It seems that a Florida legislator doesn’t think the term “illegal alien” is sufficiently nice, and wants to ban the term.

A state legislator whose district is home to thousands of Caribbean immigrants wants to ban the term "illegal alien" from the state's official documents.

"I personally find the word 'alien' offensive when applied to individuals, especially to children," said Sen. Frederica Wilson, D-Miami. "An alien to me is someone from out of space."

She has introduced a bill providing that: "A state agency or official may not use the term 'illegal alien' in an official document of the state." There would be no penalty for using the words.

In Miami-Dade County, Wilson said, "we don't say 'alien,' we say 'immigrant.'"

She said she encountered the situation when trying to pass a bill allowing children of foreigners to get in-state tuition at colleges and universities. Wilson, who directs a dropout prevention and education program in Miami, said she politely asks witnesses at public hearings on such issues not to use the term.

"There are students in our schools whose parents are trying to become citizens and we shouldn't label them," she said. "They are immigrants, through no fault of their own, not aliens."

Actually, you idiot, they are aliens, as the word means “one who is not a citizen of a place.” By your own explanation of who you seek to protect, you make it clear that they are, in fact, aliens, and that you are simply trying to debase the English language in the name of political correctness.

But if you would like, I would support legislation changing the proper term ti “border-jumping immigration criminal” – just for clarity’s sake.

I hate such stories – lamenting the fate of poor innocent folks who have been unjustly punished by an uncaring government, just because they. . . broke the law!

For more than a decade, the Kesbehs lived in Houston without proper documents, relying on the family's business selling American flags and other banners to get by.

Like millions of others from around the world, the Palestinians were in the United States illegally. They paid taxes, sent their children to school and tried not to be noticed.

Then, as pressure mounted on Muslims after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the Kesbehs were found out, two members of the family were detained, and the whole clan was deported. They were sent to Jordan, a country the seven children barely knew.

They live in a cramped, cold apartment in Amman, the capital, where they rely primarily on the income generated by Noor Kesbeh, the eldest daughter, who has found steady work at, of all places, the U.S. Embassy.

Enterprising American dreamers or lawbreakers? Hardworking folk who should be welcomed back, or opportunists? Either way, the Kesbehs are desperate to return to the United States if they can find a way to do so legally.

The answer is clear – they are lawbreakers and opportunists. However, if they can legally get back in the country, they will be welcome in my book.

But as for all the hardships in the article, my response is simple – tough shit. That is part of the price you pay for your crimes.

Once again, a reporter tries to tug at our heartstrings with a story of a poor illegal alien’s oppression by the evil American government and the enforcement of immigration laws. And it shows the fundamental dishonesty at work in the debate over illegal immigration

Fear has gripped immigrant families across the country as federal agents raid neighborhoods, work sites and jails in a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration.

Tens of thousands of people have been rounded up over the past several months, and many more are afraid to leave home, answer a knock on the door or leave their children alone in fear they might be next. Churches and community groups are stepping in with legal advice and financial aid for families split up or left without an income because of the sweeps.

"My kids are asking me, 'Why is this happening, mommy? Why did they take uncle away?'," said Dinora Sanchez, whose uncle was taken by immigration officials in January while riding his bike to a construction job in this low-income city northeast of San Francisco. "I'm afraid. There are no explanations I can give them."

Yes, there is an answer that this woman could give to her children – your uncle broke the law and has to face the consequences of his illegal behavior. That is what you would say had he committed a robbery or a murder – why not this offense as well? Could it be that doing so would force the kids to ask other questions – like “Isn’t breaking the law wrong?” So rather than teach the children respect for the law, immigrants like Dinora Sanchez teach their children that law-breaking is acceptable and the enforcement of laws is a racist, oppressive scheme by the government against people with the wrong skin-tone or ethnic heritage.

Ultimately, immigration raids ought to frighten those breaking immigration laws. Indeed, it ought to scare them so much that they return to their country of origin and seek to enter the country legally

And while the Washington Post tries to raise the possibility that border crackdowns are the reason -- and even hints that the violence may be the work of "extremist vigilantes" without giving one shred of evidence to support such a charge -- the article really supports more aggressive action by law enforcement..

Among the statuesque saguaro cactuses in the desert south of this old mining town lies the remnant of a crime scene that federal authorities say signals a troubling and escalated level of violence associated with the human smuggling trade.

