Immigration

                America was once built on immigration but now it experiences a growing and adapting issue of which the solution changes with each administration.

Illegal aliens include Mexicans and Central Americans who both cross the US border, individuals that cross the Canadian border and individuals from all over the world that came here with visas and remained illegally after they expired. There are many problems associated with these workers, such a s but not limited to taking jobs, increasing already increased population, stressing current infrastructure,

These workers are tempting to any greedy employer with little regard for labor laws. They will accept low pay and poor working condition in exchange for money. The problem with this is although both the worker and the employee are breaking the law if the illegal citizens didn’t exist those companies would be forced to hire American workers who’s income is subject to tax.

Some argue that Americans wouldn’t do those ‘dirty’ jobs that somehow the average American is so obnoxious that they would refuse to ever work as a maid or landscaper when really they were the ones doing it before the massive influx of illegal aliens. Some also argue that illegal aliens do pay taxes…when they purchase thing however the significant portion of taxes which one normally gets deducted from a paycheck are not applicable to those individuals.

For obvious reasons of lack of reporting the number of illegal aliens in the country can only be roughly estimated and is currently estimated at around 12 million with about 8 million of those in the workforce.

Legally, temporary protected status is a legal status that was originally designed give illegal aliens temporary legal status. This was only granted if they had fleed from their home country and would experience unusual hardship upon returning home due to civil strife or natural disaster. However since it’s induction in 1990 it’s been tossed back and forth with each presidency.

The Obama administration made four moves that further weakened the immigration enforcement issue. One being the suspending worksite investigations to search for illegal aliens, limiting the scope of state and local authorities in regards to apprehending illegal aliens, limiting most search and seizure of illegal aliens to only those deemed a danger to society and consideration of applying massive case by case amnesty.

The approximate cost of incarcerating illegal aliens is about 1.6 billion dollars per year. Cost to the justice system of about 8 billion and cost to state and local government of about 9 billion. In addition percentages vary by state but California see the highest number of illegal criminals constituting 12% of their jail population.

In addition the increase in population has an impact on the environment with the associated increase in consumerism along with the stress on infrastructure in general (ie: crowded street and traffic.)

In my opinion new measure must be taken to increase border security along with strengthening immigration enforcement in addition to removing any implementations that weaken immigration enforcement.

 

http://www.fairus.org/issue/illegal-aliens-taking-u-s-jobs

http://www.fairus.org/issue/temporary-protected-status

http://www.fairus.org/issue/department-of-homeland-securitys-non-enforcement-policy

http://www.fairus.org/issue/criminal-aliens

Mumps outbreak and publisher Embargo

This article was written November 5, 2012 by National Public Radio its regarding publisher embargoes and a mumps outbreak. This articles’ a little confusing, I think without a journalism background or any knowledge of these ‘embargo’s you would have to read it twice to really understand what it’s saying. 

In 2009 there was a Mumps outbreak in many orthodox Jewish communities in and around New York City. In order to combat its spreading doctors tried something unusual and that was giving a third booster MMR vaccine to uninfected children which would normally not be necessary.  The results were successful the mumps outbreak reduced by one quarter. Some argue that it may have just been coincidently the end of the outbreak anyway and this would have to be repeated in another outbreak to determine its success.  

The CDC wrote about the outbreak and its experimental vaccine trial but it took 3 years for the articles to emerge. The reason for this is an ‘embargo’ whenever a scientist brings information to a publisher that is still unconfirmed in some way the publisher must agree to not publish or speak of it. So why not just go ahead and publish it? Supposedly the time gap is to give journalists more time to research complex information.  Some argue that it is unnecessary and a silly power game that touts journalists as gatekeepers to information. Policies regarding embargoes vary among publishers but generally releasing content within an embargo category is grounds for punishment by that scientist (or provider of information.) They punish publishers by withholding future information. The exception where breaking an embargo is not frowned upon is if the information is a public health concern. I found this article interesting because I wasn’t aware of such a strange ritual within the publishing world.