Immigrants Saved Social Security, The New York Times says
Here’s the April 2 editorial of The New York Times:
Immigration is good for the financial health of Social Security because more workers mean more tax revenue. Illegal immigration, it turns out, is even better than legal immigration. In the fine print of the 2008 annual report on Social Security, released last week, the program’s trustees noted that growing numbers of “other than legal” workers are expected to bolster the program over the coming decades.
One reason is that many undocumented workers pay taxes during their work lives but don’t collect benefits later. Another is that undocumented workers are entering the United States at ever younger ages and are expected to have more children while they’re here than if they arrived at later ages. The result is a substantial increase in the number of working-age people paying taxes, but a relatively smaller increase in the number of retirees who receive benefits — a double boon to Social Security’s bottom line.
We’re not talking chump change. According to the report, the taxes paid by other-than-legal immigrants will close 15 percent of the system’s projected long-term deficit. That’s equivalent to raising the payroll tax by 0.3 percentage points, starting today.
That is not to suggest that illegal immigration is a legitimate fix to Social Security’s problems. It is another reminder, however, of the nation’s complex relationship with undocumented workers. Would the people who want to deport all undocumented workers be willing to make up the difference and pay the taxes that the undocumented are currently paying?
It is also a reminder of Social Security’s dynamism. As society and the economy evolve, so does the system, responding not only to changes in immigration and fertility, but also in wage growth and other variables. As such, it is adaptable to the 21st century, if only the political will can be found to champion the necessary changes. Those include modest tax increases and moderate benefit cuts that could be phased in over decades — provided the country gets started soon.
‘Extraordinary Ability’ to get a green card
By the Editorial Staff
www.ImmigrationNewsman.com
Sometimes it’s interesting how immigration attorneys struggle to get a green card for their clients. Remember Dorismar? She’s the Argentine bombshell also known as Dora Noemi Kerchen who starred in “Latinas Gone Crazy.” In 2006, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security abruptly deported her and her husband to Argentina. Her lawyer, Michael Feldenkrais, fought to get her classified as an “alien of extraordinary ability.”
What exactly was her “extraordinary ability?”
Here’s an interesting video from MSNBC:
Cuba’s Fidel Castro once described immigrants as ‘modern slaves’
All throughout his authoritarian rule, Fidel Castro enjoyed delivering speeches that lasted four hours and more. In June 2006, the Cuban leader was quoted by a Dominican newspaper as saying that immigrants are the equivalent of “modern slaves,” without whom industrialized nations could not keep going. He expressed sorrow for Mexico that after being “ransacked” by the United States, now is forced to sustain itself with the remittances.
“Every minute it becomes more difficult for them (the United States) to control the slaves (the immigrants),” Castro said.
There’s a politically powerful community of Cuban immigrants in Miami. Castro himself has derided them, calling the immigrants gusanos (worms), escoria (trash) and more recently “the Miami Mafia.” There’s reason for Castro to get annoyed because under his rule, more than a million Cubans fled to the United States, settling mostly in Miami.
But now that Castro has stepped aside as Cuba’s president, should the United States ease restrictions on Cuban-Americans who seek to visit or send money to relatives on the island? Would this signal a better future for Cuban immigrants?
This immigrant question is not as easy as ABC: Can employers require employees to speak English?
A Southern California tree nursery company recently filed a lawsuit, saying that California discriminates against workers who do not speak English because the state doesn’t offer tests in other languages. GroWest officials claimed that their only crane operator, who has been their employee for 24 years, failed the mandatory test to get a Certification for Crane Operators because it was in English. Company officials said that had the test been given in Spanish, their employee would have passed it.
“The issue doesn’t have anything to do with discriminating against people who do not speak English, but everything to do with safety,” said Graham Brent, executive director of the state commission that produces the test.
There are two points of view on this issue. A group calling itself “ProEnglish in the Workplace” pushes for the English requirement, as expected, but the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) says that English-workplace policies are discriminatory, and thus illegal under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
What do you think? Share us your opinion.
