The good looking Sunday headlines in the SF Chronicle were just a teaser: Aussie Hired by State GOP Embroiled in Immigration Lawsuit. What followed was sort of mind-boggling.
“Michael Kamburowski, the Australian immigrant hired as a top official in the California Republican Party, was ordered deported in 2001, jailed three years later for visa violations — and has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, according to U.S. District Court documents. …”
“Kamburowski, an Australian citizen , arrived in the United States on a pleasure trip on Jan. 23, 1995, and took up residence in Arlington, Va.
Two years later, in February 1997, Kamburowski married an American woman. … ” [Was his residence in Arlington continuous for two years — on a tourist visa? Is this legal? Or was he an illegal!]
“Kamburowski was named in March to be the chief operating officer of the California GOP. He is responsible for the state party’s multimillion-dollar budget and oversees campaign funds and financing for the nation’s largest state GOP organization.
As the state GOP’s new operating officer, the 35-year-old Kamburowski was handpicked for the post by state Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring, who became party chief in February.”
“Kamburowski is a former registered lobbyist for Americans for Tax Reform and a top operative for the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, both founded by conservative activist Grover Norquist….”
“Rico Pester, who was Kamburowski’s former boss at Re/Max Realty in the Dominican Republic, said he had arrived in Punta Cana in the summer of 2006 and “was so successful that he couldn’t sell anything the whole time he was here — and we provided him with clients. He didn’t rent anything and he didn’t sell anything. … I have no idea what he was doing.”
Then, in February, Kamburowski “ran away without mentioning anything to us,” he said.
“I couldn’t understand how somebody like him could become a (Republican Party) COO,” Pester said in a telephone interview.
Not only this, but the California GOP hired Christopher Matthews, a Canadian citizen with no experience in statewide politics, after applying for, and receiving, an H1B visa specifically to fill the role of “political director,” according to U.S. Department of Labor data. [Note: H1B Visas are for specialty occupations, not fillable by locals. A specialty occupation is an occupation that requires that theoretical and practical application of a specialized body of knowledge. Specialty occupations normally require bachelor’s degree as a minimum requirement. Applicants filling specialty occupation positions will have a bachelor’s degree in the field of the specialty occupation or have a substantial amount of related experience. Generally, most H1B applicants are doctors, engineers, professors, accountants, lawyers, physical therapists, and computer professionals…]
“The decisions to hire Matthews and Kamburowski represent the welcoming values of the Republican Party, the California Republican chairman said.” Whoohee! Funny, neither of these great immigrants displays any of the brownness of the unwelcome ones….
It’s hard to know which is more stunning: the lack of business sense in the Party which boasts, non-stop, about the same, or the lack of eyeballs to see that hiring two immigrants to do work capably filled by citizens for decades, one of whom could reasonably enough thought to be illegal, by the party screaming about the immigration problem. Flip a coin. I’ll agree with either….