Rhymes With Right

February 07, 2008

From The Mouths Of Babes

Just one of those reminders about how far we have gone in accommodating illegal aliens in this country Â– at the expense of every American citizen, including those of Hispanic descent.

As IÂ’ve mentioned, over half of my students are Hispanic of one variety or another. As a result, I have Hispanic students who are in the country illegally, legal resident aliens, naturalized citizens, and US citizens by birth Â– even some who are third and fourth generation or more. And it is those latter students, American by birth, who have gotten the not so subtle signal that they really donÂ’t count when it comes to programs for Hispanic students.

Yesterday my 10th grade students got their score sheets from the PSAT test they took this fall. The next administration of the test will be this coming fall, and could qualify them as National Merit Semi-Finalists, and also for the National Hispanic Recognition Program run by the College Board.

One of my students did exceptionally well on the PSAT, showing the potential to qualify for one or both of these programs if she continues to work hard and makes sure she participates in the test preparation programs that we offer at our school. This young lady is a very special girl Â– intelligent, poised, athletic, and well-spoken, as well as very motivated. In other words, she is everything that I or any other teacher could ask for. I took her aside for a moment to offer some praise and to urge her to take advantage of the programs our school offers to prepare students for the PSAT, SAT, and ACT tests. In the course of this, I mentioned the NHRP.

The response I got to the latter suggestion shocked me.

Â“Oh, no, mister, they wonÂ’t take me. IÂ’ve got papers.Â”

I really didnÂ’t think I heard her correctly, so I asked her to repeat herself.

Â“I was born here, so they wonÂ’t take me.Â”

Now I was able to fix her misconception by showing her the qualifications for the program on my computer, and assured her that US-born students of Latin American heritage qualified for the program.

But in the back of my mind I was really disturbed, and became even more disturbed as I realized that this perceptive young lady had picked up on an essential truth about our schizophrenic policy regarding illegal aliens.

We throw benefits at illegal aliens, especially illegal alien students. We make special exceptions for them and run special programs for them in our schools. Most people take those programs for granted, and to raise a question about their legitimacy is to risk being labeled a racist.

But this girl, an American of Hispanic ancestry, was not so politically correct as to avoid the truth. She implicitly named the problem Â– too often the benefits of special problems accrue not to those who follow our laws, but instead to the lawbreakers. And that, my friends, is simply wrong. It is time that we put American citizens and legal aliens first.

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February 03, 2008

Time To Pass Them Here

Stricter laws in Oklahoma and Arizona regarding border jumping immigration criminals are pushing such folks into Texas, where such laws have not been passed.

We need to make passing such laws a priority.

Illegal immigrants are flowing into Texas across its long borders. But they aren't just swimming across the Rio Grande from Mexico or making dangerous treks through the rugged desert.
Instead, a new rush of illegal immigrants are driving down Interstate 35 from Oklahoma or heading east to Texas from Arizona to flee tough new anti-illegal immigrant laws in those and other states.
Though few numbers are available because illegal residents are difficult to track, community activists say immigrants have arrived in Houston and Dallas in recent months, and they expect hundreds more families to relocate to the Bayou City soon.
''They're really tightening the screws," said Mario Ortiz, an undocumented Mexican worker who came to Houston after leaving Phoenix last year. ''There have been a lot coming Â— it could be 100 a day."
The growing exodus is the result of dozens of new state and local laws aimed at curbing illegal immigration. The two toughest measures are in Oklahoma and Arizona.
The Oklahoma statute, which took effect in November, makes it a crime to transport, harbor or hire illegal immigrants. Effective Jan. 1, the Arizona law suspends the business license of employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers. On a second offense, the license is revoked.

Texas has a choice. We can welcome lawbreakers and assume the extra tax burden that they impose on every citizen and legal immigrant in the state. Or we can impose similar laws here, encouraging many of these invaders to self-deport. Texas can be a part of the firewall against those who break our nation's laws, or we can be their preferred point of entry and place of residence. I know which position most Texans take, and demand that our legislators follow the will of the people during the next legislative session.

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January 17, 2008

Mexico Protects Killers

Just a reminder -- the Mexican government not only has an official policy to violate our nation's border and sovereignty, it also has a policy in place to protect those who commit murders in the United States.

A methamphetamine dealer who gunned down a deputy during a traffic stop in Southern California. A man in Arizona who killed his ex-girlfriend's parents and brother and snatched his children. A man who suffocated his baby daughter and left her body in a toolbag on an expressway overpass near Chicago.
Ordinarily, these would be death penalty cases. But these men fled to Mexico, thereby escaping the possibility of execution.
The reason: Mexico refuses to send anyone back to the United States unless the U.S. gives assurances it won't seek the death penalty a 30-year-old policy that rankles some American prosecutors and enrages victims' families.

I've been aware of this for years. A colleagues daughter was murdered some years ago in a drive-by shooting by a couple of "undocumented immigrants" out committing the homicides Americans won't commit. The two gang-banging scumbags flitted south to Mexico, where they have escaped justice for years. And not only did the Mexican government insist the death penalty come off the table, they also demanded an upper limit on the prison sentence in advance -- and let the one guy they caught walk free after the prosecutor and family balked.

Mexico, you see, doesn't care about dead Americans -- or any other consequence of its policy of encouraging Mexican nationals to break American immigration law.

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January 09, 2008

Aiding Illegals Is A Crime

And here is an individual I'm glad to see charged.

The owner of a landscaping firm was arrested Wednesday and faces up to 10 years in federal prison, accused of harboring one of his workers, an illegal immigrant from Mexico charged with the capital murder of a Houston police officer.
Court documents show that Robert Lane Camp, 47, went to considerable lengths to help Juan Leonardo Quintero and keep him on the job at his Deer Park landscaping company before the September 2006 killing of officer Rodney Johnson.
In August 1998, Camp posted a $10,000 bond for Quintero after he was jailed on an indecency with a child charge and hired an attorney to defend him. After the worker was deported in May 1999, Camp sent him money in Mexico and later bought him a plane ticket from Phoenix to Houston after Quintero re-entered through Arizona illegally, according to an affidavit by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. Camp then purchased a house in Houston and rented it to Quintero.

Clearly, this isn't just "he gave an illegal a job" situation. Camp went to extraordinary lengths to make sure that he could employ this particular border-jumping criminal. He helped get Quintero back in the country after he abused a child. He bought the man a house. Camp gave the American dream to this scumbag -- why wouldn't he stay in this country, and even murder a police officer to try to keep that life?

I'm just curious -- is there any way the state can charge Robert Lane Camp as an accessory to the murder of Officer Rodney Johnson based upon the following facts?

Â• August 1998: Robert Camp posts a $10,000 cash bond for Juan Leonardo Quintero, who was charged with indecency with a child.
Â• March 3, 1999: Quintero is convicted of a sexual offense with a minor.
Â• May 7, 1999: Quintero is deported from the U.S.
Â• Nov. 26, 1999: Quintero boards a Southwest Airlines flight from Phoenix to Houston after hiring a smuggler to re-enter the U.S. through Arizona. Quintero's wife tells investigators her husband told her Camp purchased the ticket.
Â• Sept. 21, 2006: Quintero is accused of fatally shooting Houston police officer Rodney Johnson in the head during a traffic stop in which Quintero was driving a company truck owned by Camp. Quintero is later charged with capital murder.

After all, it is clear that the murder would not have happened except for Camp's active participation in and facilitation of Quintero's other illegal activity -- including his presence in this country.

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December 31, 2007

Not A Bad Choice

I wasn't upset last week when Time Magazine named Vladimir Putin as it's Man of the Year. After all, as it often reminds readers, the choice is the person who most impacted the world for good or evil.

Thus 1938 saw the award go to Hitler, followed by Stalin in 1939 and again in 1942. Another Soviet dictator, Nikita Krushchev, got the nod in 1957, while China's Chairman Den Xiaoping won in 1978 (and again in 1985) and Ayatollah Khomeni in 1979.

I'd have to argue that a similar argument can therefore be made about the selection made by the Dallas Morning News as Texan of the Year -- the law-breaking, border-jumping immigration criminal (although they called him "The Illegal Immigrant").

He breaks the law by his very presence. He hustles to do hard work many Americans won't, at least not at the low wages he accepts. The American consumer economy depends on him. America as we have known it for generations may not survive him.
We can't seem to live with him and his family, and if we can live without him, nobody's figured out how.
He's the Illegal Immigrant, and he's the 2007 Dallas Morning News Texan of the Year Â– for better or for worse. Given the public mood, there seems to be little middle ground in debate over illegal immigrants. Spectacular fights over their presence broke out across Texas this year, adding to the national pressure cooker as only Texas can.

And as with any such criminal, he is clearly detrimental to those of us who he victimizes by his presence.

Nationally, a Congressional Budget Office report released this month said illegal immigrants cost more in tax dollars than they provide, especially in the areas of education, law enforcement and health. Indeed, 70 percent of babies born in Dallas' Parkland Hospital in the first three months of 2006 were to illegal immigrant mothers. Taxpayers spend tens of millions of dollars annually subsidizing births in that one hospital.

Yes, boys and girls, that's right -- you and I are the victims of these folks, as they reach their hands right into our wallets to take from us money to provide them with benefits to which they have no legal or moral entitlement. The notion of some soft-heated, soft-minded judges that these folks are entitled to anything other than a bus ticket home and a computer entry denying them the privilege of ever crossing the border into the US again is the main thing preventing crackdowns on such benefits and the presence of such folks in our communities. Well that and the desire of Democrat politicians to get these folks legalized and voting Democrat, and businessmen who would rather hire cheap illegal worker than American citizens at American wages (and yes, that does include you, Bob Perry).

