Immigration Checkpoints

Along the lines of the previous post about Steven Bierfeldt, I just noticed this criticism of the increasing use of "immigration checkpoints": Checkpoint USA. They also have a good YouTube channel on checkpoints.

Fred Ex and the Problem with John McCain

The Wall Street Journal has a great article this morning about Fred Smith of FedEx, the economy, and John McCain. Smith supports McCain because of four key issues: trade, taxes, energy and health care. I don't trust McCain on the biggest issue -- spending.

Fred Smith is one of the great heroes of the modern US economy. He founded and still runs Federal Express, a company that underpins everything that makes our economy work. I like the post office, and especially our mail carrier, but when my office has to get something somewhere fast, we FedEx it.

In the article Smith makes some great points about how current US economic policies hurt business and stop them from creating more jobs. Taxes on capital discourage companies from investing. More investment makes labor more productive, and that allows companies to pay their employees more - and yes, to make more profits too.

But when Smith turns this to say that it makes McCain the better candidate for president, I disagree. Obama and McCain will both be bad for the economy. Republican stumpers insist that Democrats will spend too much money and raise taxes too much, increase trade barriers, etc.

Excuse me? Republicans had control under George W. Bush. We had the President, the Senate and the House. And we blew it!

Clinton's last budget (for fiscal year 2001) had spending of $1.8 trillion. Bush's last budget (for 2009) will have $3.2 billion in spending - and that doesn't include the bailout spending. He may very well have doubled federal spending in only 8 years. That's an average increase of 9% a year (1.09^8 for you math geeks). How many of you out there are seeing your income/spending going up 9% a year? Thanks a lot W!

Bush imposed tariffs on steel - so much for Republicans and free trade. I didn't see the Republican-controlled Congress - or John McCain - doing anything to overturn that.

So let's get real. Democrats spend our money and tax us now. Republicans spend our money and borrow so that either we'll pay for it later or our kids will. Neither party is fiscally responsible.

The real problem is not taxes - it's spending. Every voter should challenge every candidate they meet with this. Stop asking them to spend money on your project and start insisting that they cut spending. And demand that they tell you where they'll cut.

If voters took on this mindset - that the biggest questions for candidates should be about where they'll cut spending - then candidates would learn that cutting spending is important.

Cutting spending shouldn't be all that difficult. You can start with my favorite - stop wasting money overseas. Bring the troops home - not just from Iraq but from all over. Let Europe, Japan and South Korea defend themselves. Wealthy countries can take care of themselves. We should defend our borders and that wouldn't cost much if we focus on what's important. Dropping this, these days, will save us close to a trillion dollars a year. That's $3000 per person in America - man, woman and child (including illegal immigrants); or $10,000 per family per year. That's a lot of money folks! While we're at it, let's dump foreign aid. It never goes to the right places anyway. Decades of throwing money at this and - gee whiz - kids are still starving in Africa.

Then you've got immigration and our borders. We should focus on stopping terrorists and criminals from entering. And we should let in people who want to work. That's good for the economy. Not letting workers in hurts US businesses and shifts jobs overseas. Building a 700 mile long fence is one of the dumbest wastes of money ever. We could easily save $100 billion a year plus more immigration would boost our economy.

Then there's agriculture. We spend hundreds of billions of dollars to help farmers. Farmers? Farmers are people who own large amounts of land. They are rich. Sure they dress in overalls and drive beat-up looking pickups for work. But they own hundreds of acres of land. So we are taxing middle-class workers (and rich ones) and borrowing money from our kids so we can give money to rich people. I need a Carlos Mencia sound effect here.

Then you've got the war on drugs. Look ... most people have figured out by now that prohibition ain't working so good. How many people think that a million marijuana arrests a year are good for the economy or doing anything for society? It does make me money, as a criminal defense lawyer. And sure it creates lots of work for cops, judges and jail guards and such. But maybe if we dropped the dumb drug war the cops would have time to focus on domestic violence, child predators (the real ones, not the 19 year olds hitting on 16 year olds, okay?), and burglars. You know they don't even investigate burglaries any more.

So I'll believe in John McCain when he tells me how he's going to get the budget back under $2 trillion, and when he gets the Republican candidates for Congress and the Senate on board. In the meantime I'll figure they're just as good at wasting our money as Obama and the Democrats, and I'll keep voting for libertarians at every opportunity. Now how do we get John Stossel to run for president in 2012?

