Dear Uncle Joe:

Mr. President, while you are not my uncle Joe, we did grow up in the same neighborhood in Scranton. I know Scranton’s values well. Unfortunately, you lost those values many years ago.

You remind me of my old, crazy uncle Timmy. He was an embarrassment to us all. He was a danger on the streets, touching everyone who walked near him. And certainly, we never let him walk down the street to the popcorn vendor with a monkey.

Occasionally, we had to be very direct so he understood the seriousness of what he was doing. Unfortunately, this is one of those times your American family must deliver you a straightforward message – your actions are diminishing the value of American citizenship. Let me explain.

The government you “manage” identifies the benefits of citizenship, specifically: protection from deportation, easier entry and reentry into the U.S., travel without restriction in the states, the right to pay taxes and receive the same tax benefits as other Americans, the right to work for the federal government and receive government subsidies and the right to vote.

Before you assumed “management” of the U.S., these benefits were of great value. They generated patriotism, love of country, and respect for the rule of law. Your management style is so disrespectful to citizens. You treat us as commodities that send money to the government for the horror of watching the nation wither into a chaotic, authoritarian state.

And when you rudely turn your back and walk out of the room when reporters ask you simple questions, you act exactly like my crazy uncle. Worse, turning your back is an insult to us citizens. A good mother in Scranton should have told you it is not polite.

Perhaps your craziest decision is opening the southern border for anyone to freely enter the country. You have inflicted more crime on our cities. You are forcing local governments to care for the illegal, mostly unvaccinated, masses. This drains resources needed for schools, police, and health care. Worse, it is a violation of your oath to defend the country. You may not remember it but you were on television on January 20, 2021 and repeated the oath in front of millions of us. Many Americans thought you understood what you were swearing to?

No one knows why you opened the border; you may truly believe drug cartels; sex traffickers and the slave trade are capitalist enterprises. Please note it is not the type of business activity most parents want in their neighborhoods.

Also, no one understands why you stopped building the southern border wall after we paid for it? Obviously, you like walls since you ordered the American people to build a huge wall around your beach house. I am assuming it is your modesty when swimming nude. Believe me, Uncle Joe, no one will look—we would all be too embarrassed for you.

If one of the benefits of citizenship is the ease of entry and exit from our country, you have made it far easier to enter and exit for illegals than citizens. Almost two million illegal immigrants from 75 countries walked across the southern border into the U.S. this year. None were required to prove they had been vaccinated or tested for Covid-19. At the same time,  citizens, returning from a foreign country could not reenter the U.S. without proof of “a negative COVID-19 test, taken within three (3) calendar days of departure, or proof of recovery from the virus within the last 90 days.”

Another of the mentioned benefits of citizenship is freedom to travel throughout the U.S. While citizens have such a right, it is limited to lawful activity. Citizens committing crimes are arrested, no matter where they are caught.  Illegals, however, under your new order, have many safe areas where they cannot be arrested. These locations include schools, daycare centers, medical facilities, playgrounds for children, social service establishments, churches and demonstrations, and parades. You are giving those coming to the U.S. illegally more protection than given Americans. That doesn’t seem fair, crazy uncle Joe?

And now, you want to give illegals who were separated from their children when detained at the border, $450,000 per person, as damages for the temporary separation. What about our homeless and/or disabled veterans?  Are they less valuable than illegals because they fought to defend the U.S.?

The most ironic passage in one pamphlet is the discussion which notes all citizens have the same tax benefits as other Americans. I do not know many Americans who believe paying taxes and having the same tax deductions as other Americans is a benefit. First of all, most Americans do not have the same tax benefits as the super-wealthy. Few Americans can take advantage of the carried interest tax avoidance scheme for hedge fund managers or the $12 million estate tax exemption or trillions that can escape taxation forever, with a stepped-up basis for capital gains at death. You have such benefits, but very few Scrantonians have those benefits. You should nominate the brochure’s writer for inclusion in Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum. There will be a hefty referral fee for Hunter, and the author will live forever as the dumbest person in the world.

