The Department of Justice is suing California to allow federal enforcement within its borders. The Department of Homeland Security is publicizing which jurisdictions are blocking cooperation with federal authorities. President Trump is cutting off federal grant funds to those same jurisdictions. He also has dispatched the National Guard to help guard our border against protest caravans of illegals.
How can anyone dispute that the problem is real?
Why the Deep State Hates the Wall
Back in Washington, the unfettered immigration agenda is driven by big business, certain big industries, and especially by the Democratic Party—but carried out by unaccountable bureaucrats who also benefit from the chaos of rampant illegal immigration.
It’s a useful case study in the ways Trump’s agenda is being thwarted.
Why is this idea of border security so controversial? Shouldn’t it matter to everyone? It should. It should matter to conservatives and moderates and those of us who care about the very idea of America, our unique values and place in the world, and America’s exceptional history and future. Why would anyone push for blanket amnesty for those whose very first act in this country was to break the law?
The Deep State benefits from illegal immigration. As long as immigration is “an issue”—and as long as it continues, we need more and more government to figure it out. We need to do more studies, hire more consultants . . . for more decades. The Deep State benefits from the chaos that results in demands for ever more government. They also benefit from the election of politicians who grow government. Which brings us to the Democrats, who depend on escalating unresolved immigration issues to stir up anger and motivate immigrant voters both legal and illegal.
Big business obviously benefits from artificially low wages that allow them to profit. And big-business cronyism goes hand in hand with the big-government Deep State.
Illegal Immigration Is Very Profitable
Some of the Deep State resistance to border enforcement results from ties to entrenched corporate interests. Let’s look at the technology industry, headquartered in California’s deep blue Silicon Valley. How does unfettered immigration benefit them?
For years, big technology companies have argued that hiring foreign workers through the H1B visa process is critical to growth and success because there is a shortage of skilled American workers. Google, Amazon, and Apple have argued that those sixty-five thousand H1B visas are necessary. The H1B visa has become the poster child for “necessary legal immigration” in technology.
Except that is not the whole story. Many of those companies that hire these workers are called outsourcing companies. It is those firms that do the actual hiring. The three largest H1B employers in 2012, for example, were Infosys, Wipro, and Tata, all based in India. Google, Amazon, and the big tech firms “rent” these workers, as do Disney and the University of California.
Surely it couldn’t be that companies or even governments were using the H1B visa to pay lesser wages?
Surprise, surprise. The statistics show that the median wages paid to H1B visa holders are below what American citizens earn. And there are additional insults one can add as well. According to the New York Times, Craig Diangelo was among two hundred employees laid off from the Connecticut company then called Northeast Utilities in 2014. Diangelo had worked in the company’s IT department for eleven years. He had been earning $130,000 a year. He was told he needed to train his replacement, an Indian H1B worker recruited from an outsourcing firm and making $30,000. If he refused to train his replacement, he would not get his severance.
“The problem is that my job is still there,” he told the Times. “I went away. The American workers went away.”
Plus there is another benefit to big tech. The H1B visa is not transferable to another employer. So the company gets an immobile worker. An American worker could change jobs or move away for a better opportunity. The foreign worker is stuck.
Some people have called the system indentured servitude.
And while the definition of a H1B holder is supposed to be a person with specialized or unique talents, that is hardly so. Back in 2007, the New York City Department of Education (DOE) wanted to hire more teachers, particularly in troubled schools. So did they advertise all over the United States for young talented teachers who wanted to move to New York City for a full-time job? Of course not. They held a regional hiring fair in Vienna, Austria. Some people who barely spoke English came to the fair from Slovakia, Hungary, and Eastern Europe. They were hired! The practice continues today. The New York City DOE filed for 192 labor condition applications for H1B visa holders from 2015 to 2017. In 2018, the top H1B visa employer in Brooklyn was JPMorgan Chase Bank. The city’s department of education was second.
And how about the idea that H1B visa jobs are only for supremely talented unique positions? Nope. The top fifty occupations for H1Bs in 2018, according to myvisajobs.com, included physical therapists, graphic designers, Web developers, and marketing managers. The list even included public relations specialists—one of the most popular majors at American colleges and universities.
Let me tell you who else benefits from unfettered immigration: the hospitality industry, which employs 15.2 million people in restaurants and hotels in the United States. A 2008 Pew research report estimated that 10 percent of those workers, or 1.5 million people, are here illegally. Obama supporter and TV restaurateur the late Anthony Bourdain attacked President Trump and declared that if illegal immigrants were deported, “Every restaurant in America would shut down.”
No, every restaurant would not shut down. The only ones that would shut down would be those that refuse to hire American workers and pay them the market wage. Prime example in the restaurant industry: President Obama banned tip pooling in restaurants. That practice means tips are shared by servers and kitchen workers, many of whom are immigrants. It was effectively a policy that incentivized the use of illegal immigrants because kitchen wages not supplemented by tips are too low to attract legal workers.
