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WASHINGTON If North Texas lawyer Stephen Daniel has his way, the race for Texas' 6th Congressional District will be decided on the issue of health care.

But U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, says his battle with cancer amid the campaign has given him an up-close look at the health care system and why the Democratic policies that Daniel is campaigning on would be bad for North Texas.

Across the board, the campaign has been defined by the coronavirus pandemic and Wrights cancer diagnosis.

Daniel, 44, says both highlight the need to improve the nations health care system and make it more equitable for Texans living in the district.

My opponent goes around and hes bragged about what great health care he gets, and he consistently votes against everyone elses health care and denies everyone else the same great health care that he gets, Daniel said in an interview with The Dallas Morning News.

Thats something that has really bothered me in this race. Its that type of mentality that we just dont need in Washington. We should all have access to great affordable health care and great [prescription] drugs at low prices, he added.

Wright, 67, announced in July 2019 that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer earlier that year. He said he had no intention of slowing down but was hospitalized twice last month due to complications with his treatment and has been unable to campaign since then.

Due to his health, Wright was unable to participate in an interview, but he provided statements in response to questions from The News.

As Ive battled cancer while remaining hard at work, Ive come to understand just how reliant on American healthcare ingenuity the rest of the world is, Wright said. If we go down the road Democrats demand, mainly the complete government takeover of our healthcare system, we will forever diminish our ability to innovate and find new treatments. We will also destroy whats left of competition in the healthcare arena, driving up costs for the taxpayer.

Daniel hit Wright for the GOPs efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and his vote last year against a Democratic-led bill that would reverse a decision from President Donald Trump to relax a provision of the ACA that allows states to receive federal financial support and to waive the ACAs mandates, known as Section 1332. In return for the flexibility, states are required to guarantee coverage that is as comprehensive and accessible as that provided by the ACA.

I have friends and family that paid more for health insurance per month than they do for their house or their car, Daniel said. In Texas, we have the highest uninsured rate of any place in the nation, and its only gotten worse during the pandemic with people losing their jobs. Thats the main reason I got into [the race]. I was so struck by how nightmarish the health care system is.

Wright, the former tax assessor-collector for Tarrant County, is in his first term in Congress, succeeding longtime U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, who Wright worked for as chief of staff and district director from 2000 to 2009. Wrights been involved in North Texas politics for decades, serving on the Arlington City Council from 2000 to 2008.

In 2018, Wright secured his seat by an 8% margin and won an uncontested primary in March of this year.

Daniel was born in Austin, moving to the North Texas town of Itasca as an infant. He attended the University of Texas at Austin, becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college in 1999. Daniel then attended St. Marys Law School in San Antonio, graduating in 2002, and now works for Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins' law firm.

Daniel became the Democratic nominee for the district in March when he also won an uncontested race.

Most of the districts population is in suburban Arlington and the southeast corner of Tarrant County. The district stretches to the southeast, encompassing Waxahachie, Corsicana and the rural areas around the two towns.

National Democrats are targeting Wrights district and have it on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees list of districts that its seeking to flip this November. The DCCC, the campaign arm for House Democrats, polled the district in June, finding just a single-digit lead for Wright. Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto Orourke also outperformed Wrights 2018 challenger in the district in his race against Sen. Ted Cruz.

Along with health care, Daniel said he will prioritize improving public schools, increasing access to broadband internet in rural areas and assisting small businesses hurt by the pandemic, if elected in November.

Wright promised to defend conservative values and rebuild the economy from the damage caused by the pandemic.

I prioritize constituent services at home, and in D.C. I stand up for the common-sense, conservative values of our district, Wright said. Our campaign is all about getting our nation back to work after the COVID pandemic, fighting for true border security, including stopping human trafficking, and returning fiscal sanity to Washington by reducing spending and waste.

Daniel turned Wrights conservatism against him, calling him an extremist who follows his partys lead when voting on legislation. Several controversial opinion columns that Wright wrote for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in the 1990s are further proof of that extremism, said Daniel, promising to be a congressman who works with members in both parties.

I am not just a checkbox for a party vote, and I think thats what separates us. People are tired of the extremism in Washington, Daniel said. I know I am.

When Wrights columns resurfaced this year, his campaign called the columns out of context comments from two decades ago and accused Daniel of embracing mob-mentality cancel culture.

Wright continues to play up his conservative bonafides, highlighting his decades of service in the district.

Ive served this district for many years, Wright said. Be it as Tarrant Co. Tax Assessor-Collector, Chief of Staff for CD-06, or as your Congressman, Ive been a taxpayer watchdog, fighter for the unborn, and strong advocate for ending illegal immigration and human trafficking on our southern border.

Despite the outside support, Daniel faces an uphill battle to unseat Wright.

