“She was realizing the American Dream, and this is a sad case”

What on earth is Prosecutor Greg Costa talking about? He was speaking at the sentencing of Yali Huang, a Houston immigration lawyer (and immigrant herself) who on Friday got four years in prison for operating a complicated and extensive visa fraud scheme for Chinese clients.

(Immigration lawyer gets fine, prison for visa scheme By Susan Carroll Houston Chronicle July 14 2007)

The facts need considering. Huang came to this country 19 years ago. Presuming she already was a graduate, getting a law degree and qualifying for the local Bar must have taken at least four years. She operated this scheme from 2000 to 2005 according to the Government (she was indicted early last year). This means almost half (at least) of her professional career was spent breaking the laws of her new country.

Is that the American Dream? This is not sad - it is outrageous. What would Huang had to have done more to merit the full ten years possible?

Other associated sentences were strange too. Perhaps not her assistant, legal resident Mary Liu, who got eighteen months on one count, but naturalized citizen Ping Lee Cohen who in some accounts seems the leader of part of the scheme got only “about a year” by cooperating with the Prosecution. And ex-husband Kenneth Cohen, apparently the only US-born participant, just got probation.

As always, immigration illegalities will stop only when the authorities are serious about enforcing the laws. What, for instance, is happening about those individuals who benefited from the fraudulent visas?

Hat Tip, R.C.

Among the many forces lobbying against American borders and sovereignty are the Central American countries that are hopeless remittance junkies.

Unlike Mexico, which feigns poverty, nations like Honduras and Salvador really are poor. Their idea of foreign policy is to visit Washington and put on the big sob story about how they really need the remittances from their citizens squatting in the US and sending back lots of money, so don’t deport any more.

Shown here, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick comforts a teary-eyed Honduran who apparently doesn’t want to go home.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya was recently in Washington begging for an end to deportations. (ICE estimates that 70 percent of the one million Hondurans in the US are here illegally.) Honduras expects to receive $2.8 billion in remesas this year, more than a quarter of its GDP, and Zelaya doesn’t want the easy money to stop.

You can’t blame him too much. Who doesn’t like a fat allowance that comes in the mail and you don’t have to do anything to get it? Free money — the best!

While attention is focused on the U.S. battle to stem the tide of illegal immigrants from Mexico, a federal effort to crack down on Hondurans is threatening the Honduran economy and sparking a crisis in U.S.-Honduran relations.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya visited Washington on Monday to lobby Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a moratorium on what he called “massive and selective” deportations of Hondurans in the U.S. illegally. He promised that the Honduran government would strenuously defend the rights of Honduran immigrants, without elaborating. [...]

“Remittances are like an addiction,” said Juan Jose Garcia, a remittances consultant in San Salvador, El Salvador. “Remittances feed consumption, the banking system and the stability of society.”
[Honduras Fears US Immigration Crackdown, MSNBC 7/13/07]

When the stability of a society depends on the kindness of expatriates, the homies are skating on thin ice. It would be better for Central American nations to work on sensible development rather than wait for the checks to arrive, since they could easily stop coming for many reasons.

Indeed, there have been various studies showing that remittances are not a good development tool, that recipients often develop a welfare mindset which prevents actual economic progress from occurring.

Once again, tough love is the greater kindness.