Thursday, July 31, 2014

AN AMERICAN SEES and SPEAKS: Dr. Gene Nelson WHO REALLY IS PUSHING FOR ENDLESS HORDES of ILLEGALS?


 

“The principal beneficiaries of our current immigration policy are affluent Americans who hire immigrants at substandard wages for low-end work. Harvard economist George Borjas estimates that American workers lose $190 billion annually in depressed wages caused by the constant flooding of the labor market at the low-wage end.”   Christian Science Monitor

THEY DO SO ON BEHALF OF THEIR GREEDY BIG AG BIZ DONORS!


CASE STUDY ON THE REAL COST OF MEXICO AND THE DEM’S ANCHOR BABY FACTORIES HERE:

more at this link – post on your Facebook and email broadcast

 



Jose Herria emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker. He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 -- all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" -- an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently.

THE ENTIRE REASON FOR THE AMNESTY HOAX TO LEGALIZE MEXICO’S LOOTING IS TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED!


 “The U.S. Chamber is in the pocket of Communist China and big companies seeking cheap labor in the United States. We think it is morally repugnant for the chamber to pursue, as a matter of public policy, initiatives which exploit the poor and oppressed, just so they can keep labor costs down for their fortune 500 member companies.”

OFFICE of REP. KERRY BENTIVOLIO (R-Milford) 


I believe that the big problem is that both parties (and even some third-party movements) have become extensions of the "Plutocrat party." As an example, See the Sunshine Foundation's March 25, 2013 report, "Untangling the Webs of Immigration Lobbying" http://sunlightfoundation.com/... We learn that "And in the five years (2008-2012) since the reform last died on the Senate floor, we count 6,712 quarterly lobbying reports filed by 678 lobbying organizations in 170 sectors mentioning 987 unique bills, associated with more than $1.5 billion in lobbying spending." Since then, the estimated total has risen to about $2 billion.
Spending this lavishly means that these economic elites stand to benefit handsomely from immigration liberalization. How? The resultant immigration-stoked labor gluts across a broad spectrum of occupational titles ranging from medical doctor to unskilled labor reduces wages and benefits. Such a change benefits the Banker Class. Immigration - driven population increases also bid up the costs of the necessaries of life such as shelter, food, diapers, medical expenses, etc. The 1%ers benefit from those price increases.
There are some corrupt lobbyists such as felon Jack A. Abramoff involved in steering this tidal wave of lobbying dollars. Search by title for the PDF of the 2007 article, "The Greedy Gates Immigration Gambit" to learn more. Then join citizen empowerment groups such as NumbersUSA dot com, FAIRUS dot org, and CAPSweb dot org to demand genuine immigration reform from our elected leaders.

 

Untangling the webs of immigration lobbying





(Visualizations by Alexander Furnas and Amy Cesal)

As Congress inches toward major immigration legislation, a new Sunlight Foundation analysis (based on almost 8,000 lobbying reports) offers a comprehensive and interactive guide to the web of interests with something at stake.

As legislation continues to take shape, a wide range of sectors will continue flooding Congress with their lobbyists, trying to make sure that their particular concerns are fully addressed. These visualizations can help to better understand who these interests are, what they care about, and how intensely they are likely to lobby to get what they want.

Figure 1. Immigration Lobbying in Congress; click for interactive graphic Click for interactive version

Figure 1 gives us the big picture. The network connects lobbying interests with the specific immigration bills on which they’ve lobbied. The size of the circles represents the amount of lobbying activity. We’ve given a different color to each of 34 distinct sub-issues identified by a textual analysis of bill summaries (see our methodology section for more details).

The network can be viewed in three ways:

1.      By zooming out and viewing it as a whole (Figure 1), we can see  five somewhat (though not entirely) distinct clusters, representing five major immigration lobbying hotspots in recent years.

2.      By zooming in and looking at each of the hotspots in more detail (Clusters A-F), we see more messiness, representing the wider range of interests and sub-issues in each of the clusters.

3.      Finally, and most importantly, by exploring our interactive graphic, you can investigate the links between every interest, issue and bill. There are thousands of links to uncover.

(To understand how we built this visualization, visit our methodology section at the end of this post.)

