Counting “undetected” undocumented immigrants

by philg

“Biden Administration Has Admitted One Million Migrants to Await Hearings” (New York Times, today):

SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine — At a modest hotel a few miles from the ocean here, most of the rooms have been occupied this summer by families from African countries seeking asylum — 192 adults and 119 children in all.

They are among the more than one million undocumented immigrants who have been allowed into the country temporarily after crossing the border during President Biden’s tenure, part of a record-breaking cascade of irregular migration around the world.

Distinct from the hundreds of thousands who have entered the country undetected during Mr. Biden’s term, many of the one million are hoping for asylum — a long shot — and will have to wait seven years on average before a decision on their case is reached because of the nation’s clogged immigration system.

It is the text that I have highlighted above that is the subject of this blog post. If the folks who have “entered the country undetected” were not detected, how can anyone purport to begin to estimate their number?

There are some less-interesting tidbits in the article:

The million who have been allowed in since Mr. Biden took office — a figure that comes from internal Homeland Security data and court filings — are from more than 150 countries around the globe. With few pathways to enter the United States legally, crossing the border without documentation is often the only option for those fleeing crime and economic despair.

The U.S. is bordered by only two countries, Canada and Mexico. How is the U.S. then the “only option” for people “from more than 150 countries”? If people have the right to claim asylum anywhere in the world, why is it a journalistic fact, not an opinion, that their only option to cross multiple borders before taking up residence in Portland, Maine?

“Since we can’t go back in time and convince Americans to have more babies, we’ll need immigrants to fill out the labor force,” said Amon Emeka, a sociology professor at Skidmore University. “It will be critical that immigrants be integrated in the U.S. labor market to make up labor shortfalls in the years to come.”

This is the opposite of the perspective that I heard in Oslo last week. Rather than additional migrants, Norwegians with whom I spoke said they would rather have open space and elbow room, even if it means counter-service restaurants (“Panera-style”) are destined to be the norm rather than table-service. It would not be an improvement, from their perspective, to grow Norway from 5 million population to 10 million, especially not with low-skill immigrants.

Who benefits when Metro Portland’s population is expanded and rents consequently go up? As predicted in this article by a Harvard professor, folks who own businesses and apartment buildings:

Ben Conniff, co-founder and chief innovation officer at Luke’s Lobster, said his business relies heavily on immigrants. About one-third of the employees at the company’s processing plant in Saco are asylum seekers, and he is desperate to hire more.

What’s the timeline?

Currently, it takes between five and seven years for asylum cases to be decided. If an application is denied, there are opportunities to appeal, adding more years to an immigrant’s time in the country.

If a child is born at the beginning of an asylum-seeker’s residence in the U.S., in other words, he/she/ze/they could be 18 years old before the end of the legal process and therefore able to get the rest of the family in via chain migration (the parents, e.g., will have an automatic right to a Green Card because the adult child is a U.S. citizen via birthright citizenship).

Maria Zombo, an Angolan asylum seeker and mother of six who lives outside of Portland, recently opened an African grocery store in the revitalized downtown of Biddeford. She came to the country on a tourist visa eight years ago, and has yet to receive an initial response to her application for asylum. She has started a business, purchased a home and had a child.

Her experience is not atypical, said Conchita Cruz, co-executive director of the Asylum Seeker Advocacy Project, a nonprofit.

“People are having their entire life here happen before they get an answer,” Ms. Cruz said.

In U.S. family courts, having even one child is considered a disabling condition for a plaintiff identifying as a “mother” with respect to the world of employment yet this mother of six is hard at work running a money transfer shop (photo: Kirsten Luce):

Maybe the folks who say that low-skill migrants are an economic boon are right? (Or possibly, the NYT happened to feature this migrant rather than hundreds who were not working?)

Circling back to the main topic of this post… how do we know how many migrants are in the U.S. if many are “undetected”? “Yale Study Finds Twice as Many Undocumented Immigrants as Previous Estimates” (2018) describes an attempt: “After running 1,000,000 simulations of the model, the researchers’ 95% probability range is 16 million to 29 million, with 22.1 million as the mean.”

Related:

Full post, including comments

Where does JetBlue get its programmers?

by philg

Here’s an interesting Labor Day example of laboring in the Web development mines. Trying to book four tickets on JetBlue.com:

After multiple retries, I called the 800-number and the automated system said to expect a 2-minute wait, but suggested going to jetblue.com/chat to resolve the issue and save $25 per person in telephone service fees. After about 20 minutes into the 2-minute wait, I decide to try it. Here’s what happens when you click to “start the conversation” in a Google Chrome browser on Windows:

(the chat window never populated with any text or UI)

Given the importance to an airline of being able to sell tickets, how can this happen? I tripped over at least three bugs in three different systems while attempting one transaction. Did Amazon hire away every programmer capable of building and maintaining a functional ecommerce site? And, if JetBlue can’t keep a competent programming staff together, what hope is there for smaller companies?

