Jun 20 2007

Administration Answers Immigration Critics With Brutal Reality

Published by at 7:02 pm under All General Discussions,Illegal Immigration

Ed Morrissey posts on one of the many conspiracy myth’s running around the GOP circles as they do their amnesty hypochondriac Chicken Little dance. This one had to do with how long it takes to process Z-Visas compared to passports (not EVEN the same thing) and the ridiculous myth background checks take time (having worked briefly on a design for the FBI’s modern fingerprint identification system I know this to be a myth personally). Here is the answer to the critics (for all the good it will do since the critics are not listening, they are running in full mob-induced panic):

I can see how, in order to score a quick point, it would be tempting to equate the passport backlog with the issue of Z visas.
However, you make a false analogy.

Background checks are not a significant factor contributing to the current backlog in processing passport applications. Instead, the key reason for the delay is the non-automated and very labor-intensive process of verifying that the individual is indeed a U.S. citizen. Another major reason for the passport backlog is the time-consuming process for producing the passport itself, which requires an electronic chip, a machine readable strip, and other tamper-resistant features.

By contrast, adjudication of a Z visa application does not require verification of citizenship status because the individual acknowledges at the outset that he or she is illegal. And any delays due to production of the document, of course, are irrelevant to DHS’s ability to handle the background checks.

The background check at issue for the current undocumented is an automated process involving an electronically captured print that will be run through database checks.

I made this point many times. Bounced right off the redfaced foreheads of the hypochondriacs. They don’t understand the process or the systems, but damn they are expert geniuses when they need to be. Did it move Morrissey? Nope, he went to grasp another straw:

However, this isn’t quite responsive to the main thrust of my argument. It does address the issues surrounding the 24-hour background checks, but not the main point about allocation of resources and the instant creation of a new bureaucracy that will have to handle upwards of 12 million applications almost immediately.

Sorry, but as much as I like Ed Morrissey and I know he is the superior blogger, he is just making a silly point here. First off, the 12 million will not come in the door all at once on day one. Second, they will not need to be processed all at once, but the system has a huge capacity. Needless to say those that come forward initially will have little to fear from the background checks! I mean – Duh! The purpose is to get the haystack of good, reasonable people to come forward and step away from those bad needles we need to find and deport! So what if we wait a bit (and I mean a short time) to validate their own confidence they will pass the check? Geez, doesn’t anyone remember the purpose of this?

In addition, what is the alternative? Oh yea – no one steps forward and no one gets checked! We do nothing. So in a fit of a incredibly implausible scenario dreaming we see the reason to do nothing. But let me bring technical reality into the debate (and very few are going to argue a system I know about). IAFIS is the current finger printing system. Here is a capacity metric for it from last year:

While Congress initially mandated a capacity level for IAFIS of 62,500 matches daily, the system’s busiest day so far has reached the 100,000 level.

The architecture is a completely scalable parallel processing system which processes requests by sending them to a number of parallel processing core servers. Capacity is EASILY increased by simply adding more core processers AND by upgrading the existing ones to faster motherboards. But let’s do some math for the hypochondriacs on last year’s capacity numbers. At 100,000 submissions a day the 12 million submissions can be processed in 120 days. Yep. Less than three months. As I said, we know there will be a rush of people confident they can pass the check, but waiting three months do have them verified as crime-free after 20 years of doing nothing is a no-brainer. If you are using your brain. It takes longer to take the print than for these computers to do the match.

And make no mistake about it. The system can absorb these checks from taking them to submitting them. One day in our recent history (when IAFIS was operational) we had 100,000 prints somehow taken. That is how they hit that record number. The system is very large. Morrissey may have a question – but its roots are from his lack of knowledge. Not from a lack of capability in our government. What is the passport processing capacity of America? Again we have information at hand:

The Department of State set new records in March and April, issuing more than three million passports to Americans planning international travel.

