Biggest immig raid ever much worse than you think

Agriprocessors: A Blight on the Land

The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement detained 390 illegal immigrants May 13, 2008 in the largest single-site immigration raid in US history. The raid took place at Agriprocessors, Inc., the nation’s largest kosher meatpacking plant, located in the tiny town of Postville, Iowa.

Federal officials have declined to comment about possible charges against the owners of Agriprocessors, and jaded Americans can be forgiven for assuming the employer will receive a slap on the wrist, if it receives any penalty at all.

But before you shrug and move on, it’s worth noting that the feds aren’t following the typical routine around the Postville raid. There may yet be some arrests in the offing higher up the ladder, with serious felony charges to follow.

There should be, anyway. The 390 detainees who were working in Agriprocessors’ slaughterhouse are the vanilla surface of a much darker story underneath—a deeply troubling story that demands the owners of Agriprocessors, among others, be prosecuted under the full weight of the law.

If this story doesn’t end with significant prison sentences handed down, there is, as they say, no justice.

An astonishing criminal enterprise

I first picked up the Agriprocessors story in May, 2004. It began far from Iowa’s cornfields with the arrival of a Chinese national named Hu Yao Bin with his wife and two children on Cathay Pacific Airlines Flight CX872 at San Francisco’s international airport .

The paperwork Mr. Hu presented to immigration inspectors at the airport was in order. It showed that a US employer named Aaron Rubashkin, president of Agriprocessors, Inc. of Postville, Iowa, had petitioned successfully for the visa that Mr. Hu and his family presented to immigration inspectors.

It should have been another rubber stamp entry. But no sooner had Mr. Hu and his family been cleared to enter the United States, permanently, than Mr. Hu blundered badly. As they were leaving he asked the inspecting officer to forward his Legal Permanent Resident card to his intended address in San Francisco’s Chinatown—not to the kosher slaughterhouse in Iowa that was to be his place of employment.

Oops. That’s one heck of a commute. Mr. Hu was promptly referred to a second agent for questioning.

He confessed everything in the second interview. In a sworn statement, Mr. Hu said that his friend, Mr. Hu Shu Bin, had obtained the immigrant visa from the American consulate in Guangzhou, China. Mr Hu had paid his friend US$30,000—the standard fee "snakeheads" charge for a valid visa in China.

In the statement, Mr. Hu Yao Bin stated that Mr. Hu Shu Bin had arranged for the family to immigrate through an American immigration lawyer named Christopher A. Teras, who, Mr Hu told the agent, had processed hundreds of these cases.

When the interview was over, Mr. Hu received a "deferred inspection". He was released with a request that he reappear voluntarily at a later date.

After Mr. Hu and his family left to start their new lives as Americans, an ICE agent telephoned Agriprocessors. It happened to be a Jewish holiday, so the plant was closed. But a security guard named Warren Timmerman was on duty, and he showed no reluctance to talk to to the agent.

He told the agent that, yes, "hundreds of Chinese" immigrants come to Postville to work at the slaughterhouse for a couple of weeks in order to fulfill their visa requirement, then disappear.

Interesting.

The agent then called Mr. Hu’s attorney, Christopher Teras, a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn whose office in Washington, DC, as it turned out, was just five blocks from my own. A "Ms. Kim-attorney secretary", answered the telephone at the law firm. She too was very forthcoming. In a heavy Asian accent, she told the agent that $30,000 was a typical fee for someone like Mr. Hu, and that, yes, the firm "has successed for hundreds of such".

A brief explanation of how the labor certification process works

Mr. Hu and his family entered on an EW-3 immigrant visa, which is sponsored by an American employer who has successfully petitioned the Department of Labor (DOL) for the right to import an unskilled foreign worker. This is also called a "labor certification". To secure a labor certification, an employer must first demonstrate it cannot find an American to do the job the employer wants filled. In this case, Agriprocessors had to demonstrate that it could not find an American to pack kosher meat.

The employer demonstrates it can’t find an American by advertising for a worker in a local newspaper’s help wanted section. In the ad, the employer must offer the "prevailing wage", a rate determined by the DOL.

