Why does the government do this?

The Washington Post reports:

Tens of thousands of would-be immigrants may be unable to move legally to the United States after the State Department said Friday that a computer glitch is forcing them to scrap the results of an annual worldwide lottery for U.S. visas. 

More than 14 million applicants entered a lottery last fall for one of 50,000 visas distributed as part of the annual Diversity Visa Lottery, designed for people who would otherwise have little chance of legally entering the country. The program doesn’t require applicants to have a family or employer as a sponsor.

So, there are 280 applications for every visa? 

Each year the State Department selects about 90,000 applicants and trims the list to 50,000 through an extensive series of interviews, background checks and medical exams. 

The lottery has been conducted by computer since its inception in 1994, according to State Department officials. 

David Donahue, deputy assistant secretary of state for visa services, said the glitch discovered earlier this month prompted the computer program to unfairly select people who submitted applications in the first two days of the 30-day application process that ended Nov. 3. 

“These results are not valid because they did not represent a fair, random selection of the entrants as required by U.S. law,” Donahue said ...

So, there are 280 applications for every visa and we select them randomly? And then hand out visas for, essentially, free?

Why?

Fortunately, the article provides the answer:

Congress established the lottery program to attract immigrants from countries with lower rates of immigration to the United States. Residents of countries with larger rates of U.S. immigration — including China, El Salvador, Haiti, India and Mexico — are not eligible for the program.

You see, the intention is for immigrants to be attracted from countries that don't send as many immigrants.  How could I have overlooked a simple, sensible, downright tautological explanation like that? When you think of it that way, of course the U.S. must randomly pick out one out of each 280 people who apply and give them free lifetime residency in the U.S. What else could the government do? This way, we can jumpstart chain migration from even more countries. Have you noticed how immigrants from Indonesia, population 230,000,000, haven't really begun flooding in yet,? Well, our government has a plan to fix that problem!

In fact, the government should also give each of the 900,000 winners over the last 18 years (plus their spouses, adult children, parents, and and their spouses' parents, adult children's spouses, parents' adult children, and the rest of their entourages, people of the caliber of Hesham Mohamad Hedayet) a free tour of Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

It's the least we can do.

Another thing we should do for those 900,000 is have the Bureau of Engraving print up $1,000,000 in cash for each one and give it to them in Gucci suitcases. C'mon, it's just like immigration: I mean, how much does the paper and ink cost? Not much, right? It's the same thing with American residency, right? We just printed up 900,000 green cards. How much could that have cost?

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Point 'n' Sputter

From the New York Times:

The Anti-Immigration CrusaderBy JASON DePARLE 

WASHINGTON — Three decades ago, a middle-aged doctor sat outside his northern Michigan home and saw a patch of endangered paradise. 

A beekeeper and amateur naturalist of prodigious energy, John Tanton had spent two decades planting trees, cleaning creeks and suing developers, but population growth put ever more pressure on the land. Though fertility rates had fallen, he saw a new threat emerging: soaring rates of immigration. 

Time and again, Dr. Tanton urged liberal colleagues in groups like Planned Parenthood and the Sierra Club to seek immigration restraints, only to meet blank looks and awkward silences. 

“I finally concluded that if anything was going to happen, I would have to do it myself,” he said. 

Improbably, he did. From the resort town of Petoskey, Mich., Dr. Tanton helped start all three major national groups fighting to reduce immigration, legal and illegal, and molded one of the most powerful grass-roots forces in politics. The immigration-control movement surged to new influence in last fall’s elections and now holds near veto power over efforts to legalize any of the 11 million illegal immigrants in the United States. 

One group that Dr. Tanton nurtured, Numbers USA, doomed President George W. Bush’s legalization plan four years ago by overwhelming Congress with protest calls. Another, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, helped draft the Arizona law last year to give the police new power to identify and detain illegal immigrants. 

A third organization, the Center for Immigration Studies, joined the others in December in defeating the Dream Act, which sought to legalize some people brought to the United States illegally as children. 

Rarely has one person done so much to structure a major cause, or done it so far from the public eye. Dr. Tanton has raised millions of dollars, groomed protégés and bequeathed institutions, all while running an ophthalmology practice nearly 800 miles from Capitol Hill. 

“He is the most influential unknown man in America,” said Linda Chavez, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan who once led a Tanton group that promoted English-only laws.

After this promising opening, you might expect the article to move on to using Tanton's fascinating experience as a modern day Jefferson Smith as the lens through which to examine one of the bizarre developments of the last quarter century: the emasculation of the environmental movement by pro-immigrationist interests. For example, you might expect the NYT to cite the brand new Census data to show that Tanton's fears are coming true and then ask: Why have groups like the Sierra Club dropped their traditional insistence on immigration restriction, despite the huge impact immigration-driven population growth has had on, say, America's (and thus the world's) carbon emissions? [Answer here at VDARE, not in NYT for some reason.]

