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February 16, 2005 Long-Term Social Security Deficits Cannot Be Solved on the Backs of Low-Wage Immigrant Labor A new study authored by Stuart Anderson, long associated with libertarian open borders advocacy groups, suggests more immigration is the magic bullet to solve the Social Security system's long-term structural deficits. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in a new press release, contends the solution offered by Mr. Anderson actually perpetuates an unsustainable pyramid scheme and ignores short-term fiscal and social costs that far outweigh any potential benefits to the Social Security system in the distant future.
Open-Borders Advocates Trot Out Old Social Security Myths "The size of Social Security's financial shortfall in the decades ahead will depend partly on how many people are allowed to immigrate to the United States, a report to be released on Wednesday shows," the New York Times writes. "The report was written by Stuart Anderson, who was a senior official at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in President Bush's first term and is now executive director of the National Foundation for American Policy, a nonpartisan research center in Arlington, Va." [FAIR Comment: Like a lot of open-borders myths, the idea that immigrants will save Social Security is not a new one. It last surfaced when Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan cited immigration as one way to make Social Security solvent. In response, FAIR produced "A Ponzi Problem" – a brief study debunking the reasoning behind these claims. Here's one quote from our report: "If you look at immigration from the point of view of this macro-picture, immigration does not make very much difference. That is, if you vary the amount of immigration in line with the kinds of scenarios the Census or Social Security uses, everyone’s middle immigration assumption is about one million net immigrants per year or 900,000 per year. If you varied that, say, between 700,000 or 1.3 million you would get maybe a 10 percent difference in the old age dependency ratio out here [at 2070]. That is, instead of being .3, it might be .27, that kind of variation. It is not big. When the immigrants come, they get old like everyone else and they enter the numerator instead of the denominator. The only way you can really get a permanent effect out of immigration is if you have not just high immigration but exponentially increasing numbers of immigrants. . . " Source - Ronald Lee, Director of the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging, University of California Berkeley), Public Costs of Long Life and Low Fertility: Will the Baby Boomers Break the Budget?, November 19, 1997.]
Most Immigrants Flee Deportation Proceedings "Delinquency is the norm, not the exception, in the Harlingen branch of U.S. Immigration Court. According to the Executive Office for Immigration Review, a division of the Department of Justice, which oversees the nation’s immigration courts, 88 percent of the 10,401 people scheduled to appear before the court in 2004 failed to do so," the McAllen Monitor reports. "From a practical sense, the reason why people fail to show up is individual to each person," a DHS spokesman said. "I couldn’t tell you why; we don’t really look at it that deeply."
Miami DHS Enforcing the Law, Draws Complaints from Illegal Aliens "Anxiety has been on the rise in South Florida immigrant communities over the past few months about what many immigrants and their advocates perceive as more aggressive government tactics against those in the U.S. illegally," the Miami Herald reports. "According to some, law enforcement officers have started stopping people at random and arresting them if they have no immigration papers -- on buses, trains and roads. But immigration officials insist they are not doing anything significantly different than they have been doing since the 9/11 terrorism attacks, when scrutiny of foreigners increased." In fact, the enforcement reflects a targeted effort to find illegal aliens, the Herald says. "Far from being new, the use of routine traffic stops to detect deportable migrants who allegedly have gone underground after being advised of an expulsion order is the oldest post-9/11 tactic being employed. There are no figures to quantify whether immigration-related police arrests during traffic stops are higher now than before, but immigration officials say there has been a 200 percent increase from 2003 to 2004 in the number of alleged foreign absconders located since absconder names were added to the computerized wanted list."
Sen. Cornyn Says Illegal Immigration Like Prohibition Fight "Senate Republicans' new point man on immigration said that it is unrealistic to assume that the 10 million illegal aliens in the United States can be deported and that the only alternative is to create a temporary worker program that has them come forward on their own," the Washington Times writes. "In some respects, the closest analogy I can think of is Prohibition," Cornyn told the Times. "Prohibition was passed, it was a law that did not enjoy the support of the masses, so people found a way to get around it by making gin in a bathtub or whatever, and so then we repealed that law and said 'OK, the best way to handle this is not to prohibit it but to regulate it.' That seems to have worked reasonably well when it comes to alcohol consumption." [FAIR Comment: The flaw in Sen. Cornyn's analogy to prohibition is in the reference to it not enjoying "the support of the masses." In the case of illegal immigration, the "masses" support strong measures to curb the abuse of our immigration law, and it is only a minority that supports open borders.]
State Officials Who Support Illegal Immigration Oppose REAL ID Act "It will be impossible for states to comply with stringent mandates for state-issued driver's licenses specified in an immigration bill that cleared the U.S. House of Representatives last week, state officials say. The bill, which experts predict will encounter resistance in the U.S. Senate, would preempt plans for more flexible driver's license standards passed by Congress late last year as part of landmark legislation overhauling intelligence agencies," Stateline.org reports. "Cheye Calvo, who tracks the issue for the National Conference of State Legislatures, criticized a requirement that states verify all documents, such as birth certificates, used to obtain a license and said the bill would shift to states the responsibility to enforce immigration law. He said already overburdened state motor vehicle divisions are ill-equipped to do this."
ICE, CBP Consider Merger 
"The Department of Homeland Security is examining a possible merger of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under fire by disgruntled employees over accusations of mismanagement and low morale, with a sister agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)," the Washington Times reports. "Homeland Security acting Inspector General Richard L. Skinner told department officials last week about the review, saying it was requested by Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee."
Chertoff Confirmed as DHS Secretary  "The Senate today confirmed Michael Chertoff as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, with senators expressing hope that he will forge the troubled agency into a more effective tool in the war on terrorism. The vote was 98-0. Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) did not vote," the LA Times says. "Chertoff, 51, a federal appellate court judge, headed the Justice Department's criminal division in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. Republicans and Democrats said they believed his experience as a federal prosecutor, judge and senior Justice Department official made Chertoff uniquely qualified to improve morale and performance within the department and strengthen its standing within the administration."
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