Immigration: Our Prejudices

In the past few months I've heard a few friends and family complain about immigration. There is this overwhelming prejudice in America (and elsewhere) that immigration is a bad thing. I've never bought into that.

But instead of me ranting again, I just want to point out a book I read about (and will be reading soon). It's Immigrants: Your Country Needs Them. The book has had some excellent reviews. It's a tome - nearly 400 pages.

Today one friend was going on about how immigration costs the US $800 billion a year. I have no idea where he got that number, and suspect he doesn't know either. It's baloney. But don't take my word for it. Read the book. Philippe Legrain explains and probably does it way better than I could.

One other thing - I always challenge people on the fact that our parents or grandparents immigrated. A very common response: "When my parents came it was legal." That is not an argument for why it should be illegal now. Also, your parents probably didn't read the US statutes before coming. Today's immigrants aren't reading them either.

Immigration, the Republican Candidates for President, and Ron Paul

I watched the Republican presidential debate on ABC, and was struck by how most of the candidates lack any grip on reality with regard to immigration (except, of course, for Ron Paul).

A substantial dispute was what to do about the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in our country. The extreme view is that all 12 million should be deported immediately. Anyone who thinks that has absolutely no clue what's going on. I had a client who was caught bringing an illegal into the country. After serving his time, my client wanted to be deported back to Canada. The frontline immigration people wanted him sent back. I'm pretty sure the judge who sentenced him to time-served wanted him sent back.

It took about two months to get him sent back, and the cost of keeping him in jail was around $10K. I'd estimate the total cost of this process at around $20K. Imagine how long it would take and how much it would cost if he had actually fought deportation. Now imagine that 12 million people fight deportation. That's assuming there's only 12 million. I've seen estimates as high as 30 million illegals living in the US.

So we're really talking about $1 trillion to do this, and it would take years. During the decade or two that it takes, other illegals will surely sneak into the country.

One of the sillier things I heard was a few of the candidates saying that we should only deport the estimated 2 million who have been convicted of crimes. First of all, anyone who is convicted in federal court is already deported, through the process I mentioned above.

Those convicted in state courts are generally not deported. State courts are not in the business of determining whether someone is an illegal immigrant, or what to do about it. I'm pretty sure it does happen with most felony convictions, because that kind of review would take place before sentencing. Most crimes are not felonies, and most criminal courts that I've seen would not bother going through the review necessary to even find out if someone is an illegal immigrant. The courts are just too busy with all these speeding tickets, DWIs, drug cases, and also the real crimes that they should be handling.

Ron Paul was the only dose of reality on the stage, mentioning something about the bureaucracy that the others would have to create in order to carry out their idiotic plans (he didn't use the word idiotic though - he's got more class than me).

For those who want to read more about immigration on this blog, check out my previous posts about wasting money on immigration and immigration and homeland security.

More on Immigration and Wasting Money

I was thinking about my post about immigration on Thursday and wanted to follow up.

After a little research I estimate that the lower 48 states have about 11,000 miles of border, including both coastline and the lines between the US and Canada/Mexico.

To keep illegals out, figure you would need at least 10 border agents per mile (each agent covering about 528 feet). So that means you need 110,000 border agents. And that's at any given moment. Remember these are federal employees who work 40 hours per week if you're lucky, and they get vacation and all that. You need three shifts at eight hours each, and then you need weekend and vacation coverage.

So when all is said and done, we need about 500,000 border agents. If the average cost of maintaining these employees is only $100K/year (salary, benefits, and the cost of training, supervising and equipping them), I think we're talking about $50 billion a year. Then you add in the cost of processing all those that are caught and deporting them. So maybe $100 billion is a reasonable estimate.

Also keep in mind that we've left out the Alaskan coastline and its border with Canada, as well as the Hawaiian coastline.

Hmm. Maybe $100 billion isn't that bad. It's a lot less than the Iraq war. :-)

Immigration - The Hidden Waste of Money

As an attorney I've represented several defendants charged with violating immigration laws. This has taught me quite a bit about immigration, and perhaps more important about deportation.

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, our friendly federal government wastes a tremendous amount of money in this process. The most obvious is the situation where the alien wants to go back to his or her home country. You'd think this would be straightforward. They want to go home. We want them to go home. So, poof - we take them to the border. Right?

Nope. The process is nowhere near that simple. To some extent this makes sense. There is a formal process to ensure that the person genuinely wants to leave, understands their rights, and really should be deported, etc. In cases like mine, you would think this could easily be accomplished when the criminal case is resolved. All of my cases so far have been resolved with a plea bargain. Upon conviction, it would be very easy to have the same federal judge order the deportation, and poof, you're done. I don't know why, but it doesn't work that way. I'm guessing Congress and the President are responsible for this.