This is clearly the much more arduous process than the Z-visa background check. But even at these levels it would take 8 months by this metric. 8 months and we would have 12 million undocumented workers now documented? The actual time is probable between these two numbers so between 3-8 months, depending on how many people come forward. Seems like damn quick and better THAN DOING NOTHING. See, this can be done FASTER than building the wall which has simply logistical problems you cannot overcome. In the same time it takes to raise a 5 story building you can get the undocumented documented.

I cannot help but note and share the administration’s exasperation with all these armchair experts who know nothing about what the government systems can do. I too weary of their lame excuses and irrational theories and inability to note how many times they lose these discussions when reality clobbers their fantasty nightmares. We can process the illegals just fine. End of story. Not the end of the hypochondriacs endless excuses to do nothing. No, those will never end.

Update: Ed Morrissey has responded and I clearly did not communicate my point:

AJ Strata thinks I’m gnowing at a bone of amnesty conspiracy thinking. Actually, my original post had nothing to do with “amnesty”; it had to do with competence, and AJ missed the point. He claims that the government has the ability to process 100,000 illegal aliens a day, but where is this supposed to happen and who’s supposed to do it? I’m sure that eventually they could get it done, but they don’t have the capacity to resolve an extra 5 million passport applications over a one-year period despite having an eighteen-month head start on it.

Actually, what I said was the amnesty hypochondriacs were the ones using the canard that we cannot pass process the background checks. I only said Ed Morrissey posted on that myth. I did not miss the point. But maybe it is just not so obvious to some as to me. The Administration quote mentions the background checks, which is done using the FBI’s fingerprint system called IAFIS. Ed Morrissey wants to know what system is going to do it? THAT system – IAFIS. It ties fingerprints to criminal records. This is well known to some, definitely to me. OK, it is not clear to Morrissey.

Which proves my point that his position is based on a lack of knowledge, nothing more. As the administration pointed out criminal background checks are quick and are not the driver on passports. The quoted response to him clearly mentioned the FBI processing the check. The driver on passports is different. It is the processing ito confirm US citizenship (hello – this is why the current system is too cumbersome for companies to confirm citizenship, even the government can’t get a quick answer – anyone listening as to why we need the bill?). So we are where we were before. Ed Morrissey posted a myth of the far right as fact. When told why it was a myth, with additional information from me which shows the EXACT capacity of the system which will be used for background checks, he doesn’t accept the fact the myth was busted. The administration answered his question on background checks, I confirmed nd clarified it – end of story. But the denial continues. Morrissey returns to repeat the same mistake he made initially. A background check (FBI and IAFIS) is not a check for US citizenship (Passports and Social Security, IRS and others). What are you going to do when they myth is busted and the fantasizers say “I don’t care, I still believe!”. LOL! You focus on the folks whose minds have not shut down. What else?

Update: Some information for those who want to understand the issue and the systems we have at our disposal. Here is a great pitch in IAFIS, portable fingerprint terminals and the whole lot which shows how fast we will be able to process people. Bottom line, we took the system to war with us and trained our troops to use it in Iraq and Afghanistan to collect information (clearly not going to find criminal records there). No big hit on their budgets. But if you want to find a potential terrorist IAFIS is the worlds largest (4 times larger than anything in Europe) and has connections to international systems. We use it to do background checks on all personnel supporting our military to make sure no one sneaks through the process. It works and is the best repository on the planet. This myth is busted!!

60 responses so far

60 Responses to “Administration Answers Immigration Critics With Brutal Reality”

  1. apache_ip says:

    All I used was four letter logic.

    Good one. That made me laugh.

  2. Bikerken says:

    Careful Apache, you’ll be next joining me and Dale in the green room of this dysfunctional family reunion.

  3. apache_ip says:

    No doubt. I keep waiting for it. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened yet.

  4. apache_ip says:

    — begin quote —
    He would need to have been the hardest working boy in America, for — according to documents that employers filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA) — his efforts were not merely Herculean, they were miraculous.