I don't care about most of the cultural issues -- I have no problem with new pieces added to the mosaic of American life. I speak Spanish (with a serious gringo accent, according to some of my students), like Mexican food, and love certain of the customs that these people bring with them. But I do believe that a measure of assimilation is a necessity, and to that end believe that learning English is a necessity rather than setting up the parallel cultural institutions we have seen develop.

Do I believe that we need to fight illegal immigration? You bet I do -- every bit as much as we needed to fight the twin menaces of Nazism and Communism, and as we need to fight Islamism today. Yet at the same time, I welcome legally immigrating foreigners from every country, provided they are willing to embrace America's history and values even as they share elements of their own with us. The choice is not between having immigration and having none. Rather, it is between having an orderly system with enforced immigration control, or the pell-mell invasion of our country by those who take more than they give.

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December 14, 2007

Odd Poll Numbers

I canÂ’t help but be struck by a disparity in the numbers in this poll.

After a year of stepped-up enforcement against illegal immigration and polarized debate on the issue, about half of the Hispanics in the United States now fear that they or a relative or close friend could be deported, a report released Thursday by the Pew Hispanic Center found.
About two-thirds of Hispanics said their lives had been made more difficult by the political fight over immigration and the failure of Congress to address the situation of illegal immigrants, the Pew survey found. Roughly half the Hispanics in the poll said the heightened attention to immigration had had a directly negative impact on them, in some cases making it harder for them to find jobs or housing.
Some 41 percent of Hispanics said they or someone close to them had had a personal experience of discrimination in the past five years, an increase of 10 percent since 2002 of HispanicsÂ’ reporting such experiences, the survey found.

Now I have a very sincere concern about these numbers. Take the first one. Roughly half of Hispanics Â“fear that they or a relative or close friend could be deported.Â” What does that number tell us? Well, the Hispanic population of this country is roughly 47 million people. Estimates of the illegal immigrant population range from 12-20 million (Pew skews those numbers lower). The latter are, of course, subject to deportation. And since that population is 25-40% of the total Hispanic population, IÂ’m rather shocked that the percentage of those who Â“fear that they or a relative or close friend could be deportedÂ” isnÂ’t significantly higher than 50%. Indeed, if the US government were really doing its job on border enforcement and immigration control the number ought to be closer to 75% when you throw in the Â“or a relative or close friendÂ” aspect of the question. I suspect that is why the numbers saying that Â“their lives had been made more difficultÂ” and Â“a direct negative impact on themÂ” were as high as they were.

LetÂ’s consider a different number Â– the 41% of Hispanics who said they or someone close to them had had a personal experience of discrimination.Â” IÂ’m curious how that number really breaks down in terms of the nature of that Â“personal experience of discrimination.Â” To what degree are we talking about employment or housing discrimination, discrimination in public accommodations or some other form of illegal discrimination? To what degree are we talking about so-called Â“hate crimesÂ”? And last, but not least, how much of that Â“discriminationÂ” took the form of perceived social slights or failures in cross-cultural communication? For that matter, how much of the Â“discriminationÂ” was the result of someone facing the consequences of being in this country illegally and either not being able to get a job, losing a job, or being deported because of immigration status? Again, the number raises more questions than it answers.

And I make that last point because of one final number reported upon here.

Despite their concerns about the current atmosphere, about 71 percent of Hispanics surveyed described the overall quality of their lives as good or excellent. More than three-quarters said they were confident that their children would grow up to have better-paying jobs than theirs.

Oh, really? For all the gripes and concerns, it sounds like Hispanics in this country still feel that life is pretty good here, and the future is pretty rosy. That certainly stands in sharp contrast to the horrendous picture painted by the first 17 paragraphs of this 19 paragraph article. Somehow, though, that is not particularly newsworthy, and got buried at the end of the story.

Oh, and since I took a look at the actual Pew Hispanic Center release on the poll, there is another detail that did not get reported at all.

In addition to this wide variance in views between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, the survey finds less pronounced--but still significant--gaps within the Hispanic community on a range of matters, from perceptions about discrimination to attitudes about illegal immigration to support for tougher enforcement measures. For example, on questions about enforcement policies, native-born Hispanics take positions that are closer to those of the rest of the U.S. population than do foreign-born Hispanics. Also, the native born are less likely than the foreign born to report a negative personal impact from the heightened attention to immigration issues.
Likewise, Hispanics who are not citizens feel much more vulnerable in the current environment than do Hispanics who are citizens. They are about twice as likely as Hispanic citizens to worry about deportation and to feel a specific negative personal impact from the heightened attention to illegal immigration. (Non-citizens account for 44% of the total adult Hispanic population. Of these non-citizen Latino adults, an estimated 55% are undocumented immigrants and the other 45% are legal aliens).

In other words, there is not a giant Â“HispanicÂ” monolith. Attitudes vary depending on place of birth, citizenship, immigration status and (one would presume) ancestry. And while there are commonalities, you discover that those with the biggest problems are, as one would guess, those who are in this country illegally, unable to speak the language. Imagine that!

Personally, I welcome any legal immigrant -- especially those who wish to come to this country and become a part of it. Such individuals our lives and our culture. But those who can't follow our laws are another matter -- and my concern for their sense of being picked upon is minimal.

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December 13, 2007

Like This Is A Bad Thing

I don't know about you, but complaints like these from Arizona really don't move me at all.

Advocates for immigrants contend that, at a minimum, hundreds of people unauthorized to work have left the state or been fired. Some school districts have at least partly attributed enrollment drops to the law. Though the housing slump and seasonal economic factors make it difficult to pin down how much is attributable to the new law, illegal workers say employers are checking papers and are less inclined to hire them.
Â“They started asking everybody for papers one day, and those like me that didnÂ’t have them were fired,Â” said Luis Baltazar, a Mexican immigrant who worked for a paving company until a few weeks ago and was soliciting work at a day labor hiring hall here.
Another immigrant, Jose Segovia, said work had plummeted in the past few weeks, more so than in the four previous Decembers he spent in Phoenix. Â“Some of my friends went back to Mexico,Â” Mr. Segovia said, Â“and I am thinking of going, too, if it doesnÂ’t get better here.Â”

That is, of course, exactly what is supposed to happen. You know, when the rule of law is reasserted in the sphere, the outlaws are faced with a less hospitable climate. For such folks to complain that they lost their illegally-obtained and held jobs because employers were required to begin following the law is rather appalling. What next -- demands from burglars that laws permitting alarms and security systems be repealed because they interfere with the ability of an honest felon to make by stealing?

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December 09, 2007

A Reporter Misses The Point

I skipped the Univision debate. No, not because of the station -- because I'd rather hear Christmas music at the church cantata. But I have looked at transcripts and coverage of the debate, and find the following characterization of of the positions taken by the GOP candidates a bit troubling.

Most of the seven candidates took a softer tone on Sunday, even as many spoke of working to eradicate illegal immigration. Some spoke of trying to send some of the 12 million people who are estimated to be in the United States illegally back to their native countries.
They sandwiched their remarks between gauzy paeans to legal immigration and the values of immigrants.

It seems that someone doesn't get the point. The GOP is, almost universally, in favor of legal immigration. What most of us have a problem with is the fact that our laws are going unenforced, and the lawbreakers are going unpunished (and, in fact, rewarded with access to government social services). We welcome law-abiding immigrants -- but not those whose very act of crossing the border was a violation of the law. The same can be said of the GOP candidates.

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December 07, 2007

Mexico Demands US Kow-Tow

Mexican ~~President~~ Pendejo Felipe ~~Calderon~~ Cabron has demanded that US presidential candidates limit themselves to Mexican government-approved statements on immigration and that the United States Congress comply with conditions set by Mexico for receiving foreign aid from the United States.

President Felipe Calderon accused U.S. presidential candidates yesterday of anti-Mexican posturing and warned the U.S. Congress not to impose conditions on an anti-drug aid package.
Â“The only theme in the (U.S.) electoral campaign is to compete to see who can be the most swaggering, macho and anti-Mexican,Â” Calderon told a local radio station, Enfoque. He did not name any candidate or party.
Â“I find the greatest sensitivity in the U.S. government, some in Congress,Â” Calderon said, but added that there was Â“a total lack of understanding and aggravation, hostility toward MexicoÂ” among Americans in general.
Calderon also appeared to reject any conditions on a proposed $1.4 billion U.S. anti-drug aid package that had been negotiated with American officials, saying, Â“I cannot accept any submission or subordination.Â”
The proposal by the Bush administration, called the Merida Initiative, is to give Mexico aid, training and equipment to fight drug trafficking, which U.S. officials see as a national-security problem.
It awaits approval in Congress, and some U.S. legislators have suggested that the program may need safeguards to prevent corruption or human-rights abuses by Mexican authorities.
Â“I need that technology,Â” Calderon said. Â“Give it to me. And give it to me without conditions.Â”

Of all the incredible gall! His pathetic nation cannot support its people or appropriately deal with its own law enforcement needs without American money, and yet he wants to dictate to the United States the conditions under which it is appropriated and disbursed by the American government? Who the f*ck does this guy think he is?

Forget Iran Â– the time has come to roll the tanks south and throw out la basura -- the coyotes, the drug lords, and the corrupt government. Maybe in 20-30 years, Mexico will, for the first time in its history, be ready for self-government Â– or for gradual admission of new states to the union, given the number of Mexicans who want to be in the United States. After all, would it not be infinitely more logical and humane to move the US border south rather than require these people to face the dangers of migrating north illegally?

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December 06, 2007

Boston Globe: Those Who Report Crimes Are Â“VigilantesÂ”

Now to be fair, they are simply agreeing with Hillary Clinton, who made the same statement about those who call the authorities about known lawbreakers. And besides, they are only referencing those who call the authorities over those who break laws that the Boston Globe dislikes (except when they can use them to play Â“gotchaÂ” with a GOP politician).