The number of people majoring in computer science is up, but is the number of people who can write a functionally correct program going up? How many of today’s fresh CS graduates will actually be working as programmers 5 years from now?

(I eventually got the tickets after a 46-minute phone call. The agent who finally picked up promised that the four of us would be together in one row, charging an extra $250 for the privilege, but booked 3A, 3B, 3C, and 4E. She insisted that 4E was an aisle seat and that it was directly across the aisle from 3ABC (contrary to SeatGuru and my lived experience on JetBlue). Even if we accept the row misalignment, that raised the obvious question “Where is seat 4D if 4E is the aisle?”, but, perhaps due to her not being a native English speaker (thick Spanish accent), I couldn’t get an explanation of her thought process. She dropped Senior Management’s known traveler number on the floor. Although I had given her my TrueBlue number, she left the required mailing address and phone number fields of the reservation blank. I spent about 15 minutes on the “Manage Flights” part of the JetBlue site correcting the known errors, leaving only the unknown errors. If we count the 15 minutes that I spent trying to get the site to work to buy a ticket, the whole process took about 75 minutes. Maybe it worked better in the good old days when U.S.-based prisoners handled the phones for airlines (NYT, 1997, whose headline is weak compared to “Booking the Penthouse From the Big House” (LA Times, 1998)).)

Full post, including comments

Long COVID, Florida-style

by philg

Happy Labor Day to all of those who failed to absorb “The Work versus Welfare Trade‐​Off” (CATO, 2013). (Also, Happy Labor Day to those who are smart enough to refrain from labor!)

Part of an email from a teacher in the Palm Beach County Public schools:

… I have tested positive for Covid and was out of the classroom today [Monday]. I hope to be cleared for a return on Wednesday. Not my choice on how to start the school year but I’ll look on the bright side.

I checked in with her on Thursday:

Yes I am back and very happy to see my Fantastic First Graders again!!!

Compare to “1 in 5 Educators Say They’ve Experienced Long COVID” (EducationWeek).

So let’s celebrate those who continue to labor despite union contracts that would allow them to take a substantial amount of time off, at 100 percent pay, after a positive COVID-19 test.

As long as we’re talking COVID-19 and the Palm Beach County Schools… What’s the level of coronapanic as reflected in the Student & Family Handbook? The word “mask” does not appear. The word “COVID” appears only to provide historical context:

During the onset of COVID-19, in the Spring of 2020, the School Board supported the successful transition of instruction to Distance Learning. One of the supports for this transition was the implementation of a one-to-one student device initiative. Because of this, all School District of Palm Beach County students may be issued electronic devices. These devices are for instructional use to support curriculum goals and will be available for students to use at home or in school.

The corresponding document from our old suburb? The “top priority” is “Establish a culture that is built upon the intersectionality of social and emotional learning, Antiracism, Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity (AIDE), student and adult learning, and fostering strong connections”. However, the word “COVID” appears 20 times. The possibility of masks on buses and in the classrooms is explicitly discussed. Parents must swear a loyalty oath to Saint Fauci and Science:

Back to the topic of Labor Day… here’s a Florida native green anole taking a break from his/her/zir/their labors on our front door.

Let’s hope that this green anole wasn’t pushed out of his/her/zir/their tree. See “Densely packed invasive anoles outcompete natives”:

Invasive brown anoles might outcompete their native cousins in the southeastern U.S. merely by living more densely.

Brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) inadvertently came to Florida in the 1800s by tagging along on cargo shipments. Since then, the invasive species have moved steadily northward in the state, often taking over territories occupied by native green anoles (Anolis carolinensis). Researchers know that over time, the invasive Cuban anoles change the native species’ habits. After moving in, the newcomer species typically occupies the ground and lower parts of plants and trees, while the green anoles occupy an ecological niche higher up on trees and bushes. The native anoles also become less common once the brown anoles have established themselves in the new territory.

Instead, she speculated that brown anoles in the wild might be outcompeting green anoles based on sheer numbers. Brown anoles may lay eggs more often than green anoles. The Cuban newcomers also tolerate much denser living conditions, while green anoles don’t. This allows the invasive species to take over more territory.