* * *

It is not clear whether this attack was the work of rival smugglers, extremist vigilantes or what are known in Spanish slang here as bajadores-- crews of bandits who steal human cargo throughout southern Arizona and from Phoenix stash houses to extort ransom from their families in Latin America or the United States. What is unusual, said Alonzo Peña, the new U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent in charge of Arizona, is the recent frequency of the violence, the fact these incidents resulted in deaths and that they occurred in the desert, where the crime scenes are hard to find within the thousands of acres of sand and brush.

"There's more and more sophisticated, high-powered assault-type weapons being used . . . and there are back-to-back incidents," Peña said.

Smuggling violence has increased in Arizona during the past six months, the byproduct of a clampdown by federal immigration authorities, Peña said. The U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona remains the busiest illegal entry point in the country, but the increased concentration of Border Patrol agents and National Guard troops stationed there during the past year has made it harder to cross.

These human smugglers are nothing more than latter-day slavers. It is time to take treat them as such -- and that means also ratcheting up border security to make it harder and less-profitable to continue this trade in human flesh.

And that is precisely the problem with folks like the editorialists at the New York Times -- they don't recognize that foreigners who enter our country illegally are not Americans with as much right, legally or morally, to be in the United States. And that fuzzy-minded thinking leads to editorials like this one today.

Almost a year ago, hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers and their families slipped out from the shadows of American life and walked boldly in daylight through Los Angeles, Washington, Chicago, New York and other cities. “We Are America,” their banners cried. The crowds, determined but peaceful, swelled into an immense sea. The nation was momentarily stunned.

A lot has happened since then. The country has summoned great energy to confront the immigration problem, but most of it has been misplaced, crudely and unevenly applied. It seeks not to solve the conundrum of a broken immigration system, but to subdue, in a million ways, the vulnerable men and women who are part of it. Government at all levels is working to keep unwanted immigrants in their place — on the other side of the border, in detention or in fear, toiling silently in the underground economy without recourse to the laws and protections the native-born expect.

Oh, yes -- the problem is clearly all of us evil Americans who want our borders respected and our laws enforced. The problem isn't, if you live in the ritzy neighborhoods inhabited by denizens of the NY Times newsrooms and editorial offices, the border-jumping immigration criminals. It is the fact taht the American government is responding to what the American people say they want. Because you see -- the American people are not America, the illegals are.

The editorial then goes on through the litany of "evils" engaged in by the American government and people over the last year -- stricter enforcement of our borders, efforts by state and local government to see discourage illegal immigration and its associated negative impact on communities, fast-track deportation proceedings for those who have no right to be in America in the first place, tracking of immigration criminals and compiling a database on them, increased immigration fees and "the rise of hate" (like the KKK, long the paramilitary wing of the DemocratICK Party, has ever needed a reason to propagate its malignant views). In short, the paper makes it clear that it is much more supportive of lawbreakers than lawmakers and the citizens they respond to.

Which leads, of course, to the bleeding of the hearts of the entire editorial board.

Hopelessly fixated on toughness, the immigration debate has lost its balance, overlooking the humanity of the immigrant. There is a starkly diminished understanding that hospitality for the stranger is part of the American ethos, and that as much as we claim to be a nation of immigrants, we have thwarted them at every turn. We must do better.

The new year began with renewed optimism for the chances of sensible immigration reform in Washington. The hope is justified, but time is short and real change will still require boldness and courage. Citizenship must be the key to reform. The idea of an earned path to citizenship for illegal immigrants was missing from President Bush’s State of the Union address this year, though he has continued to say his usual favorable words about reform. The new Democratic Congress and moderate Republicans cannot be afraid to stand up to the anti-amnesty demagogues and lead Mr. Bush to a solution.

Enforcement of laws cannot be ignored. Punish immigrants who enter illegally, make them pay back taxes and fines, restrict their ability to get work through deceit and false identities. But open a path to their full inclusion in the life of this country.

The alternative — the path of immigrant exploitation, of harassment without hope — will only repeat the ways the country has shamed itself at countless points in its history.

Oh, yes, that's right -- anyone who disagrees with the NY Times is a hate-filled demagogue out to exploit and harass the poor, hopeless illegals who are the victim of a desire to protect America's sovereignty and enforce America's laws. Anyone with a position to the right of the NY Times simply needs to be ignored as irrelevant by the "responsible" acolytes of illegal immigration rights -- because it is the illegals and their needs that should have priority, not the will of the American people. At least in the left-wing mindset of the NY Times.

But, as usual, the NY Times has it wrong in their fundamental premise about illegal immigrants who jump our border in violation of our laws and sovereignty.

They are NOT America.

We, the People of the United States are America-- and we want secure borders now.