If the ad is unsuccessful, the employer has proven to the satisfaction of the DOL that there are no Americans available to do the job. The employer can then file the EW-3 petition with the DOL for the certification. When the DOL approves the EW-3 petition, the sponsoring employer receives an approval letter, and the prospective immigrant or his attorney files an I-140 visa petition, which is the foundation for permanent residency.

When the I-140 is approved, the alien or his attorney receives a green card. However, thanks to a decision in a famous lawsuit we’ll get to in a bit, the visa is transferable from one prospective immigrant to another. This transferability allows for all sorts of mischief. In Mr Hu’s case, the visa was transferred to him on the street outside the American consulate in Guangzhou for $30,000.

The labor pool in Postville

The visa transferred to Hu Yao Bin in Guangdong Province for $30,000 was issued on the strength of Agriprocessors having proved to the DOL that it was unable to fill a position at its plant in Postville, Iowa with an American worker. Because no Iowan was available to take the job, the meat-packing plant found it necessary to send all the way to China for a meat-cutter, and the DOL agreed.

Under such circumstances, one would suppose Postville enjoyed an extremely tight labor market, with labor priced through the roof. But Census Bureau data show the opposite to be the case. Of the 2,273 people who live in Postville, one in eight (12.7 per cent) lives in poverty—including one in eight children. And even though the little town plays host to Agriprocessors, Inc., Iowa’s seventh largest employer, the per capita income in Postville is only $14,264—less than half the transfer fee Mr. Hu paid in China for the visa that would allow him to uproot his family and travel all the way to Iowa to take the very job that had gone begging among the locals.

Something isn’t right. While the working conditions at Agriprocessors are reportedly abusive and deplorable, and not only for the employees, still, how could it be that in a town with so many living in poverty, there wasn’t a single resident willing to take the job?

The answer is in the wage rate set by the DOL. At the time Mr. Hu Yao Bin’s unskilled labor visa was petitioned for, the wage set by the DOL (since raised) for a meat cutter in Allamakee County, Iowa, where Postville is located,was $6.50 per hour.

That hourly wage translates into a yearly salary of just $13,000—substantially lower than the already low per capita income in town, and 25 per cent below the poverty line for a family of four living in Iowa at that time.

No wonder no American was available to take the job.

Just think for a minute about the real world consequences of this legal fraud—this modern scam. Imagine a guy trying to support a wife and two kids and just barely staying afloat. If there is anybody to whom society should be giving a hand up, in my view, it is that guy. But if he wants the slaughterhouse job Agriprocessors is advertising, at the rate set by his own government, he would have to accept a 25 per cent pay cut.

But, instead of helping him, his government helps the employer avoid having to offer higher wages to him. By giving the employer the right to import a cheaper human from abroad, the government helps ensure that the prevailing wage will never rise. Together, the employer and the government collaborate in cutting the struggling guy off at the knees.

Wrong, but perfectly legal. Or is it?

If a foreign national enters the United States under the conditions just described, he has entered legally.

But wait. Legally? If Agriprocessors is cutting its struggling neighbors off at the knees legally, then why were those 390 mostly Guatemalans detained as illegal aliens in Postville last week?

In general, these Central Americans will have entered the country illegally, and none of them will have paid a smuggler anywhere near $30,000 to be smuggled in. They are on the lowest economic rung of all. In fact if you’re a Guatemalan illegal alien, you can forget about that princely $6.50 per hour Agriprocessors advertises for the Americans. At Agriprocessors, according to the charges in a lawsuit reported by the Cedar Rapids (IA) Gazette, "Immigrants were paid $5 an hour and after three or four months, bumped up to $6."

Agriprocessors, you see, has two lucrative and pernicious schemes going. One scheme involves driving wages down to bare subsistence by hiring desperately poor illegal immigrants to work in its slaughterhouse—the criminal enterprise that made the news last week. The other involves fraudently claiming that the United States has run out of native-born meat-cutters and then, with the help of American Immigration Lawyers Association member Christopher Teras, securing work visas for foreigners worth $30,000 each on the street in Guangzhou.

