Sanctuary for undocumented immigrants in New Jersey

by philg

2020, nj.com:

A day after President Donald Trump’s administration filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn controversial restrictions on when police New Jersey can cooperate with federal immigration officials, Gov. Phil Murphy on Tuesday vowed to defend the policy “with great vigor.”

“Fearmongering for the purposes of an election only further complicates the work of law enforcement and jeopardizes public safety,” the governor said in a statement. “We will continue to provide a welcoming and inclusive home for our immigrant communities.”

“This is beyond inclusivity, celebrating and embracing diversity, being good human beings,” he continued. “I hope we always are that and continue to be. But this is cold-bloodedly about the safety and security of all nine million folks who call this great state their home.”

Now, Politico:

No sanctuary in New Jersey: Democrats about-face on migrants as election looms

The Biden administration’s decision to float Atlantic City International Airport as one of 11 potential sites to house migrants living in New York City put New Jersey Democrats in a tough spot.

… with state lawmakers up for reelection in November, Gov. Phil Murphy and other state Democrats — many who’d previously pledged to make New Jersey a “sanctuary state” — immediately pushed back.

“I don’t see any scenario where we’re going to be able to take in a program in Atlantic City or, frankly, elsewhere in the state,” Murphy said in a TV interview.

Does this mean that Gov. Murphy is now a “bad human being”?

A 2018 tweet from the “good human being” version of this governor:

(Immigration enabled cities to “flourish”)

Murphy was a “good human being” with a mask in January 2023:

(Why is it only “every child” who gets taxpayer-funded health care in New Jersey? Shouldn’t the governor also extend coverage to every adult, including undocumented migrants?)

In 2020, Murphy celebrated the ability of the undocumented to “fully participate” in an economy that he had shut down for coronapanic:

Back to 2018, concern for “our immigrant communities” (which presumably include the undocumented):

How did someone who was so good become bad?

Related:

  • ChatGPT and Women’s History Month (in which Governor Murphy says that he is passionate about “true equality” for women, but refuses to resign his unearned position of power so that a politician who identifies as a “woman” can take his place)
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Biden on the picket line: time to watch American Factory again

by philg

Loyal readers may recall my review of the Academy Award-winning documentary American Factory. After a Chinese glass manufacturer has been gulled into investing $500+ million in pre-Biden money, all of the Democrats in the region, including Senator Sherrod Brown, show up to exhort the workers to unionize and extract higher wages from the foreign chumps.

“Biden to become first sitting US president to appear on picket line at UAW strike” (The Guardian):

Joe Biden will become the first sitting US president to appear on a picket line on Tuesday, making an appearance in Michigan in an effort to show solidarity with striking members of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which is locked in an escalating dispute with America’s three biggest carmakers.

Biden’s trip is designed to burnish his self-proclaimed credentials as the most union-friendly president in US history and possibly also to earn the explicit backing of the UAW, which has yet to endorse his bid for re-election.

Biden voiced support for the strike by Ford, General Motors and Stellantis workers, which was entering its 12th day on Tuesday, and had announced he was dispatching his labour secretary, Julie Su, and Gene Sperling, a senior White House adviser, to help the union reach a settlement with company bosses.

In other words, this is a Presidential version of what is shown in the movie with, if memory serves, members of Congress and the governor. Will I be taking my own advice and watching the movie again in honor of our muscular leader? No. I canceled my Netflix subscription after the 2nd or 3rd price increase during what we are informed is a period of near-zero inflation.

Related:

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Cost to build a runway in our inflation-free economy: over $500 million

by philg

RDU is building a new 10,600′ runway. It will cost “more than $500 million” (source) and the project will take five years (completion scheduled for 2028). The runway being replaced was built in the 1980s. I can’t find anything about how much it cost to build.

Back in 2019, this public works project was supposed to cost $350 million (source). So there has been inflation of 43 percent over a four-year period (official CPI from the BLS is up 21 percent).

Related:

  • Cost to rebuild three conference rooms at the White House: $50 million.
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Where do New Yorkers think that migrants should go?

by philg

“Hochul issues dire warning to migrants coming to NY: ‘We are truly out of space’” (New York Post):

Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday warned that New York is “at capacity,” and urged newly arrived migrants to settle someplace else — as the Biden administration cleared the way for Venezuelan migrants to get work permits.

Hochul told NY1 that granting temporary protected status to and expediting work permits for thousands of Venezuelans who entered the US before July 31 is “an important first step” in getting expedited work status for all migrants.

But the governor warned that New York is “at capacity” and suggested that migrants who have arrived since July 31 consider other cities to settle in.