Wright reported just over $105,000 in cash on hand at the end of the last fundraising period in June. Daniel reported $84,900 in cash on hand at the end of the same period.

Neither man has been able to campaign in person recently, with Daniel holding online events due to the pandemic and Wright on bed rest due to his hospitalizations.

You try to get your message out any way you can, Daniel said.

More here:
In suburban D-FW congressional race, Wright touts conservative record, Daniel calls for end to extremism - The Dallas Morning News

Mark C. Thies| The Fayetteville Observer

American workers are still reeling from widespread layoffs. Nearly 1 million Americans filed for first-timeunemploymentbenefits at the end of September, bringing the cumulative total to more than 55 million since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

President Trump made a bold move to pause major guest worker programs until the end of the year, and that should be applauded. However, the presidentcando even more tohelpput Americans back to work. Fortunately, we already have an existing federal program that could open up job opportunities for millions of citizens.

More: Energy efficiency can help rebuild NCs economy

More: Before voting: What do you want America to look like?

More: Lorry Williams: Observers Voter Guide coming Oct. 18

E-Verifyis a free, electronic system that prevents businesses from hiring illegal aliens. By mandating that all employers use it, the administration could create countless new job opportunities and provide much-needed economic relief for America's struggling working class.

The system is remarkably easy to use. Employers simply visit the online database and input the names, birth dates and Social Security numbers of newly hired employees. The system then cross-references that data with other federal records to determine usually within a few seconds whether or not the employee is eligible to work in the United States.

E-Verifyis extremely accurate. Within one day, the system verifies almost all 99% of new employees as eligible for work. Of the remaining 1% who receive "tentative non-confirmations," the vast majority turn out to be illegal aliens.

DespiteE-Verify's demonstrated success, 90% of businesses don't use it. And that's often a deliberate decision. Profit-hungry businesses don't vet their employees because illegal immigrants are willing to work for far lower wages than their native-born counterparts. Nearly four in 10 illegal aliens have been paid less than minimum wage. This wage fleecing enriches employers by $128 billion annually.

America's working class which is already struggling financially in these COVID times suffers the most from this illegal competition. Over the past two decades, an influx of illegal aliens has increased the number of low-skilled workers by approximately 20%. This excess competition has depressed the wages of native-born workers without high school diplomas by almost 4%.

It's not just high school dropouts who are negatively affected, though. When the size of a labor pool such as high school graduates increases by 10%, wages for native workers fall 2.5%, on average.

It's for these reasons that a handful of states including Arizona, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina require all employers to useE-Verifyfor new hires.

The results speak for themselves. States that have implemented mandatoryE-Verifyhave recorded a 40%drop, on average, in their populations of recently arrived illegal immigrants within one year of implementation. That's hardly surprising turning off the jobs magnet eliminates the primary incentive for illegal workers to come here.

Widespread adoption of this reformcan't come soon enough. Already, an estimated 11 million illegal aliens reside in the United States and roughly 8 million of them are employed. Hundreds of thousands more will join their ranks this year.

Meanwhile amid the COVID-19 pandemic and recession tens of millions of Americans currently find themselves unemployed.

President Trump needs to makeE-Verifya key plank in his reelection platform, and then work with a future Congress to mandate it nationwide. He could humanely stem the number of illegal aliens flocking to the United States, decreasing competition for those increasingly scarce jobs.

We knowE-Verifyis effective in deterring illegal immigration and opening up job opportunities for Americans. Now it's up to our nation's chief executive to answer citizens' pleas and put them back to work.

Dr. Thies is the Dow Chemical Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Clemson University whose research is focused on sustainability.

See the rest here:
Trump should advocate E-Verify to help solve the unemployment crisis - The Fayetteville Observer

National Review, September 4, 2020

Immigration was not a major theme of the recent Republican convention, but there was one sentence that caught my attention. In his speech on the first day of the event, Donald Trump Jr. said, "If Democrats really wanted to help minorities and underserved communities ... they'd limit immigration to protect American workers."

He included other things in that list, such as school choice and supporting police. But the unadorned call for reducing immigration was notable not illegal immigration, not low-skilled immigration, not criminal immigration, just immigration. And not ameliorating its consequences or fixing the problems of a "broken" system just reducing the level.

Whether or not Don Jr. meant to do so, that one sentence pointed to an approach that's more effective and less inflammatory than many of the policies pursued by Republicans. Too often, those skeptical of today's immigration policies expend inordinate energy on the symptoms of excessive immigration rather than addressing the actual problem: too much immigration.