If it is the pattern and practice of Mr. Rubashkin, the sponsoring employer, Mr. Teras, the immigration lawyer, and Mr. Hu Shu Bin, almost certainly the agent of the sponsoring employer, to sponsor employees who consistently leave after two weeks, or who never show up in Postville at all, it militates against a finding that there ever was any intent to employ the alien for a reasonable period of time. The employer’s defense of employment intent is removed. He is indictable. He and all parties are amenable to being charged with conspiracy, racketeering, labor certification fraud, money laundering, making false statements, and, perhaps, tax evasion. [ US Code ]

Unquestionably profitable

The Department of Homeland Security severely restricts the public’s access to information it possesses about, for example, the number of visa applications a particular attorney has executed (why?). Therefore, it is difficult to say how much profit the Teras-Postville scheme generated.

However, Mr. Timmerman, Ms. Kim, and Mr. Hu all claimed, according to the charging document in the Hu case, that the Teras-Postville scheme generated "hundreds" of such cases.

Let’s say the Teras-Postville scheme collaborated on 200 such visas. At $30,000 per person, 200 such entries would have generated $6 million.

But hundreds of such cases? Isn’t it a little hard to believe such a large scale fraud involving so many people could go undetected for years?

The famous case against an immigration lawyer named Samuel Kooritzky is instructive. While in that case labor certifications were being filed for nonexistent businesses, or for business that actually existed, but without the business’s knowledge that the certifications were being filed, the Kooritzky case shows how the scheme operates, and on what potential scale. A DOL special agent testified at Kooritzky’s trial in December, 2002, that the immigration lawyer "filed 2,200 phony labor applications last year alone." Kooritzky v. Herman DC U.S. Court of Appeals, 1999

From an article by Tom Jackman, who covered the Kooritzky case for the Washington Post:

"There’s every reason to believe this is going on all over the country," said Ben Ferro, a former INS district director in Baltimore. Ferro said the INS doesn’t have enough agents to track internal visa schemes, particularly with increased border scrutiny and other changes in priorities since Sept. 11. "There are many, many areas of immigration law that, because INS doesn’t have the ability or willingness to monitor and stamp them out, it goes unchecked," he said. "And when these things are found, they’re usually only prosecuted when they reach the kinds of numbers you’re talking about here."

Kooritzky was convicted of filing thousands of petitions and led away from the courtroom in handcuffs to serve time in prison. But there is more to the Kooritzky case.

In 1991, the DOL published an "interim final rule", which terminated the right of employers to substitute one immigrant applicant for another in the labor certification process. The rule change would have made it much harder to sell labor visas on the street outside the American consulate in Guangzhou, for example.

Kooritzky sued the Secretary of Labor, arguing that the rule had been published unfairly. The district court ruled in DOL’s favor, but the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia reversed, concluding that DOL had promulgated its rule without adequate notice and comment. Kooritzky v. Reich, 17 F.3d 1509 (D.C. Cir. 1994).

The ability to substitute in any prospective foreign worker makes it much easier for immigration lawyers to engage in wholesale visa fraud, as Kooritzky himself did with a vengeance, as it turns out, but Kooritzky wasn’t satisfied with his victory. After prevailing on the merits, Kooritzky sought to recover attorney fees from the DOL—even though he had represented himself in the suit. He even sought to recover attorney fees for other immigration lawyers who, he claimed, had helped him on the case, even though no other attorneys had entered an appearance on Kooritzky’s behalf during the merits phase of the case.

The DOL declined to pay Kooritzky Kooritzky’s attorney fees, so, on March 1, 1995, Kooritzky moved for an award of attorney fees of $427,662 in district court. The district court awarded Kooritzky and his co-counsel a portion of that amount. Both sides appealed to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which eventually denied Kooritzky any fees at all.

Arguing the appeal for Kooritzky was one of the immigration lawyers Kooritzky claimed had served as co-counsel in the original suit against the DOL. That attorney was Mr. Christopher Teras, the Washington, DC attorney for Hu Yao Bin, the imported meat-cutter for Agriprocessors of Postville, Iowa.

Tentacles unexamined obstruct justice

I received the information about the Hu Yao Bin case back in 2004 from an ICE agent who told me, "You know, Craig, this stuff goes on all the time. It’s like we are waterboys for the snakeheads, performing our part by stamping these visas approved. It’s wrong, but it just seems to go on forever. We mostly get used to it, but sometimes it really bothers me."

He asked me to do what I could to bring attention to the case so that it didn’t just disappear.

I passed the information on to a member of the Iowa congressional delegation, who duly called the special investigations unit in San Francisco, which wondered why he was calling. The visa was perfectly legal, he was told, and so he let the matter drop.