“We have to let people know that if you’re thinking of coming to New York, we are truly out of space,” she said.

“The mayor has done an extraordinary job managing this crisis situation. We have been partners in helping him, but there must be other cities that do not have upwards of 125,000 people, over 60,000 in shelters, that can handle the volume easier in other states.”

The politician reminds us of the Scientific truth that low-skill migrants make existing Americans richer:

“We have to have more workers, and this is going to be a very, very positive development for our state’s economy, for these individuals and our desire to start not opening more shelters, but starting to shut down shelters,” she added.

Question 1: Why do New Yorkers want to transfer their migrant wealth to other cities/states?

Question 2: Where exactly do New Yorkers think that migrants should go?

From Gov. Hochul’s own site:

It is strange that the word “crisis” is used to describe a phenomenon that makes existing New Yorkers wealthier (at least the elites), reduces crime, etc. We don’t usually say it is a “crisis” when we are becoming better off.

Related… “Will Work Authorization Draw More Venezuelan Migrants to the U.S.?” (New York Times):

The news that the Biden administration would grant work permits to hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants who had already entered the United States was welcomed by Democratic leaders from cities overwhelmed with a large influx of migrants unable to work legally.

The hope is that the move will let many Venezuelans make enough money to move out of shelters, where the cost of housing them is straining big cities, especially New York. But could it end up backfiring by attracting even more Venezuelan migrants to cross the border?

The newspaper informs us that low-skill migrants make existing Americans better off. Why would it be “backfiring” if we end up with more migrants and become “more better” off?

Yordano Negren, 28, a hair stylist from Valencia who arrived about three weeks ago and has been staying in a Midtown shelter, said that more migrants would mean more competition for jobs.

“I imagine that it will bring many more Venezuelans here to New York,” he said. “But there are already too many Venezuelans here looking for work, trying to start a new life. Too many Venezuelans, too many Haitians, too many Dominicans. Everyone is looking for work, and this change is just going to bring more people.”

Mr. Negren agrees with the Harvard economists and César Chávez:

In the mid-70s, Chávez launched what he called the Illegals Campaign, an effort to raise awareness about illegal immigration and report undocumented workers to federal authorities.

”The idea was – much like we’ve heard today – ‘Well, the Border Patrol isn’t doing a good job at keeping people from crossing illegally. So we’re going to have to go out and do it ourselves,’ “ Pawel said.

The most intense aspects of this informal effort, however, did not take place in the form of secret phone calls to the government; they took place right along the border. In an effort led by César’s cousin Manuel Chávez, reports began to emerge of Mexican immigrants being threatened, beaten and robbed as they tried to cross over into the United States.

At one point, the patrol operation was so large, it employed 300 people and cost the UFW $80,000 a week.

To Chávez, the civil rights era leader who swore nonviolence, any influx of foreign labor represented a threat to the farmworkers’ movement. The people who crossed the border illegally were in search of a better life. But they were also scabs, willing to do the jobs that American farmworkers were organizing to improve.

“All of a sudden yesterday morning, they brought in 220 wetbacks – these are the illegals from Mexico,” Chávez said in an interview with KQED in the ‘70s. “There’s no way to defend against that kind of strikebreaking.”

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What stops a migrant from identifying as Venezuelan?

by philg

“One Day on the Border: 8,900 Migrants Arrested, and More on the Way” (New York Times, yesterday):

They come from Brazil, Burkina Faso, Uzbekistan, India and dozens of other countries, a moving global village of hundreds of thousands of people crossing the Rio Grande and slipping through gaps in the border wall at a pace of nearly 9,000 people a day, one of the highest rates of unlawful crossings in months.

(“unlawful”? If they claim asylum as soon as they’re in the U.S., isn’t that “lawful”?)

Driven by desperation, families and individuals are pushing across the southern border and past new efforts by the Biden administration to keep migrants waiting until they secure hard-to-get appointments to enter the nation with permission.

They’re not being pulled in by New York and Maskachusetts promising free housing, health care, and food forever, but being driven from someone else.

“If you don’t take risks, you cannot win,” said Daniel Soto, 35, who crossed with his mother on Tuesday after they sold their car, restaurant and house in Lima, Peru, betting their entire fortune of $25,000 on a weeklong journey to the border near Tijuana.

The Newspaper of Truth says that other people are lying…

Many also believe false claims from smugglers and social media that migrants would definitely be able to remain in the United States if they could make it in.

It is absolutely false, in other words, that migrants can remain in the U.S. (except for the 500,000-ish Venezuelans who were recently granted permanent temporary status by a magnanimous Joe Biden). What’s the truth, according to the NYT?