During a radio debate Tuesday in Iowa, Democratic candidates were even asked whether individual Americans should turn in people they know to be in the country illegally.
Thankfully, the answers were mostly no. Hillary Clinton said turning "every American into a suspicious vigilante" would do grave harm to the fabric of the nation. And in last week's debate, even Romney seemed to agree, asking Giuliani heatedly if he was suggesting that Romney should demand to see immigration papers whenever a person speaks with a "funny accent."
Give these candidates credit for rejecting what would be a civic nightmare. Encouraging individuals to act like border-control vigilantes would create a chaotic flow of true and false charges that could overwhelm immigration officials. The country would end up detaining and deporting thousands of service workers, upending the economy, and creating humanitarian crises for workers' children.

Of course, similar arguments could be made about other crimes. Imagine the disruption of educational and child care services if every child molester were reported, arrested and imprisoned? There would be a crisis! A similar argument could be made about crooked cops and accountants. Even if the person making the report was 100% certain about the facts, the impact upon America would be astounding. Better to let law enforcement find the perpetrators without the amateur vigilantes dropping a dime on lawbreakers Â– that way it wonÂ’t overtax the system. Besides, imagine the humanitarian crisis that would be created for the children of all these lawbreakers if their crimes were properly punished.

Oh, and about that Â“funny accentÂ” comment. I do believe that recent reporting by the Boston Globe implies that Romney is supposed to do precisely that Â– demand the immigration papers of any individual who doesnÂ’t speak English perfectly. After all, that is what they did Â– having spent more time at RomneyÂ’s home than Romney has over the last few weeks. And it appears that the Globe has not bothered to reveal the answers to my questions from the other day:

1) Are all three employees actually here illegally?
2) Did they present fraudulent documents or engage in identity theft to get these jobs?
3) Did the employer know that these workers were illegal?

Until we get those answers, we really donÂ’t know if Romney did anything wrong Â– and we donÂ’t know if Ricardo Saenz was a victim of the illegal workers providing fraudulent documents, or if he knowingly and willfully continued to hire illegal workers after being caught before.

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December 04, 2007

A Curious Development

But not necessarily as alarming as some would like to make it.

Kevin Madden, Mitt RomneyÂ’s national press secretary, just sent out an e-mail announcing that the Massachusetts governor had fired Community Lawn Service after Â“learning that a company caring for the governorÂ’s property was employing individuals who are not permitted to work in the United States.Â”
The Boston Globe reported last year that Romney had used a landscaping company that hired illegal Guatemalan immigrants to tend to his property. The charges have dogged the former Massachusetts governorÂ’s presidential campaign.
Most recently after Mr. Romney accused his Republican rival Rudolph W. Giuliani of running a Â“sanctuary cityÂ” for illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York, Mr. Giuliani accused Mr. Romney of having a Â“sanctuary mansionÂ” because he employed illegal immigrants at his home.

The problem is that Romney DID NOT employ these illegals -- the landscaper did. And while the past record of this employer would have led me to discontinue my business contacts, I can understand the decision to get the guy to do right and continue that relationship. Consider what we do know at this point.

After the discovery a year ago of the illegal workers, Mr. Romney said in his statement yesterday that he Â“gave the company a second chance with very specific conditions. They were instructed to make sure people working for the company were of legal status. We personally met with the company in order to inform them about the importance of this matter. The owner of the company guaranteed us, in very certain terms, that his company would be in total compliance with the law going forward. The companyÂ’s failure to comply with the law is disappointing and inexcusable, and I believe it is important I take this action.Â”
The companyÂ’s owner, Ricardo SÃ¡enz, a legal Colombian immigrant, met Mr. Romney through the Mormon Church, according to The Globe.
Last Thursday, the day after the debate, The Globe interviewed two of the three workers from the company who were working on Mr. RomneyÂ’s lawn. Both admitted they were illegal immigrants from Guatemala. One of them said the third worker was also in the country illegally.

Now I'd like to know some details here before passing judgment.

1) Are all three employees actually here illegally?
2) Did they present fraudulent documents or engage in identity theft to get these jobs?
3) Did the employer know that these workers were illegal?

The answers to these questions are quite critical. After all, there is a limit to how far an employer can go to question the legal status of an employer who presents documents purporting to show legal work status. It may be that the employer in this case was defrauded by the employees in question. And if that is the case, not only have the Romneys been victimized here, but so has the employer. Interestingly enough, the Boston Globe story does not seem to have pursued that aspect on the story -- merely the "gotcha" angle that obscures the issue rather than illuminates it. As such, this is a case of a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin asks some other interesting questions of the Boston Globe and the MSM, too.

Will Geraldo Rivera and his open-borders companions accuse the reporters of Nazi-like tactics for Â“harassingÂ” the illegal immigrants?
Will the Globe reporters be accused of, ahem, Â“stalkingÂ” the poor illegals and invading privacy? Note that they didnÂ’t just drive by the house once. They hung out on the lawn over the last two months.
And when is it permissible to ask an illegal alien his citizenship status?
Now, the answers are loud and clear:
It isnÂ’t Â“harassmentÂ” when liberal MSM journalists spy on illegal aliensÂ…if it will embarrass a Republican presidential candidate.
It isnÂ’t Â“stalkingÂ” when liberal MSM journalists snap photos of your lawn and conduct two-month-long recoinnasance missionsÂ…if it will embarrass a Republican presidential candidate.
And while itÂ’s bad for police to ask suspected criminal aliens their citizenship status, itÂ’s fine and dandy for journalists to ask lawn workers whether theyÂ’re here illegallyÂ…if it will embarrass a Republican presidential candidate.

All perfectly appropriate rhetorical questions -- and spot-on answers. But I still would like to have my questions answered.

More At Hugh Hewitt, Patrick Ruffini, Andrew Sullivan

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Let's Make Houston Next

It is time for the city of Houston to drop its sanctuary policies, just like Phoenix has.

Under pressure from advocates for stricter immigration laws, the mayor of Phoenix said on Monday that he no longer backed a Police Department order barring officers from routinely asking the immigration status of people it arrested and announced a panel to study a policy change.
A spokesman for Mayor Phil Gordon, Scott Phelps, said the policy was Â“written for another timeÂ” on the belief that the federal government Â“would fulfill all of its immigration responsibilities, and clearly that has changed.Â”
But Mr. Gordon, a Democrat, announced the change at a time when sentiment against illegal immigrants has intensified in Phoenix after the shooting death two months ago of a police officer, Nick Erfle, by an illegal immigrant. There have also been weekly protests at a furniture store whose owners have pressed the authorities to arrest day laborers who congregate there and who are believed to be in the country illegally.

These policies effectively aid and abet illegal immigration. And the preferred change is simply to determine the immigration status of those arrested on other charges, not to start broad sweeps through immigrant communities, looking for illegals. And in the end, the result will be the removal of the least desirable illegal immigrants -- the ones who are criminals -- and the creation of a safer community for everyone else, regardless of race, ethnicity, or immigration status.

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November 30, 2007

Stupid Journalist Tricks

How does one even respond to this inane drivel?

When they finally got down to business, after being serenaded by a guitarist on YouTube, it took the Republican presidential candidates 11 Â½ minutes Wednesday night for one of them to acknowledge that illegal immigrants are human beings.

Frankly, IÂ’m surprised it was acknowledged at all.

After all, the GOP has always considered minorities and foreigners to be human beings. It is one of our partyÂ’s founding principles and one which we have always stood for. That is something you cannot say about the Democrats, the Party of Slavery and Segregation.

Indeed, I canÂ’t help but notice that none of the GOP candidates acknowledged the law of gravity or that a water molecule is composed of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Maybe that is because we take those things for granted as well.

Probably a more informative statistic would involve how many minutes it takes for a Democrat to acknowledge that illegal immigrants have broken our nationÂ’s immigration laws.

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November 29, 2007

Why Something Must Be Done

If the federal government will not act, then the state of Texas must seize control of the border and control it.

The status quo is unacceptable.

Half of the nearly 3.5 million immigrants living in Texas are in the country illegally, the Center for Immigration Studies says in a report being released today.
Based on the latest Census Bureau data, the report said Texas has one of the fastest-growing immigrant populations of any state. It said that 50 percent of the state's foreign-born population Â— slightly more than 1.7 million people Â— are illegal immigrants. Only Arizona at 65 percent, North Carolina at 58 percent and Georgia at 53 percent had a higher proportion of illegal immigrants in their immigrant populations.

All sanctuary policies must be ended.

All public benefits must end.

Illegal employers of illegal aliens must be arrested , prosecuted, and jailed whenever possible.

End birthright citizenship for children of illegals.

No safe harbor. We have to turn up the heat so high that those in this country violating our nationÂ’s immigration laws depart on their own.

And let me say this loud and clear Â– every legal immigrant to this country is a welcome immigrant in my eyes. My only objection is to those who come to this country illegally. Only in the most unusual of cases should they ever be granted amnesty. And only after they have waited for their turn in a law-abiding fashion should those who return home and apply for a visa be granted legal admission to this country.

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November 25, 2007

NYTimes Shills For Illegals Again

If only the mean old federal government would quit treating illegal aliens like they've broken the law or something!

