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WASHINGTON, June 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --The following statement was issued by Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), in response to the Department of Homeland Security formally terminating the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program:

"Today's announcement by the Department of Homeland Security that the United States is formally withdrawing from the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) agreement with Mexico erases all doubt that the policy of the Biden administration is completely open borders and an end to all meaningful enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

"Anyone who might have thought that the chaos that has gripped our southern border since the day President Biden took office was the result of incompetence or misplaced humanitarianism can no longer harbor such illusions. The border crisis is a design feature of the Biden policy, not a flaw in its policy.

"MPP was the most successful tool in stemming the flood of migrants attempting to reach the United States and defraud our political asylum system. It deterred those with specious claims from attempting to abuse our asylum system by sending a clear message that they would not succeed which is precisely why the Biden administration, driven by radical left extremists, immediately put it on ice and is now doing away with it entirely.

"Even though the MPP has been suspended since January, the agreement still provides the United States with a brake on runaway illegal immigration should we choose to use it. The formal repudiation of the MPP means that that tool will no longer be available.

"In his announcement, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas also indicated that the last line of defense to unchecked illegal immigration, Title 42, a legal provision invoked by the Trump administration to protect public health in the face of a global pandemic, is also on the chopping block. Despite new outbreaks and new strains of COVID that could threaten public health and our economy, even that protection may soon fall victim to the open borders zealots in the White House."

Contact: Matthew Tragesser, 202-328-7004 or [emailprotected]

ABOUT FAIR

Founded in 1979, FAIR is the country's largest immigration reform group. With over 3 million members and supporters nationwide, FAIR fights for immigration policies that serve national interests, not special interests. FAIR believes that immigration reform must enhance national security, improve the economy, protect jobs, preserve our environment, and establish a rule of law that is recognized and enforced.

SOURCE Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)

http://www.fairus.org

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Biden Administration Formally Ends MPP Agreement with Mexico Leaving No Doubt That Border Chaos is the Policy, Charges FAIR - PRNewswire

To the editor:

Anybody whos lived in America for any amount of time has probably heard debate about our immigration policy.

Some think that we should completely seal the borders, and send all immigrants back to their native country, while others think that we should relax border security and allow an easier path to citizenship.

The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 placed strict limitations on undocumented immigrants if they had been in the U.S. 180 to 365 days and left, they cant return for a year. If theyre in this country for more than a year and they leave, theyre barred from entry for a decade unless they have a waiver.

If they enter without a waiver, they need to wait another decade to get a waiver. This was in an attempt to tighten border control and security, and yet, illegal border crossings continued.

And not all of those who came into the U.S. chose to come, nor were they in control. Yet they still faced the same dangers of deportation and the same bars from many aspects of life. Who were these people? Children.

To combat this, in 2001 Congress passed the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. This was a revolutionary act. It stated that undocumented children who had come to theU.S. under the age of 16 could get higher education, something that would have previously been much harder to attain.

It also stated that if the person in question met a certain set of criteria, the attorney general could close the case for their deportation. This added a safety net for undocumented immigrants, but in a few years, even more protection was awaiting the undocumented children of America.

2012 was a monumental year for immigration policy in theU.S. for one reason: DACA. Introduced as an executive order from then-President Obama, DACA promised to give a stable place in America to hundreds of thousands of undocumented minors.

Despite its importance, many people are still fairly uneducated about immigration in the U.S. So I think it's important that we as a community take the time to learn and educate ourselves about immigration.

One of the best ways we can help those seeking a life in this country is to take ourselves out of blissful ignorance and to become better advocates for those who cannot speak for themselves, or have been silenced.

Katherine Daignault

Newburyport

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LETTER: Getting educated about immigration | Letters To The Editor | newburyportnews.com - The Daily News of Newburyport

Americans consumed on average 653 pounds of dairy products per person in 2019, according to the USDA Economic Research Service.

Its good to know Im above average, I guess? Everyone has an entire shelf for their cheeses in the fridge, right?

Americans like their cheese, butter, yogurt and ice cream. And with the innovation currently underway in the dairy industry for new food products and new ways to use dairy as a food ingredient, the U.S. dairy industry is poised to grow, according to the International Dairy Foods Association.

