Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

The US Treasury as the Birthright of All Mankind

To paraphrase Ricky Gervais, "I was 'aving a laugh" reading about a Massachusetts politician complaining that EBT money is going overseas. When a liberal progressive Massachusetts Democrat (is there any other kind?) starts complaining about welfare recipients in his state sending taxpayer money to relatives overseas, you know the situation must be horrendous. Anyhow, read the article it describes various ways in our high-tech world used by welfare recipients to funnel money to foreign relatives.

Don't forget that it was in this bluest of blue of blue states, that the two Chechen Boston Marathon bombers and their families received all sorts of public assistance. As I wrote on April 24, 2013,
Our tolerant, liberal, and inclusive system was providing these clowns (their names, I will never write) with welfare. I guess that answers one of my early questions about how these creeps supported themselves. The older one, of course, had his idiot convert wife working 80 hours a week while he sat home and collected his, yep, welfare checks. The younger murderer got his citizenship, a scholarship and welfare. Yes, just as in the olden times when you gave your executioner a gold coin to encourage him to make a swift and painless job of the beheading, it seems we pay our executioners. Even more interesting is that these cretins' scumbag parents were also collecting, even though they did not live in the USA.
As far as I know, there has been no investigation into how the public assistance system aided and abetted the Boston bombings. I am glad to see that somebody is finally getting a bit upset by how loosely we throw about our dole money.

US public assistance money going to foreign recipients is, however, not a new development. As a young consular officer in Guyana in the late 1970s, I had my own encounter with this phenomenon. One hot, muggy day (are there any other kind in Guyana?) while on the visa counter, I received an application for a tourist visa from a very nice elderly lady. She had prior visas, and normally we would not have interviewed somebody like her, and just issued the visa, but I was struck by the reason she gave for her trip to New York. According to her application and to her accompanying adult daughter, she needed to go there for post surgery care.

Seeing that the applicant had no significant resources, I asked how this medical care was to be funded. The daughter smiled and pulled out a thick wad of papers, mostly letters and receipts. She said, "The City of New York wants her to come for the appointment." She did not lie. She handed me a letter from  the NYC Department of Social Services addressed to her mother at her mother's Guyana address, reminding the elderly lady that she needed to return to NY for an appointment so that the doctors' could evaluate whether the surgery they had performed on her--at public expense--had worked. I asked the daughter, "Where does your mother live?" The answer, "In Guyana." Young and naive, I could not understand, "Why is the City of New York paying for her surgery and post-op care?" The daughter seemed taken aback by the stupidity of my question, "They send her money every month." She gave me receipts showing that for several years the mother had been receiving public assistance checks sent to her Guyana address; she would send the checks back to NY for deposit in a bank there. Mom, apparently, on a trip years ago had applied for and gotten public assistance from the City, eventually returned to Guyana, and continued to receive the funds. Livid, I turned down the visa application, made copies of all the documents, and wrote an angry letter to the relevant NYC agencies.

The next day, before I had posted my indignant letter to NY alerting them to this fraud--this was before internet--I got calls from the staff of a well-known NYC Congressman and another from some drone in the NYC welfare bureaucracy. Both callers were very upset with my refusal to issue the visa, accusing me of racism, being anti-poor, etc., and let me know that my superiors at State would be notified about my attitude. I kept blurting out, "But . . . she's living in Guyana and getting American taxpayer assistance . . ." as though that would trigger some logical thought sequence in my favor. All to no avail. I was the reincarnation of Eichmann. This went on for weeks, letters, calls, new visits from the mother and daughter, pleas from her doctor in NY, etc. The State visa wonks contacted me, took my story, and truth be told, never tried to change my decision, supporting my refusal to issue on the grounds of what then was called 212 (A) (15), likely to become a public charge.

Some years later I was living in New York and had a friend who worked for the City. I told him my tale, and he was not surprised. It was apparently a common occurrence.

Your tax dollars at work. Just wait until we have Obamacare. The folks in (place foreign country name here) will be "'aving a laugh" on us all.

30 comments:

  1. " I was contacted by the State visa wonks who took my story, and truth be told, never tried to change my decision" somebody, somewhere decided if this story got out it would cause a lot of trouble. Some times we do the bravest things with out knowing it. Well done.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Oh, the misadventures of consular officers! I was at AmConsul Guangzhou, and had cases from Fuzhou, Fujian, PRC--the buckle of the alien smuggling and visa-fraud belt.