That immigration policy attracts a tangled web of lobbyists from a wide swath of the economy and dozens of advocacy interests will not be news to those who have followed the issue for years. After all, the last time Congress tried to pass immigration reform, the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 stretched to 789 pages.

And in the five years (2008-2012) since the reform last died on the Senate floor, we count 6,712 quarterly lobbying reports filed by 678 lobbying organizations in 170 sectors mentioning 987 unique bills, associated with more than $1.5 billion in lobbying spending.

Let’s look at six identifiable clusters in a little more detail.

 

Cluster A: Agricultural /H-2A Visas­­

 

Starting in the top left, the first cluster brings together lobbying on agricultural work visas. A series of bills have been introduced to streamline the H-2A agricultural worker program, based on compromises worked out over years between agricultural employers, farm worker unions, and key lawmakers. The bills have generally been introduced under the title “The AgJOBS Act.” As then-Senator Ken Salazar D-CO explained in 2007: “There are 567 organizations that have endorsed [the AgJOBS Act], from the Colorado Farm Bureau, to the Farmers Union, to every single agricultural organization in America. The leaders on AgJOBS in the Senate, Senator Feinstein and Senator Craig, have been eloquent in making their statements about the need for the agricultural community, farmers and ranchers, to be able to have a stable workforce. We need to stop the rotting of the vegetables and the fruits in California, in Colorado, and across this country. The only way we are going to be able to do that is if we have a stable workforce for agriculture.”

One other proposal that has been heavily lobbied – “The Dairy and Sheep H-2A Visa Enhancement Act” – would expand the H-2A visa program to also include sheepherders and dairy workers. Naturally, this has been of particular interest to the dairy industry, which relies on immigrant labor. As bill sponsor Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) told the House floor in 2009: “During the past decade, dairy farms throughout the nation have increasingly experienced difficulty in hiring local workers to meet their needs and, as a result, are ever more reliant upon immigrant labor. The tremendous uncertainty regarding that labor supply has a profound impact on their ability to plan for the future and make sound business decisions.”

 

Cluster B: Seasonal / H-2B Visas

 

Another cluster highlights massive lobbying in support of extending the H-2B visa worker exemption to allow non-agricultural seasonal businesses to hire immigrant workers. As Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), sponsor of the proposal, told the Senate floor in 2009, “Every member of the Senate who has heard from their constituents —whether they are seafood processors, landscapers, resorts, timber companies, fisheries, pool companies or carnivals – knows the urgency in their voices, knows the immediacy of the problem and knows that the Congress must act now to save these businesses. I urge my colleagues to join this effort, support the Save our Small and Seasonal Businesses Act, and push this Congress to fix the problem today.”

The lobbying interests most active on these issues have been hotels and motels, restaurants, florists and nursery services, forestry and forest products companies, and real estate agents.

 

Cluster C: High-skill visas, employee verification, other corporate concerns

The messiest cluster is in the middle, and it largely coalesces around two major lobbying interests: computer software and manufacturers, and the Chamber of Commerce. The concerns of these groups overlap. Part of their lobbying (particularly the tech companies) is aimed at high-skilled workers: retaining math and science Ph.D. graduates, enabling high-skilled immigration generally, and expanding H1.B and L.1 temporary visa programs. (H1-B visas allow skilled workers in mostly engineering, science, medicine, and finance to enter the U.S. for a limited period while L-1 visas allow employees of international companies to work in U.S. offices of the company for a limited period.)

The other major issue in this cluster is around the employee verification program, a web-based system that helps employers to check whether potential employees are in fact eligible to work in the United States. Both the Chamber of Commerce and the computer industry have lobbied heavily on this issue. This cluster also catches some concerns over homeland security, border enforcement, and travel visas, and brings in the building trade unions and the lodging and tourism sector.

 

Cluster D: Family issues

 

A smaller cluster on the right centers around advocacy on family-related issues, with the most lobbying centering on legislation known as the “Uniting American Families Act” which provides family immigration benefits for same-sex couples. As Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), one of the sponsors of the legislation put it on the Senate floor in 2012: “My legislation would grant same-sex binational couples the same immigration benefits provided to heterosexual couples. Passage of this important legislation would help put our country on par with over 25 other developed countries that value and respect human rights.” Lobbying interests in this space include gay and lesbian groups, liberal advocacy groups, and some religious organizations.