But we need a steady and reliable source of labor if its going to grow to meet the potential thats there.

In 2014, the National Milk Producers Federation commissioned a survey from Texas AgriLife Research at Texas A&M University, The Economic Impacts of Immigrant Labor on U.S. Dairy Farms. It found that immigrant labor makes up 51% of all dairy labor, and dairies that employ immigrant labor produce 79% of the total U.S. milk supply.

The survey also found that if the U.S. dairy industry lost its foreign-born workforce, it would nearly double the retail milk price and cost the total U.S. economy more than $32 billion and 208,208 jobs.

About 64% of those losses would occur in input supply sectors and services provided to U.S. dairy farms.

Imagine what the price of feed grains would do with fewer farms and fewer cows on the board.

The issue of labor and immigration reform came up while I was talking with American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall on his recent trip to Kansas. He says labor is the biggest limiting factor for American agriculture. He hears from members who want to bring the next generation back to the family farm and expand, but they cant do so because theres a limited labor supply.

The NMPF agrees, and says now is the time for real reform in farm labor.

In an April 5 opinion editorial, NMPF CEO Jim Mulhern writes, Farmers and their workforce have proven time and again in the past year that they can rise to substantial challenges. Its time for Congress to do the same. If the pandemic showed anything, its that most of the milk in this country comes from farms that employ immigrant labor, he continues. These workers, many of whom are undocumented, kept food production going during the pandemic, he writes.

Its time we bring them out of the shadows and give them the legal recognition that they deserve, Mulhern writes.

A big first step happened in March when the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, the only piece of ag labor legislation to pass that chamber in the past 35 years, according to NMPF. It doesnt go nearly far enough, but at least it was passed, and with the help of 30 Republicans.

And yet without the support of the Farm Bureau, which said there were flaws in the bill that the organization hopes are ironed out as the U.S. Senate debates it.

Ok, its not a perfect bill, but its a start and one weve waited 35 years to have. We all agree that fixing the broken ag labor system is critical to our competitiveness on the global stage, just not on how we accomplish that.

Mulhern has a good point. Throwing out a compromise legislation to hold out for a better deal does no one any good. No legislation is going to be perfect, but we need some movement on this issue.

Its important for Kansas dairy farmers, and those communities that rely on them as economic boosters. Its important for the growing dairy processing sector in our state.

And, its important for my little cheese habit.

The National Milk Producers Federation and the International Dairy Foods Association contributed to this opinion piece.

Read more:
Dairies need progress on ag labor reform - Farm Progress

By one measure, the Coachella Valley is even more politically polarized than California as a whole.

Last year, Joe Biden won over 70% of the vote in three cities here: Coachella, Palm Springs and Cathedral City. That outstrips the 63% he got statewide.

Meanwhile, then-President Donald Trump won just one city in the valley, Indian Wells. He got a hair under 60% there, close to double his 34% across California, according to data compiled by The Press-Enterprise.

You probably know some people coworkers, maybe even family who voted the other way and see a lot of things differently.

But do you ever talk to them about why?

Or do you just stick to the weather, either because you dont want to bother or because youve gotten sick of hitting a brick wall?

#ListenFirst: New virtual event kicks off annual National Week of Conversation

In an effort to bridge that divide through conversation instead of avoidance The Desert Sun and other newspapers in the USA TODAY Network are partnering with the group behind an event called America Talks.

The idea is simple: You answer a few questions about your politics, youre matched up with someone who answereddifferently, then the two of you talk.

The conversations happen next weekend, June 12 and 13.

Pearce Godwin, founder and CEO of the Listen First Project, explained the thinking to USA TODAY: Its easy to sit back and point fingers, to lose hope. What if instead we stepped forward and got real with each other, extending curiosity, good will and grace?

If you sign up as I did at the projects website, AmericaTalks.us, it asks whether you approve of the job Biden is doing as president. From there, it asks about your views on gun control, the minimum wage, immigration, marijuana and whether freedoms of speech and religion are threatened.

After you write brief answers to a couple more questions, it will take all that and match you up with someone to talk with next week.