Well, you might expect that if you'd been living on Mars for the last few decades. Instead, the article immediately turns into the usual exercise in point-and-sputter guilt by association:

While Dr. Tanton’s influence has been extraordinary, so has his evolution — from apostle of centrist restraint to ally of angry populists and a man who increasingly saw immigration through a racial lens.

Etcetera, etcetera ...

Really, doesn't the childishness of contemporary thinking just wear you down? Junior high school girls  engage in more principled thinking than the Who? Whom? that is the standard assumption of the conventional wisdom on immigration.

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

"The Perils of Diversity" by Byron M. Roth

I review the massive book on immigration discussed from the perspective of the human sciences in VDARE.com.

My old articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

Mexican bishops denounce Arizona immigration law: Catholic World News

The bishops of Mexico have released a press statement denouncing the controversial Arizona immigration law. The statement was signed by Bishop Víctor René Rodríguez Gómez of Texcoco, secretary general of the Mexican bishops’ conference.

“With deep sadness, we have received the news that the immigration law SB1070 has entered into force,” the statement begins. Expressing solidarity with Latinos residing in the United States, the bishops “ask with insistence that the Lord of life and all the earth move the hearts of all people who do not know the Father of all and have not been able to discover brotherhood, tolerance, and mercy.”

“We value and we are thankful to the noble and generous people of the United States of America, who for years have offered a warm welcome and support to Mexico and so many countries in need on the continent and in the world,” the statement continues. “We are disappointed to see, and we firmly condemn, the selfish and irresponsible attitude of certain powerful groups which aim to separate countless families, leaving them to drown in deepest misery and poverty after having made enormous sacrifices and risked their lives in the search for a better life and a future of wellbeing and justice for their children.”

“We join our voices with those of all men and women of goodwill calling on Mexican authorities, and Mexican families and parishes, to warmly welcome with specific pastoral care our brothers and sisters forced to retrace their steps.”

“We intend to continue our activity to render our people of Mexico ‘A Home and a School of Communion,’ enabling them to be present in faith and prayer. We give them our blessing as Bishops and we commend them to the Heart of God, to His Son Jesus Christ, and to Holy Mary of Guadalupe.”

The bishops of Mexico with deep sadness should acknowledge their country -- its politics, its culture, and the how the Catholic faith is acted out in the temporal order -- have failed Mexicans and the United States has been successful in creating opportunity, wealth, and hope for millions of Mexicans. I call upon the bishops of Mexico to convert the selfish, irresponsible, and powerful elites who keep so many of Mexico in poverty and misery to create a future for Mexico that doesn't depopulate itself. God bless Mexico and God bless the United States of America.

Venezuela: Chavez supporters occupy cardinal's residence: Catholic World News

Caracas, Feb. 28, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have occupied the residence of the Archbishop of Caracas, the newspaper El Pais reports.

Cardinal Jorge Urosa Savino denounced the action by members of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela. Cardinal Urosa Savino said: "Interrupting our work is an act of violence."

President Chavez has frequently denounced the Catholic hierarchy of Venezuela, charging that the bishops are undermining his government by criticizing his tendencies toward autocratic government and mob rule. Chavez supporters have become steadily more aggressive in their hostility toward the nation's bishops.

It's an extension of the policy of the bishops of the Western Hemisphere who argue there should be no borders, no wall, no barriers to migration, and the laws which order society to impose them are manifestly unjust.

What we have here is a migration from inferior housing to better housing. Why shouldn't the people of Venezuela have access to quality of housing enjoyed by the Catholic hierarchy?

What privileges the Cardinal's residence in a way that doesn't also privilege the US border?

What sign would Jesus hang around a giant inflatable rat?

	The inflatable rat is ever present as the visible sign that there are scab workers. The last time I saw them, it was a protest in front of a former union supermarket that had closed and re-opened as a non-union supermarket. The reason it had closed was because paying union wages made it non-competitive.
Who would Jesus deport?

An immigration policy that discriminates on a strictly racial or national origin basis would be immoral. But who is advocating that?

What immigration policy did the Jesus' own people have? They were very tough. Read Nehemiah 13 which condemned the presence of foreigners and intermarriage.

For that matter, look at the Holy Family, they fled to Egypt, but returned, rather than becoming immigrants to that land.

Who would Jesus deport? I think he'd leave it to the people to decide as a matter of collective prudential judgment.

What's my contribution to the collective prudential judgment? Enforce the law and reduce new illegal immigration. For people currently who entered illegally or overstayed visas, etc., they should return to the country where they are citizens and apply to enter legally.