    He was born in September 1991, and by the time he was 7 — according to W-2 reports bearing his Social Security Number (SSN) — he had taken multiple jobs. From 1998 to 2001, employers filed more than 3,900 W-2s using his SSN.

    By 2002, when he was 12, as measured by W-2 reports, the boy was holding down 919 jobs in 42 states.

    But, as you might have already guessed, this boy was not really America’s most prodigious worker. He was one of America’s most prodigious victims of SSN misuse. Other people were using his SSN to work in the United States.

    The basic facts of his story were published in a September 2005 audit report by SSA’s inspector general. (That report, by the way, did not indicate whether the child was male or female. As a rhetorical convenience, I refer to him here as a male.)

    This child’s story is extraordinary, but not singular. The inspector general discovered that in tax year 2002, there were 11 SSNs that were used more than 400 times.

    In fact, past SSA inspector general reports have discovered that certain employers, year after year, file massive numbers of W-2s that bear fraudulent SSNs or valid SSNs that don’t belong to the employee using it. These W-2s go into what SSA calls the Earnings Suspense File (ESF), where SSA deposits what it calls “no-match” W-2s.

    About 9 million of these are filed per year, and SSA Inspector General Patrick O’Carroll told Congress last year “the chief cause” of them “is unauthorized work by non-citizens.”

    Now, meet one of the great absurdities of U.S. law: If SSA were to discover that someone was misusing your SSN like they misused the SSN of the boy whose number showed up on 3,900 W-2s over four years, SSA could not tell you about it. “Congress has not provided authorization to disclose this information in the situation you described,” SSA spokesman Mark Lassiter told me. Nor would SSA refer the case to a law enforcement agency. “This tax return information is also generally restricted from disclosure to law enforcement agencies by Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code,” said Lassiter.
    — end quote —

    I wonder how many credit cards have been applied for using his SSN?

    Source for the above –
    http://www.townhall.com/columnists/TerenceJeffrey/2007/06/21/americas_hardest_working_boy

  5. biglsusportsfan says:

    :Can a proponent of this bill tell me why some gang member, thug, child molester or wanna be terrorist would use their real name when applying for their Z visa????

    I’m having a hard time picturing that happening.

    And, if their finger prints or face isn’t in a FEDERAL database, how can you prove they aren’t who they claim to be??

    I apologize in advance for injecting reality into this debate. I know how the proponents hate that. ”

    The fact is if they committed any half way serious crime their prints would most likely be in the database. Thats the whole point

    IAFIS is not some far fetched star trek thing. It is reality and has been used years. IT is very effective

  6. biglsusportsfan says:

    “I’ve tried 3 different debate strategies with the proponents. The fact based, appeal to reason has been my least successful. They aren’t interested in facts and they turn a deaf ear towards them. The only strategy that showed even marginal results was the appeal to emotion. Just food for thought.

    I’m not saying to let up on the facts. Hammer away!! I know I intend to keep it up. Just don’t expect any results with the proponents who argue here on AJ’s blog. They couldn’t care less about facts. The most we can do is influence a casual reader. ”

    Good Grief Apache you think alot of yourself. If someone doesnt agree with you it s because they are not interested in facts? I find in the real world people can come to different conclusions based on t he same facts and influenced by various other personal experinces, education all of which the facts are filtered through

  7. biglsusportsfan says:

    “According to the FBI:

    http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/faqs.html

    How long does it take to get a background check once the FBI receives the request? ”

    Good greif this is completly different. THe do this in 24 hours they are not going to be mailing stuff to the FBI. They will almost immediate access. If you know someone at your local Police station go down there and see how quick its done

  8. Bikerken says:

    BLU, “The fact is if they committed any half way serious crime their prints would most likely be in the database.”