Already under President Trump, the Department of Labor has rolled back part of that law along with other burdensome unfair regulations that have driven so many restaurants to hire illegal workers in the first place. As of March 23, 2018, some aspects of tip pooling are allowed again.
Is it so controversial to suggest that American citizens should have priority access to American jobs? President Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” executive order shouldn’t be controversial. Let us not forget that Trump himself has spent a career in the hospitality industry. He knows the industry can survive with a legal workforce.
The Impact of Misaligned Rewards and Penalties
I’ve often said that in public policy, you get more of what you reward and less of what you penalize. Immigration policy is a prime example. When we reward people for breaking the law with benefits that are not available to those who come here legally, we send a strong message. No one ever suggests that the children of those on the wait list to come here legally should get in-state tuition or automatic citizenship. But had those same parents come here illegally instead of waiting their turn, all kinds of groups would be fighting for them. The incentives are all wrong.
Under our system, we send the message that law-abiding people need not apply. We only want people who are willing to break the law. But is that really what we want? Not according to the results of the 2016 presidential election. It’s not what President Trump wants. Nor the people who voted for him. The fact that some industries, some federal employees, and one particular political party benefit from this permanent underclass of immigrants should never justify jeopardizing the safety and security of the rest of America. By releasing asylum-seeking families who illegally crossed our borders and giving them legal work permits, the Obama administration actually incentivized traffickers to use children unrelated to them to pose as families and qualify for the free pass into the United States. We got more of what the policy rewarded—fraudulent asylum claims.
/> We so often hear, as I’ve mentioned, that we are a nation of immigrants. And that is absolutely true. We also hear many business leaders, politicians, and entertainers recount their family histories. Apple founder Steve Jobs’s father was a Syrian immigrant. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s wife’s parents were refugees from China and Vietnam. Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, is from India. A father born in Turkey raised Muhtar Kent, the chief executive of the Coca-Cola Company.
Yes, all true. For hundreds of years immigrants have come to America to make a better life for themselves and their children. My own great-grandfather, Joseph Carroll Chaffetz, came from Lithuania, a refugee from famine and a cruel and repressive Russia regime. His son, my grandfather Maxwell Chaffetz, was born in the United States and went on to become an FBI agent. He gained some fame when he was involved in the capture of famed gangsters John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson.
I am a huge proponent of fixing legal, lawful, regulated immigration. But we have to face the sad fact that illegal immigration today, especially from Mexico, facilitates massive criminal enterprises on both sides of the border. In too many cases, it is not the kind of immigration that brought so many of our relatives here from places like Ireland or Italy or Russia. Our lax immigration laws have enabled drug cartels, human traffickers, paid coyotes, and would-be terrorists from around the world to exploit our compassion and endanger our communities. We want to attract the ambitious achievers of past generations. We want to draw the best and brightest seeking to work hard for better lives. For those people, we must continue to make America a welcoming place—a place governed by fairness and the rule of law.
Here is the bottom line: the Deep State feeds on overregulation, needless government, and entwined private and government interests and contracts. We need a real solution. We need the Wall. Not a puny fence. Not a passable river or a walking path with guardrails that is ADA compliant. A wall. Our borders will not be safe until the Wall is built.
Chapter 13
Taming the Deep State
Even before the 2016 election, it was obvious to me that Washington, D.C., and the Deep State that runs it were only going to be fixed by bold disruption. We finally have a president who is willing to do that. He can do a lot—more than anyone anticipated, actually. But as we clearly see, the Deep State is waging all-out war against this president. The president needs Congress, both the House and Senate, to enact policies to restore our country.
Unless we can find a better way to check the power of those who enforce the law, they become a law unto themselves, practically exempt from following the very rule of law they are charged with enforcing.
Let’s explore three categories of reforms, all of which must be addressed if the Deep State is to be checked. We must start by empowering Congress to use, and perhaps modernize, existing constitutional checks against the executive branch that have fallen into disuse.
We have to restore the penalties, rewards, and incentives that govern the federal workforce. And finally, we must expose corruption by bringing hidden things into the light.
It all starts with asserting the power of inherent contempt.
Giving the Inherent Contempt Power Teeth
The power of Congress to compel the production of information from the executive branch is undisputed. The Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld that power, as well as the authority to impose fines or even the more draconian measure of jail time. But I found today’s Congress reluctant to rock that boat.
The requirement that Congress rely on the U.S. district attorney for the District of Columbia to enforce compliance to its subpoenas must be abandoned. Unfortunately, partisan politics makes a simple fix complicated. Over the years, both parties have bemoaned the lack of cooperation by the Department of Justice, but never at the same time.