Those whining about this simply need to shut up. Since when did being those who break our nation’s immigration laws become entitled to reside in Hilton-like accommodations?

Brushing aside human rights complaints, the White House on Tuesday defended the use of a converted jail in Central Texas to detain families facing deportation – a facility where mothers and children are kept behind razor wire and clothed in prisonlike garb.

"It's difficult to find facilities," said Tony Snow, President Bush's press secretary, dismissing the suggestion that a less restrictive environment would be more appropriate.

"In the past, children had been separated from their families," he said. "What we're actually trying to do is to keep them together."

Detainees wear navy uniforms that come in sizes small enough to fit a newborn.
The 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, just northeast of Austin, opened in May – a response to complaints about the so-called "catch-and-release" policy that let illegal immigrants from countries other than Mexico remain free pending hearings set weeks or months later.

Refugee advocates and civil rights groups complain that the detention center, run by Corrections Corporation of America, a company that specializes in private prisons, remains very much a prison. And they say such a setting is inappropriate for families. The 8-by-8 cells always are unlocked but have only narrow slits for windows.

Well too, freakin’ bad! Jail is what happens when you break the law.

But what are the actual conditions/services provided?

Gary Mead, assistant director for the detention and removal operations at ICE, led a news media tour Friday and emphasized that children receive five hours of schooling each day, have access to a computer lab and gym, and get good medical care, despite complaints to the contrary.

Most of the detainees are Latin Americans from countries other than Mexico, though the center, in Taylor, Texas, drew much of its notoriety as home to three Dallas-area Palestinian families in recent months. One of those families was deported to Jordan. The others were recently released.

In other words, these folks are receiving decent treatment, with adequate provision made for the children. The other option is to place the children in foster care pending the outcome of status hearings, with the parents to remain locked up in a much more restrictive facility. But then the advocates for the criminal aliens would be complaining about the separation of parents from their children, wouldn’t they?

Of course, maybe that foster care idea isn’t a bad one. Indeed, it would be a good way of ensuring that the most appropriate course of action be taken when parents are deported – their parental rights to their children born in the United States could be terminated upon the issuance of a deportation order and the children declared immediately eligible for adoption by their foster families. That would certainly solve the anchor baby problem, and make illegal immigration to this country a much less attractive option for millions of border-jumpers.

I rarely post the contents of circulating emails on this site, but here is one that came from a friend that I believe will help folks understand why No Child left Behind, while well-intentioned, is problematic.

No Dentist Left Behind

My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don't forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. He never hurts me, and I've got all my teeth.

When I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he'd heard about the new state program. I knew he'd think it was great.

"Did you hear about the new state program to measure effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?" I said.

"No," he said. He didn't seem too thrilled. "How will they do that?"

"It's quite simple," I said. "They will just count the number of cavities each patient has at age 10, 14, and 18 and average that to determine a dentist's rating. Dentists will be rated as excellent, good, average, below average, and unsatisfactory. That way parents will know which are the best dentists. The plan will also encourage the less effective dentists to get better," I said. "Poor dentists who don't improve could lose their licenses to practice."

"That's terrible," he said.

"What? That's not a good attitude," I said. "Don't you think we should try to improve children's dental health in this state?"

"Sure I do," he said, "but that's not a fair way to determine who is practicing good dentistry."

"Why not?" I said. "It makes perfect sense to me."

"Well, it's so obvious," he said. "Don't you see that dentists don't all work with the same clientele, and that much depends on things we can't control? For example, I work in a rural area with a high percentage of patients from deprived homes, while some of my colleagues work in upper middle-class neighborhoods. Many of the parents I work with don't bring their children to see me until there is some kind of problem, and I don't get to do much preventive work. Also many of the parents I serve let their kids eat way too much candy from an early age, unlike more educated parents who understand the relationship between sugar and decay. To top it all off, so many of my clients have well water which is untreated and has no fluoride in it. Do you have any idea how much
difference early use of fluoride can make?"

"It sounds like you're making excuses," I said. "I can't believe that you, my dentist, would be so defensive. After all, you do a great job, and you needn't fear a little accountability."

"I am not being defensive!" he said. "My best patients are as good as anyone's, my work is as good as anyone's, but my average cavity count is going to be higher than a lot of other dentists because I chose to work where I am needed most."

"Don't' get touchy," I said.

