simply assenting to live by our laws and paying taxes, because America is more than an idea. (As others have noted, if America is just an idea we can write it down and send it overseas, and foreigners need not come here at all.)

Simply put, America is a nation. We have a common language and a shared history. We have a certain way of life and customs. We have a distinctly American identity. Our system of government is founded explicitly on Christian claims about God and man. For most of our history, Christian morality has been the basis of our civic life. We are bound together by family ties, by our connections to the land, by shared experience, by what Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural address called the “mystic chords of memory.”

Every foreigner who comes here understands what this means as it applies to their own homeland. It has been a grave error that we have insisted for so long that none of it applies to us. Making a case against birthright citizenship will mean making a case against the pernicious ideology of multiculturalism, which we have been taught makes us strong but in reality makes us weaker and poorer.

It will also mean asserting that it’s not actually the case that someone whose parents emigrated to America from a foreign country, and whose family has only been here a single generation, is “just as American” as someone who traces their ancestry to the American Revolution. It will mean admitting that America would be much better off not only with zero illegal immigration but with only a very low level of legal immigration, which would help preserve our cultural and community cohesion, and encourage the complete assimilation of all newcomers.

We have to get comfortable saying these things and defending them. Yes, the legal and constitutional arguments against birthright citizenship are very strong, and they might in the end win the day. But regardless of the outcome of the legal battle over the 14th Amendment, we have to insist, without apology, on a fuller understanding of the American nation and the American people. An American is not just someone who happens to be born here. For a foreign national to become an American, he has to thoroughly adopt our culture, language, and way of life — and resolve to pass all of those habits and customs onto his posterity, here in his adopted homeland. Nothing less than his complete allegiance and complete assimilation will do.

Why do I say this? Because America itself is first and foremost for native-born Americans. It’s the only homeland we will ever have or ever can have. As such, our immigration policy should exist solely to benefit us, the American people. Indeed, because the only legitimate purpose of immigration is to create new Americans, our immigration regime should be narrowly tailored to serve the interests of our people. Businesses, especially multinational corporations, should have no say in it whatsoever, nor should legal resident noncitizens or family members of immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

All of these arguments are not really about immigration policy, but about what a nation is and how to preserve it.

Kyle Becker
@kylenabecker
·
Follow
"That is a gamechanger."

JUST IN: 'Border Czar' Tom Homan reports there are now ZERO CBP-One App releases and total apprehensions at the southern border have DROPPED to 766.

This is compared to 10,000 to 12,000 per day under Biden.

What a difference a president makes.

Last edited
6:40 AM · Jan 22, 2025. //

“We’re going to enforce the immigration law.”. //

epaddon
a day ago edited
Homan is in effect adopting the "seatbelt" strategy. Just as you can't get pulled over just because you're not wearing a seatbelt but you can get cited if you're pulled over for something else and you're not wearing a seatbelt he's saying they're not going out to target the "nonviolent" illegals but if they happen to be in company with those who are violent when they get rounded up, they will be arrested too since they are still lawbreakers.

This case will certainly go before the Supreme Court, and however it is decided, the case will carry implications that will affect American immigration policy for many years — and if the court finds for the plaintiffs, we should note that ending birthright citizenship will require a constitutional amendment. A lot is riding on this for both sides.

Birthright citizenship is generally not the rule in most of the world, but in the Americas, it seems to be widely accepted; Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and indeed most of the New World seem to have some form or another of birthright citizenship. We should note, though, that most of these countries aren't beset with millions trying to gain illegal entry to take advantage of these policies. //

WilliamRD
7 hours ago
Indians and their children didn't get citizenship until 1924 when congress passed the Indian citizenship act. . There would have been no need to pass such legislation if the 14th Amendment extended citizenship to every person born in America, no matter what the circumstances of their birth, and no matter who their parents are.

Snowblind WilliamRD
6 hours ago
Except Indians born on a reservation are not born in the US.

Snowblind WilliamRD
2 hours ago
But they were sovereign nations unto themselves at the time the 14th was ratified.

The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended that, but again, at the time of the 14th amendment they were not. //

Mike Ford
5 hours ago edited
"...subject to the jurisdiction thereof,..."
Jurisdiction thereof has TWO components:

1. Legal jurisdiction and;

2 Sovereign Jurisdiction or citizen allegiance.

If my buddy Ward goes to Germany and walks into the Hürtgen Forest with his trusty guide gun and attempts to get himself a boar, the Politzi will arrest him.