In short, anole migrants have a higher birth rate and don’t mind living in squalid conditions that native anoles would consider intolerable…

Full post, including comments

Book recommendation: Anatomy of a Murder

by philg

Here’s a book that I recently enjoyed, loosely related to my slavery as an expert witness: Anatomy of a Murder. It was turned into a 1959 film with some added twists (Jimmy Stewart, a combat B-24 pilot in World War II, is the star). Although the subject of the trial in the book/movie is a murder, which is a little more dramatic than the typical patent infringement lawsuit, many of the ideas and concepts are similar.

Due to its age, the book contains no 2SLGBTQQIA+ angle. What if you need a book that is more up to date? The Barnes & Noble in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida is ready to meet your needs. Some photos from an August 13, 2022 visit that I think our loyal reader/commenter Mike will appreciate:

Need some tips on Zoom etiquette? The store carries this masterpiece by Jeffrey Toobin:

One book is not enough about our fellow Palm Beach County resident?

Prefer to ponder what happens after a few more years of open borders?

Passionate about the skin color of the person who wrote the text on the page?

Who else has a book to recommend? What have you all been reading?

Full post, including comments

Residents of Connecticut welcome immigrants…

by philg

…. so long as they’re not going to live in Connecticut.

Here’s CT Senator Chris Murphy on immigration:

“President Trump’s so-called immigration framework is a total non-starter. It uses Connecticut Dreamers as a bargaining chip to build a wall and rip thousands of families apart,” said Murphy. “It looks like President Trump has no intention of actually working on a bipartisan deal that protects Dreamers and makes sensible changes to our immigration laws. He’s trying to turn our nation against immigrants – preying on the worst kind of prejudice and ignoring the fact that immigration boosts our economy and grows jobs.”

And CT’s other Senator, Richard Blumenthal:

“This proposal is immigration hostage taking. Hundreds of thousands of young people are being held hostage in the name of the far right’s repulsive and repugnant anti-immigrant fantasy. The party of so-called family values has revealed itself to care more for its nativist political base than the actual families that would be cruelly ripped or kept apart under this proposal. One of its most heartless provisions would send refugee children back to the countries they have fled without even a fig leaf of due process – a proposal almost certain to send children to their deaths,” Blumenthal said.

Since these are the only two senators that the state has, it seems safe to infer that the majority of folks in Connecticut support the expansion of U.S. population via immigration. This support is not conditional on whether immigrants have work skills or have any practical chance of working (e.g., a 75-year-old chain migrant).

What if some of those new Americans want to live in Connecticut? “Town After Town, Residents Are Fighting Affordable Housing in Connecticut” (New York Times, today):

In the town of Fairfield, Conn., nearly 2,400 residents have signed a petition opposing a project proposed for downtown that could bring 19 units of affordable housing.

In nearby New Canaan, homeowners have raised about $84,000 for a legal fund to fight a proposed apartment complex downtown on Weed Street that would include 31 rent-restricted units for households with moderate incomes.

And in Greenwich, a developer recently withdrew an application to build a project that would include 58 apartments priced below market rate, after residents living in nearby luxury condominiums objected and said the buildings that would be demolished were historically significant.

Throughout Fairfield County, Conn., local residents and elected officials are seeking to block large housing projects that include units affordable to low- and moderate-income households, warning that the increased density could change the character of their towns. The 32-year-old law that enables such projects has always generated some pushback, but the opposition has grown more fierce as the number of proposals has increased in recent years.

The NYT article says that migrants might be welcome if they can afford $2.2 million for a house. How well is the U.S. set up for a population expansion, from an infrastructure perspective?

His daily commute on Interstate 95, while only 14 miles, “can take anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes,” he said. “That seat time takes its toll.”

It’s a “fact that immigration boosts our economy and grows jobs” (Senator Murphy, above) and yet the good citizens of Connecticut are fighting against the prospect of these beneficial immigrants living anywhere near them. Existing residents don’t want a boosted economy and more jobs, but they want to change federal law so that the economy and jobs can be boosted in other states?

From a 2009 helicopter trip (Los Angeles to Boston), a section of the Connecticut coast:

Related:

Full post, including comments

Following the Science at Columbia University

by philg

Prepping for a deposition last month in an inter partes review, a guy joined the call who is in his first year at Columbia University’s Law School (he knows enough about patents that it would make more sense for him to be teaching at Columbia, but that’s irrelevant for our purposes). Of course, after asking whether his student loans have already been canceled, I asked what percent of the righteous Ivy Leaguers were wearing masks in class. “100 percent,” he responded. “It’s required for at least the first few weeks of the semester.” Are the Scientists wearing N95 masks? “Cloth masks aren’t allowed, but you don’t need an N95 mask. A surgical mask is okay.”

