Opposition to DACA

I am against special treatment for DACA "Dreamers."

My first job in the Foreign Service was as a vice-consul issuing visas at the American Consulate General in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in the 1970s.  Every time I refused a visa to a Brazilian applicant because I thought he might try to work illegally in the US, I felt badly because I knew if he lived in Mexico, he could just walk across the border into the US.  That was not an option for Brazilians, especially poor ones for whom travel was expensive. 

For immigrant visas, two of the most important requirements were that the visa applicant have a labor certification that he or she would not take a job in America that would displace an American worker, and that he or she had sufficient financial resources so that they would not become a public charge and receive welfare benefits.  Mexicans illegally entering the US did not have to meet either of these tests.  On the one hand, DACA advocates argue that illegals only take jobs that Americans will not do; on the other hand, PBS and other pro-DACA news media show many DACA candidates who are studying to be doctors, lawyers, or computer scientists, or who have started successful businesses.  Which is it?  It's some of both, but interestingly, many of the low wage Mexican workers probably displace African-Americans.  Democrats don't worry about African-Americans, because they are guaranteed to vote Democratic.  To assuage black concerns about losing jobs to Mexicans, Democrats will give them lots of welfare. 

The Democrats are pushing for DACA because they expect Mexicans will vote Democratic and they want as many of them in the US as possible to build up the Democratic base, even if it takes a few years to get them the vote. 

The American immigration system has been broken for at least 50 years.  It is sort of the reverse image of our drug laws.  We have relatively few immigrants in prison, even for serious crimes, while we have many drug users in jail for minor crimes.  Both represent failed policies and poor law enforcement. 

We should be somewhat concerned about hardships imposed on Dreamers; we don't have to put all of them on buses back to Mexico tomorrow.   But we should enforce applicable laws in a humane fashion.  While they are here, I don't think we should give them lots of money, whether for subsistence, health care, or other necessities.  If they can't support themselves, send them back to Mexico sooner rather than later, and let the Mexican government support them.  They should also show some interest in becoming Americans, whether as citizens or permanent residents, not just in working or going to school here because they just happen to be here.  The whole point of DACA is that these kids did not want to come to America; they were dragged here. 

People say that children should not be punished for the crimes of their parents, but if the parents rob a bank, the children should not be allowed to keep the money their parents stole.  Allowing Dreamers to stay in the US is a benefit for which they should be prepared to work and sacrifice.  If they don't want to, send them back to Mexico. 

I was concerned during the government shutdown that the Democratic Party was putting the interests of Mexicans (Dreamers) ahead of the interests of American citizens, such as military veterans.  The VA hospital in Denver is an illustration of government's perverse priorities.  Millions, maybe billions, have been paid to contractors and other political donors to construct an empty building that is an insult to veterans.  While veterans die, Democrats cry tears for Dreamers and shovel money out the door to help them.  I understand that Mexicans are the future of the Democratic Party and that they must buy their votes now to strengthen the party in future years, but it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of Americans. 

I do not care much about building a wall.  The wall is symbolic.  If we build it, it is concrete proof that we are serious about enforcing immigration laws.  If we don't build it, it means we will carry on with business as usual, ignoring many laws already on the books.  

Michael Wolff Is Austin Powers

Think you've seen Michael Wolff before?  Is it Austin Powers, international man of mystery, or just Mini-Me grown up? 

Brooks on Democracy

Brooks on Democracy David Brooks has a good column in the NYT on the virtues of democracy, “The Glory of Democracy,” but one questions he fails to deal with is who should participate in it. When the US was created, the founding fathers limited the vote to older, white, male citizens who owned property. If we still had these restrictions, the US government would look very different from how it does today. The founding fathers did not even trust this limited electorate, but instituted indirect elections for the most important offices, such as the electoral college for the Presidential election. They thought rough hewn voters would electe better educated, wiser men to make the final choice, hopefully adhering more closely to the ideals Mann and Brooks espouse.