The right to work for the federal government may be the one positive benefit of being a citizen that non-citizens cannot have. It is as close to nirvana as anyone can get. It requires little work, no creativity, and a talent to write what no one can understand. Clean clothes are not required and for the last 18 months, they did not even have to appear in an office. There are 2.8 million of them. Sounds like a lot of jobs to apply for, but openings only happen when a government worker dies or retires. There is a long wait even for citizens.

Fortunately, the illegals know you are trying to get rid of Trump’s Public Charge requirement. If you are successful with your Build Back Better legislation, the illegals will receive free community college, housing, and food subsidies. Since federal subsidies never go away, uncle Joe, the illegals may just get benefits rivaling a federal job without the need to show up for work.

The big benefit of being a citizen is the sacred right to vote. What does the right to vote mean anymore? Hillary Clinton and the entire mainstream news media told us the Russians, with a massive disinformation campaign, elected Donald Trump in 2016. Trump and his 75 million supporters tell us that millions of illegal ballots, fake news, and the suppression of news like the contents of Hunter’s laptop, elected you in 2020.

In the 2000 election, George W. Bush was elected by the U.S. Supreme Court. Every other year, our congressional representatives are elected by a rigged system called gerrymandering. The reelection rates for incumbents range from the low 90% to as high as 98%. Congressional districts are drawn for winners, not losers. Seriously, there was more turnover in the old Soviet Politburo than in Congress.

On its face, having the right to vote is a big deal. It seems to be a distinguishing right for which citizenship is needed. But nothing is more political than voting. Whoever controls the voting process wins. The Democrats are pushing the 800 page, “For the People Act.” If enacted, it would nationalize voting. Whoever controls the DC swamp controls voting in the nation. The bill would require every state to allow voting by mail, mandate online and same-day voter registration. It effectively eliminates voter identification requirements by requiring non-registered “voters” to sign a statement attesting to their identity. The bill would mandate drop-off boxes for mail-in ballots, and allow voters to designate another person to drop off their ballots.

Uncle Joe, the “For the People Act” reminds me of the first time, at age six, I accompanied my uncle Timmy to a Scranton polling place. Afterward, I asked him who would win. He told me the Democrats since they vote early and often so the dead are always well represented.

My message to the illegal immigrants is, do not get discouraged. Uncle Joe will soon have you casting ballots for Democrats. As for my vote, it is becoming less and less valuable.

Image: Photographer/ NJ Governor’s Office

The post Uncle Joe, You Have Diminished the Value of My Citizenship appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

“I don’t like walls,” Paul added. “I don’t want to wall people in and wall people out.”

“But I don’t want free open borders either. I think you have to remove the incentives for people to come. And they come because there’s a welfare system here, easy access to citizenship, it’s politicized. One group wants them because they think they can get the votes. But people should be able to come, and visit, and work. And, but, you have to get rid of the incentive system.”

“No easy road to citizenship.”

Paul continued to reiterate his Milton Friedman like belief that you don’t need a border walls without the incident system and easy access welfare state. The media expects Trump’s national address tonight to included a declaration of national emergency to get funding for the border wall.

When you look at social media lately libertarians seem torn on the issue of open vs. closed borders. We did a poll, albeit non-scientific, on our Like A Libertarian page. The the results were suprising. Only 30% of fans voted in favor of open borders and 70% voted closed.  Some comments on this thread below the poll stated that closed and open borders are not a black and white issue. Although shocking to some university students. Democrats supported more secure borders when they were in power.

Long admired for his philosophical consistency Dr. Paul was mocked for his ideas on militarized border walls by fellow Republicans during the 2012 GOP Primary debates.

From the clip above: “The people that want big fences and guns, sure, we could secure the border,” the congressman noted. “A barbed wire fence with machine guns, that would do the trick. I don’t believe that is what America is all about.”  Read more.

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By Will Racke

Civil rights groups called out school districts in nearly three dozen California counties last week for inquiring about students’ citizenship and immigration status, raising the issue of how public schools deal with their obligation to educate the state’s enormous immigrant population.