It was still dark the morning of Sept. 27 when armed federal immigration agents, guided by local police officers, swept into this village on the East End of Long Island. Within hours, as the team rousted sleeping families, 11 men were added to a running government tally of arrests made in Operation Community Shield, a two-year-old national program singling out violent gang members for deportation.
Â“Violent foreign-born gang members and their associates have more than worn out their welcome,Â” Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said at an October news conference announcing the arrests of 1,313 people in the operation over the summer and fall nationwide. Â“And to them I have one message: Good riddance.Â”
But, to the dismay of many of GreenportÂ’s 2,500 residents, the raid here did not match her words.
Only one of the 11 men taken away that morning was suspected of a gang affiliation, according to the Southold Town police, who patrol Greenport and played the crucial role of identifying targets for the operation.
The 10 others, while accused of immigration violations, were not gang associates and had no criminal records.
Instead, they were known as good workers and family men. When they suddenly vanished into the far-flung immigration detention system, six of their employers hired lawyers to try to find and free them. Some went further, like Dan and Tina Finne, who agreed to take care of the 3-year-old American-born daughter of a Guatemalan carpenter who was swept up in the raid, if her mother was detained, too.
Â“This is un-American,Â” said Ms. Finne, 41, a Greenport native, echoing other citizens who condemned the home raids in public meetings and letters to The Suffolk Times, a weekly newspaper. Â“We need to do something about immigration, but not this.Â”

No, what is un-American is the fact that folks like Mr. Finne and the New York Times are willing to allow our nation's immigration laws go unenforced. What is un-American is that we have no control over our border and any solution such folks offer is nothing less than a de facto amnesty which will, as history has taught us, lead to more illegals streaming across the border because they know they won't be stopped and will get lots of freebies unavailable back home. And what is un-American is the demonization of those of us who want to see a secure border and enforced immigration laws.

Please remember -- the only right these folks have is the right to be deported.

Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

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November 24, 2007

An Act Of Decency

I continue to reject the notion that we can continue to allow folks to cross into the United States at will, and then wave a magic wand making all of them legal and on a path to citizenship.

However, I am more than willing to make an exception in the case of this particular illegal immigrant.

A 9-year-old boy looking for help after his mother crashed their van in the southern Arizona desert was rescued by a man entering the U.S. illegally, who stayed with him until help arrived the next day, an official said.
The 45-year-old woman, who eventually died while awaiting help, had been driving on a U.S. Forest Service road in a remote area just north of the Mexican border when she lost control of her van on a curve on Thanksgiving, Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said.
The van vaulted into a canyon and landed 300 feet from the road, he said. The woman, from Rimrock, north of Phoenix, survived the impact but was pinned inside, Estrada said.
Her son, unhurt but disoriented, crawled out to get help and was found about two hours later by Jesus Manuel Cordova, 26, of Magdalena de Kino in the northern Mexican state of Sonora. Unable to pull the mother out, he comforted the boy while they waited for help.
The woman died a short time later.
"He stayed with him, told him that everything was going to be all right," Estrada said.
As temperatures dropped, he gave him a jacket, built a bonfire and stayed with him until about 8 a.m. Friday, when hunters passed by and called authorities, Estrada said. The boy was flown to University Medical Center in Tucson as a precaution but appeared unhurt.
"We suspect that they communicated somehow, but we don't know if he knows Spanish or if the gentleman knew English," Estrada said of the boy.
"For a 9-year-old it has to be completely traumatic, being out there alone with his mother dead," Estrada said. "Fortunately for the kid, (Cordova) was there. That was his angel."
Cordova was taken into custody by Border Patrol agents, who were the first to respond to the call for help. He had been trying to walk into the U.S. when he came across the boy.
The boy and his mother were in the area camping, Estrada said. The woman's husband, the boy's father, had died only two months ago. The names of the woman and her son were not being released until relatives were notified.

Jesus Manuel Cordova could have simply moved on. He could have left this young boy to fend for himself, probably to join his mother in death. He didn't, which speaks highly of his character and his decency. This act of heroism, of fundamental decency, leads me to argue that our country should overlook his transgression against our immigration laws and reward Jesus Manuel Cordova with legal status in this country. He has more than proven his character and fitness to be here with this single act.

But I reject the notion put forward by this sheriff that seems to minimize the problem caused by illegal immigration.

Cordova likely saved the boy, Estrada said, and his actions should remind people not to quickly characterize illegal immigrants as criminals.
"They do get demonized for a lot of reasons, and they do a lot of good. Obviously this is one example of what an individual can do," he said.

But the reality remains that those who illegally cross our nation's borders are lawbreakers, and many are serious criminals who degrade the quality of life in this country, especially along the border. For every Jesus Manuel Cordova, I could point to a dozen pedophiles, drunk drivers, drug dealers, and other serious criminals (Angel Maturino Resendez, for example) who hop the border with impunity to avoid the consequences of their crimes in the United States.

That said, I hope that the Arizona congressional delegation quickly introduces legislation granting permanent resident status to Jesus Manuel Cordova.

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November 23, 2007

NY Times -- Voice In the Wilderness Or Lost In The Woods?

The New York Times once again takes all of us backwards, Mexican-hating rubes (who think immigration laws ought to be enforced and immigration law-breakers deported rather than rewarded) to task for our Neanderthal ways.

The nation certainly sounds as if itÂ’s in an angry place on immigration.
A major Senate reform bill collapsed in rancor in June, and every effort to revive innocuous bits of it, like a bill to legalize exemplary high school graduates, has been crushed. Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York hatched a plan to let illegal immigrants earn driverÂ’s licenses Â— and steamrollered into the Valley of Death. Asked if she supported Mr. Spitzer, Senator Hillary Clinton tied herself in knots looking for the safest answer.
The Republican presidential candidates, meanwhile, are doggedly out-toughing one another Â— even Rudolph Giuliani, who once defended but now disowns the immigrants who pulled his hard-up city out of a ditch. A freshman Democratic representative, Heath Shuler of North Carolina, has submitted an enforcement bill bristling with border fencing and punishments. Representative Tom Tancredo, Republican of Colorado, for whom restricting immigration is the first, last and only issue, says he will not run again when his term expires next year. I have done all I can, he says, like some weary gunslinger covered in blood and dust.
The natural allies of immigrants have been cowed into mumbling or silent avoidance. The DemocratsÂ’ chief strategist, Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, went so far as to declare immigration the latest Â“third rail of American politics.Â” This profile in squeamishness was on full display at the Democratic presidential debate last week in Las Vegas, when Wolf Blitzer pressed the candidates for yes-or-no answers on driverÂ’s licenses and Mrs. Clinton, to her great discredit, said no.
This yearÂ’s federal failure will not be undone until 2009 at the earliest, while states and local governments will continue doing their own thing, creating a mishmash of immigration policies, most of them harsh and shortsighted. But the wilderness of anger into which Mr. Tancredo helped lead America is not where the country has to be on this vitally important issue, nor where it truly is.

The problem, of course, with this editorial is that it presumes bad faith on the part of those who disagree with its open-borders orientation. Having dispensed with the notion that one's opponents have anything of value to say, the author of the editorial is then able to insist that there really is no other solution but the one proposed in the editorial.

The other problem, of course is that the folks in the editorial suites at the NYT don't have to deal with the real problems of illegal immigration on a daily basis. Those of us closer to the border do. The county I live in just spent $100 million on unreimbursed medical care for illegal immigrants -- about $25 for every man, woman, and child in the county Add in the costs of educating illegal immigrant kids, incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals, etc, and you can see where the local costs are astronomical. The impact on our lives of the flood of illegal immigrants is simply beyond the understanding of northeastern limousine liberals -- and that is why Americans along the border are demanding what the editors view as harsh and inhumane policies that in reality amount to nothing more than insistence that the laws of this country be enforced rather than changed to make the lives of the lawbreakers easier.

It has, of course, been a couple of generations since the New York Times spoke for anyone except the pampered elite (if it ever did). And given that it is so out of contact with what real Americans think, feel, and believe, I'm not surprised that it would take the positions it does. After all, who will water the gardens, mow the lawns, and clean the pools of those who think that the New York Times editorial page is latter-day scripture?

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November 19, 2007

How It Ought To Be

It is time that this policy becomes the standard nationwide.

''It doesn't matter if you're trying to pay off funeral expenses, or take care of a sick family member," explained U.S. Magistrate Diana SaldaÃ±a, referring to the plight of another immigrant. ''When you cross the Rio Grande, you're going to be spending time in prison if the Border Patrol finds you Â— that's the bottom line."

There are legal ways to get into this country. Those who choose not to use them deserve to be rounded up, jailed, and deported -- and denied readmittance. They have already proved their contempt for our nation's laws, and are not welcome here.

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November 17, 2007

Why We Must End Birthright Citizenship

After all, the only reason that this problem exists is because every child of border-jumper born in this country is an American citizen -- and that means we must either let their law-breaking parents stay, deport the citizen children, or separate them. None of the options is attractive, as this article shows.

Federal immigration agents were searching a house in Ohio last month when they found a young Honduran woman nursing her baby.
The woman, SaÃda Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers.
The decision to separate a mother from her breast-feeding child drew strong denunciations from Hispanic and womenÂ’s health groups. Last week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rushed to issue new guidelines on the detention of nursing mothers, allowing them to be released unless they pose a national security risk.
The case exposes a recurring quandary for immigration authorities as an increasing number of American-born children of illegal immigrants become caught up in deportation operations. With the Bush administration stepping up enforcement, the immigration agency has been left scrambling to devise procedures to deal with children who, by law, do not fall under its jurisdiction because they are citizens.
Â“We are faced with these sorts of situations frequently, where a large number of individuals come illegally or overstay and have children in the United States,Â” said Kelly A. Nantel, a spokeswoman for the agency. Â“Unfortunately, the parents are putting their children in these difficult situations.Â”

The problem, of course, is that if we do not keep the border-jumpers locked up pending deportation, many of them will skip out on subsequent hearings -- indeed, many of them have done so at least once in the past, as was the case with the mother highlighted above. And what looks like a particularly cruel practice is, in fact, often the best way of balancing the need for the child to be cared for in a safe environment with the need of the government to keep tabs on their law-breaking parents. And as I have often pointed out in the past, these immigration criminals do have an option to keep their families together -- accept immediate deportation and take their children with them.