…. others file asylum claims when they face deportation in immigration court, and are allowed to remain in the United States while they wait for their cases to wind through immigration court, a process that can take years. … Some people will not show up for their court proceedings, and continue to live and work in the United States along with millions of other undocumented immigrants. … Some migrants who arrive using the government app are eligible for permission to stay in the country and work for two years, but may still eventually be ordered deported.

“It will work out,” said Diego Santos, a 23-year-old Brazilian who was heading to Philadelphia after being released by border authorities in San Diego. Ahead of him lay the hope of construction work, but also deportation proceedings that he now has to fight. “I’ll do what I can to stay,” he said.

It is false when smugglers say that migrants can “remain” in the U.S. It is true that migrants can “stay” in the U.S., according to the NYT.

Let’s take Mr. Soto, the middle-class Peruvian described above who sold his car, restaurant, and house in order to enjoy the means-tested taxpayer-funded U.S. lifestyle. Suppose that La Migra tries to deport him. What stops him from saying “I am from Venezuela” and, thus, becoming entitled to stay in the U.S. for the rest of his life? If he’s undocumented then the U.S. by definition can’t demand documents from him to prove his Venezuelan origin. If an extremely sophisticated government employee recognizes a Peruvian accent, can’t Mr. Soto say “I am Venezuelan, but spent 10 years as an undocumented immigrant in Peru and picked up a Peruvian accent.”

Separately, note that Peru follows the U.S. state religion. From the government tourism web site, in which the rainbow flag hangs at equal size and height with the national flag of Peru:

(The rainbow flag reminds me to wish everyone a happy Celebrate Bisexuality Day. See also NBC and Planned Parenthood.)

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When do we get HAMR disk drives for desktop PCs?

by philg

Happy Fall 2023! Will this be the season of 32 TB Heat Assisted Magnetic Recording (HAMR) hard drives for desktop PCs? The first 32 TB drives were shipped by Seagate for enterprise customers back in July. When is it the peasantry’s turn and could this be the season for building a new PC? Intel is supposedly shipping its new Meteor Lake CPUs by December, but they’re only for laptops (source). The GPU shortage is purportedly over, despite AI taking over everything (source).

In the meantime, you could show your commitment to the state religion by purchasing 16 Pride Drives, 2 TB each, from Seagate:

(Does this prove that 2SLGBTQQIA+ people are discriminated against? Cisgender heterosexuals can get reasonably priced 22 TB hard drives while the 2SLGBTQQIA+ community must pay a high price for just 2 TB of storage.)

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When will there be more Venezuelans in the U.S. than in Venezuela?

by philg

More Irish people live in the U.S. than in Ireland (31+ million says the US Census, compared to about 7 million in Ireland and Northern Ireland). Joe Biden recently granted permanent temporary status to about 500,000 Venezuelans who walked across the open border in the last couple of years (CNN). Haitians granted temporary status in 2010 still have that status (it gets extended every 18 months) and their U.S.-born children are now nearly old enough to get the parents automatic “chain migration” Green Cards. So let’s assume that the same thing happens with Venezuelans, i.e., temporary status becomes permanent in practice and continues to be expanded to cover later arrivals.

Given the assumptions that the Venezuelans keep accepting our invitation to arrive and, once here, keep creating U.S.-citizen children, how long before there are more Venezuelans here than in Venezuelan?

Population is actually falling in Venezuela right now:

And the Venezuelan population in the U.S. is rising (Pew):

(Note that this may not capture the undocumented since they might not want to answer a lot of questions from a U.S. government Census representative.)

The Pew web page provides numbers through 2021, but migration is rising exponentially and more undocumented Venezuelans arrived in 2022 than in all previous years combined (source):

Perhaps we should assume that migration levels off at 500,000 arrivals per year?

Also from Pew:

6% of U.S. Hispanic females ages 15 to 44 gave birth in the 12 months prior to the July 2021 American Community Survey. The rate for Venezuelan females was also 6%.

(Note the hateful language associating “female” identification with the ability to give birth. This from the same organization that publishes “The Experiences, Challenges and Hopes of Transgender and Nonbinary U.S. Adults” and does “deep explorations of the experiences of LGBT and transgender and nonbinary Americans”.)

It seems reasonable to assume that the declining population of Venezuela levels off at 20 million. Humans have more babies when more resources are available and dividing Venezuela’s resources by a smaller population should result in a birth rate high enough to offset the continued exodus to the U.S.