    One fine, upstanding gentleman from there got status in the USA after spending roughly US$40K to get himself smuggled in, and then wanted to bring his two kids to NYC. I looked at the documents, saw he reported an income of around US$1K per year to the IRS, and refused on the grounds that his children would become public charges. He insisted he had more money, offered to get in touch with his bank, etc. etc. I said that I had no way of verifying, and at the rate of his known earnings, he'd be in hock to his Snakehead for the next fifty years or so, so I could not issue. Boy, was I ever a stinker and 王八蛋 (turtle's egg) after that, with upstanding-sounding folks in the USA calling me and the like. However, with the documented report of earning to IRS, the refusal stuck.

    I also refused countless "student" visa applications for youngsters going to obscure schools to study English located a few blocks from Third-cousin-thrice-removed's restaurant, and had indignant school directors bang my ear for hours over how I was hindering international contact.

    I had a case where it appeared that a Taiwanese-born young lady in NYC was helping an alien smuggling gang import their enforcers via fiance petitions.

    Don't get me wrong. My own dear diplowife of 31 years is from Taiwan, and I even get mad when people talk about "Fujianese" illegals--almost everyone I saw from Xiamen or other places away from the Fuzhou area was either someone's aged parent or a newly minted graduate degree who got snapped up by a talent-hungry US corporation. But, as for the Fuzhou area, I have to admit I developed a deep-seated prejudice about the place.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Student visa season was always weird. Generally, I'd look at the I-20 and a the other documents, note what the applicant planned to study, and pose a question about what aspect of his field interested him the most. In 9 out of 10 cases, the reply would be:

    "I are Li Funan, 27 years old. As you knowing, America most advanced country in the world. It universities are have most advanced equipments, endowments....."

    I would then decide that I wouldn't want the guy to be in charge of one of my young neighbors' chemistry labs or whatever, and refuse (always the intending immigrant clause--no clear qualification for the non-immigrant status sought).

    In one out of ten cases, I'd get an answer educating me (in English) about some obscure scientific field, and issue.

    The non-issuances, however, had the Chinese professors' Mafia in the USA, dean's offices, and Congressmen's offices pestering me.

    Years later, when I was a non-traditional grad student at a Midwestern university, as soon as it got out that there was a former Visa Monster on campus, I'd hear from dozens of Chinese students asking what the quotas for refusals were, what the magic formulae for getting a visa were, and all I'd answer would be that the magic formula was probably something different from the spiel their favorite cram school would make their kid brother memorize.

    And visa shoppers! I wish I had five bucks for every Pakistani or Bangladeshi I turned away when I was at the visa window in Bangkok. And so many had clear health problems (along with scant resources), and cursed my heartlessness.

    In Bangkok, we also saw a lot of Iranians hoping to study in the USA. It was a little more than a decade after 1979. I also recalled my own student days, when those slimy 小龟头 (oyf di Mummaloshen, schmeckeln) divided their time between their graduate studies; calling for the head of Mr. Mohammed Riza Shah Pahlavi, who'd paid for their studies; and terrorizing kufr girls stupid enough to fall for them. Apart from a few refugee cases who turned out to be people who'd converted from Islam to Christianity, and who were persons of international interest, I refused every Iranian I saw, silently wishing their country a new visitation of Huleku Khan or Temur-e-lang on their country as they left my window.

    Issuances were the worst, though. In one case in Bangkok, a woman with family and fruit farm in the deep Northeast of the country (Thailand's Appalachia) wanted to visit her sister in the States (a Viet Nam War bride). Normally, the case would not have gotten an issuance from me, but something reminded me very much of one of my wife's hometown neighbors in Taiwan, for whom "the USA is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there", and for whom a relative elsewhere was about the only thing that would temporarily budge her from home. I issued.

    My supervisor didn't like it at all, and put the case in the "tickler file" (request Thai immigration to check if the person returned or not). Well, a few months later, the Thai immigration people came back with, "Yes, Mme. So-and-so arrived at Don Muang from LAX and took a connecting flight to Udon (the transportation hub of NE Thailand)". Well, wouldn't you know it, I did not become known for my shrewdness about people or cultural sensitivity, and the incident proved far from career-enhancing.

    ReplyDelete
  4. It's nothing new over here either.