I sent the story to several newspapers, but only the Omaha World Herald ran a small bit, if I remember correctly.

One reporter I contacted was Tom Jackman of the Washington Post, who had covered the Kooritsky trial in 2002. When I described the documents I had in my possession, he became very excited. I’m on deadline now, he said, but as soon as I file this, I’ll call my editor to get the go ahead, and then get back to you.

I didn’t hear back from him, so I called him again. He was apologetic, and said his editor had nixed the story.

The same thing has happened to me three times. Three times I have contacted a Washington Post reporter with a story. The reporter would be excited about the information initially, but then end up telling me his or her editor had killed the story. Of the other two times, one involved an aspect of the Jack Abramoff case, her coverage for which the reporter I talked to won a Pulitzer; the other concerned the manifestly corrupt activities of Congressman Chris Cannon of Utah. (It while I was looking into Cannon’s activities that I first came across the name Christopher Teras. Teras has made two political contributions in his life large enough to be recorded. Both were in 2004. One was to Chris Cannon during the campaign in which ProjectUSA was giving him fits, the other to a woman named Joanna Conti, who ran against Rep Tom Tancredo that year.)

So, to the agent who asked me to help bring attention to the Hu case: I’m sorry to have failed you; you see what we are up against.

But perhaps I didn’t fail completely. I also forwarded the information to the ICE office in Iowa that led the arrests last week in Postville. If the arrests are limited to Guatemalans, to the people on the very bottom rung of the ladder, I’ll know I have truly failed, and so will our society have failed. I hold out hope that more arrests are coming.

The heart of the problem

The biggest obstacle I see to cleaning up our nation’s immigration mess—bigger than the American Immigration Lawyers Assn and the greed of its members, bigger than subversive newsroom editors, bigger than contemptible employers—is the governmental corruption that seems to have this country by the throat.

One form of that corruption is campaign contributions—a practice that is destroying our democracy and simply has to stop. From 2000 to 2004, Agriprocessors contributed $2,000 to Congressman Noach Dear of Brooklyn, $2,500 to Congressman Jim Nussle of Iowa, $2,000 to the National Republican Congressional Cmte, and $14,000 to Senator Arlen Specter. Each of these recipients during this time period actively worked against the wishes and well-being of the American people on the immigration issue in Washington.

From 2000 to 2004, Agriprocessors also gave $3,550 to the Republican Party of Iowa, which repeatedly acquiesced in the betrayal of Iowans on the immigration issue during Governor Tom Vilsack’s administration, and $5,500 to Stan Thompson, an Iowa Republican who challenged Democratic incumbent Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s 3rd congressional district in 2002 and again in 2004.

How is Stan Thompson on immigration? When ProjectUSA put up billboards in Des Moines during the 2004 campaign advertising the fact that, in Washington, Rep. Boswell supported amnesty for illegal aliens, the immigration issue exploded into the race. Rep. Boswell was left hurling invective and fuming, but ineffectively, since our billboards were accurate. Enter challenger Stan Thompson. Thompson not only failed to capitalize on the gift he’d been handed, but neutered our campaign by publicly condemning our completely accurate billboard campaign and calling on us to take down the boards! To whose interests was Stan Thompson hewing? The voters’ of Iowa? The struggling guy’s in Postville with a wife and two kids to support? Or the interests of Agriprocessors, his campaign donor?

But that’s chicken feed

In 2004, the year the DOL approved the $30,000 visa for Agriprocessors, the total that lobbyists in Washington reported in client fees on filing documents that listed both the DOL as a government etnity lobbied, and immigration as an issue lobbied on was $74,740,904. That’s 5,240 times the per capita yearly income in Postville.

A similar amount was spent the year before that, and also in the year after, and the year after that. Every year, in fact, business interests dump tens of million of dollars in "lobbying" money on the DOL, as well as on dozens of other departments, on the House of Representatives, on the Senate, and on the White House.

Where, actually does that money go? Who knows. But the corporations must be getting something in return, because they keep coming back and doing it again the next year.

What are they getting? Hard to say, but there is one thing certain: every last corporation is concerned about one thing, and one thing only: its own best interests. The Department of Labor, on the other hand, like the entire federal apparatus, is supposed to be concerned with our best interests. To the extent the lobbyists are successful, we lose out.