This issue and lobbying cluster also covers some issues related to child protection and asylum. The major interest lobbying on these issues are lawyers.

 

Cluster E: "Dream Act", general path to citizenship, enforcement

 

The cluster at the bottom of the network centers primarily around a single piece of major legislation, The Dream Act, and the two sectors most interested in advancing its passage: minority and ethnic groups, and schools & colleges. The Dream Act would create a path to citizenship for young people brought to the U.S. as children who go to college or serve in the military.

This cluster also covers other primary lobbying concerns of minority and ethnic groups, including a set of tough-on-immigration enforcement and criminal justice-related bills, as well as some bills covering various path-to-citizenship issues.

 

Cluster F: Performing artist visas

 

Finally, there is one small cluster of lobbying that is on its own. Live theater, museums, bands, orchestras, and other artistic performance industries have lobbied for special visa exemptions for performing artists. The most active bill in this cluster is H.R. 1785 from the 1111th congress, the Arts Require Timely Service (ARTS) Act, which would require expedited processing of visas petitions filed by employers on behalf of individuals with extraordinary artistic ability.

As Senate bill sponsor Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told the Senate floor in 2009: “There is no doubt that nonprofit arts organizations across the country engage foreign guest artists in their orchestras, theatres, and dance and opera companies. In my home state of Utah, I am aware that many organizations that will benefit from passage of the ARTS Act, including Brigham Young University, Cache Valley Center for the Arts, The Orchestra of Southern Utah, University of Utah, Murray Symphony Orchestra, Salt Lake Symphony, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival, to name a few.”

This cluster would normally have been filtered according to the methodology we used (see below) but we left it in because it is good example of a specialty niche issue within the larger constellation of immigration lobbying.

 

Who lobbies the most?

Another way to slice the data is to look at which sectors are the most active, and on which issues. For full underlying data on all sectors and all issues, click here.

Table 1. 20 most active sectors and their issues

sector
Total bill mentions
Gini
Top Issue
#2 Issue
Minority/Ethnic Groups
760
0.549
Dream Act, 63
Reuniting Families, 40
Schools & colleges
624
0.866
Dream Act, 173
Science Tech workers, 19
Chambers of commerce
508
0.657
General employer responsibility, 68
E verify, 55
Computer software
420
0.763
Science Tech workers, 49
H1 B and L 1, 30
Milk & dairy producers
369
0.952
Agricultural Jobs, 132
H 2A Visas, 95
Computer manufacture & services
346
0.814
General employer responsibility, 63
E verify, 51
Building trades unions
320
0.816
Veterans affairs, 26
Border funding, 18
Farm organizations & cooperatives
263
0.959
Agricultural Jobs, 94
H 2A Visas, 59
Attorneys & law firms
240
0.738
Child Protection / Asylum, 42
Dream Act, 15
Computers, components & accessories
239
0.869
Science Tech workers, 45
High Skilled Immigration, 20
Lodging & tourism
193
0.885
Travel / extended stay, 51
Travel Visa, 27
Florists & Nursery Services
181
0.939
Seasonal businesses, 63
Agricultural Jobs, 19
Meat processing & products
176
0.888
E verify, 38
Border enforcement, 26
Human Rights
174
0.806
Dream Act, 19
Uniting Same-sex Families, 18
Democratic/Liberal
170
0.76
Dream Act, 29
Uniting Same-sex Families, 22
Restaurants & drinking establishments
153
0.901
Seasonal businesses, 27
General enforcement, 18
Hotels & motels
150
0.918
Seasonal businesses, 33
healthcare coverage, 17
Data processing & computer services
146
0.791
Homeland security, 16
Border funding, 12
Pro-Israel
114
0.818
Dream Act, 18
Reuniting Families, 11

(numbers for each issue represent bill mentions in issue area)

Table 1 gives us the sectors that have been most active on immigration, and the issues on which they’ve been the most active. Our measure of activity is lobbying bill mentions – that is, each time a sector mentions an immigration-related bill in a lobbying report, we count it as a bill mention.