1. He will be charged under German Law, which has legal jurisdiction over that act in Germany (and he also may be subject to U.S. law (especially if he is a Soldier and outside SOFA boundaries)).

2. He will NOT lose his citizenship...ie, the U.S. retains SOVEREIGN jurisdiction over him.

Now...let's take a Colombian couple who dash across the border and evade ICE. She (not he..."he's" can't do that) drops a baby on U.S. soil. The baby is a Colombian citizen. Period. Full Stop.

Why? Because the couple and the baby are not subject to the full/complete (legal AND sovereign, jurisdiction of these United States.

This issue has been made needlessly complex by leftists and their lawyers.

It's time to end this travesty...by specific legislation or a SCOTUS decision that defines a U.S. citizen as anyone who is born to at least one parent who is a U.S. citizen on the date of that birth.

I'm sorry for the bad acts of Democrats that have resulted in children who were born here and know no other country. That ain't our problem.

Send their parents and them back to country of origin. If they want to come here, get in line like the mother of my children, my sisters-in-law (from Central America) and a brother-in-law from Austria...all of whom own businesses,, employ folk and pay way too many taxes.

This isn't hard. We are making it so. //

MN-Gal2022 ConservativeInMinnesota
6 hours ago
Hey!

i think it was you who had posted some context from the authors of the amendment.

If I recall correctly they specifically said this did not apply to those here illegally.

do you still have the text of that explanation?

ConservativeInMinnesota MN-Gal2022
2 hours ago
It was. Here it is for reference:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

What it means in the words of Senator Jacob Howard who co-authored the 14th Amendment:

This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons.

What it means in the words of Senator Trumbull who co-author the 14th Amendment on the “subject to the jurisdiction”:

not owing allegiance to anybody else and being subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States. //

David135
5 hours ago
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens....

If being born on USA soil was sufficient, the line would simply be....
All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens..

Obviously, "and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" means something besides the accepted understanding of birthright citizenship.

John Q. Public David135
4 hours ago
People trying to suggest that they wasted the ink and calligraphy on that line for absolutely no reason are insane.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that the controversial Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, known as DACA, was illegal but stopped short of allowing a nationwide injunction issued by a federal judge in Texas to go into effect. The three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit ruling on the case restricted the scope of the injunction to Texas to allow further appeals.

DACA is, in my opinion, the toughest part of the illegal immigration catastrophe facing the United States to solve. DACA enrollees arrived in the United States as very young children when their parents or guardians illegally immigrated. They are culturally American and frequently can't speak the language of their home country and have no family or social ties to it. There are an estimated 580,000 DACA enrollees. //

DACA started out as a 2012 memorandum signed by Obama DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano. It was never an executive order. It never went through the rule-making process required by the Administrative Procedure Act. It has never been enacted into law by Congress. Ordinarily, any memo by a cabinet secretary ceases to have validity when they leave office, not so with DACA. When President Trump’s DHS secretary rescinded the DACA memo based on the advice of the Attorney General of the United States, the Supreme Court held, in a 5-4 vote (guess how the Chief Justice voted), that the Trump administration was required to follow the Administrative Procedure Act to withdraw a memo that was never subjected to that act, ... //

The case is headed back to the Supreme Court, minus the rather stupid issue of whether a single memo by a cabinet secretary can masquerade as the law of the land.

If the election didn’t make this clear, I’ll state it as plainly as possible: We want less immigration. That includes H-1B workers.

The Vigilant Fox 🦊 @VigilantFox
·
NEW: Stephen A. Smith praises MAGA for allowing an open debate about H-1B visas.

His comments serve as a stern rebuke to Dems for making you “obey the party line, or you’re out on your ass.”

“There was no debate [among Dems]. That’s why they’re home. And Donald Trump is on his… Show more

5:25 PM · Dec 31, 2024

"What has ailed the democrats?" he asked. "It's not an ideology alone," he explained, indicating the problem isn't just their political positions. It's that if you go against that narrative, "cancel culture kicked in." "There was no room for debate."