In “COVID-19 Precautions for Fall 2022”, Columbia says “Students are required to be vaccinated” and “Masking will be required everywhere indoors when the COVID-19 risk is high”, but apparently this is an add-on idea that somehow the first part of the semester is the riskiest (students will get cleaner every day that they spend in the respiratory-virus-free environment of Manhattan).

What is our young colleague going to learn? Let’s check in at

They have a statement on the Supreme Court’s latest outrage:

This opinion is a devastating setback for the long-term struggle for sex equality, bodily autonomy, civil rights, and basic dignity for all. While we do not expect progress to be linear, we do expect our highest court to serve as gatekeeper to the foundational values in which our nation is rooted—equality, liberty, dignity, justice—rather than using their power to dismantle well established constitutional norms, causing the pain and suffering of millions in its wake.

Restrictions on abortion are a fundamental equality issue because: (1) Abortion is singled out for more onerous treatment than other medical procedures that carry similar or greater risks; (2) Restrictions further perpetuate harmful and discriminatory gender stereotypes that limit equal participation in society; …

(Is there a medical procedure that carries greater risks to a 33-week-old baby than abortion care (perfectly legal at all stages of pregnancy in Maskachusetts)?)

What if he wants to save $25,000 on his third year? The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion page:

The Fellowship in Support of Careers in Racial and Social Justice, provides a $25,000 grant in the fall of the 3L year to J.D. students who intend to pursue racial justice legal work after graduation and/or students of color who intend to pursue other social justice legal work after graduation.

So the tax-exempt federally-funded institution will allocate these $25,000 grants according to race and/or willingness to follow Justin Trudeau’s example. This has to be legal/Constitutional since the Law School knows everything about law.

Separately, here’s an ad posted within our local Costco:

“Air is life. Make it perfect.” Columbia Law School seems to share this perspective. Make air perfect by adding a saliva-soaked mask in front of your face!

Full post, including comments

The working class buys a mini-split air conditioner for a homeowner in our old town

by philg

Congress and the Biden administration have signed up the working class to pay for the laptop class’s new electric cars ($7,500 each) and also for the gender studies degrees, and attempted degrees, earned by the children of the laptop class (“no one with a federally held loan has had to pay a single dollar in loan payments since President Biden took office”; studentaid.gov).

These programs raise the question “What else can we make a working class renter pay for?”

I was chatting with the owner of a $2 million house in our old town in the Boston suburbs. She had a mini-split air conditioner installed in an accessory apartment that she will be renting out at the fabulously high market rates now due to property owners. I asked her how much it cost. Her response:

$8800. ENTIRE cost rebated by MassSave. Free mini split.

Several of my homeowner friends up in Massachusetts are making huge profits from their rooftop solar systems. The general rate-payers, including the working class renters, have to buy electricity from them at full retail rates or higher, depending on when the systems were installed.

One friend lives in a 12,000-square-foot compound. He installed a solar system in 2016 that, due to subsidies from those who did not own property and/or did not install solar, was completely paid for within 4.7 years. It is now yielding an annual profit of 23 percent of the after-tax-credit 2016 cost.

I get paid double the value of the electric. I get to both use it and sell it after I use it. I know that makes no sense, but Democrats make the rules in MA.

He tried to explain a complex system in which he fake-sells his clean power to companies that want to fake-claim that they use all renewables, but my head was spinning from all of the market distortions.

Perhaps New Jersey runs the same system. Here’s a car with NJ plates (maybe a coronapanic refugee?) that wonders “I don’t know how many freeloaders I can afford??” (If the driver is part of the working class, Joe Biden just added a lot of college graduates to the list with his cancellation of student loan debt!)

Full post, including comments

Rainbow Flagism in Norway

by philg

This was supposed to be the big year for Rainbow Flagism in Norway. Tourists are promised Queer Culture Year 2022:

My 2SLGBTQQIA+ celebration experience got off to a reasonable start. Although I did not notice any rainbow flags in the airport, the underground train station carried an “Oslo PRIDE” backlit billboard:

Once above ground, however, I discovered that the entire city has fewer rainbow flags than a typical white heterosexual suburban town in the Northeast USA. Private initiative in the direction of the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community is apparently rare. In fact, I never saw a single private home or automobile displaying the rainbow flag. Here are the only businesses that I observed conforming to the U.S. norm (a restaurant, a bar, and a bookstore with a balloon and umbrella):

As in the U.S., the progression from Christianity to Rainbow Flagism is a short and easy journey. At the downtown cathedral:

The city government itself has painted some benches in a rainbow pattern. King Christian IV of Denmark, the founder of modern Oslo, loved music and dance. Here he is with a bench commemorating his love of Broadway shows:

The Munch museum did not have any rainbow flags, but the bookstore featured the standard Holy Trinity of Victimhood:

I’m not sure if this is desecration of the sacred symbol or not:

If the neighbors aren’t displaying the proper flag, one can wear it:

The Oslo City Museum has an exhibit devoted to Queer Culture Year 2022. A school class for 9th and 10th graders was required to create artistic “queer products”:

A “Gay Kid” is defined as “a boy or a girl who will fall in love with a person of the same sex later on in life.” This statement contains quite a bit of heresy against 2SLGBTQQIA+ dogma. There are only two genders for children? Gender ID and sexual orientation are not fluid?

For completeness, from the adult-oriented content of the exhibit:

The Scandinavian Leather Men sign fails to note the CDC’s Scientific monkeypox-at-the-bathhouse advice: “Leather or latex gear also provides a barrier to skin-to-skin contact; just be sure to change or clean clothes/gear between partners and after use.”

Compared to the Scandinavian Leather Men, how much fun can a heterosexual cisgender man have? Here’s Gustav Vigeland’s example of inner peace achieved via fatherhood:

The Nobel Peace Center bookshop offers some Pride-themed material:

The history museum had an outdoor PRIDE exhibit, but it had been taken down and the only remnants were posters and some books:

(I am confused as to why Frida Kahlo, who became famous after marrying an old guy who was already super famous in her chosen field, is a “hero”. Is her method of getting to the top of the art world something that we think the typical young artist can replicate?)

Where Norway seems most deficient is in restroom labeling. The implication, even in buildings that were completed in 2022, the country’s Queer Culture Year, is that there are only two genders. From the Munch museum (opened 2021):

From the National Museum (opened 2022):

I never saw an “all-gender” or “gender-neutral” restroom.

That’s the report from the world of jet lag. I feel that I am almost accustomed to the time zone here and, naturally, it will be time to get on the Norse Atlantic 787 back to FLL tomorrow.

Full post, including comments

A Corvette Z06 order at $90,000 over sticker

by philg

Here’s a new car being sold for $90,000 over sticker. In other words, the dealer gets $100,000 in profit while General Motors accepts perhaps $15,000 in profit.

I still can’t figure out Why aren’t cars (and pinball machines) auctioned as they come out of the factory?

At least the above consumer who signed the deal accepted that vehicle prices are dynamic. Why keep pretending that they’re not?

Separately, who else would love to have a Z06 for trips to Publix?

Related:

Full post, including comments

Building self-esteem in Oslo

by philg

Oslo might not be the best place for building tourist self-esteem. After two days in the city, here are a couple of signs:

Here’s something else bizarre… an important symbol for this city is the tiger:

I also learned that when a counter-serve restaurant offers you “potato with shrimp” that’s exactly what they deliver (for about $20):

I also learned about life in Sweden from the 40ish lady sitting next to me at the opera house (one act of Parsifal, which is more than enough for anyone). She was working as a “priest” (what we would call a “minister”) at a church outside of Stockholm during coronapanic. Her life and church continued without interruption. What about the Swedish limit of 50 for indoor gatherings that was imposed? “It did not apply to churches,” she responded. How many times had she put on a mask during two years of coronapanic in Sweden? “Zero.” Had she purchased a mask? “No.” What about on the Stockholm metro? Wasn’t it suggested? “You could wear a mask if you wanted to,” she replied, “and some people did, but I never did.”

One thing that I hadn’t appreciated about Europe is that China’s continued lockdown has substantially decluttered the demi-continent. 1.4 billion people have been removed from the international tourism pool because a resident of China who comes to Europe to look around would have to endure an onerous 14-day quarantine on returning (not a Massachusetts-style quarantine with daily trips to the “essential” marijuana store!).

Speaking of the opera house, here it is:

Note the ramp for walking up to the roof.

My first impression of Norway is that it is a great argument for the European welfare state form of government… so long as a country has a gushing fountain of oil cash and only a small number of low-skill immigrants so that the per-capita oil money remains significant. It seems as though there are dozens of neighborhoods that are great for hanging out with friends and family. Norwegians are out in pairs and larger groups enjoying the summer weather. Norway is not part of the EU and the country has retained a distinctive culture more so than France, Germany, or the UK. Despite the distinctively Norwegian-ness of everything, a higher percentage of people here speak good English than in a lot of U.S. cities. That means it is perfect for an American tourist wanting to see a European nation.

Full post, including comments