    In my second career, as a nurse in London, I worked many a ward area where every single patient was a foreign national - just visiting/student/etc. (It's a verifiable fact that >80% of immigrants here are on housing and other benefits - as if we haven't got enough feckless of our own).

    From the 'paying the executioner' aspect, did you know that Ireland has the lowest rate of mental health problems in Western Europe? Well it does, guess why. It's because as soon as they are diagnosed they are shipped/encouraged to go to England for the 'free' care/housing/benefits. I 'may' have begun my training for my second career well before ending my first, as a means of 'supervising' a sizable number of Celtic persons making use of the health services without arousing 'interest' (it was either that or the oil-rigs and I'm too pretty). Yep, care to check how many PIRA 'people' were on benefits over here? (Currently we are paying for the healthcare, housing, etc. of sundry Islamic paedophiles, murderers and terrorists. We even get to fund their legal fights to get more handouts too).

    The aspect for me, both here and there, now is that whilst such as mentioned have no problems getting visas, people like me (ex-mil, ex-nurse, PhD, ... English, white, Christian) are even having issues getting a tourist visa (two months so far for a repeat VWP due to a new passport, no other changes). What does this say about your, and our, priorities?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Our immigration policies make no sense. The disaster began with our 1965 immigration "reform" which, much as Labour subsequently did in the UK, switched our immigrant pool from Europe to the Third World. As these third world immigrants have gained in numbers and more and more rights--e.g., they clearly are voting in many of our elections--they have become a drain on our resources and are altering the very nature of our once Anglo-based nation.

      Delete
    2. Quite so! Over here it was a deliberate and calculated policy to 'rub the Rights noses in it', to 'construct a multi-cultural society' and to 'overwhelm the British' with millions of immigrants by 'buying their votes, and to ensure a Labour majority in perpetuity (by that and boundary changes).

      The question that should be asked is was/is it a a similar aim there? (Unintended or deliberate is of little consequence to the outcome, but it does affect the amount of piano wire to be bought).

      Delete
    3. Then the brilliant politicos wonder why they get the UKIP, EDL, Marie LePen, Tea Party, etc reactions.

      Delete
    4. " wayward sense of entitlement" an entitlement to be vile murderers is all it has become.

      Delete
  5. To me,

    Who has never heard about what some of you are saying; it saddens and shocks me...but it doesn't shock me that it's going on.
    Sickening.
    leaperman

    ReplyDelete
  6. Your tax dollars at play.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "My supervisor didn't like it at all, and put the case in the 'tickler file' (request Thai immigration to check if the person returned or not). Well, a few months later, the Thai immigration people came back with, 'Yes, Mme. So-and-so arrived at Don Muang from LAX and took a connecting flight to Udon (the transportation hub of NE Thailand)'. Well, wouldn't you know it, I did not become known for my shrewdness about people or cultural sensitivity, and the incident proved far from career-enhancing."

    I am missing something (ok, I am an outsider, and can be quite dense at times). It seems you are telling us that she returned to Thailand. Why did that reflect badly on you?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I was right about the case and my immediate supervisor wrong. End of story.

      Delete
    2. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
  8. Well, it's only fair /sarc.

    The IRS, after all, apparently considers the unemployment benefits of US citizens and green card holders who live abroad to be taxable as unearned income. So the US administration considers that US persons should be sending foreign taxpayer's money to the US treasury.

    ReplyDelete
  9. kepha/Dip, these are the stories that keep me coming here.
    I really wonder how I would feel about all these 'immigration amnesty' shenanigans that have gone on in the past (and are being pushed now), if I were in yer guys' shoes and had contributed and carefully safeguarded the interests of the US through immigration policy.

    -reader #1482

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Frankly, I have mixed feelings. Sometimes, I can see that individual cases might be slapped on the wrist, fined, and given a sheaf of papers to fill out to gain some sort of status (there are nasty governments, failing states, and occasional improvising people who are a net plus for us out there). but blanket amnesties basically tell the world that the USofA doesn't really enforce its immigration laws. And, BTW, the investigative and other resources that the Bureau of Consular Affairs might have needed to meaningfully enforce immigration law aren't there; and there's a lot of pressure from the political officers (no offense, Dip, really, none, Sir) to get a visa for so-and-so in the local Bureau of Whatchamacallit's ne'er-do-well son or disgraced daughter (and such people do disappear into our woodwork). Add to this boyfriends, girlfriends, sleazebags, and others will sicc their Honorable Member of Congress on you in a jiffy (and you don't score points reminding the honorable Mr. So-and-So that Congress passed the laws you're trying to enforce).