One example is the effort to exclude illegal aliens from the census count for the purposes of reapportioning seats in the House (and for drawing House and state legislative districts). Of course it's absurd that illegal aliens effectively have representation in Congress. And since they can't vote (and seldom do noncitizens who vote seem to usually be legal residents), including illegals in the reapportionment calculations gives greater weight to the votes of citizens in the House districts where illegals live than to citizens in other districts where there are fewer eligible voters, each vote counts more, creating something akin to rotten boroughs.

But how is the Census Bureau supposed to do this? It's required to count everyone, but then somehow identify individual illegal aliens, and their places of residence, and subtract them from the count used to apportion House seats and draw districts? If this were possible for more than a handful of people, ICE would be able to just go and pick them up and deport them. If having a large illegal population is a problem and it certainly is then how about we try to shrink it?

The best way to do that would be through worksite enforcement. And while we're starting to see more of that, it's still woefully, almost comically, inadequate. The division of ICE with the worksite portfolio (Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI) focuses on customs work and doesn't give a rat's patootie about illegals filling American jobs. So what we're essentially doing is asking the Census Bureau to do ICE's job. Good luck with that.

Another example of focusing on immigration symptoms rather than immigration itself is welfare use. Immigrants are significantly more likely to use taxpayer-funded services than the native-born are. This is mainly because of their lower average level of education, which translates to lower incomes, which means they're more likely to qualify for welfare benefits.

The usual response to this longstanding problem has been to avoid addressing immigration policy and instead simply try to deny immigrants access to welfare. In 1996 Congress explicitly chose to address symptoms rather than the cause; it expanded the ban on immigrant use of welfare in the broader welfare-reform bill, while rejecting the Barbara Jordan Commission's recommendations to trim legal immigration back to the levels of the 1980s.

And it didn't work. Within five years immigrant welfare use was right back where it had been before the changes. There were a number of reasons for this; George Borjas found that some states picked up the slack, while at the same time naturalization increased among welfare-dependent immigrant groups, since the immigrant-specific rules didn't apply to citizens. But the basic reason is this: A modern society is not going to let kids starve, or people die on the steps of the emergency room, just because they're not citizens.

And even this administration's efforts to tighten the "public charge" rules (excluding people likely to use welfare) and shift to a more "merit-based" system sensible as they are aren't going to make much difference in the end unless numbers come down. The proposed public-charge rules are about as tight as they are likely ever to be, and yet they permit significant use of taxpayer-funded safety-net programs before triggering exclusion and don't even consider welfare use by the children of immigrants, where the real public expense is. And "merit" doesn't quite mean what people think. Immigrant college grads earn significantly less than comparably educated Americans, in part at least because foreign degrees on average don't translate into the same level of skills as U.S. degrees. As a result, even educated immigrants are much more likely to use welfare than educated Americans.

In short, if you're going to admit large numbers of immigrants, you're going to create a significant welfare burden for taxpayers. The only way to avoid that is to admit fewer immigrants.

Another attempt to ameliorate the effects of mass immigration is seen in the plethora of rules designed to protect American workers from the large-scale importation of foreign workers. The various employment-related programs both permanent and "temporary", high-skilled and low-skilled have a variety of different worker protections: Some require jobs to be advertised before a firm is permitted to import a worker, other visas require payment of the "prevailing wage" or the "adverse effect wage rate", yet others limit the nature or duration of employment for foreign workers.

And none of it really works. Mind you, I'm all for these rules, and more, because without them things for American workers would be even worse. But in reality, they're a poor substitute for simply not importing workers in the first place. The rules are routinely gamed by lawyers and consultants vastly more numerous and cunning and motivated than the well-meaning but hapless regulators at the Labor Department. And what does the "prevailing wage" mean, anyway? By the time something like that is calculated (even assuming perfect information) and translated into policy decisions, the information is out of date.

I understand the reason immigration-controllers advocate such rules; in the face of implacable business lobbies demanding unlimited immigration, this is often all you can get, and sometimes even Democrats will support some of these restrictions. But the real goal always needs to be the abolition of these programs, not merely the amelioration of the harm they do.

All these efforts at addressing symptoms are essentially defensive, and my hat's off to those fighting in the trenches. But victory comes only through offensive action. And the first step toward being able to take the offensive is to ensure that your own side knows the goal. So, to adapt Don Jr.'s observation, if Republicans really wanted to help minorities and underserved communities and all American workers and taxpayers they'd limit immigration.

See the article here:
Immigration: Numbers Are of the Essence - Immigration Blog

In response to COVID-19, the Trump administration ordered immigration enforcement agencies along the border to expel those apprehended under 42 U.S.C. 265. That statute allows the government, in whole or in part, to close the border to prevent the spread of communicable disease although there is some ambiguity about the scope of the statute. Its important for the government to limit the spread of serious communicable diseases across borders in normal times and during pandemics, although it remains unclear that such closures actually affected the spread of COVID-19 domestically. Aliens apprehended until Title 42 are expelled quickly, which is abig change from earlier policies to mostly punish unlawful border crossers with detention and criminal charges under Title 8of the U.S. Code (immigration law).