It might be easier to talk to a stranger about thorny topics than to a friend or relative. Think of it as a warm-up.

Now, its understandable if right about now, youre thinking, I have no interest in speaking with someone who voted for the other guy.

Do you approve or disapprove of the job Joe Biden is doing as President?

But that carries on a vicious circle:Politics is so polarized that people dont talk in any real way, which makes politics more polarized, which...

And the pattern makes you think the worst of people who don't think like you. Someone who doesnt share your view of immigration reform is an inhumane monster. A person who supports government spending you dont is an anti-American socialist.

Sure, in theory, people dont think that way: Godwin cited research showing 79% of Americans believe creating opportunities for conversation among people with differing views and values would be effective to bridge divisions, and two-thirds think the differences between Americans are not so big that we cannot come together.

Answering a survey with such idealism is one thing. But how many of us behave that way?

Talking with someone on the other side of the chasm doesnt mean youre going to decide theyre right. Thats not the point.

The point is to find ways not to assume the worst about our fellow Americans.That can start with a single conversation.

Eric Hartley is The Desert Sun's opinion editor. Email him at eric.hartley@desertsun.com.

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Column: Bridge the political divide in the valley, nationwide by talking to someone you don't agree with - Desert Sun

Priti Patel

Thom Brooks, The Independent

The latest net migration statistics published on 27 May are a much-delayed snapshot of England and Wales. The Office for National Statistics notes that new data from the year up to June 2019 should be viewed with some caution as Covid impacted its data collection.

Nonetheless, these new figures raise serious questions about the future plans for immigration reform announced by the government, led by Premier Boris Johnson, earlier this week.

The latest data shows drops in all areas from EU and non-EU citizens alike. Visits to England or Wales for work or study for three months to a year fell from 160,000 in June 2018 to 100,000 by June 2019. The only category where migration rose was in British citizens seeking work abroad. This doubled from 30,000 to 60,000 over the same period.

The picture being painted is clear. Most did not see England and Wales as a place welcoming global talent, with a greater number of citizens looking elsewhere for opportunities. The trend continues in estimates up to this spring, where work-related visas were down by over one third on last year, with more than two thirds due to falls in intra-company transfers.

While there should be some caution regarding these estimates, they show that in the run-up to 1 January 2020, those seeking work and study opportunities were looking elsewhere and this was before the pandemic arrived. It seems all but certain that this is the start of an unfortunate trend that the government may want to address urgently.

Since 2010, the Conservatives have made election manifesto promises to cut net migration to the tens of thousands. One regular criticism is that net migration has not, in fact, been higher than under the Tories. This highlights how their rhetoric does not match reality. Talking tough has not translated into results.

A second frequently raised concern is about the use of net migration for setting policy. Net migration counts all individuals entering or leaving over the year regardless of their nationality and mostly estimated using passenger data, making it more guesswork than science.

It has been noticeable for years that net migration would actually be higher if British citizens who are more likely to leave for abroad than return were discounted from the figures.

Earlier this week, home secretary Priti Patel vowed to strengthen the UKs digital border and introduce greater accuracy, avoiding hypothetical guesstimates of how much migration is actually happening. It is a shocking indictment that it has taken the Conservatives more than a decade to finally commit the government to getting a more accurate count, although no such system will be in place until 2025.

Paradoxically, the Tories have said they will not make any promises on migration reductions as they strive towards better accounting. This comes after making promises to cut numbers when the figures were known to be problematic for policy making.

This move towards improved accuracy is a part of Patels new plan for immigration, which sets out how she will fix the broken immigration system that her government has overseen for 11 years. While Patel wont say whether the new plan would lead to more or less immigration, it is clear she wants to position these plans as radical and positive changes. But in short, does it matter?

Her plans include a much-heralded points-based system. What Patel leaves out is that the new system was actually already in place since 2008, when launched by New Labour. Patels plans mean that the already complex and confusing system will be changing for the worse.

Given that the system was already in place for non-EU citizens in 2019, these changes do not appear likely to encourage global talent to work in the UK.

See the article here:
Patel's immigration reform is a confusing mess - Gulf Today