The problem would, of course, be easily solved by modifying the current understanding of the Fourteenth Amendment (or by an additional constitutional amendment) to exclude the children of individuals not citizens of the United States (or, perhaps, of those not legally present with some sort of permanent status). That way there would be no question of balancing the interests of a citizen child and an alien parent in most cases. Alternatively, we could establish a legal presumption that an illegal immigrant parent is automatically an unfit parent, which would allow the courts to strip such individuals of legal custody of their citizen children and their parental rights -- certainly something that would end the practice of crossing the border to have an anchor baby.

Liberals, of course, are up in arms over this story. As is so often the case, they side with the law-breaker over the rest of society. But I like the question asked by Jimmie at The Sundries Shack.

If the women profiled here had been arrested for theft, would the New York Times have written such a sympathetic article about them? I rather doubt it.

Indeed, we separate mothers and children (and fathers and children) all the time when a parent breaks the law. Sob stories like this one are not about concern for the children -- it is about pursuing the open-borders agenda of the Left.

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GOP: Party Of (Legal) Immigrants

The open borders crew that seeks to embrace border-jumping immigration criminals often denounces the GOP as "anti-immigrant" because most Republicans want to see our immigration laws enforced. Well, what do immigrants -- legal ones, who followed the law to enter this country and become citizens -- think about the matter,

Their voter registration patterns tell an interesting story.

Minutes after taking the Pledge of Allegiance, new American citizens are urged to register as voters by Democratic activists who see them as natural party supporters who could hold the key to the 2008 election.
But with increasing illegal immigration threatening the economy and security of the United States, many legal immigrants anxious to uphold the laws of their adopted country are moving towards the more hard-line immigration stance of Republicans.
Even in CaliforniaÂ’s Democratic-controlled San Diego, sizeable numbers of AmericaÂ’s newly-minted potential voters said that illegal immigrants should be penalised rather than given an easy route to citizenship as most Democrats advocate.
Â“For a long time, immigration was OK,Â” said Sarah Wright, 49, a seamstress from Mexico who arrived in the US legally in 1986.
Â“But now, no more. A lot of really bad people come from Mexico and commit crimes.
Â“People are coming in and having two, three, four babies and going on welfare. Some are making money here and spending it back in Mexico.
"ThatÂ’s not right. They should go back to Mexico and get a permit.Â”
Mrs Wright, whose American-born husband Ed served in the US Navy, was one of 1,591 people from 89 countries who became citizens at a ceremony in San DiegoÂ’s Golden Hall on Tuesday.
Nearly two thirds of them were from Mexico, whose border is just 17 miles from the city.

These are the sort of immigrants that the GOP embraces -- folks who follow the law, come here legally, contribute to our country and embrace the things that made it great. The Democrats, on the other hand, embrace a different sort of immigrant, one described perfectly by one of the new citizens.

Â“Those that do come into this country illegally are telling us that they are morally and ethically not trustworthy. They should not be here. ItÂ’s insulting to those of us who are here legally.Â”

So let's be really clear about this. The Republican Party is the party of law-abiding immigrants. The Democrats are the party that spits in their faces by supporting such immigrants. Remember that the next time you are called an anti-immigrant nativist by some liberal from the open-borders crowd -- or by an illegal immigrant who doesn't respect this country enough to follow its laws.

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November 15, 2007

Mexican President Attempts To Interfere With US Elections

Mexican ~~President~~ Pendejo Felipe ~~CalderÃ³n~~ CabrÃ³n thinks he can direct American citizens Â– including candidates for President of the United States Â– to speak or be silent as suits his beliefs.

Mexican President Felipe CalderÃ³n took the unusual step Wednesday of injecting himself into U.S. presidential politics, calling Mexican migrants "thematic hostages" of the race and urging candidates not to use them as a talking point.
Speaking at a conference here, CalderÃ³n criticized what he called "the growing harassment" of Mexicans in the United States and said his administration would finance a media campaign to underline immigrant success stories.
CalderÃ³n made his remarks one day before his environment minister, Rafael Elvira Quesada, is scheduled to release a report concluding that the U.S.-Mexico border wall is damaging the environment.
CalderÃ³ns statement on the U.S. presidential race caught many people here by surprise. Addressing delegates at a conference sponsored by the Mexican government agency that assists migrants, he said: "It is my duty to make a respectful but firm call to the candidates of the various political parties in the United States for them to stop using Mexicans in that country as thematic hostages of their speeches and their strategies."

Well, Mr. CabrÃ³n, IÂ’m sorry that the desire of Americans to secure their borders against the invasion of Mexican nationals from your corrupt, backwards nation offends you. IÂ’m sorry that we need to build a wall due to the fact that your government encourages and abets these lawbreakers Â– as well as drug smugglers Â– in their crossing of the American border. None of the rhetoric or actions you complain about would be necessary if your government were to have done its job over the last several decades.

And Mr. CabrÃ³n, your words serve only to underscore why we need to build that wall Â– and cut off all aid to Mexico. Americans will determine what is right for America, and what the policies of our country will be.

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November 14, 2007

San Fran Again Thumbs Nose At Federal Law

Odd, isnÂ’t it, that liberals regularly insist that states and cities cannot set their own immigration policies when it comes to enforcing our nationÂ’s immigration laws. Then, suddenly, these same liberals insist it is the right of states and cities to set their own immigration policies flouting our nationÂ’s immigration laws.

The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to issue municipal identification cards to city residents - regardless of whether they are in the country legally - and to double the amount of public money available to candidates running for supervisor.
Supervisor Tom Ammiano, who authored the ID card legislation, said the program is a smart public safety measure because it would make residents living on the social margins of San Francisco more likely to seek the help of police and could give them more access to banking services.
"People are afraid to report crimes," Ammiano said, referring to illegal immigrants who avoid local law enforcement authorities over fear of being arrested or deported by federal immigration officials.
The legislation would require companies holding city contracts to accept the municipal card as a legitimate form of identification - except in cases where other state and federal laws require other forms of proof of age, name and residence.
Under San Francisco's sanctuary ordinance, it is city policy that no municipal government personnel or resources be used to assist federal immigration officials in the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.

I ask it again Â– since San Francisco canÂ’t secede from h US, canÂ’t the US secede from San Francisco? That way they can set their own immigration policy and issue whatever identification documents they want. Of course, once San Francisco is no longer a part of the US, we can build a wall and keep the liberal fringe out in the name of national security. After all, they will have no reliable form of identification with which to enter the USA.

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November 13, 2007

Spitzer Backs Off Licenses For Illegals

Bowing to near universal opposition, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to not pursue his plan to give drivers licenses to illegal aliens. Those not in the country legally will not be given an official government identification document and permission to drive without fear of being deported as the law requires.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer is abandoning his plan to issue driverÂ’s licenses to illegal immigrants, saying that opposition is just too overwhelming to move forward with such a policy.
The governor, who is to announce the move formally on Wednesday, said in an interview Tuesday night that he did not reach the decision easily. Â“You have perhaps seen me struggle with it because I thought we had a principled decision, and itÂ’s not necessarily easy to back away from trying to move a debate forward,Â” he said.
But he came to believe the proposal would ultimately be blocked, he said, either by legal challenges, a vote by the Legislature to deny funding for the Department of Motor Vehicles or a refusal by upstate county clerks to carry it out.
Â“I am not willing to fight to the bitter end on something that will not ultimately be implemented,Â” the governor said, Â“and we also have an enormous agenda on other issues of great importance to New York State that was being stymied by the constant and almost singular focus on this issue.Â”

In other words, in the face of opposition from the federal government, his fellow state officials, local officials, and the people of New York (and the United States), as well as likely defeat in the courts, Spitzer realized that his plan was doomed. And so the people win.

At least one liberal website is already frothing.

No, leadership is doing what's right. Gov. Spitzer needs to get some spine.

In other words, screw the people -- Spitzer should have gone ahead with the plan despite the disapproval of 3 out of 4 New Yorkers. After all, "leadership" consists in doing what the liberal interest groups demand, even if it is likely illegal and certainly opposed by the folks who are ultimately supposed to be in charge of government, namely the voters.

Just remember that, folks -- voting Democrat in 2008 means 4 years of a government that doesn't care what you think on issues of border security and immigration.

H/T Malkin, Fighting GOP, Old War Dogs, Assorted Babble

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November 10, 2007

Spitzer Backing Off Illegal Licenses?

It must suck to have to be governor and have to listen to little things like the voice of the people. But it looks like that is what the governor of New York might just have to do in the case of his "licenses for illegals" plan.

Facing growing pressure from his own party, Gov. Eliot Spitzer indicated he had not ruled out rescinding a heavily criticized plan to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, according to published reports.
Spitzer's proposal has generated a politically charged debate that has reverberated in the presidential campaign. He said Friday he was standing by the plan for now, but he suggested he might consider backing off if he could not build enthusiasm for it, the reports said.
"I don't think there's ever been an executive, a president, a governor who hasn't put out ideas that at the end of the day there isn't support, and so things don't work out," the governor told reporters after meeting with Hispanic lawmakers in San Juan, Puerto Rico. "But as of now, sure, I think this is the right idea from a security perspective. We'll wait and see."

Here's the problem, Governor.

The American people want illegal immigrants out of our country. We don't want them receiving government benefits or government licenses. We don't want sanctuary city or sanctuary states to give them refuge. Frankly, we want enforcement of our borders and state and local law enforcement to assist federal authorities in getting rid of those who are violating immigration laws.

Your plan was designed to do exactly the opposite, and so you got hosed.

The only good thing about your plan is that it may have harmed teh Hillary Clinton campaign due to her inept handling of the issue.

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November 07, 2007

Common Sense On Immigration

This is just what we need.