The “Gini” coefficient is a measure how much each sector’s lobbying is concentrated on a narrow set of issues. The closer the Gini value is to 1.0, the more concentrated the lobbying. Not surprisingly, minority and ethnic groups have the most lobbying bill mentions in our data (760) and the lowest Gini coefficient (0.549), representing a very diverse set of issues on which they lobby.

Schools and Colleges are the second most active sector. They also show a tremendous interest in the Dream Act, which is not surprising since the Dream Act concerns higher education. Chambers of Commerce (primarily the U.S. Chamber of Commerce) have been particularly interested in lobbying on employer responsibility issues. Computer software companies have been lobbying heavily to get more high-skilled workers. And milk and dairy producers have been lobbying for reform to the agricultural visa programs.

Among unions, the building trades union has been the most active. It’s worth noting that among the top lobbying sectors, a few have very high Gini coefficients (e.g. farm organizations & cooperatives at 0.959, and milk & diary producers at 0.952), meaning that their lobbying is intensely concentrated on just a few bills. By contrast, groups like the Chamber of Commerce and minority and ethnic groups have a much broader issue profile in this space.

 

Most active issues


We can also slice our data based on which issues got the most bill mentions, which generates a statistical tie between agricultural jobs and the Dream Act, with issues related to permanent residences for math and science Ph.D.s, employer responsibility, and small and seasonal business issues coming in close behind.

Table 2. 20 most active issues and their top sectors

Issue
Total
Gini
Top Sector
#2 Sector
Agricultural Jobs
510
0.953
Milk & dairy producers, 132
Farm organizations & cooperatives, 94
Dream Act
504
0.945
Schools & colleges, 173
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 63
Science & Tech workers
372
0.902
Computer software, 49
Computers, components & accessories, 45
General employer responsibility
359
0.935
Chambers of commerce, 68
Computer manufacture & services, 63
Seasonal businesses
320
0.945
Florists & Nursery Services, 63
Hotels & motels, 33
Homeland security
263
0.902
Transportation, 31
Lodging & tourism, 23
General enforcement
247
0.921
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 38
Chambers of commerce, 19
H-2A Visas
241
0.963
Milk & dairy producers, 95
Farm organizations & cooperatives, 59
E-verify
233
0.964
Chambers of commerce, 55
Computer manufacture & services, 51
Border enforcement
231
0.882
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 33
Meat processing & products, 26
Defense funding
223
0.897
Computer manufacture & services, 23
Lodging & tourism, 20
H1-B and L-1
217
0.925
Computer software, 30
Electronics manufacturing & services, 27
Border funding
217
0.955
Chambers of commerce, 34
Computer software, 18
Uniting Same-sex Families
217
0.968
Gay & lesbian rights & issues, 55
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 35
High- Skilled Immigration
206
0.922
Computer software, 29
Computers, components & accessories, 20
Reuniting Families
169
0.954
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 40
Human Rights, 16
Criminal justice
158
0.957
Computer software, 19
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 13
Healthcare funding
151
0.926
Computer software, 23
Online computer services, 8
Travel / extended stay
144
0.959
Lodging & tourism, 51
Minority/Ethnic Groups, 18

(numbers for each sector represent bill mentions in that issue area)

Not surprisingly, agricultural jobs issues are lobbied on very heavily by the agricultural industries, especially the milk and dairy producers, the farm organizations and cooperatives, and the vegetable and fruit industries. The Dream Act is primarily lobbied on by universities, minority and ethnic groups, and Democratic-leaning non-profits. Getting more math and science Ph.D.s is of particular interest to the computer industry.

From the high Gini coefficients, we can tell that almost all of these issues are of interest to only a handful of sectors.

 

Conclusion

As comprehensive immigration goes forward, a wide range of lobbying sectors are going to be fighting to make sure that their particular concerns get included in the final reform (we count 170 sectors who have registered an interest since 2007).