"Touchy?" he said. His face had turned red, and from the way he was clenching and unclenching his jaws, I was afraid he was going to damage his teeth. "Try furious! In a system like this, I will end up being rated average, below average, or worse. The few educated patients I have who see these ratings may believe this so-called rating is an actual measure of my ability and proficiency as a dentist. They may leave me, and I'll be
left with only the most needy patients. And my cavity average score will get even worse. On top of that, how will I attract good dental hygienists and other excellent dentists to my practice if it is labeled below average?"

"I think you are overreacting," I said. "'Complaining, excuse-making and stonewalling won't improve dental health'...I am quoting from a leading member of the DOC," I noted.

"What's the DOC?" he asked.

"It's the Dental Oversight Committee," I said, "a group made up of mostly lay persons to make sure dentistry in this state gets improved."

"Spare me," he said, "I can't believe this. Reasonable people won't buy it," he said hopefully.

The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, "How else would you measure good dentistry?"

"Come watch me work," he said. "Observe my processes."

"That's too complicated, expensive and time- consuming," I said. "Cavities are the bottom line, and you can't argue with the bottom line. It's an absolute measure."

"That's what I'm afraid my parents and prospective patients will think. This can't be happening," he said despairingly.

"Now, now," I said, "don't despair. The state will help you some."

"How?" he asked.

"If you receive a poor rating, they'll send a dentist who is rated excellent to help straighten you out," I said brightly.

"You mean," he said, "they'll send a dentist with a wealthy clientele to show me how to work on severe juvenile dental problems with which I have probably had much more experience? BIG HELP!"

"There you go again," I said. "You aren't acting professionally at all."

"You don't get it," he said. "Doing this would be like grading schools and teachers on an average score made on a test of children's progress with no regard to influences outside the school, the home, the community served and stuff like that. Why would they do something so unfair to dentists? No one would ever think of doing that to schools."

I just shook my head sadly, but he had brightened. "I'm going to write my representatives and senators," he said. "I'll use the school analogy. Surely they will see the point."

He walked off with that look of hope mixed with fear and suppressed anger that I, a teacher, see in the mirror so often lately.

If you don't understand why educators resent the recent federal NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND ACT, this may help. If you do understand, you'll enjoy this analogy, which was forwarded by John S. Taylor, Superintendent of Schools for the Lancaster County, PA, School District. Be a friend to a teacher and pass this on.

Frankly, I couldn’t have said it any better myself – when one works with human beings and not widgets, there are a whole host of factors beyond one’s control that impact outcomes. Expecting success every time just isn’t practical, no matter how much it is desired.

I may have to reconsider purchasing my season tickets for this year. To have turned down this ad places the league on the side of criminals and terrorists.

The National Football League refused to include a print ad recruiting U.S. Border Patrol agents in its 2007 official Super Bowl program because they were uncomfortable with "the sensitive political nature" of the spot, according to a league spokesman.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the Border Patrol, had offered to pay for the advertisment, which was part of a campaign to boost the number of agents by 18,000. But money wasn't the issue, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told ABC News.

The ad "was specific to border patrol and mentioned terrorists," he said. "The game was in Miami, where [immigration] is a sensitive political issue...[it] made us a little bit uncomfortable."

Too bad that a sport for men has been taken over by PC weenies running the league office.

Forgive me if I don't give a rat's hindquarters about the worry, concern, and anxiety caused to illegal immigrants by the fact that ICE is starting to take its mandate to handle immigration matters seriously.

Cook Rosa Maria Salazar's eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles.

"We're terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us," she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly.

The 55-year-old undocumented worker from Guatemala is among many Hispanics deeply shaken by recent immigration raids at the heart of Latino communities in southern California.

The-seven day Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweep, dubbed "Operation Return to Sender," targeted jails across five counties in the Los Angeles area, where police took 423 of what they called "criminal aliens" into federal custody for deportation, after being held on charges unrelated to their immigration status.

Federal agents from seven teams also fanned out in local communities, where they nabbed 338 undocumented immigrants, more than 150 of whom were classed as "immigration fugitives" -- foreign nationals who ignored final deportation orders.

The raid was the latest in a series of get-tough enforcement measures by ICE in the United States, but the largest action of its kind in California, where more than a third of the population is Hispanic.

"We hadn't seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock," said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

"The police didn't just take people with deportation orders, they took anybody ... guys who were just hanging out in the street and even from a Jack in the Box restaurant ... and now people are afraid to go out," he added.

Fear is precisely what these folks ought to be feeling following the latest round of immigration raids. Indeed, every single border-jumping immigration criminal ought to live in constant terror of deportation. That isn't hatred or bigotry talking -- that is respect for the rule of law.