More than 80 House Democrats and Republicans yesterday teamed up to propose a new immigration-enforcement bill, saying they reject the Senate's two attempts at "amnesty" and signaling that only an enforcement measure can pass this Congress.
Led by Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, a freshman Democrat who won election with a tough immigration-enforcement message, the bill also challenges conventional wisdom by showing a large number of rank-and-file Democrats agree with most Republicans that the first step should be a get-tough approach on border security.
That new approach includes going after businesses that hire illegal aliens, better information-sharing among federal agencies such as the IRS, Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration to track illegal aliens, and an increase in enforcement agents both at the border and in the nation's interior.
"The reason you're seeing so many of us standing here today, Democrats and Republicans, is this is the immigration reform bill the American people have been waiting for," said Rep. Jason Altmire of Pennsylvania, a freshman who is one of 44 Democrats signing on as original co-sponsors, along with 40 Republicans.

Once we make it impossible for illegals to work (or go to school) in this country, they will start to self-deport. And even if they donÂ’t, attempts to illegally seek benefits to which they are not morally entitled will cause them to self-identify as illegal.

And, as always, my policy preference is as follows.

Round Â‘em up! Ship Â‘em back! Rawhide!

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School District & Cops Agree Â– Ignore The Law

Kid is busted for drugs at school. Cops are called. Parents are called. Cops determine the whole family are in the country illegally (smoking the pot that Americans wonÂ’t smoke?) and call the Border Patrol. Family gets deported.

Sounds like a happy ending to me, in accordance with the laws of the United States.

Unfortunately, students and administrators in the Tucson Unified School District disagreed. And now the cops have announced their intention to ignore, rather than enforce, the law.

>About a hundred students demonstrated outside a Tucson high school Tuesday, then marched five miles downtown to protest the arrest and removal to Mexico of a classmate and his family.
The students apparently did not walk out of classes but arrived at Catalina High School on ready to demonstrate and head to the federal building, Tucson Unified School District spokeswoman Chryl Hill Lander said.
Tucson police spokesman Sgt. Mark Robinson said at least some of the demonstrators veered off to congregate peacefully outside police headquarters.

* * *
School officials searched the backpack of a 17-year-old freshman who was incoherent, and when they found a substance that looked like marijuana, called police Â— standard procedure.
"Police were called in because there was marijuana found in a student's backpack," Lander said. "Administrators have the right to go through a backpack when the situation warrants, and the student was acting strangely, was incoherent. He wasn't able to talk and make complete sentences," she said.
Police called the boy's parents and asked them to come to the school. When they arrived, police asked to see their drivers' licenses.
The parents acknowledged living in the United States illegally with their two sons, including a sixth-grader, for a half-dozen years.
Police in turn notified the Border Patrol, who took all four people into custody.
Immigrants rights activists voiced concern about the incident, but Tucson police defended calling the Border Patrol as the appropriate action.

In other words, this is really straightforward. They werenÂ’t even looking for illegals Â– they were dealing with a kid so stoned that he couldnÂ’t see straight who got busted with drugs. The discovery of the immigration status was merely incidental. This is the classic case of when everyone OUGHT to agree that rounding them up and sending them home is appropriate

IÂ’m particularly incensed by this comment.

Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, said allowing immigration agents into schools could create more mistrust and fear in the immigrant community.

More mistrust? More fear? You say that like it is a bad thing. I want them so damn scared that they are pissing their pants every time they set foot on the streets of our nation or hear a knock on the door. I want them so mistrustful and frightened that they go back to their countries of origin. Criminals OUGHT to be mistrustful and fearful, and it is a sign of mental and moral weakness to think that they should not be.

And yet you get a street protest by a bunch of kids cutting school, many of whom are probably in this country illegally themselves.

On Tuesday morning, more than 100 students, mostly from Catalina, gathered outside TPD headquarters, 270 S. Stone Ave., to protest the removal of the boy and his family by the U.S. Border Patrol.
Police called Border Patrol officials after they had been told by the family that is had been in the country illegally, police officials said.
But the students, some carrying signs including "Migra (immigration agents) out of our schools," said they should not be afraid they might be yanked from their classrooms by immigration police.
In Arizona, public school districts are forbidden by law to deny an education to any school-age child living here, Tucson Unified School District officials said.
The district's stance on the issue was clear: "We don't want immigration laws enforced on our campuses," said TUSD Superintendent Roger Pfeuffer.
He, deputy superintendent Patti Lopez and police officials including Assistant Chief Roberto VillaseÃ±or, met as the protesters waited in a orderly fashion outside the station.
Pfeuffer said VillaseÃ±or came out to speak with students after their meeting and pointed out that police never would have called the Border Patrol if police hadn't been called to the school for criminal activity.
VillaseÃ±or said police have to ask the question of citizenship when they are taking someone into custody.
Community activist Isabel Garcia questioned that action. And, she added, "You should not have called Border Patrol onto campus."

Someone explain to me why the Border Patrol should not have been called. When you become aware of a violation of the law, that is what ought to happen. Any kid who doesnÂ’t feel safe because they come on campus probably has good reason to feel unsafe, and does not belong at the school Â– or in this country. And as for the superintendent of the district, may I suggest that if he doesnÂ’t want immigration laws enforced on his districtÂ’s campuses, he needs to immediately renounce and return all federal aid of any kind. After all, most Americans donÂ’t want their tax money being spent on illegal aliens of for schools where contempt for the law is openly encouraged. Heck, I hope some courageous member of Congress will seek to add a rider to some bill targeting every penny that TUSD receives in federal money.

And then the cops folded like a cheap hide-a-bed.

VillaseÃ±or said Tuesday afternoon that TPD would no longer call the Border Patrol to churches or schools, although it will cooperate with the Border Patrol.

Got that, folks Â– churches and schools in Tucson are now law-free zones, where cops will ignore illegal activity. Disgusting.

The time has come for our nation to start enforcing policies penalizing sanctuary cities Â– and expanding those policies to also penalize sanctuary schools. Not only should schools not be allowed to ignore our nationÂ’s immigration laws, but they should be expected to cooperate with immigration authorities. They should also be forbidden to penalize employees who report immigration violations brought to their attention.

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November 04, 2007

The Fence Works

One local blogger, an open-borders advocate, recently wrote this.

Contrary to popular belief, supporting the building of a wall between Mexico and the United States is not a conservative value. Instead it is fiscally, incredibly, stupid. Spending $7Billion on a wall instead of spending $7Billion on law enforcement of those who hire illegal workers is an incredibly stupid idea but one that is easy to understand by the simple-minded who can't think past the one-liners. One that makes true fiscal conservatives shake their heads in disbelief. Candidates supporting building a wall are courting the ultra-right wingers and ignorant hate mongers and will lose the support of the true fiscally conservatives as well as the liberal and moderate voters.

Don't you just love the tolerance and respect dripping from every word that John wrote there? And don't you love the fact that he ignores the fact that most of us "ultra-right wingers and ignorant hate mongers" are actually quite supportive of employer sanctions, and that it is his own political allies who are desperate to stop employer sanctions through the courts because it might stop the hiring of illegals?

And did you notice the one thing that he didn't claim -- he never says that a fence won't work to stop illegal immigration.

Because it does.

PALOMAS, MEXICO Â— At this fabled border crossing, where the last armed conflict between the United States and Mexico flared, the rancorous debate over the new U.S. anti-immigrant fence has been resolved.
The fence works, residents north and south of it say. At least it works for now on this snippet of the line.
"You hear it all the time: Fences don't work. Fences don't work," said Mark Winder, a transplanted New Englander and part-time deputy sheriff who lives on a small ranch outside Columbus, N.M., where a 3-mile stretch of wall was completed in August. "I live 2Â½ miles from the border, and the fence is working."
Many merchants agree in Palomas, once a sleepy farm town, now a booming haven for smugglers.
"The fence has destroyed the economy here," said Fabiola Cuellar, a hardware-store clerk on the main street of Palomas who used to sell supplies to the throngs heading north from here. "Things are going back to the way they were before."
Of course, with only about one-fifth of the fence complete, migrants from Mexico and other countries who had planned to cross the border illegally in places such as Palomas-Columbus can simply go elsewhere.

And if you read the article, you will find out that American property owners report the same thing -- the fence is stopping illegals from entering the US and trespassing upon (and destroying) their property. I can only imagine the resulting drop in crime statistics that accompanies this decrease.

H/T RWN

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October 29, 2007

Pro-Border-Jumper Groups Seek To Stop Law Against Illegals

Because after all, we wouldnÂ’t want to make those breaking the law feel uncomfortable, stigmatized or unwelcome.

One of the toughest state laws targeting illegal immigrants takes effect Thursday in Oklahoma, prompting efforts by immigrants trying to block it and work by state agencies to comply.
The law makes it a felony to transport or shelter illegal immigrants. Businesses, which are barred by federal law from hiring illegal immigrants, can be sued by a legal worker who is displaced by an illegal one.
The measure denies illegal immigrants certain public benefits such as rental assistance and fuel subsidies.
"It's clearly one of the most restrictive policies" in the country, says Cecilia MuÃ±oz of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights organization.
MuÃ±oz says she's particularly concerned about a provision that gives local police the authority to check immigration status. Such policies create fear among all Hispanics, including those in the country legally, and may contribute to discrimination, she says.
On Thursday, the National Coalition of Latino Clergy and Christian Leaders filed its second lawsuit against the measure. The group says it is unconstitutional because immigration is a federal, not state, responsibility.

IÂ’m particularly troubled by their attempt to block the provision allowing legal workers to sue employers of illegal immigrants. After all, according to the advocates for the border jumpers, those folks are only doing the jobs Americans wonÂ’t do. Could it be that they are afraid of being proved wrong when there is a flood of lawsuits from American citizens who want jobs but are being undercut by those with no legal right to be in (much less work in) the United States?