California Rural Legal Assistance and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area penned a joint letter to state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, imploring his office to investigate the enrollment practices of 75 districts, which the groups say deter illegal immigrant families from enrolling their children in public schools.

The letter comes as lawmakers, civil rights groups and immigration activists push to make California the nation’s foremost “sanctuary state,” where cooperation with federal immigration authorities is limited to the absolute minimum required by law, and where public benefits are offered to all residents regardless of their immigration status.

It also raises questions about how public school systems, especially in immigrant-heavy states like California, are coping with the unique fiscal problems that come with enrolling large numbers of students from immigrant households, both legal and illegal.

A recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies, “Mapping the Impact of Immigration on Public Schools,” shows that California has far and away the nation’s highest percentage of public school students from immigrant families. In 2015, 48 percent of the state’s public school students came from an immigrant household — 13 percentage points higher than second place Nevada.

In several California cities, over half of public school students are the children of immigrants or immigrants themselves. In the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area, for example, the share is 57 percent; in Salinas, also 57 percent; and in Merced, 52 percent.

Because these children often come from low-income families that speak a language other than English at home, they pose additional funding problems for public schools.

“In addition to adding large numbers of students in poverty and for whom English is not their first language, immigration also creates significant challenges for schools because immigrants have lower incomes, making it unlikely that tax revenue grows correspondingly with enrollment in areas of high immigration,” the CIS report said.

Already struggling under the financial burden of an underfunded teachers’ pension system and potential cuts in federal funding, California schools devote considerable resources to educating immigrant students. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimated that California taxpayers in 2016 spent $16.15 billion on the state’s limited English proficiency (LEP) students — 27 percent of the $60.42 billion in education funds that came from state and local sources that year.

CIS Executive Director Mark Krikorian says that kind of financial strain should have advocates of high levels of immigration rethinking their views. “Aren’t numbers of the essence?” he asked last week during a panel discussion of the CIS report, suggesting that “turning the tap down” on immigration levels should be the first step toward relieving pressure on public school systems.

In California, the problem is compounded by the fact that a significant share of LEP students come from illegal immigrant households, which are more likely than legal immigrant families to require additional language education and financial support. CIS estimates that between one-fourth and one-third of public school students nationwide in 2015 were from illegal immigrant households. California is home to an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants, about a quarter of the state’s total immigrant population of 10 million.

Whatever the numbers, California schools have no choice but to take on all comers who want to enroll. A 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, holds that states can’t deny students a free public education on account of their immigration status. California education code also prohibits schools from asking students for social security numbers, which are evidence of U.S. citizenship or legal permanent residence.

By asking for social security numbers or proof of citizenship documents such as a birth certificate, the civil rights groups said, school districts are spurning legal guidance issued by the California School Boards Association.

“Notwithstanding the clear legal protections afforded to immigrant children, we have found that many school districts have placed clear barriers with respect to the constitutional right of these children to enroll in school,” the authors wrote.

The joint letter to Becerra correctly pointed out that school districts asking for information about prospective students’ immigration history or legal status are going beyond what the law allows. When contacted by the Sacramento Bee about the enrollment practices highlighted in the letter, district superintendents promised they would correct any violations soon as possible.

“Truthfully, it’s not who we are and not what we believe,” Superintendent Marcy Guthrie of Mother Lode Union School District told the Bee, adding that the district was pulling the offending forms down from its website and “making it right.”

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By Will Racke

The Trump administration will keep in place a policy that allows immigrants to earn expedited U.S. citizenship by serving in the military, a Department of Defense (DOD) official confirmed to Fox News.

A 2002 executive order issued by former President George W. Bush opened the door for the military to recruit noncitizens and work with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to streamline citizenship processing for service members. DOD spokesman Lt. Col. Myles Caggins told Fox News that the administration has no plans to discontinue or change the policy.

“Law ensures that the sacrifice of noncitizens during a time of national need is met with an opportunity for early citizenship, to recognize their contribution and sacrifice,” Caggins wrote in an email, according to Fox News’ Monday article.