      Delete
  10. You'd be surprised how many of these visas get issued, though. When I worked in International Arrivals, I'd swear that every person from a certain country next to Haiti was an Unemployed Homemaker. That's what all the visas said. That wasn't as much fun as the B2 visitors with their MassHealth cards showing up pregnant with 2 other USC babies in tow.

    You'll never see anyone refused entry under Public Charge grounds, either.

    We import poverty. Period.

    ReplyDelete
  11. A close relative by marriage works in the IRS office that issues ITIN's, Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers. There are Canadians who want a refund on the income tax withheld from their casino winnings, or need to pay tax on a rent house, Mostly, though, there are Mexicans who want to collect the Extra Child Tax Credit for kids living in Mexico, actual existence not required. This is a "refundable" credit, paying out much more than the taxpayer paid in taxes. The program is so eaten through with fraud that the Acting commissioner of the IRS actually came to town last year, to ladle a lot of pap and encourage someone to rat out the person who leaked the story to the press. The odd thing is, except for the fraud, this is a good deal for the US. We have said for years that the workers who come here and work cheaper than cheap do much less economic damage than their very numerous dependents who must be educated and medicated at government expense. If Papa' sends the money home, to buy these services on the Mexican or Central American economy, they get much more bang for our buck, than we'd have under the present non-plan, paying American scale for everything.

    Able asks whether the import of cheap labor and ignorant voters is as deliberate as it was in the UK. Such a guileless question shows a purity of heart that is one more reason that we need to move mountains to get this young fella a Green Card. Of course it is deliberate. Anyone who merely looks at Census data over the decades knows the the second generation earns less money than the immigrant parents.Whatever we pay to the illegals is nothing compared to the "benefits" we provide to native born citizens. Importing poor people with little appreciation for education or its benefits guarantees a permanent class of dependents. Mind you, this is the first population who have had that experience of downward mobility. There is nothing inherently wrong with these people. I work as a nurse in home care and, since I am pretty fluent in Spanish, my assignments are usually immigrants who speak no English. Lovely people, very hard working, and many will buck the statistical trend. It breaks my heart to say it, but not enough will fit that description. . Dependents will vote Dem, The Dems know it. The Republicans are too clueless to do anything about it. What is being done to us ought to include a kiss and some cuddle time, afterward.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Repubs are also too spineless and scared of being called "racist" to do anything, too.

      However, I recently had the psychological satisfaction of answering an appeal from an "immigrant rights" group telling them that their making "illegal immigrant" and "immigrant" synonyms was an intolerable insult to my wife, daughter-in-law, and both grandfathers--also to me, since I taught as a "resident alien" in Taiwan for a good many years. I've also explained to one young Dominican-born student that the likely reason he and his mother had to wait seven years before joining Abuela in the USA was because someone snuck in without regard to the law.

      Delete
  12. There is something I should have added. A kind of add-on to the problem of importing demand for public services is that the imported poverty gives cover to the Democrat constituencies' demands. One example of many, we are constantly told that Texas has more uninsured people than any other state. So, why not send them home? A few dozen buses, running all day, every day, and we'd quickly diminish the number of uninsured. We also have a high rate of teen pregnancy. Is it lack of birth control? Do our kids not know whence come babies? None of the above. It is common for primigravidas in Hispanic culture to be in their teens. I saw a young woman in the emergency room, because that is where they go for "free" health care, who wanted to know why she was not yet pregnant. She had been married for a year and was almost seventeen. "What's wrong with me?" We did not do an infertility work up on her, but that was thirty years ago.