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October 25, 2007

Dubin Labels Opponents Hateful

In case yesterdayÂ’s post about Illinois Senator Dick Durbin didnÂ’t make the point clear, this comment should. Disagreeing with him is not legitimate Â– indeed, it is a sign of not of principled disagreement, but of something much more ugly and unacceptable.

llegal immigration remains at a legislative impasse Â— and that may be a good thing for GOP chances since the partyÂ’s base in the South and West tends to be vehemently opposed to any accommodation with illegal immigrants.
In his post-vote assessment, the Dream ActÂ’s chief sponsor, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois said, Â“In a campaign year, it is a very difficult issue. If itÂ’s tough this year, itÂ’s tougher next year.Â”
Some senators, he said, Â“are running scaredÂ” on the illegal immigrant issue.
Â“Switchboards light up, the hates starts spewing, and people get concerned, to say the least,Â” Durbin told reporters.

Go that, people? Cacting your congressional representatives is not laudable participation by citizens in the political life of the Republic. It is, instead, an exercise in hatred Â– you know, one of those things the Democrats tell us must be criminalized. When you opposed this piece of Durbin-sponsored legislation because it made a mockery of our borders and amounted to nothing less than amnesty for entire families, you committed a hate crime.

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October 24, 2007

Bravo Tancredo!

And shame on Dick Durbin. After all, Congressman Tancredo was precisely right in his call to enforce our nationÂ’s immigration laws in the very building where they were made.

Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a Republican presidential candidate whose fierce opposition to illegal immigration is the center of his campaign, contacted the immigration service yesterday demanding that agents raid a senatorÂ’s news conference.

Â“If we canÂ’t enforce our laws inside the building where American laws are made, where can we enforce them?Â” Mr. Tancredo said in a statement.
Now as it turns out, the participants in the press conference for this misguided piece of amnesty legislation are all holders of temporary legal status, despite having come to this country illegally. But TancredoÂ’s point is spot on Â– members of the legislative branch should not be permitted to flout the nationÂ’s laws by bringing lawbreakers into the Capitol itself. Such flagrant disrespect for the law is unacceptable, and a call for the enforcement of the law is appropriate.
Which is why Dick Durbin showed why he is a disgrace to the state of Illinois and unfit to serve in the Senate.

Â“Congressman, have you no shame?Â” Mr. Durbin said in a statement, indirectly comparing Mr. Tancredo to Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-communist hearings in the 1950s.

What is shameful about demanding that the laws made by Congress be enforced in the very building where they were passed by a majority of both houses? How on earth is this comparable to the oft-caricatured excesses of Joseph McCarthy, who was at least right on one point despite all his excesses Â– as has now been extensively documented, there was an extensive infiltration of the United States government by Communist operatives directly or indirectly in the service of the Soviet Union.

Of course, Durbin is the same guy who compared our own troops to Nazis, Soviet gulag guards, and the murderous Khmer Rouge. It is clear that it is he who has no shame Â– and so should be regarded accordingly.

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October 23, 2007

Immigration Showdown

Once again, the Democrats in Congress want to impose a nightmare, called the DREAM Act, upon the American people -- creating one more incentive for illegal immigration.

Mickey Kaus notes some of the problems with the bill -- even while dispelling some incorrect claims about the proposal.

Turning on the 'Kids Magnet': Sen. Reid has filed for cloture on the Dream Act, meaning a vote could come tomorrow (Wednesday). My problems with the proposed law--which would in effect grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens under 30 who can claim they came into the country before they turned 16--are outlined here. Both proponents and opponents are activating switchboard-flooding measures. Askew has a list of allegedly undecided senators. ... Here's a list from Numbers USA. ... Here is an estimate of the number of illegal immigrants who'd qualify from Steven Camarota. ...
P.S.: Applicants would have to live in the U.S. for five years and eventually graduate from high school or get a GED. But Numbers USA claims that the bill would "be a rolling amnesty drawing more illegal aliens here in the future to apply for amnesty." [E.A.] Is it possible that the bill has no cutoff date--no requirement that applicants have entered the country before such and such a day--meaning that it would function as a formal standing offer to people in other countries who might be thinking of coming here illegally in the future: 'Sneak across the border before your kids get too olad and they will get legalized'? ... Even the recently-defeated Kyl-Kennedy "comprehensive immigration reform" had a nominal cutoff date, but I don't see one in the text of the DREAM Act. I must be missing something. Or have the bill's opponents buried the lede? ...
Update--Asked and Answered: Thomas Maguire is a closer reader of the law than I am, and emails to note that the bill does require (in section 3 (a)(1)(A) ) that an illegal immigrant have lived here for five years "immediately preceding the date of enactment of this Act." So there does appear to be a cutoff. ... The bill still acts as a magnet, of course, because a) future illegals know that if they come now another compassionate DREAM Act is likely to be passed in future years, and b) there are ample possibilities for fraud--claiming that you were here before the deadline and daring the authorities to disprove it.

And Kaus gets it exactly right in that last paragraph

I remember the Simpson-Mazzoli Act in the 1980s -- the one-time, never-again amnesty bill wrongly supported by Ronald Reagan. It was supposed to end the immigration problem forever -- and today we have 5-10 times ads many illegal immigrants in America as we did 25 years ago, all clamoring for grants of US citizenship (or at least permanent legal status). We've been down this path, and seen it doesn't work. This will simply draw the next generation of illegals waiting for "compassion" from the bleeding-hearts.

Besides, what is the result of giving these folks citizenship? They gain the immediate right to bring in the parents who broke the law by coming here in the first place -- sort of the equivalent (to use a somewhat inexact analogy) of allowing the family of a bank robber to keep the interest on the fruits of his crime, or a drug dealer's kids to keep the house and car bought with the proceeds of his illegal acts.

Instead, I support this proposal by Fred Thompson.

1. No Amnesty. Do not provide legal status to illegal aliens. Amnesty undermines U.S. law and policy, rewards bad behavior, and is unfair to the millions of immigrants who follow the law and are awaiting legal entry into the United States. In some cases, those law-abiding and aspiring immigrants have been waiting for several years.
2. Attrition through Enforcement. Reduce the number of illegal aliens through increased enforcement against unauthorized alien workers and their employers. Without illegal employment opportunities available, fewer illegal aliens will attempt to enter the country, and many of those illegally in the country now likely will return home. Self-deportation can also be maximized by stepping up the enforcement levels of other existing immigration laws. This course of action offers a reasonable alternative to the false choices currently proposed to deal with the 12 million or more aliens already in the U.S. illegally: either arrest and deport them all, or give them all amnesty. Attrition through enforcement is a more reasonable and achievable solution, but this approach requires additional resources for enforcement and border security ...
4. Reduce the Jobs Incentive. Ensure employee verification by requiring that all U.S. employers use the Department of Homeland Security's electronic database (the E-Verify system) to confirm that a prospective employee is authorized to work in the U.S. Now that the technology is proven, provide sufficient resources to make the system as thorough, fast, accurate, and easy-to-use as possible.
5. Bolster Border Security. Finish building the 854-mile wall along the border by 2010 as required by 8 USC 1103. Extend the wall beyond that as appropriate and deploy new technologies and additional resources to enhance detection and rapid apprehension along our borders by 2012.

In other words, real borders, real enforcement, and the denial of incentives to come or to stay. This is the position that is popular with the GOP base, and with the American people at large. We welcome immigrants -- but only those who come here in compliance with American law. I'm open to increasing the number of openings for legal immigration, but not until we get a handle on the problem of illegal immigration and those who have already jumped the border.

My one complaint -- not enough in the way of employer sanctions. I've got no problem with seeing HR staff, business owners, and corporate executives frog-marched out the door and stuffed into waiting squad cars after their arrests for facilitating the violation of immigration laws by employing illegals. And i don't care what party these folks give to -- we need to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.

Of course, my fundamental immigration proposal has always been:

Round 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

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October 19, 2007

Inhumane Mexican Immigration Policy Kills 24 Central Americans

Why doesn't the corrupt government of Mexico adopt the same open border policies for illegal immigrants that they demand of the US?

The bodies of two dozen people washed ashore Friday in southern Mexico after emergency officials received reports that a boat carrying Central American migrants capsized in the Pacific Ocean, a state official said.
Mexican authorities were searching the waters for more bodies around the coastal town of San Francisco del Mar, 200 miles up the coast from the Guatemalan border.
Sergio Segreste, the Oaxaca state public safety secretary, said 24 bodies washed ashore.

Mexico has a much harsher immigration policy than the US does. Hypocrites.

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October 15, 2007

Taking The Back Door In

Now refugees from Cuba are taking the safer, longer way into the US -- through Mexico!

Cubans are migrating to the United States in the greatest numbers in over a decade, and for most of them the new way to get north is first to head west Â— to Mexico Â— in a convoluted route that avoids the United States Coast Guard.
American officials say the migration, which has grown into a multimillion-dollar-a-year smuggling enterprise, has risen sharply because many Cubans have lost hope that RaÃºl Castro, who took over as president from his brother Fidel in 2006, will make changes that will improve their lives. Cuban authorities contend that the migration is more economic than political and is fueled by WashingtonÂ’s policy of rewarding Cubans who enter the United States illegally.
In fact, unlike Mexicans, Central Americans and others heading to the southwestern border of the United States, the Cubans do not have to sneak across. They just walk right up to United States authorities at the border, benefiting from lax Mexican enforcement and relying on WashingtonÂ’s Â“wet foot, dry footÂ” policy, which gives them the ability to become permanent residents if they can reach United States soil.
That is what JosÃ© Luis Savater, 45, a refrigerator repairman from Havana, did in early October to reach southern Florida, which remains the goal for most migrating Cubans.

Two questions spring to mind in light of this story.

1) If we are now getting Cubans coming across, why would anyone doubt that terrorists are (or at least could) infiltrate the US in this same manner?