Figure 1shows just how dramatically Title 42 changed border enforcement policy. Both Border Patrol agents and Office of Field Operations agents who man border checkpoints were both tasked with enforcing the new order. As aresult, Title 42 expulsions went from 21 percent of all apprehensions and expulsions in March 2020 (the order was issued March 21, so it only applied to about onefourth of that month) to 91 percent in April.

Since 2005, the government has employed an enforcement with consequences strategy to reduce the number of illegal border crossers by specifically attempting to cut the recidivism rate, with some success. Those consequence include detaining illegal border crossers for longer, charging more of them with immigration crimes like unlawful entry, treating repeat offenders more harshly, other punishments. Those consequences combine to raise the costs for illegal border crossers by reducing their expected income from entering the United States by channeling them into more expense means of entry like hiring more sophisticated smugglers who charge ahigher price and taking more dangerous routes to cross the border. Imposing higher costs on illegal border crossers means that fewer will try to cross illegally in the first place and they will try fewer times.

Title 42 expulsions also lower the costs for illegal border crossers. By removing them very rapidly and not enforcing consequences, apprehended and expelled illegal border crossers face lower costs in their attempts to cross the border. Thus, we should expect more of them to try and the recidivism rate to rise beginning in March 2020, ceteris paribus. Of course, not all else remains equal as the U.S. recession has somewhat dimmed the jobs magnet that attracts most illegal immigrants in the first place, although the relative difference is likely smaller given the recession in Mexico. When recidivism data become available for 2020, Isuspect well see an increase in recidivism rates compared to earlier years as the consequences have been so reduced.

Continue reading here:
COVID-19 Transformed U.S. Policy Along the Southwest Border - Cato Institute

Massachusetts lawmakers could soon make our streets far more dangerous.

With the indefinite extension of the legislative session due to the COVID-19 shutdown, the state Legislature could pass the grossly misnamed Safe Communities bill at any time. That bill would all but end cooperation between police in the commonwealth and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to locate and remove illegal immigrants already in detention. Without that cooperation, Massachusetts would become far less safe for law-abiding residents.

The bill would specifically ban police from turning criminals already in custody over to federal immigration officials. Instead, local law enforcement would have to release these alleged rapists, armed robbers and other violent criminals back onto the streets.

Lawmakers negligence will have deadly consequences for Massachusetts residents.

Plenty of evidence suggests sanctuary state status would boost victimization of Massachusetts residents citizens, legal immigrants and illegal immigrants. The U.S. General Accounting Office found that illegal immigrants committed a cumulative total of 5.5 million offenses. Each was arrested an average of seven times.

Most illegal immigrants arent violent, of course but a significant minority are. Boston Police recently concluded that gangs commanded from the Dominican Republic control most of the heroin trafficking in Massachusetts and surrounding states. In a single 2016 operation, federal agents arrested 56 gang members in Boston, Chelsea, Everett, Lynn, Revere and Somerville on charges including five murders and 14 attempted murders. Other charges included drug trafficking, racketeering, firearm violations, human trafficking and identity fraud.

Massachusetts sadly isnt an anomaly. Noncitizens were responsible for 21% of federal crimes between 2011 and 2016, despite making up just over 8% of the adult population. Between fiscal years 2011 and 2018, 27,300 illegal immigrants served sentences for homicide in state prisons, according to a recent General Accountability Office report. Over the same period, illegal immigrants committed 5.5 million offenses including 667,000 drug offenses, 42,000 robberies, 91,000 sex crimes, 81,000 auto thefts, 95,000 weapons offenses and 213,000 assaults.

Tragically, many of those crimes could have been prevented. Each illegal immigrant was arrested seven times, on average. Had they been deported after their first arrest, many victims might still be alive today.

Those victims, by the way, are disproportionately immigrants themselves. According to the Boston U.S. Attorneys Office, gangs like MS-13 frequently use intimidation to recruit new members typically 14 to 15 years old in local high schools with sizeable populations of immigrants from Central America.

Put simply, the best way to protect both immigrants and native-born citizens is to remove illegal immigrants from this country.

Deporting violent criminals is hardly a right-wing position. Under the Obama and Trump administrations, most deportations involve convicted criminals.

Illegal immigrant crimes are particularly unconscionable because many, if not most, could be prevented by speedy deportations. Illegal immigrants, especially those who commit violent crimes, have no right to remain here. Indeed, we have a strong moral imperative to remove them before they do more harm.

John Thompson is co-chair of the Massachusetts Coalition for Immigration Reform.

See more here:
Safe Communities Act is anything but safe for Massachusetts - Boston Herald