Our analysis shows that the immigration debate is both structured and chaotic. When we zoom out to see the entire network in one glimpse (Figure 1) we can see five big clusters of activity on immigration. When we zoom in, we see much more messiness: lots of sectors, lots of bills, lots of interests, and many overlaps and tangles. In other words, a lot of clamoring is about to take place. We hope you will spend some time exploring our interactive graphic to see for yourself who cares about what and how much.

 

Methodology

We began our analysis with all bills mentioned in lobbying disclosure forms under the category of immigration during the 109th – 112th congresses. We then excluded the top two percent of most lobbied bills – generally omnibus bills - leaving a corpus of more specific single-issue immigration reform bills. The remaining 915 bills were classified into sub-categories based on the text of bill summaries produced by the Congressional Research Service. To create issue categories we used Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) -- a form of natural language processing commonly used for text comparison -- to measure the conceptual similarity of the bills. We then clustered the most similar bills together with hierarchical agglomerative clustering. This process ensured that the most conceptually similar bills – at least according to the content of their CRS summaries – were treated as belonging to similar issue areas, like H-2A visa reform, or the Dream Act, under the umbrella of immigration reform. We manually labeled the resulting 34 clusters based on their contents.

We then applied the labels (denoted by color) from this clustering to the bills in the network representation of lobbying activity shown above. The nodes in this bipartite network represent specific bills and the industries (based on Center for Responsive Politics’ industry classifications) that lobbied on them. The weighted directed edges are based on the number of lobbying reports filed by the given industry that mentioned the given bill. To highlight significant activity, we filtered the network visualization to show only the subgraph with a k-core of 3. The graph layout was done using the Gephi implementation of the OpenOrd algorithm, which employs aggressive edge-cutting to promote clustering.

Data sources: Influenceexplorer.com, Sunlight Foundation Congress API, opensecrets.org,

correction (5/17/13): We removed a reference to the number of lobbyists working on immigration. This story had linked to a piece from our reporting group, which made an incorrect assessment about the number of lobbyists. That piece has been updated.

 

“What we're seeing is our Congress and national leadership dismantling our laws by not enforcing them. Lawlessness becomes the norm, just like Third World corruption. Illegal aliens now have more rights and privileges than Americans. If you are an illegal alien, you can drive a car without a driver's license or insurance. You may obtain medical care without paying. You may work without paying taxes. Your children enjoy free education at the expense of taxpaying Americans.”

 


IN AMERICAN HISTORY, THERE HAVE BEEN FEW, IF ANY LOOTERS OFF ELECTED OFFICE THAT RAKED IN MORE THAN OBAMA DONOR SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN AND HER HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM.

WHERE FEINSTEIN FORAGES AND VOTES, BLUM FILLS HIS POCKETS WITH HER LOOT.

THEIR S.F. WAR PROFITEER’S MANSION ALONE COST $16 MILLION

“We need to provide our farms a legal way to hire workers that they rely on, and a path for those workers to earn legal status. And our laws should respect families following the rules — reuniting them more quickly instead of splitting them apart,” Mr. Obama said in a major speech on the subject in El Paso, Texas, in 2011.


 

Lou Dobbs Tonight Friday, May 16, 2008

Some in Congress are once again trying to push piecemeal immigration reform through the back door. Sen. Diane Feinstein of California attached a farm worker program to the multibillion dollar Iraq war funding bill yesterday which would grant temporary amnesty to 1.3 million farm workers and their families over the next five years.

 

“Tech tycoons like Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg have gotten rich while wages in the technology sector have stagnated.”
THE WAY OUR GOVERNMENT AVOID THE BELOW IS WITH OBAMA’S OPEN AND UNDEFENDED BORDERS TO PERMIT HORDES OF ILLEGALS TO JUMP OUR BORDERS AND JOBS… then the American middle class gets the tax bills for the staggering cost of Mexico’s looting.

There are ample resources to guarantee every worker and young person a job at decent pay, a high quality education, decent housing and nutrition, access to culture, and a secure retirement—the basic social rights which every person should enjoy.


H-1B VISAS – THE CONSPIRACY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED WITH ENDLESS BOATLOADS OF FOREIGNERS IMPORTED TO LOOT OUR JOBS
 
DEATH OF THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS – A NATION LOOTED BY WALL STREET AND NOW RENTING…. and the rents are soaring!





 

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