    More. There is a pyramid of snobbery in Latin America, with Argentina at the top and Mexico at the bottom. I must keep that in mind when evaluating information I receive from the "South American way." Like much of the world, ethnic prejudice is regarded as normal. Our lack of it is just a mark of our lack of wisdom in the ways of the world. Nevertheless, they all insist that the very inferior education provided to Mexican kids is a matter of intentional policy, since ignorant people can be more easily manipulated by the PRI. Public schooling is six years. However, the teachers may show up or not, depending on extraneous factors, like last night's blood alcohol level, new girl friend or boy friend, and this means that the official six years of schooling in the rural areas may not be as thorough as we would expect here, in a similar time frame. So, among other things, there is pressure from families to quit school and get a job, or, on girls, to get married, since these would be the expectations at home. Nice people? Absolutely. Good candidates for citizenship? Are you blond or something?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Blond and absolutely agree with you.




      pmc

      Delete
    2. Likewise, I taught in a drop-out recovery program for many years in a gang-infested Latino area. The girls were in the anchor baby business as were many of their mothers. Parents encouraged girls as young as 12 to get pregnant in order to collect welfare. I had two students who both had three kids each before they (the girls) were 16. They collected more than $6K a month in AFDC benefits. Very good deal for illegal aliens who could barely read. Among other things, I taught them US Govt. They taught me on the other hand, how our system really works.

      Delete
    3. I had a very interesting lesson in the sociological terminology in Latin America. I was teaching history to bunch of ESOL kids, mostly Central American. Keep in mind that I'm a clown who even reads the bibliographies of the books I read, and have picked up a fair amount of terminology from them. Also, I had just started to learn Spanish (deceptively easy after having learned French when young, and some Latin).

      One guileless young Salvadoreno asked if "native American" meant someone like me. I explained that it meant the people here before Columbus. Blank look. I then expalined "Indians". He then asked if that meant that people from India has made it here before 1492. I then gave it the Old College Try and said "los Indios". A Vietnamese kid turned to his Central American friend (who had a face that might've come off the wall of a Mayan temple) and asked "What's 'indios'?" The second Latino kid said, "Oh, an 'indio' is a country person who is very, very stupid."

      And, yes, Anonymous, I got a lesson similar to yours.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous, must be from a bottle ;) You be not as dumb as you look. "No que tonto que se vea"

      Delete
  13. I'm reminded (again!) that civilisations don't die - they commit suicide.

    Phil B

    ReplyDelete
  14. I am told that basically zero Filipinas get admitted to the US if they are single and under age 40 as about 90% who do land, skip and stay in the US forever. The only chance for a visa is if they are married with kids back in the Philippines as they have "ties" that keep them from staying in the US.

    I remember hearing an expat pleading to let his amah accompany the family to the US as they absolutely could not function without her in tow during their holiday visit to see the parents/grandparents.....(I was in the process of paying the US Government $50 to notarize a letter - funny, after the hundreds of thousands of dollars I've paid in taxes while living overseas, you'd think that you'd get some sort of return on your annual tax payments - but I'm a bit naive I guess... pay up! again!). The dumb guy should have thought about that before hiring a helper that was young and single. A large number of expats at least attempt to bring their helper back to the US when they return to the US. The only successful ones that I am aware of are those that can basically prove that their move back to the US is "temporary" before moving on to another country....

    ReplyDelete
  15. You have paid an awful price for that enscription at the statue of liberty.

    America did not have the funds to build a pedestal, to mount the Statue of Liberty. One of their fundraising ideas was to ask the poet, Emma Lazarus to write a poem for Lady Liberty. She wrote a sonnet, 'New Colossus' which goes like this:

    "Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
    Mother of Exiles.
    From her beacon-hand
    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
    "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
    With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me


    It was the most generous of offers, based on a moral obligation of the emigrants to build a new land, and it worked for a while too. You have to wonder what changed that emigrants now seek instant support from their adopted home, could it be that the emigrants no longer want to support the 50% who pay no taxes but nevertheless suck at the teat of government?


    ReplyDelete
  16. I know this is off topic but from an article I read here in Oz I had to comment.

    On the top right hand of this excellent blog is the statement - "I stand with Israel"

    It appears that may be the case so long as your name is not Barak Hussein Obama as he appears to have been handling the truth re his attitude to Iran's nuclear programme with some carelessness. That is the mob who want to exterminate Israel - a familiar scenario from the 1930's only then it was the people not a country.

    Your government, or lack thereof, is becoming a serious concern to your allies.
    Abandoning the only western style democracy in the Middle East sends a loud message to Americas other allies and it is not a welcome one.

    Obama's oft repeated statement, "America has no greater friend than [here insert name of country we are currently talking about]" is about as reliable as his economic expertise.

    Kol tuv

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good am David. I have written elsewhere that the single greatest threat to America's national security is every day Barack Hussein Obama wakes up President of the United States. Some people have taken offence at that statement. I'm glad.

      Delete