Smith's take on this was brilliant where he talks about the Democrats' "diversity" --- in identity politics -- but NOT in diversity of thought. You must get on board with what the party wants, or all that diversity doesn't matter, "you were pushed out...you must obey the party line or you're out on your ass."

But that's why the Democrats "are home. And Donald Trump is on his way back to the White House."

Boom.

Still Boneless @still_boneless
This is wild

What % of new jobs have gone to white males in America from 2021-2024?
Answer by Grok
From 2021 to 2024, approximately 6% of the new jobs added by S&P 100 companies in the U.S. went to white males.

Ask Grok yourself
9:15 PM · Dec 27, 2024

Over the past few days, X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has been the scene of a fairly intense discussion between guys like Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others who are in favor of "high skill" immigration in the form of a massive increase in H1B visas that allow the hiring of foreign workers and a large number of devoted Trump fans who see H1B visas as a way corporate America has of replacing American workers with what amounts to chattel labor. //

Regardless of my view on the subject (and I do see H1B visas as a way for businesses to depress wages and create a captive and compliant workforce), I admire Musk's willingness to duke it out with all comers. That is something that would have been impossible with Jack Dorsey's Twitter.

Vivek Ramaswamy, though, [hit] a nerve. He believes that Americans are not culturally adapted to working in the tech field.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
·
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if we’re really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the TRUTH:

Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long (at least since the 90s and likely longer). That doesn’t start in college, it starts YOUNG.

A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers.
...
That’s the work we have cut out for us, rather than wallowing in victimhood & just wishing (or legislating) alternative hiring practices into existence. I’m confident we can do it.
11:02 AM · Dec 26, 2024 //

Rachel Bovard @rachelbovard
·
According to Census Bureau data, the US has more than 2x as many American workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. And many of the STEM jobs that do exist go to foreigners, because our immigration system allows them to legally be paid less.

But sure, it’s the tv shows.

Vivek Ramaswamy @VivekGRamaswamy
The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born & first-generation engineers over “native” Americans isn’t because of an innate American IQ deficit (a lazy & wrong explanation). A key part of it comes down to the c-word: culture. Tough questions demand tough answers & if…
1:40 PM · Dec 26, 2024

Rep. Mike Collins @RepMikeCollins
·
The United States graduates over half a million STEM students per year. If there is an issue in the tech workforce, then we need to address it at the educational level, not import a problem away.
4:04 PM · Dec 26, 2024. //

On the one hand, Musk and Ramaswamy are right. The US must make it easier for top-shelf talent to come to America. That isn't a problem for major tech players like Google, Meta, etc., because their brand draws the best, and the work environment doesn't tolerate mediocrity. On the other hand, there is no doubt that run-of-the-mill H1Bs are not superior to American workers. Their competitive advantage is that they are cheap and don't cause labor problems.

As much as we don't like to hear it, Ramaswamy has a point about the culture we're developing. One of the responses to his critique was this. //

TheLastRefuge @TheLastRefuge2
·
Dear, @VivekGRamaswamy, my counter take..... 😇

Several years ago, Florida Power and Light won the prestigious international Edward Demming Award for excellence in multi-platform engineering, efficiency superiority and total quality in the process of energy management.

You see, the reviewers couldn’t actually quantify the reason why the Florida-based energy company was so successful. In response the FPL field leadership laughed, took out magic markers and wrote on the back of their hard hats: “WE’RE NOT GOOD, WE’RE RUCKY.”

A few years later, every single Kuwaiti oil field was blown up by Saddam Hussein. Global analysts and think-tanks proclaimed it would take 5 years to cap them all off and restart the Kuwait oil pumping industry. Well, the Kuwaiti’s and Saudi’s called Texans, who had them all capped and back in working order in 6 months.

We are a nation that knows how to get shit done.

A few more years pass, and the Northern Chile mine workers were trapped two miles underground. The eyes of the world began to tear as the word spread. Most began to whisper no one could save them. Who did they call for help? A bunch of hick miners from USA coal country who went down there, worked on the fly, engineered the rescue equipment on site, and saved every one of them.