 Mann and Brooks say that in an ideal world voters would “seek justice, freedom and truth.” I haven’t heard anybody campaign on those issues lately. Mann says democracy should encourage everybody to make the best of their capacities, to seek beauty and truth. Today we see mainly people whom Mann would call the enemies of democracy, seeking money, status, and a free lunch from the government.

 Brooks aims his criticism at the Trump Republicans as the crass money grubbers, but Trump is President because so many Americans saw the Democrats squandering the national inheritance of property and decency built up over hundreds of years through trial, error and hardship. Democrats espoused lofty goals, but sold them out for personal power and cronyism.

Browder, Putin, Congress, and the Magnitsky Act

William Browder was born in America, made billions in Russia during the 1990s, renounced his American citizenship in 1998, and then persuaded the Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act in 2012, punishing Putin and his friends after Putin barred Browder from Russia in 2006.  

The Magnitsky Act was the subject of the famous meeting between Donald Trump,Jr., and the Russian lawyer Natalia Vishnevskaya, that Trump famously said was about adoption, which it was.  After the US Congress passed the Magnitsky Act, in retaliation Putin passed a Russian law banning US adoption of Russian children.  

Of course, the main, underlying issue for Browder, Putin, and the Congress is money, particularly Jewish money.  Born in Chicago, Browder is Jewish.  His grandfather, Earl Browder, was the head of the Communist Party of the USA in the 1940s, when he was also a spy for the Soviet Union, according to Wikipedia.  

When the Soviet Union began to self-destruct under Yeltsin in the 1990s, Browder was there to grab some of the old Communist government assets that were being sold off for pennies on the dollar.  He was then still an American, but many of his Jewish colleagues were native Russians who also grabbed the opportunity to buy up these assets.  Several of the original Russian oligarchs were ethnic Russian Jews -- Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, Vladimir Gusinsky, Mikhail Fridman,  and Alexander Smolensky.  Under Putin a new group of Russian oligarchs has been created, which according to Wikipedia includes Roman Abramovich, Alexander Abramov, Oleg Deripaska, Mikhail Prokhorov, Alisher Usmanov, German Khan, Viktor Vekselberg, Leonid Mikhelson, Vagit Alekperov, Mikhail Fridman, Vladimir Potanin, Pyotr Aven, and Vitaly Malkin.  About half of the Putin oligarchs are also ethnically Jewish Russians.  Browder did not make the cut under Putin.  

In 1996 Browder founded Hermitage Capital Management with wealthy Jewish banker Edmond Safra to invest in Russian businesses.  As time passed, Browder felt that the Russian government was illegally taking or extorting money from the companies he had invested in, and he began exposing this Russian corruption.  In 2006 Browder was blacklisted by the Russian government.  A Russian raid on Hermitage offices found papers that the government said showed Hermitage had engaged in illegally claiming tax deductions.  In the process, they arrested Sergei Magnitsky, Hermiatage’s auditor, who died from mistreatment in prison.  Browder then persuaded the Congress to pass the Magnitsky Act, which targeted people around Putin who had been connected to Magnitsky death, preventing them from traveling to the US or using its banking system.  Putin then banned US adoptions, which was sort of a target of opportunity because it was a divisive issue in the news when Putin wanted to punish the US.  

I don’t understand why the US Congress was so quick to act on the request of a man who had renounced his American citizenship.  Browder couched his request in human rights terms, punishing Russia for torturing his auditor, but in fact it was largely Browder’s personal revenge against Putin for banning him from the Russian cookie jar where he had been making millions.  He essentially said, if you punish me, I will punish you by banning your buddies from the American cookie jar.  It was tit-for-tat financial retaliation, under color of human rights legislation.  It was probably a politically useful weapon as the US-Russian relationship deteriorated and Putin and Obama developed a personal animosity towards each other.  However, it made Browder appear to have enormous power over the US government, pushing the US into open hostility towards Putin.  I would think that if the US were going to do an enormous financial favor for someone, that person would at least be a US citizen, but Browder was not.  He had such contempt for the US that he had renounced his citizenship, but Congress still fawned over him and pandered to him.  You would think he was in the DACA program.  

Now this huge mess, which mainly affects  Browder and Jewish Russian oligarchs, threatens to envelop the whole Trump presidency.