Just ask the struggling guy in Postville.

Oh, dear Heaven!

How are they getting away with this?

I want my country back.  Lobbyists should be shot; every last one of them.

CJBL said:  ...

The heart of the problem

The biggest obstacle I see to cleaning up our nation’s immigration mess—bigger than the American Immigration Lawyers Assn and the greed of its members, bigger than subversive newsroom editors, bigger than contemptible employers—is the governmental corruption that seems to have this country by the throat. ...

---

CJBL,

It is unclear whether you write these pieces, or you post the writings of others.  In this piece "Craig" is referred to, which could be your first name.  The reason this is brought up is because the posts seem to get most of the way to the heart of the matter.  However, they stop short of the strategy to bring forth national awareness of the issues at the heart of the illegal immigration problem.

Assuming that you wrote the above piece, it should be becoming obvious to you that attempts to get newspapers to post these stories are mostly failures.  You should try to get past the call screeners of "talk" radio.  It would be more than interesting to see how the likes of Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity would repond to the details provided in your story.  If you are pushed aside and not allowed to discuss these issues on the air, then would be a good time to expose Limbaugh and Hannity, which are probably part of a government cover-up operation meant to propagandize the population into believing that illegal immigration is not the problem most of us think it is.

It is obvious that Rush Limbaugh, for example, has made quite a cushy life for himself by carefully guiding his programming away from the shoals that would alienate the interests you identify as corrupting influences within the government.  That cushy lifestyle could take quite a nosedive if his guidance was exposed for what it is, meaning the masking of the overall problem by only bumping around the edges of it and filling content with other issues of interest the rest of the time.  This is the same strategy used by Sean Hannity, by the way.  So the only way to make these people honest is to hit them where it hurts, in the pocketbook, by exposing them in ways that cause a decline in their number of listeners.  Inotherwords, the naked truth.

Don't under estimate the power of talk radio.  It is what is available to most people during their commutes in large urban areas, where much of the problem exists.

In regard to the contents of your story, and the part of it that was stripped away, the "jaded" view of Americans towards enforcing immigration laws is highlighted by the following piece by Debbie Schussel (please note SHE is being given credit).  She was discovered on Ben Stein's blog, and does an excellent job of getting to the heart of the corruption and nepotism within ICE.

April 21, 2006

OUTRAGE: Criminal Aliens Mass-Released to Make Room for Julie Myers/Michael Chertoff Show-Raids

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By Debbie Schlussel

While I was away for the last part of Passover, Immigration chieftess Julie L. Myers a/k/a "The ICE Princess," did some show raids of aliens and managers at Dutch pallet-maker IFCO Systems, around the country.

The outrage, as one high-ranking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent told me, is that criminal aliens were released to make room for these staged arrests:

Now I know why Detention and Removal was reducing occupancy from 1200 to 900 by releasing "minor criminals," such as wife beaters and child abusers. It was apparently so that there would be room for pallet makers!

But even before Passover was over, many of the illegal aliens arrested by ICE agents under Myers' "command," were already released, as reported last night on ABC's "Nightline" (which showed the aliens leaving detention facilities with their "notices to appear"--as if they will). So, what was that Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff a/k/a "Mr. Burns" was saying about "ending catch and release" of illegal aliens?

And why IFCO, hardly a household name? Why, not, a bigger, more well-known company that ICE knows knowingly hires illegal aliens? A company like WAL-MART. We've detailed how Myers' predecessor Michael Garcia allowed Wal-Mart to get away with knowingly employing illegal aliens. ICE agents had tape of top Wal-Mart execs pressuring contractors to hire them.

A raid on Wal-Mart and arrests of its execs would have been news. This isn't. We'll see if the arrests continues and are followed by meaningful prosecutions. Don't hold your breath. The raids are particularly phony because, as we noted back in January, The ICE Princess personally ordered agents to release 72 illegal alien workers near Galveston before even checking their IDs to see if they were legit.

Mr. Burns told the press that this week's raids took over a year of planning. If it takes a whole year of planning to do one or two days of raids solely on one obscure employer and then release a good deal of the arrested aliens anyway, what is the point? We are in trouble.