Yup, that’s our America. Ingenuity born from freedom. //

The problem is we are no longer the America that produced the guys who put out the Kuwaiti oil field fires and rescued Chilean miners. We are a nation that has permitted its primary and secondary education system to be dumbed down to the lowest conceivable denominator and made a high school diploma a participation trophy...and we're trying to do that to our university systems. We don't care about performance or standards, and our traditional work ethic is probably an artifact of white supremacy. //

NightTwister
14 hours ago
What a huge pile of crap. They want to import "engineers" from other countries because they can pay them half the going wage. They're mostly entry-level capable, and companies no longer care if they can actually do the work. For the most part they can't innovate, so they're used for repeatable work. They live 4-5 to a home, and send most of their money back home. This is not an "America First" strategy.

When Trump was in last time he increased the minimum H1B visa salary to $120K. When Biden changed it to $60K which it was before, they flooded in again. Raise the minimum to $150K and you'll suddenly see there are plenty of Americans available for these jobs.

The U.S. Census Bureau will now count refugees and border releases in its population estimates, a move that will affect congressional apportionment forecasts and demographic data. In a blog post Thursday announcing the change, the bureau noted, “a net of 2.8 million people migrated to the United States between 2023 and 2024. This is significantly higher than our previous estimates.”

The data offers a glimpse of how congressional apportionment maps could change by 2030. It also shows how, as U.S. citizens flee states with garbage leftist policies, the inclusion of noncitizens in census data allows those states to keep congressional seats because their population is propped up by illegal aliens. //

Domestically, people are leaving Democrat-led states in droves. California is down 239,575 domestically, but it gained 361,057 internationally. New York lost 120,917 people domestically and gained 207,161 internationally. Illegal immigration is slowing the loss of population and congressional seats in blues states. //

The 14th Amendment requires that “Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state.” The “whole number” has traditionally been understood to provide congressional representation for every person in a district, not just citizens eligible to vote.

“Generally, we should want an apportionment that best reflects the people of the United States and where they live,” Kincaid said. “If people are voting with their feet and moving from California to Florida, that should be reflected in our apportionment.”

The new numbers illustrate how illegal immigration can shape the balance of power for U.S. voters.

The Census Bureau asks about citizenship in its annual American Community Survey, but asking about citizenship on its 10-year census became a political issue in 2018 when President Donald Trump called on the bureau to put the question “Are you a U.S. citizen?” back on the census, as it had been in past years. As Federalist contributor Ben Weingarten reported at the time, Democrats fought the request. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Trump on a technicality, and the question was not used in 2020.

Sheinbaum Pardo called Mexican migrants in America “heroes” in part because they sent $63 billion back home to relatives in 2023. //

Remittances now surpass almost all other sources of the country’s foreign income, including tourism, oil exports and most manufacturing exports.

While the report doesn't differentiate between illegal aliens and legal migrants, it doesn't take a proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that given the more than 10 million illegals who have crossed the southern border during four years of the Biden-Harris Border Crisis™, the amount of cash continuing to leave America for Mexico has continued to increase. //

Lourde Mike
5 hours ago
So the solution here is to tax wire transfers to Mexico at 100% if sent by a non-us citizen. //

Bearsblow
4 hours ago
She laid out the best argument in the world for mass deportations.

They won't change their loyalty and they send their money back to their home country.

That's a 1-2 ticket punch back to that country, imo. //

anon-stbc Grogger
2 hours ago
Absolutely.

If they are taking money out of our economy, then tax it.

There are a bunch of "studies" that talk about how much money the illegals pump back into our economy. Hmmm...none of those studies mention that $50 Billion is getting drained out of our economy.

A lot of that money isn't getting taxed because it is being paid under the table...then they send it right over the border to help Mexico's economy.

Shut down the transfers, or tax it to the max, and see how quickly those folks go back home.

Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
Only the AfD can save Germany
Naomi Seibt @SeibtNaomi
🚨🇩🇪CHANCELLOR FRONTRUNNER SLAMS MUSK & MILEI❗️

The presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example.

He staunchly rejects a pro-freedom approach and refuses any discussion with the AfD.
Embedded video
12:03 AM · Dec 20, 2024. //

TGDavis
40 minutes ago
Being for a secure border, sound money, and the preservation of Western civilization, does not make you a right winger, it makes you normal.

Germany: The Christmas markets are besieged by Syrian Islamists. They are demonstrating where Christianity is celebrated. Random choice of location or deliberate demonstration of power?