In many cases the actual process takes 2 months. During that time the deportee is held in custody by the immigration officials (ICE - Immigration and Customs Enforcement). In this area they are kept in local jails at a cost to the US Treasury of $100 per day. This does not include the cost of having ICE agents run around arranging jail stays. Due to problems I don't fully understand, they have difficulty finding jails that meet federal requirements and in many cases have to move them to a different facility every 72 hours. Thus, the additional 2 months in custody costs taxpayers in the ballpark of $10,000 per deportee. As a rough guess, there are 1 million deportations a year -- that's $10 billion. And that's just some of the waste - there's probably more.

There is a separate immigration "court" system, under the Executive Office of Immigration Review. I put the word court in quotes because this court system is not what many lawyers would consider a real court. This court is a part of the executive branch, rather than being a part of the judicial branch. I'm learning more about this process as time goes on - I'm not really an immigration lawyer though at this point I probably know more than most lawyers.

There is the entirely separate question of whether our immigration policy is sensible. I have long supported more open immigration. My grandfather came here as a child and I'm sure some locals then didn't want him, and those like him, to come. We used to have open immigration. The Statue of Liberty has a quote:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Does anyone think this describes our immigration policy today? Shouldn't we send the statue back to France? Maybe we can send it to Canada, since they seem to embrace that policy approach.

I was raised and educated to believe that quote on the Statue of Liberty meant something, and that it was a good policy. The melting pot it implies created a diverse society and strong economy.

The current anti-immigration policy doesn't really stop the melting pot. Like illegal drugs, illegal aliens still find their way into the country. The war on immigrants also funnels huge sums to criminal networks who smuggle the aliens in. Open immigration avoids these problems.

The other problem is the amount we spend trying to stop immigration. I can't figure out the federal budget enough to give a hard number, but I'm guessing it's at least $10 billion a year. It doesn't work. There are reported to be as many as 30 million illegal immigrants in the US at any given moment. No matter how many walls you build or how much you spend, they will keep finding their way in.

There are so many loud voices opposed to immigration - reflecting little more than prejudice. They show little interest in economic analyses and history indicating that immigration is overwhelmingly good for our country.

Homeland Security Waste #2: Immigration

I support a much higher level of immigration. I'm swimming against a strong tide on this, I know. I promised not to pull any punches on this blog, so here it goes: If you're anti-immigration, you're just another bigot.

Even if you're a "native American", at some point your ancestors walked across what is now the Bering Strait. My ancestors immigrated here, from roughly the 1850s to the early 1900s. There were plenty of people here then who didn't want them to come. People will offer a variety of reasons why they oppose immigration, but they all ring hollow. Bad for the economy? Nonsense. Immigrants continue to add great value to our economy, far and away outstripping any costs they impose. Destroying our culture? I thought we were supposed to be a melting pot. And since when does America have a culture? To paraphrase from my favorite movie (Stripes), we are the wretched refuse ... we've been kicked out of every decent country in the world. No room left? Rubbish. We have lots of room, and many developed areas (especially in this district) have become depopulated. That's why Schenectady welcomes the Guyanese.

As a nation we celebrate the Statue of Liberty. Well what's the poem associated with it?

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Someone please tell me what happened to this. The tired, poor, huddled masses sneak into our country under cover of night and when caught they are harshly treated and then sent back. Perhaps we should rephrase the poem:

Give me your wealthy, your elites,
Your skilled athletes yearning for larger endorsement deals,
The shining scholars of your teeming universities.
Send these, the well-off, silver-spooned to me,
but only a few of them.

Or maybe we should just close the statue, tear it down, and sell it off for scrap metal or send it back to France.

Lest I forget the theme of this blog, all of our efforts to keep out the huddled masses are quite expensive. As a criminal defense attorney in Albany, I've handled a couple of illegal immigration cases so far. In both cases these were otherwise decent people who did violate US immigration law. One will be sentenced to roughly four years in prison, while the other has been sentenced to 9 months. Each federal inmate costs approximately $40K/year to house. Add that up over 10,000, (or is it 100,000) inmates, and you start getting to some pretty big numbers. And that doesn't include the substantial costs of catching them and prosecuting them. Overall it's gotta be 100 billion dollars a year. And it doesn't even work. Much like the drug war, it doesn't matter how much we spend to keep them out, they keep coming anyway.