    You forgot one TINY little caveat. If they were CAUGHT committing any half way serious crime…..AND that still doesn’t address the problem of clearing foreingers through their home countries. You are so hell bent on being for this legislation because the catholic church is in desperate need of millions of new parisheners, and we all know why, that you would make a deal with the devil himself to make it happen, which is exactly what you are doing.

  9. Terrye says:

    Aj:

    I don’t have time to read all the comments and do not have to. Some people are sooooo predictable.

    But thank you for hanging in there. And sooner or later the people doing the bitching over there on the hard right are either going to have to come up with something better or they are going to start looking even more ridiculous than they already do..

    Nonstop bitching is not a solution folks.

  10. AJStrata says:

    Bikerken,

    Not my fault you developed GIGO. Unless you worked IAFIS you have nothing to say except since nothing is foolproof we should do nothing.

    It is always the last desperate bastion of the hypochondriacs. It won’t work on a small fraction so forget the 99% it does work on.

    Like I said, you and your ilk have shutdown the neurons on this subject. The backgroubnd checks can be processed as promised. We keep reminding you there is no tooth fairy and no perfection and you keep wishing it were so.

  11. AJStrata says:

    Appache,

    SSA is not the FBI and a Social Security Card does not invoke a backround check. I know it is tough for you, but try and stay on the subject.

    For the rest, IAFIS has been expanded. I will point you here for some information on the current state of the art. It ain\’t GIGO.

  12. AJStrata says:

    Copy of a comment I left over at CQ:

    “I see the deniers still looking for perfection (and probably the tooth fairy). IAFIS is massive and is the largest criminal ID system in the world. It will find a criminal record. But no one can find a criminal without a record.

    So the argument is since we cannot find criminals without records we should do nothing about the onese we know have records and we still cannot get deported by our FUBAR’s existing (yet magically effective) laws??

    And people wonder why I nicknamed the opposition to the bill ‘amnesty hypochondriacs’! If IAFIS is 95% accurate (that means it clears the 80+% who are free of violent crimes and and find the 15% or so who do have records) that means the problem we have is not 12+ million people to sift through but only 600K. Still a large number – but a HUGE step forward.

    My guess is it is much more effective than 95%. But here’t the flip side. In my example of above (way conservative on the numbers of violent criminals in the population) we find 600K a problem left to deal with, but we find 1.8 million criminals ID’d and on the way out. So I asl again? Are we going to do nothing because we are never going to get a 100% solution and NO ONE can identify a criminal who doesn’t have a record.

    One last reminder: “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”. Remember our cultural foundations. Only the Europeans assume guilty until proven innocent.”

  13. TomAnon says:

    Many of the same immigration hypochondriacs pointing out the impossibility of 24 hour background checks have allready agreed that a 24 hour background check is a reasonable period to wait to procure a handgun. In fact you purchase any weapon now rifle, shotgun, handgun, etc. and you have a criminal background check performed almost immediatly. The databases are still a bit un synched yet and the AIFIS is a little slow still; however, these are technical challenges that are very acheivable in short time frame. We are there allready is my point. Even on weekends when there are numerous gun shows going on and thousands of firearms changing hands, the Federal Government still is able to check everyone in a reasonable amount of time. It is not perfect but it can be worked out.

    And yes, Cheung did fall through the cracks.

  14. apache_ip says:

    AJ said –
    SSA is not the FBI and a Social Security Card does not invoke a backround check. I know it is tough for you, but try and stay on the subject.

    I admit I have a problem with leading people to what I consider to be the obvious conclusion and then not “saying” it. My problem is that I consider it to be so obvious, I don’t see the point in saying it.

    The article I cited represents 9 million FELONIES!

    Will those names be in your precious IAFIS database????????

  15. apache_ip says:

    The fact is if they committed any half way serious crime their prints would most likely be in the database. Thats the whole point

    If true, then why would these people come forward?? Why wouldn’t they just stay in the “shadows”?

    What if a wanna be terrorist, who hasn’t committed his act of terror yet, wanted a nice pretty federal ID. He has a real dilemma then. Should he use his real name or a fake name? Decisions. Decisions.