Under current law, all noncitizens who have served honorably in the U.S. military on or after Sept. 11, 2001 are eligible to immediately file for citizenship. The Naturalization at Basic Training Initiative, implemented by the Obama administration in 2009, allows immigrants to naturalize when they graduate from boot camp.

Between 2002 and 2015, USCIS naturalized 109,321 service members under the expedited citizenship initiative.

Obama also began the practice of allowing recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy–undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers’–to enlist in the military if they possess valued foreign language or medical skills. The Army, which is the only branch that accepts DACA recipients, enlisted 359 such recruits in fiscal year 2016, Fox News reported.

During the 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump suggested he would permit illegal immigrants who wanted to serve in the armed forces to stay in the U.S. and ultimately earn citizenship, calling it “a very special circumstance” during a presidential candidates’ forum in September. (RELATED: An Estimated 36,000 Illegal Immigrants Have Received Amnesty Under Trump, As He Reneges On Promise)

“I think when you serve in the armed forces, that’s a very special situation and I could see myself working that out, absolutely,” Trump said of allowing undocumented immigrants to serve in the military.

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A record number of Americans are renouncing their U.S. citizenship in 2015, new figures released by the federal government show.

Since 1996, the IRS has published a list of citizens renouncing their citizenship every three months. The most recent IRS report, released Monday, reveals that 1,426 Americans ditched their citizenship in the past three months.

That brings the running total for the year to 3,221, the highest amount ever recorded for the first 9 months of a year. If at least 196 more people renounce their citizenship before the end of the year, a new annual record will be set.

The new record comes even though the government has substantially hiked the cost of surrendering citizenship. Simply applying to renounce citizenship now costs $2,350, way up from the $450 fee of a few years ago, meaning the IRS made over $7.5 million just by processing renounced citizenships. The figure is actually even higher than that, as wealthier Americans who renounce their citizenship are hit with an expatriation tax that can total into the millions.

For some expatriates, renouncing citizenship is intended as a political statement. More frequently, it’s an effort to escape U.S. taxation.

Unlike every other country in the world except Eritrea, the United States levies income taxes on citizens who live and work abroad, not just those who live inside the country. The U.S. also imposes tough income and wealth reporting requirements on expatriates, with stiff financial and even criminal penalties placed on those who do not properly comply.

In 2010, burdens on foreign taxpayers were increased with the passage of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), intended to reduce Americans’ use of foreign accounts to dodge taxes. Since the law was passed, citizenship renunciations have surged to new highs.

Some may be moving to get out before the cost of abandoning the U.S. grows even higher. In 2012, New York Sen. Chuck Schumer proposed the Ex-PATRIOT Act, which would have substantially hiked the taxes imposed on people renouncing citizenship.

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Many Americans who are aware of our country’s current state of affairs often have this internal debate: Do I stay and help restore the country, or do I get out before things get worse?

The number of Americans deciding to become expatriates has increased by 221% according to the Treasury Department. 2,999 people permanently and willingly gave up their citizenship last year, compared to 932 in 2012.

Under our current tax law, the motivating factors behind why someone expatriates no longer matters as the law was changed in 2004. Most expatriations are speculated to be caused primarily by factors such as family and convenience, though others cite erosion of human rights and ‘safety’ as their reason.

There are also cumbersome tax laws that citizens living abroad must abide by. The regulations to keep the IRS happy leave most Americans with nowhere to turn overseas, as foreign banks consider them too much of a liability.

This sentiment is understandable when you consider the fact that just leaving America can have a special tax cost. In a final attempt to tax you, you generally must provide documentation that you have complied with U.S. tax laws for five years. Additionally, if you have a net worth greater than $2 million, or have average annual net income tax for the five previous years of $155,000 or more, you pay an exit tax.

For this reporter, the struggle to stay in the U.S. is difficult at times. I can’t see a positive outcome for America once hyperinflation of the dollar hits. Yet what hope do we have of restoring America if its most loyal patriots jump ship?

There’s also the pesky question of where I would go if I did decide to leave. America, even with all its flaws, is still doing better than most of the world, and it will always be my home, but I can completely understand why so many people have decided its time to seek freedom elsewhere.

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