Democrats wanted the power to enforce subpoenas against Bush administration officials but lost their passion when Barack Obama was elected president. Now that Donald Trump is president, the shoe is once again on the other foot. Fortunately, there is hope.
A range of options exists for restoring to Congress the ability to enforce contempt citations. Legislation could be passed denying the district attorney the ability to substitute his own discretion for that of Congress. Congress could unilaterally impose fines, even going so far as to withhold the fines from federal paychecks. As a last resort, Congress could even return to the days of remanding into custody those unwilling to cooperate.
Having failed to assert enforcement powers in the past, Congress must take some of the blame for the emergence of today’s powerful Deep State, which now routinely refuses to cooperate with Congress. While I saw little evidence of congressional action to restore its own enforcement power during my time in Congress, Trey Gowdy offered some hope in a June 2018 interview on Fox News Sunday. Speaking of Justice Department stonewalling of congressional subpoenas, Gowdy told Fox News’ Chris Wallace, “We’re going to get compliance or the House of Representatives is going to use its full arsenal of constitutional weapons to gain compliance.” We can only hope. There has also been movement to expedite a path for judicial access by Congress. While I prefer to see Congress assert its own power instead of relying on that of the court, this option is still better than the status quo.
Judicial Access
There’s a reason the organization Judicial Watch is more successful at getting information than congressional oversight committees. They have a direct route to the courts! For the judicial path to be effective, Congress would need an expedited pathway to the courts for immediate consideration. Administration officials are afraid of courts because they incarcerate and impose fines—something they need not fear from Congress.
To see why expedited access is required, we need only look to the languishing Fast and Furious court case.
If we wanted to get information that agencies were withholding from us, we had to hold them in contempt, sue them in federal court, litigate whether we belong in federal court, argue whether the case is ripe for the judge, and wait for the judge to rule on those questions. Then and only then could the judge get to the merits. That takes two to three years, if not more.
Agencies know that even when Congress has a right to information, it pays for the agencies to withhold it. Even if they cite a bogus excuse, they know it’s going to take years. In that time, committee leadership will change, public appetite for the information will ebb, and new scandals will come along to replace the old ones.
In addition, going to the courts requires us to take these things to the House floor and get the whole body to authorize a lawsuit. That, too, would have to change. Putting something on the floor, occupying every member’s time, and spending hours debating whether we ought to get these documents is tough to do. Something like Fast and Furious, with big headlines, a murder, allegations of negligence—that is doable. You can get floor time and the attention when it’s something like the IRS targeting matter. But what about when the head of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board lies to Congress? Are they going to want to use floor time for that? No. So he will get away with it. Which he did.
Not every oversight matter is something you can fairly ask leadership to point the whole U.S. House toward. It’s just not feasible. The Deep State apparatus knows this. They can just withhold information and run out the clock. Congressional committees should be empowered and authorized to move this process forward without the need for the full body to debate and vote.
Mandate Federal Prosecution of Perjury
It’s time for the Trump Justice Department to apply the rule of law uniformly against all who lie to investigators.
This is the missing piece in congressional investigations. If the Justice Department won’t prosecute those who lie to Congress, there is no deterrent to doing so. Unfortunately, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has not demonstrated any willingness to strengthen oversight by punishing liars. Two egregious examples include the EPA’s aforementioned Chemical Safety Board chairman Rafael Mour
e-Eraso and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.
In March 2017, the Sessions Justice Department announced they would not seek charges against Moure-Eraso, who lied to the House Oversight Committee. The committee had forwarded a criminal referral on Moure-Eraso in July 2015.
In two separate Oversight Committee hearings, Moure-Eraso’s testimony to the committee was contradicted by facts and documents. Criminal referrals from Congress are very rare. Bipartisan referrals are even more so.
Ranking member Elijah Cummings and I jointly requested the criminal referral due to egregious differences between Moure-Eraso’s testimony and the evidence against him. This was as bipartisan as it gets! More than one year after our initial request, DOJ decided they were not going to prosecute him.
Similarly, neither the Obama nor the Trump Justice Department has shown a willingness to prosecute Hillary Clinton for obvious lies to congressional investigators.
Lie in an FBI interview? Boom! But I’ve never seen a consequence for lying to Congress. They just don’t do it. That has to change.
Impeachment Power
Article II of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress power to impeach the president, vice president, and all “civil officers of the United States.” This includes cabinet officers. But not since 1876 have we successfully used it against those who run our federal bureaucracies. That is a role and responsibility we have simply relinquished, even though it is embedded in the Constitution.
Congress needs to once again assert this tool. Doing so requires no new legislative authority. Congress already has the power to do it, but so far it has not had the will.
Not everyone confirmed by the United States Senate turns out to be competent or to have the integrity to do the job the people need them to do. If Congress cannot impose a single degree of accountability, what good are we?
The Deep State Page 17