  16. The Macker says:

    Bikerken,
    Your snide comments to Biglsu were oozing religious prejudice and ignorance. Why should you be taken seriously?

  17. conservativered says:

    The Preferences Are Coming – Twelve Million of Them

    By Lloyd Billingsley
    June 21, 2007

    The 12 million or more who entered the United States illegally, and would gain United States citizenship under the current immigration proposal, Senate Bill 1348, will qualify for race preferences and privileges for which the majority of Americans are not eligible. This is not fair.

    That is the view of Ward Connerly of the Sacramento-based American Civil Rights Institute, a veteran of battles against racial preferences in California, Washington and Michigan, and who believes that “race and ethnic preferences ought to be wrong under any circumstances.” The current immigration measure, Connerly believes, would constitute a massive endowment of such preferences.

    “This is huge,” Connerly told Frontpage. “All this talk of going to the back of the line is B.S.. They would go to the front of the line. The minute they are Americans, they move in front of white males and in some cases white women.” Legalized Hispanic immigrants, Connerly says, would also gain privileges over immigrants from nations such as Russia because they would be part of an officially sanctioned “underrepresented minority.”

    “We have to somehow make the American public aware of this. We are, right now, the Paul Revere on this. There is a problem here.”

    The problem, according to Connerly, lies in “the nexus between illegal immigration and preferences.” That issue had not been part of the immigration debate until last Friday, when Connerly published an open letter in the Washington Times, signed by various individuals, some of whom disagree with him on immigration policy per se. Signatories include Grover Norquist, Linda Chavez, and civil-rights advocate Joe Hicks.

    “This is one of those things that people have not thought through.” Connerly said. “A group that has never had the historic discrimination of blacks would be given the status of an underrepresented minority in this country.” …

    Just another of the many unheralded benefits of the amnesty bill.

  18. Bikerken says:

    Macker, being at the ‘center of the storm’ so to speak in not only the immigration mess but also the catholic churches problems, these issues are discussed locally very much and they are very much connected. When Cardinal Bernard Law in LA, who it was recently found out, was knowingly shifting around pedo-priests from one parish to another, comes out as an advocate of opening the border to millions of more catholics, it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to see why. The Catholic church is paying HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of dollars to countless victims of these perverts posing as men of god. They are bleeding green. You don’t think maybe they have a financial interest in bringing in as many Mexicans, of whom many are catholic to become tithe paying members? God is holy, the church is holy, perverts who commit horrible acts under this cover are not. It is an ugly truth what is happening here but that is not going to keep me from saying it. Snide, I don’t think so. True, hell yes!

  19. The Macker says:

    Bikerken ,

    I doubt the LA cardinal ( not Law) was motivated by money. Remember, your camp insists the immigrants are all poor, uneducated and in need of services. I rather imagine he was following a biblical injunction.

    Finally, it needs to be said that if the GOP survives, and it will, we can thank GWB for not alienating the legal Hispanic population. That is part of the big picture.

  20. Bikerken says:

    You are correct Mack. Law had already resigned. I was speaking about him being in an LA because that where the trials are being held. It was Mahoney, who was covering for Law that was the LA cardinal. It’s so easy to get these people mixed up when they all behave the same and end up the subject of the same trial.

    “I rather imagine he was following a biblical injunction.”
    Thats what BLU said that got me to mention it to begin with. While I believe in god, I am not a church going person and I don’t believe that “biblical” is a good justification for allowing anyone in the world who can make it here to come. There were a lot of real catastrophes that were biblical. As a matter of fact, if you read the bible, there are all sorts of stories about the laws of unintended consequences where good faith is concerned.

    Just so we’re clear, I have nothing against the catholic church, I think they have done a lot of great things. I do have a lot of justified anger against some of the people who have soiled it’s name through their own personal behaviour or use it to justify their own ends.