With that assumption, we can simply try to predict when the Venezuelan-origin population in the U.S. will exceed 20 million. For natural increase, let’s use the 3 percent annual population growth rate that Venezuelans had circa 1980 (it might be larger in the U.S. given our provision of taxpayer-funded housing, food, health care, etc.). In other words, births will exceed deaths and amount to 3 percent of the total (this might not be the best assumption given that the migrant population is younger than average because of the physical rigors of the journey).

It’s tough to estimate a population of the undocumented (Yale study), but let’s assume that we have about 1 million Venezuelans here in the U.S. right now. Our model shows that the Venezuelan-origin population of the U.S. will exceed that of Venezuela in 2048. (If you are preparing to criticize my model for its unsupported assumptions and simplicity, keep in mind that this is in complete accordance with Coronascience! See, for example, Coronascientists are the modern Aristotles?)

YearPopulation SizeMigrantsBirths in excess of deaths
20231,000,000500,00030,000
20241,530,000500,00045,900
20252,075,900500,00062,277
20262,638,177500,00079,145
20273,217,322500,00096,520
20283,813,842500,000114,415
20294,428,257500,000132,848
20305,061,105500,000151,833
20315,712,938500,000171,388
20326,384,326500,000191,530
20337,075,856500,000212,276
20347,788,132500,000233,644
20358,521,776500,000255,653
20369,277,429500,000278,323
203710,055,752500,000301,673
203810,857,424500,000325,723
203911,683,147500,000350,494
204012,533,642500,000376,009
204113,409,651500,000402,290
204214,311,940500,000429,358
204315,241,298500,000457,239
204416,198,537500,000485,956
204517,184,494500,000515,535
204618,200,028500,000546,001
204719,246,029500,000577,381
204820,323,410500,000609,702
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Why have US stocks outperformed international stocks so dramatically?

by philg

One of the mantras of an index fund investor is that you can’t predict which companies or which economies will do best. (Or at least you can’t predict better than other investors, so obviously promising stocks are already priced high to reflect that promise.) Therefore, you should try to invest in a way that mirrors the domestic economy or, if you expect to spend time in other countries, the world economy.

Let’s have a look at the Vanguard all-US fund (“Total Stock Market”) “total returns” (reflects reinvestment of dividends, but not taxes).

12.17 percent return over 10 years. After federal taxes, this is 10.1 percent, says Vanguard. They don’t estimate the effect of state income taxes, but with California at at 13.3 percent on the successful, this could fall to less than 9 percent for a Californian.

How about the Vanguard all-foreign fund (“Total International”)?

In an efficient market, the returns should have been about the same. But the investor enthusiastic about broadening his/her/zir/their investment base got destroyed. The 10-year total return on non-US stocks, in U.S. dollars, has been 4.68 percent. After federal taxes? 3.88 percent. After California state taxes? Perhaps around 3.5 percent. Foreign bonds would have paid better than foreign stocks, I think.

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Will Mexican cartels be deplatformed from YouTube and Facebook for spreading misinformation?

by philg

“Unlawful Border Crossings Are Rising Fast After a Brief Decline” (NYT, September 19):

During President Biden’s time in office, the number of illegal crossings has reached notable highs, exceeding levels seen during a prepandemic influx in 2019 during the Trump administration.

The administration said the decline in unlawful crossings in May and June was driven by new enforcement measures and new legal pathways for people to come to the United States.

Officials have attributed increases like these to several factors, including misinformation spread by the Mexican cartels that traffic drugs and smuggle migrants. Shelter workers, advocates and migrants say that some people who have been waiting months to access these legal pathways have grown impatient and are willing to take a risk.

Even as federal officials signal that there are consequences for illegal crossings, migrants who are given permission to stay in the country temporarily often tell family and friends in their home countries that they made it to the U.S. successfully. Such messages can encourage other migrants to take an often dangerous journey to the United States.

After crossing onto U.S. soil, most migrants turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents, with plans to apply for asylum, instead of sneaking into the country and trying to evade detection.

A few questions… The Newspaper of Record (TM) does not provide any examples of the misinformation that Mexican cartels are purportedly spreading. Are the cartels saying that those who cross the border and request asylum will be released and allowed to stay? That’s exactly what New York Times says is happening:

This influx has strained the capacity of many border facilities where migrants are held for processing by the Border Patrol. And Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers, where many single adults are sent, are running out of beds. When shelters cannot accommodate migrants, authorities start to release them into communities.

“The Border Patrol essentially is releasing people as they process them to decompress their facilities,” Diego Piña Lopez, director of the Casa Alitas shelter network in Tucson, said. “It is leading to street releases all over the place.”

