There’s a new website on Dr. John Tanton, at  johntanton.org/. If you’re not familiar with Dr. Tanton’s life and work, the website says  briefly that

John H. Tanton, M.D. is publisher of The Social Contract, and served as editor for its first 8 years. He is a retired eye surgeon whose boyhood on a farm made him into an ardent conservationist and advocate for the environment. His conviction that continued human population growth was a large part of the conservation problem led him to chair the National Sierra Club Population Committee (1971-74), and to the national board of Zero Population Growth (1973-78, including a term as president from 1975-77). In 1979, as immigration grew to be the significant part of the U.S. population problem, he organized the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) based in Washington, D.C. He is the author of numerous articles, editorials and opinion pieces, many of which can be found by searching under his name in The Social Contract archives.

Of course, there people are only familiar with Dr. Tanton’s work because they’ve read attacks on him. He’s been targeted by Linda Chavez and the SPLC among others, who complained about a memo he wrote about population demographics. Sam Francis discussed the memo and Linda Chavez in column in 2003. Linda  boasted of resigning from US English in protest, and I put in this VDARE.com note:

[VDARE.COM NOTE: Since the SPLC, which considers almost everyone racist has posted this private memo - from the heroic Dr. John Tanton - on its website, readers are invited to see for themselves how inoffensive it is. And while you’re at it, you can read Dr. Tanton’s reply to the SPLC here.]

See also Steyn And Tanton On Demographics, where I pointed out that Canadian journalist Mark Steyn is making the same kind demographic arguments in  his work on the growth of Islam in Europe. You can also find on the johntanton.org website a nasty inquistive letter from Heidi Beirich, with Dr. Tanton’s answer. This led to an article in which the SPLC called him a “puppeteer” and blamed him for everything they don’t like about the immigration restriction movement. Of course, anyone on the SPLC approved side of the immigration question is called not a puppeteer, but an “activist.”

In Alien Nation, Peter Brimelow wrote:

I am deeply grateful to the remarkable Dr. John H. Tanton of Petoskey, Michigan, a practicing ophthalmic surgeon who is also a founder of the Federation for Immigration Reform, of U.S. English and more recently of English Language Advocates, and editor and publisher of The Social Contract—truly a citizen who has taken up arms for his country.

“Citizen who has taken up arms for his country” is a good way of putting it.

Or was he born in some foreign country, thus (perhaps) disqualifying him from becoming President?

Of course he was born in Hawaii.

Have you ever looked at where Hawaii is on a globe? It’s farther from foreign countries than even the American mainland. The idea that his heavily pregnant mother (flying is not at all fun for pregnant women) would get on an early 707 and fly at great expense to some foreign country is ridiculous — especially the popular theory that he was born in Kenya. Do you know how many different flights she would have had to take to get to Kenya in 1961? Honolulu to California, California to the East Cost, the East Coast (refueling at Gandar Bay) to London, London to maybe Cairo, Cairo to Nairobi. How much would that have cost? And then you would be stuck having your baby in Africa rather than in a modern American hospital in Honolulu.

Or you could go the other way around the world — it’s about the same distance either way. Kenya and Hawaii are more or less on the opposite sides of the globe, almost as far apart as two places can be.

This is a very silly idea.

Sheriff Mark Curran gave a press conference Thursday where he took Chicago politicians to task for ignoring the problem of crime committed by illegal aliens [Lake Co. sheriff says 21.5% of jail inmates illegal immigrants, Daily Herald, Sept 18, 2008].

A recent audit of the Lake County jail found that 21.5 percent of the prisoners were in this country illegally, Sheriff Mark Curran said Thursday.

Renewing his call for stepped-up deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes, Curran said they are charged with half of the 14 murders in the county so far this year.

“You cannot fight for crime victims and ignore the illegal immigration problem,” Curran said. “You cannot pretend to care about all the children that die from gang and gun violence and ignore the illegal immigration problem.” [...]

“The City of Chicago as well as the State of Illinois have shown little interest in cooperating with ICE,” Curran said. “Choosing instead to ignore the problem or to pander to special interest groups or their sympathizers.”

You can thank Sheriff Curran for his forthright defense of public safety via email: mcurran@co.lake.il.us. I did.

Priyanka Joshi writes at Washtech:

WashTech surveyed the country’s top public schools to see what accomplished high school students are saying about choosing IT as a career. Hot button issue of outsourcing, lack of loyalty in “employing local”, and a saturated IT market are all at play as students share why they are choosing to pick or leave IT for good

Quotes from high school students include:

However, the way big corporations are outsourcing jobs, makes me never want to work for them.

With IT jobs becoming increasingly scarce, there is a natural level of hesitancy surrounding the decision to pursue this career.

I like Math a lot but after I saw the rapid pace of American IT jobs outsourced, I decided to not choose Computer Science or IT.

These students are largely influenced by corporate media’s false claims that outsourcing is a bigger factor in recent changes in the IT market than immigration.

The big question: Why do companies that aren’t creating jobs for US citizens need the privilege of immigration rights?

From Norm Matloff’s H-1B/L-1/offshoring e-newsletter.

Norm Matloff writes:

Many of you will recall DOL’s announcement last June that it was suspending approvals of green card applications submitted by Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP, the nation’s largest immigration law firm, pending the results of an audit. DOL stated that it had reason to believe that the firm had been involved in a client’s hiring process to an extent contrary to DOL regulations. See my postings on this here, here, here, and here.

At the time I predicted that there was nothing that DOL could do, as Fragomen appeared to be operating within the law and regs. I stated, as I always do, that THE MAIN PROBLEM WITH H-1B AND EMPLOYMENT-BASED (EB) GREEN CARDS IS THE LOOPHOLES, NOT ILLEGAL BEHAVIOR.

I have written part of the last sentence above in all-caps form because it is so often forgotten, including by activists who are pushing for tightening of the laws regarding foreign workers. It is especially important right now, because (sorry to shout again) CONGRESS IS CURRENTLY CONSIDERING MAJOR EXPANSION OF THE EB GREEN CARD PROGRAMS YET HAS NOT INCLUDED ANY REFORM OF THE PROCESS IN THE LEGISLATION. This is especially sad in view of the fact that, according to my sources, many people in Congress are well aware of “TubeGate,” the YouTube videos made by an immigration law firm for their clients, in which they show how to exploit the numerous gaping loopholes in green card law. More on Congress below.

Let me stress again that THE IMPORTANCE OF THE FRAGOMEN CASE IS NOT THAT A “BIG FISH” HAS BEEN CAUGHT VIOLATING THE LAW–WHICH IT HASN’T–BUT RATHER THAT THE ACTIONS OF FRAGOMEN ILLUSTRATE THE LOOPHOLE-RIDDEN NATURE OF THE LAW. As noted in my earlier postings, prominent Fragomen clients such as Cisco Systems have been placing outrageously deceptive newspaper job ads stating that only U.S. citizens and permanent residents may respond, when in fact the job “opening” is already filled by a foreign worker that Cisco is sponsoring for a green card. Again, all of this is fully legal. (By the way, Cisco’s ads don’t actually say there is a job opening; they merely say that Cisco is “accepting resumes”!)

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