Sex for Green Card? Immigration Officer Busted
By the Editorial Staff
www.ImmigrationNewsman.com
A federal Immigration official, who was himself an immigant, was recorded demanding sex from a young Colombian woman in exchange for a green card. Prosecutors said the woman gave in to one demand for oral sex. The official was arrested on corruption charges, prosecutors said.
According to investigators, Isaac Baichu, who interviewed green cards applicants as an immigration official, met with the woman to go over her application at a Long Island immigration office. She was with her new American husband.
During that meeting, Baichu allegedly asked for her cellphone number. According to local prosecutors, Baichu later called the woman and asked her to meet at the parking lot of a local restaurant. What Baichu didn’t know was she was recording the conversation on her cellphone.
CNN aired what it said was the taped conversation obtained by The New York Times:
FEMALE: “I don’t know. Just tell me we’re going to be friends. Or?”
MALE: “Be friends. I want sex. I want sex. One or two times. That’s all. You get your green card. You won’t have to see me anymore.”
MALE: “I’m a nice guy. I’m an honest guy. I’ll do it for you. I’ll order my green cards. You’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Alright? Don’t worry. Just lean over. I’m going to be one second.”
CNN quoted prosecutors as saying that what happened next was detailed in the criminal complaint. The woman told prosecutors she attempted to leave the car, but Baichu grabbed her by the arm and told her he expected her to perform oral sex upon him then and there. She said she gave in to his demands, prosecutors say, due to his position in authority.
“We have pled not guilty and we deny any wrong doing,” Baichu’s lawyer, Sally Attia, said. Attia claimed her client was entrapped.
Baichu was not the first immigration official accused to taking advantage of undocumented immigrants. Wilfredo Vazquez, 35, a former immigration agent in Miami, has been charged with raping a woman he was transferring between detention centers, according to federal prosecutors. He faces charges of sexually assaulting a 39-year-old Jamaican woman on Sept. 21 at his home.
In 2006, former immigration officer Michael Maxwell testified before Congress on what he described as rampant corruption in the USCIS. Maxwell told the congressional hearing that charges that have been filed against some immigration officials. The charges include “soliciting sex for citizenship.”
The Department of Homeland Security issued this statement: “The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has absolutely no tolerance for employee misconduct.”
Michelle Brane, an advocate for undocumented immigrants, said that the potential for abuse is enormous. “Because this is a population that’s very vulnerable and they’re at the mercy and disposal of people who wield a lot of power over them. So this woman was very brave to come forward, if you think about it. She was taking a chance,” Brane said.
Baichu, himself an immigrant from Guyana, knows a green card is gold: “I got my green card just like you. I became citizen just like you. I know how hard it is for you, OK?,” according to the tape released by CNN.
Baichu, 46, handled some 8,000 green card applications during his three years as an adjudicator in the Garden City, New York, office of the USCIS, according to prosecutors.
Earlier this month, prosecutors said Baichu was arrested after he once again propositioned the woman for sex. That time they were listening in, too.
‘Green-Card’ Warriors Also Shed Blood In Iraq
The first U.S. soldier killed in the Iraq war was Marine Lance Cpl. Jose Gutierrez, a native of Guatemala. He immigrated to the United States when he was 14. He died serving America on March 21, 2003.
There are an estimated 20,500 soldiers who are called “green-card warriors,” a nickname for “non-U.S. citizens” deployed in Iraq.
About 40,000 immigrants who are on active duty in the U.S. military have been granted citizenship after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The Bush administration, as an offshoot of 9/11, allowed active-duty non-citizens who have served honorably in war on or after Sept. 11, 2001, to file for immediate citizenship.
On the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, media outlets often mention that 4,000 U.S. lives have been lost and tens of thousands more injured. Many of those dead are “green-card warriors” who fought for a country that wasn’t even theirs. But they surely fought for a country that they dearly loved.