Below is a chart detailing what's really going on. As ICE agents tell me, they did many, many more raids on and arrests of illegal alien employees and employers under Bill Clinton than under George W. Bush.

If this were not bad enough, below are the instructions Julie Myers gave her Detention & Removal Operations agents regarding which aliens can be released ("NON-MANDATORY DETENTION"): those convicted of "crimes relating to domestic violence, stalking, and the abuse or neglect of children," among others. As the agent who sent us this wrote, "Kick 'em back on the street [candidates] include child abusers!"

As we've written, don't look for much to change in immigration enforcement, because The ICE Princess is pregnant, and sources at the ICE Palace say she wants out, just months after she started. If she has any respect for the American people and any genuine concern about the hemorrhaging borders (doubtful), she will resign soon. But that's the thing about her appointment and Homeland Security in general: There's no skill or concern involved when you're running the show, there. It's simply a "Family Affair."

****UPDATE: Feedback from a trusted reader on one of Julie Myers' many appearances, yesterday, to promote her show-raids of illegals (not saying we agree with everything in the e-mail, but . . . .):

Subject: Julie M on Cavuto

Greetings.....Thurs. 4/19 Cavuto / Fox News.......
Julie Myers was on re: the "photo op" raids that took place rounding up the illegals.

This is the longest she has spoken on any show that I have seen her. Cavuto asked her questions, 1 on 1. (Now I am not going to be nasty cause it is still Holy Week . . . .)

OH MY GOD !!! (Not shouting but emphasizing. I'm still in disbelief)

1. What an embarrassment she is!!!!!! (SHAME ON BUSH!)

2. She mispronounces simple words (just like the guy who appointed
her, GWB. One word was Social "Security." Already forgot the other, I was so disgusted.) There was a good 3 - 4 mispronunciations.

3. Her inexperience shows soooo very, very, very much. Also her lack of maturity .

4. Educated???? In what????? You'd never know it when she opens
her mouth.

5. Mucho lack of any authoritativeness. Does not possess even a
quality to "pretend" to be anything in law enforcement. She could have spoken at least "firmly" or with "conviction," not like a very young high school kid.

I do not know any ICE Agents at all, but tell ya what: My heart goes out to each & every one of those that are truly a professional & effective.

How in the hell do they contend with & "report" to a boss of her
stature????? How do they even get out of bed everyday & report for work?????? How very very disgusting.

Sure glad she is p.g. Hope she has twins or triplets, so she can be a stay at home mom (no offense to any other woman, honest). She needs to stay at home & outta sight!!!!!!!

Conclusion : Those "run a way eyes" are to spook one out, so one is totally focused on them & so they are distracted to not hear a word she says!!!!!!

What a joke. You nailed her right to the "T," & I'm glad I learned about her through you, or my head would be still spinning trying to figure her appointment out. Seeing is believing & I have seen enough!!!

Be sure to tell the ICE Agents that you know: This civilian with no law enforcement experience "prays" for them, so they don't quit their jobs. 'Cause any damn dummy can see right through her. WE are in deep doo-doo.

Posted by Debbie at April 21, 2006 11:14 AM

Please note that IFCO officers and managers have been given what amounts to a hand slap.  They "could" face 6 months in jail (but won't because they cooperated) and "could" get $3000 fines (which will be reimbursed to them by IFCO).

Thank you for some very informative articles.  This makes my head spin so bad, I think I have to read it several more times.

EE, you are right, we have to come up with a well defined action plan to counter this greed in all aspects.

CJBL, what can we do? 

I get a little frustrated that CJBL does not include his/her source when posting many of his articles, so before I go flying off, I ask professor google.

Lobbyists are free to roam the halls on Capitol Hill, the offices of OUR representatives and even the floor of the House and Senate.

I recall in 1996, Pat Buchanan said if he were elected he would bar by executive order, lobbyists in the chambers while congress was in session.

elaina said:

Thank you for some very informative articles.  This makes my head spin so bad, I think I have to read it several more times.

EE, you are right, we have to come up with a well defined action plan to counter this greed in all aspects.

CJBL, what can we do? 

Well, here's an idea Elaina.  Why not sent that article to Rush Limbaugh and ask him for his opinion?  Maybe you'll have better luck,  He does seem to favor women who contact him, incidentally.  As stated in the EE post, talk radio has a much better chance of affecting change than does the print media.  CJBL's article makes that pretty clear, too.  Limbaugh's response, if you get one, should be truly enlightening on what we can learn from those who are involved in trying to guide the public consciousness.