The latter. There is nothing random about this. The Christmas markets are seen by the Syrians as an overt celebration of a Christian tradition - which it is - and therefore cannot be tolerated, and must be interfered with or broken up if possible. These are not tolerant people, these are not people who are accepting of dissenting views, especially where religion is concerned; they are viciously intolerant and unforgiving, and it's important to note that they were imported to Germany from lands with Bronze-Age sensibilities. As long as they are allowed to remain in Europe, these things will only get worse - not better. //

Most of the nations of Western Europe are committing suicide on the installment plan. All we can do is watch - and hopefully learn from Europe's mistakes.

In the past, the Chinese have exploited US birthright laws by traveling to Saipan, Hong Kong (before it was "rejoined" with Communist China). Today, known as the "birth tourism" industry, pregnant Chinese women travel to the U.S. territory of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) without a visa in order to give birth and claim birthright citizenship for their newborns.

It's time for the United States government to put an end to it.

Wisconsin Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany is raising concerns about the rampant industry, which he says is now operating inside the U.S. Tiffany raised the concerns at a recent U.S. House Judiciary subcommittee hearing.

Since 2009, Communist Chinese passport holders have been permitted to sidestep the U.S. visa requirements to enter the northern Mariana islands through categorical parole.

There are more children being born via birth tourism on the Northern Mariana Islands right now than there are domestic children being born. They don't even have to have a visa to come in here. //

Tiffany was referring to a parole program created by the Obama administration. And the notion that there are more (Chinese) babies being born than there are domestic births on the Northern Mariana Islands is insane — made doubly insane by the fact that Mariana citizens can only obtain temporary visas to visit the United States, and only under various criteria.

Unsurprisingly, Welker frames her response with a lie: "The 14th Amendment, though, says that, quote, "All persons born in the United States are citizens."

The actual quote is:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

While there has been widespread acquiescence to an interpretation that says a child born to an illegal is a citizen, there is nothing in our law that says that and a great deal that says just the opposite. Read this excellent essay on why birthright citizenship is not a constitutional right.

I don't know if executive action will be sufficient to change our direction because it will be open to reversal by any future president. I think the clearest course of action would be a legal case that results in "y'all can do that if you want to, but there is no constitutional reason to support birthright citizenship.". https://www.heritage.org/immigration/commentary/birthright-citizenship-fundamental-misunderstanding-the-14th-amendment. //

Trump may find that the same obstacle that prevented a solution for Dreamers early in his first term remains. The Democrats don't care about solving the Dreamer issue. But they care very much about keeping it alive so they can demagogue it to fight immigration reform and raise cash from their donor base; see The Democrats Don't Want a DACA Deal, They Want a DACA Issue. Trump has a lot more bargaining potential with this issue than with birthright citizenship. DACA has been ruled illegal by a federal judge. That has stopped any processing of the 80,000+ applications now in the pipeline. The decision has been appealed and will be heard by the Fifth Circuit. //

However, if the Democrats refuse to cooperate, Trump will face an uphill battle in crafting a successor to DACA that can pass the House only on GOP votes. Then he will be confronted with a choice of ignoring the law, like Obama and Biden, or deporting tens of thousands of people to countries where they are foreigners. I can even see the Democrats opting to force this choice. //

The border wall and tougher policing are just one part of the equation. For any kind of long-term border security, we must ensure that cretins like Joe Biden have their ability to make up policy on the fly limited. We must act to withdraw the incentives that attract millions of people to the US. One of those incentives is the knowledge that by having a kid on American soil, the parents can probably avoid deportation. And we must also act with mercy toward those, like the Dreamers, who were left stateless by the actions of their parents. At the same time, we need to make sure that any program to accommodate DACA registrants has a final date attached, and it doesn't become just another way of beating the system. //

NightTwister
an hour ago
While I've stated before that I think Dreamers may need a different solution, they must be the last ones dealt with, and even then, any that have shown a hatred of their new country must be excluded. If they hate it here, they can leave.

Those who have committed crimes here are gone first. Then those who committed crimes in their home country. Change laws and practices to force self-deportation. Then find and deport the remainder. THEN we can worry about the Dreamers. Under no circumstances can they be first.