2) Why are these Cubans coming to America? Didn't they get the memo from Michael Moore that they have it better in Communist Cuba, with its great health care and benevolent leader?

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October 14, 2007

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Sexual Predators Yearning To Screw Kids

Guess what? The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that there is nothing wrong with statutory rape -- and so the US cannot deport adults who have sex with underage partners!

Over the years, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has earned itself a reputation as the legal bastion of San Francisco looniness, and a recent decision will do nothing to change that.
On Tuesday, the court decided that Alberto Quintero-Salazar - a Mexican national and legal resident of the U.S. - could not be deported on the basis of a sex crime he committed in 1998, namely illegal intercourse between an adult over 21 and a youth under 16. According to the court, adults taking sexual advantage of a minor (so long as they have the "consent" that minors are legally unable to provide) are not guilty of a crime of "moral turpitude," which is needed to subject legal U.S. residents to deportation.

The reasoning of this case goes like this -- the age of consent differs in different states, and the act would not be illegal if the couple were married. Therefore it is only a crime because California made it illegal.

I suppose we could make that argument about most other crimes, too.

So the child-raping immigrant gets to stay in America -- even though a plain reading of the law says he should be deported immediately.

Anyone want to argue about the importance of doing something about the out-of-control Ninth Circuit?

Anyone want to ask why this decision was ignored by the media?

Will someone start asking the Democrat s running for President what they think of this decision and these judges? Not to mention what they will do to stop such idiocy.

H/T Stop the ACLU, Random-American

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Soliciting Public Input Criticized

After all, the political class would rather that "We, the People" leave the policymaking to them.

The Prince William Board of County Supervisors chairman has used taxpayer money to mail postcards about a meeting on a resolution to crack down on illegal immigration, angering board colleagues and others.
The postcard, from Corey A. Stewart (R), calls on residents to voice their opinions on the controversial resolution before and during a meeting Tuesday. The board will vote on funding and "implementing its policy to crack down on illegal immigration and cut off taxpayer-funded services to illegal aliens," according to the postcard.

Yeah, heaven forbid that the citizens of Prince William County have a say -- either way -- on this issue.

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October 10, 2007

Lawless Federal Judge Protects Lawless Employers And Workers

You are required to have a valid Social Security number that matches with your name in order to work. My wife found that out not long after we married, when her new employer found that the name on her card and the name on her employment records did not match. She was duly sent to the local Social Security office to do the paperwork to correct the situation.

The necessary time to correct the problem? One hour -- after which she left the office with paperwork indicating the problem was fixed. She received a new card within weeks, reflecting the change.

Similarly, the IRS began requiring matches of names and numbers during the Clinton administration.

So why is a federal judge saying that enforcement of the law is burdensome on workers and employers, who have three months to correct the problem -- and therefore allowing millions to work illegally?

A federal judge barred the Bush administration yesterday from launching a planned crackdown on U.S. companies that employ illegal immigrants, warning of its potentially "staggering" impact on law-abiding workers and companies.
In a firm rebuke of the White House, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction against the president's plan to press employers to fire as many as 8.7 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, starting this fall.

* * *
In a 22-page ruling, Breyer said the plaintiffs -- an unusual coalition that included the AFL-CIO, the American Civil Liberties Union and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce -- had raised serious questions about the legality of the administration's plan to mail Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers.
"There can be no doubt that the effects of the rule's implementation will be severe," Breyer wrote, resulting in "irreparable harm to innocent workers and employers."
The government letters are intended to warn employers for the first time that they must resolve questions about their employees' identities or fire them within 90 days. If they do not, employers could face "stiff penalties," including fines and even criminal prosecution, for violating a federal law that bars knowingly employing illegal workers, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said when he announced the plan Aug. 10.
The plaintiffs convinced the judge that the Social Security Administration database includes so many errors -- incorporated in the records of about 9.5 million people in 2003 alone -- that its use in firings would unfairly discriminate against tens of thousands of legal workers, including native-born and naturalized U.S. citizens, and cause major workforce disruptions that would burden companies.
"The government's proposal to disseminate no-match letters affecting more than eight million workers will, under the mandated time line, result in the termination of employment to lawfully employed workers," the judge wrote. "Moreover the threat of criminal prosecution . . . reflects a major change in DHS policy."

The reality is that most of those errors are easily resolved, such as the one in my wife's records. All it takes is a little bit of time and good-faith effort to comply.

In the mean time, we have a federal judge ignoring the laws of the country to protect the lawless.

I agree with Congressman Brian Bilbray on this issue.

"What part of 'illegal' does Judge Breyer not understand?" he said. "At a time when the federal government is finally trying to enforce current immigration law, we cannot have activist judges stand in the way of doing what is right."

Right now, employers know about these problems. Letters informing them have been sent out since the Clinton Administration. They have, however, been ignored by employers and workers because there is no enforcement behind them. Now that there is an attempt to enforce the law, those who have ignored a dozen years of warnings are shouting "No Fair!"

I'm curious -- what time frame would be acceptable to those who challenged the new policy? 120 days? 180 days? One year? We know the answer -- no enforcement of our nation's immigration laws would ever be acceptable to the plaintiffs and the lawless judge who ruled for them.

I'd like to urge Congressman Bilbray to handle this matter via a two-track strategy -- first, with a legislative fix making this process statutorily mandated; and second, bey introducing a resolution for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer.

H/T Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin. STACLU, Bookworm Room

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Flag Burning Charges Seem Troubling

I guess that the Mexican flag gets more protection than the American flag some places here in the formerly United States.

It caused some controversy, but it was supposed to. Now, one man is headed to municipal court for burning a Mexican flag in protest in front of the Alamo.
The city is charging 46-year old David Bohmfalk with burning without a permit, even though no one gives permits to burn a flag.
"I was raised to respect my country," Bohmfalk said.
All the rallies and talk of amnesty for undocumented immigrants in May 2006 lit the fires of patriotism for Bohmfalk, he said.
"I just got angry," he said. "I decided I had to do something, make my statement, and that's what I did."

Of course, since flag burning is protected speech, it seems difficult to call what Bohmfalk did a crime. Not, of course, that the San Antonio cops were arresting people for actual crimes that day. Besides letting illegal aliens walk free, they also ignored crimes against the person of Mr. Bohmfalk committed in their presence.

Bohmfalk says while he was detained by police, he was harassed, his life was threatened, and he was even assaulted by some tourists who spit on him. Ironically, all these offenses are punishable by law.

So much for equal protection of the law, hat he harassed any of the demonstrators, threatened them with death, and spit upon them, he would no doubt have been hauled away in cuffs and charged with hate crimes. I guess it wouldnÂ’t do to offend the immigration criminals and their supporters, though, so no arrests were made in the case of the crimes cited above.

Besides, it seems to me that burning a Mexican flag in front of the Alamo seems particularly appropriate. After all, the Mexicans burned the bodies of the Alamo martyrs.

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October 09, 2007

Doing The Crimes American Gangbangers Won't Do

Glad to see that the government is doing something to get these criminals out of circulation -- and out of our country.

About 1,300 violent gang members who are in this country illegally were arrested in a three-month summer crackdown, federal officials announced Tuesday.
Â“WeÂ’ve arrested quite a number of very serious criminals Â— individuals who frankly have worn out their welcome by coming into this country illegally and committing more crimes when they got here,Â” said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary of homeland security for immigration and customs enforcement.
Of the 1,313 individuals arrested this summer, 939 will be charged with immigration violations, and 374 were detained for criminal prosecution in federal, state or local courts. The operation also led to the arrests of 261 people who officials say were not affiliated with gangs but were in the country illegally.
Â“If we canÂ’t prosecute them criminally, or they are here in the country illegally, we will have them deported,Â” Ms. Myers said.

Sadly, this group constitutes less than 1/10000 of the illegals currently in this country -- but they are among the worst of the worst. As a matter of public safety and national security, we need to pick up the pace of arrests and deportations of the violent criminals and drug dealers who have jumped the border with impunity before we even begin to talk about the status of the otherwise law-abiding individuals who break America's laws daily by remaining in this country illegally.

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September 25, 2007

Why We Need A Real Fence

Because a virtual fence will lead to virtual enforcement -- if there is any enforcement at all.

Technical and management troubles have caused the government's effort to secure a portion of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border with a chain of surveillance towers to fall behind schedule, jeopardizing the success of a costly project meant to showcase the Bush administration's tougher stance on immigration enforcement.
A $20 million pilot program to safeguard a 28-mile stretch of rough, mesquite-dotted terrain that straddles a smuggling corridor south of Tucson was supposed to be operational in June but now is expected to be delayed until the end of the year, according to the officials at the Department of Homeland Security who are overseeing it.
Ground radar and cameras that were to identify illegal border crossers so that armed patrols could be dispatched to capture them have had trouble distinguishing people and vehicles from cows and bushes. The sensors are also confused by moisture, the officials said.

Here's an idea -- brick and mortar for a real wall. It may seem to be rather old school, but it is demonstrated to work.

Posted by: Greg at 10:23 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 198 words, total size 1 kb.

September 22, 2007

Canada Blames America

They don't want illegals either.

Fleeing stepped-up sweeps by the American authorities, illegal immigrants to the United States, mostly Mexican, are arriving in growing numbers at the foot of the bridge in this Canadian border town seeking refugee status.
Still more immigrants, mostly Mexicans living illegally in Florida, have begun trying to make their way past AmericaÂ’s northern border at other locations, the majority of them flying into the airport in Toronto, Canadian officials said Thursday.

So, will the fuzzy-minded liberals/socialists in Canada eventually decide they must take in all of the illegals? Or will they instead insist on deporting them home?

And if they decide to keep them, are they prepared to absorb all 12-20 million who are already violating America's immigration laws and who American citizens want out?

Posted by: Greg at 03:13 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 136 words, total size 1 kb.

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