ElRushbo@eibnet.com

Or contact Sean Hannity at: http://www.hannity.com/contactus.asp

This is webmail, so be sure to make a copy for yourself before you send your message.  That way, if you wish, you can let us know what you wrote and whether your message was not responded to.

Sometimes we can learn more from what is ignored by others than what they are willing to respond to

This is beyond belief.  Put-up show ICE raids!  $30,000 for an immigration visa! (What, too good to walk across the border with the rest of the great unwashed?) It's bizarre.  And just think, this is probably just  the tip of the iceburg. These examples of corruption surely can't be isolated events. Thanks to all involved for this information.

As for the very perceptive insight by Employers, Employers..."Sometimes we can learn more from what is ignored by others than what they are willing to respond to"   Look how long it took me to say anything.  There is a LOT going on here at Firesociety and on the internet in general.  Plus stuff like this is so beyond the realm of our normal experience that I for one almost don't know how to handle it.  One thing for sure, shove this info in the face of the next idiot who tries to yell "Racist!" and I bet they shut their trap.

Good post CJ once again. Let me add this to your thread please. I know that people have seen it but I haven't posted it in a long time. Would go great here and maybe find itself spread among everyone.

http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php

It can't hurt, right?

marcele said:

This is beyond belief.  Put-up show ICE raids!  $30,000 for an immigration visa! (What, too good to walk across the border with the rest of the great unwashed?) It's bizarre.  And just think, this is probably just  the tip of the iceburg. These examples of corruption surely can't be isolated events. Thanks to all involved for this information.

As for the very perceptive insight by Employers, Employers..."Sometimes we can learn more from what is ignored by others than what they are willing to respond to"   Look how long it took me to say anything.  There is a LOT going on here at Firesociety and on the internet in general.  Plus stuff like this is so beyond the realm of our normal experience that I for one almost don't know how to handle it.  One thing for sure, shove this info in the face of the next idiot who tries to yell "Racist!" and I bet they shut their trap.

I too wondered when I read the original post who the author was??  That is my only concern that we might get some off info and go wild on it--but this seems to be true, and I can BET this company is not the only company in this country doing this.

That said, I don't know about the rest of you, but me being on medical disability, $30,000 is a FORTUNE to me--so, obviously what our prez and prez candidates and senators/congresspeople say about the "illegals" (because basically that is what Mr Hu and his family were since they came here in a way that proved to be crimminal), being so poor and desperate wanting to make life better for their families.  $30K in China is a small fortune also, so obviously these people coming here thru these means are NOT poor people taking bottom of the rung jobs.  Same with the Mexicans who pay $10,000 to smugglers to bring them across the border, how many of us could come up with $10K?  I can tell you if you held a gun to my head, I could not even come up with $500, let alone that much money, so, there is some sort of payoff being done to our elected leaders to have them look the other way for so long a time.

Just goes to show you how corrupt everything in gov't is at every level unfortunately.

Deerhunter,

  Too bad this article could not be a sticky thread or sent in a Grassfire email to every member.  I have forwarded this absoultely amazing and unbelievable lnk to my entire address book.  If we don't get some accountability in Washington soon, this will go on and on.   Vote for Patriots ONLY ! ! !   Thanks for pulling it out of the archives again for the Independence day weekend visitors.

TG

I'll make it sticky TG and let's see what we can do ok? I'll do it right now.

Good idea and thanks for that idea.

Deerhunter

Thank you Sir !

TG

Lou Dobbs would be another one, that it would be a good idea to send this too. 

I wish the article was designed or set up to print.

northerner said:

Lou Dobbs would be another one, that it would be a good idea to send this too. 

I wish the article was designed or set up to print.

There is no doubt that Washington, D.C. contains the most dangerous criminals in our society. They are destroying our country and way of life. I make no distiction between the criminal who is addressed as Represenative/Senator XXX or the one addressed as inmate #XXX. This has to stop or the children of tomorrow have no chance. Let us actually do something for the children for once instead of mouthing platitudes. I know there are still men of moral character in our communities. Stand and be counted.

Excellent article/contribution.  It seems always boil down to greed.