Is it “misinformation” if what the cartels are saying is true?

Also, if low-skill immigration makes existing Americans better off, why would anyone be upset by an increase in what the NYT calls “illegal crossings” (if it is legal to apply for asylum, how can any crossing be “illegal”?)?

Last year, a record of nearly 250,000 people traversed the Darién Gap, a jungle straddling Colombia and Panama, in an attempt to make it to the United States. This year, despite efforts by the United States to curb the flow, that number has risen to 360,000 as of Sept. 10, according to Panamanian authorities.

Why is the U.S. trying to “curb the flow” if immigration makes us better off or if, alternatively, those who are arriving are entitled to asylum and we continue to offer asylum?

Official stats on the migrants who choose to announce themselves to the CBP:

The last line is interesting. The U.S. was officially closed due to coronapanic and yet nearly half a million new Americans arrived and introduced themselves to the CBP officers (plus an unknown number who quietly migrated). Covidians say that we could have eliminated COVID-19 if every American had done his/her/zir/their duty by wearing a mask, staying home except for trips to the “essential” marijuana and liquor stores, etc. But how would a Zero COVID situation have been sustainable when 50,000+ walked across the border in September 2020? (the Federal fiscal year FY2020 ended in September 2020)

Circling back to the main theme of this blog post… what are Mexican cartels saying? What is the procedure for getting them deplatformed or at least demonetized from YouTube, Facebook, and similar services?

Related:

  • “Biden administration to offer thousands of Venezuelans temporary protections” (Axios, yesterday): The Biden administration plans to offer nearly a half-million Venezuelan nationals temporary permission to live and work in the country legally, the Department of Homeland Security announced Wednesday night. … Venezuelans currently qualify for TPS if they arrived by March 8, 2021.
  • “US again extending temporary protected status for Haitians” (AP): “The Biden administration is allowing eligible Haitian nationals residing in the U.S. to apply for a new 18-month designation for temporary protected status, reversing a Trump administration effort that had sought to end the special consideration. … DHS initially designated Haiti for TPS in January 2010..” (i.e., “temporary” so far has been 13 years)
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Progressive Insurance abandons its Progressive Values

by philg

From June 2022, Progressive Insurance is Progressive, the company put a diversity and inclusion banner across its home page, dwarfing the “claims” button:

How about today?

They still have a Diversity & Inclusion link, but you need to scroll down two pages to find it. Unlike in 2022, the linked-to page makes no mention of 2SLGBTQQIA+ or any subset thereof. But this might be just an HTML coding mistake. The linked-to page is a generic “about” page and itself contains a Diversity & Inclusion link. That page does mention “LGBTQ” and “LGBT+”. The company has expert knowledge of what a miserable place the United States is for anyone but a white cisgender heterosexual non-immigrant person:

With so many acts of racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia in our communities, this is more important than ever. We stand in solidarity with communities of color, the LGBTQ community, and other marginalized groups, and we encourage our people to discuss these all-too-prevalent issues with our leadership team, one another, and our Employee Resource Groups.

(employees tasked with handling claims are supposed to spend at least part of their day discussing “racism, homophobia, transphobia, and xenophobia” with each other? What percentage of customers’ premium payments are to be spent on this activity?)

Possibly contrary to the recent Supreme Court interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, the company says that it is passionate about “increasing the representation of women and people of color in management.” They’re proud of their new quota system:

To focus our efforts in 2020, we introduced an ambitious goal to double the representation of people of color in senior leadership from 10% to 20% by the end of 2025. As of December 2022, people of color account for 17% of our senior leadership ranks.

They’re also proud of their ability to cook the numbers:

We’re proud to report that for Progressive employees with similar performance, experience, and job responsibilities, women earn one dollar for every dollar earned by men, and people of color earn one dollar for every dollar earned by their white co-workers.*

This last one is confusing. If equal pay regardless of gender ID and skin color, once adjusted for “performance, experience, and job responsibilities”, isn’t already part of the job market as a whole, is Progressive overpaying some groups while underpaying others in order to achieve the precise pay equity that it claims? If so, why don’t those paid below-market quit and why don’t the shareholders complain about company management paying a selected group above-market wages?

This concludes my research into Progressive’s progressivism. As of this month, I have switched to State Farm for auto/umbrella (State Farm currently writes new homeowners policies in Florida, but not in our neighborhood. Our house is just barely new enough (2003), but maybe it is slightly too close to the ocean or too vulnerable to a storm surge or maybe they already have too many other houses nearby that they cover).

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