Indeed, my only objection is that there are at least 12 million more of these folks at large, violating American law with every breath they take on our nation's soil -- and that they are not yet frightened enough to get the hell out of the US in order to re-enter in a legal manner, at which point I will gladly welcome them with open arms.

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Call it one more attempt to tighten border security in this age of terrorism -- US citizens returning by air from Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean will now need a passport to get back into the country. And starting next January, ANY border crossing will need one -- even just to zip over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls or go shopping in Juarez or Tijuana. And that requirement applies to children, too -- not just adults.

A United States citizen flying home today from a ski jaunt in Canada, a beach break in Mexico or a honeymoon in Jamaica can flash a driver’s license or a birth certificate at airport customs officials and walk on through.

Tomorrow, those documents will no longer work.

Starting then, United States citizens, including children, returning to this country by air from any country in the Western Hemisphere will have to present a passport.

In another change, citizens of Canada and Bermuda traveling to the United States by air will also have to show passports to enter the country. Previously, they too could use driver’s licenses and birth documents.

* * *

The new measure applies only to air travelers. Officials in the Department of Homeland Security said they expected to roll out the same restrictions for passengers arriving by land and sea by Jan. 1, 2008.

I understand the need for border security, and I support it. Still, I cannot help but wonder about the impact on the tourism industry. And we are still failing to deal with the real border security issue -- the constant flow of border-jumping immigration criminals into this country from Mexico, who simply bypass all border control checkpoints and go to work without documents. I find it rather galling that my government is more interested in making it difficult for me to travel in and out of the country legally than they are to stop the illegal border crossings.

From the Border Patrol

The US Customs and Border Protection Office of Congressional Affairs has received several calls asking for more information regarding an incursion by armed individuals last week in Arizona. Below is a summary of the event. Please let me know if you require additional information.

On Wednesday, January 3, 2007, A National Guard Unit manning a observation post near Sasabe, AZ observed several armed men advancing on their location. The men were observed wearing ballistic vests and carrying automatic weapons. The National Guardsmen reported the situation to Border Patrol via handheld radio and satellite phone. One of the subjects approached the observation post and came within 20 yards of the site. Following standard operating procedure, the national Guardsmen slowly retreated to their vehicle and drove approximately 200 yards away from the site. A CBP air asset arrived on scene within minutes and flew over the area assessing the risk. Five Border Patrol ground Agents were on-site within 10 minutes of the initial call. The ground agents and the air asset tracked the subjects back into Mexico. The CBP air asset continued to provide an aerial platform to look for possible threats from the Mexico side of the border. The CBP air asset did not enter Mexican airspace. Nothing was disturbed or taken from the observation post. Contrary to several media reports, the National Guard members were armed at the time of the encounter

Joe Westmoreland
Office of Congressional Affairs
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
202-344-2852

If they are going to retreat, then why do we have the Border Patrol or National Guard there at all?

H/T Lone Star Times

At least in the state of Georgia.

The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld the identity fraud conviction of an illegal immigrant from Mexico who used the name and Social Security number of a Georgia man to get a job at a poultry plant.

In a unanimous decision released Monday, the justices said Georgia's identity theft law is not unconstitutionally vague, nor is it pre-empted by federal law.

The high court found that Nohe Gomes Hernandez ``misappropriated the Social Security number of Jason Smith,'' and that he ``then used this misappropriated number to obtain a Social Security card and a California driver's license in Smith's name'' so he could get a job at a northeast Georgia poultry plant.

Hernandez was sentenced in April to two years in prison after a jury found him guilty of violating the ID theft law.

Hernandez' attorney had argued that Hernandez' actions were not covered by the state law, which was created to keep people from stealing others' personal information and using it to pillage bank accounts or run up credit card bills. The defense contended that Hernandez did not take any money or resources from Smith.

Authorities learned about the case when the real Jason Smith, from Danielsville, Ga., applied for a $600 tax refund, but the Internal Revenue Service said he owed $12,000 in back taxes.

When Smith inquired further, he found that the IRS had him working two jobs, including the Harrison Poultry plant, where he never worked.

More states need to adopt laws modeled on the Georgia statute and begin using it to prosecute the border-jumping immigration criminals in our midst. Hopefully Texas will be one of them.

No, that isn’t my practice when I go fishing – that is the nature of US policy towards illegal immigration according to a new study.

Illegal immigrants who were caught but released in the United States may have been re-arrested as many as six times, Justice Department data released Monday indicates.

The findings by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine are based on a sampling of 100 illegal immigrants arrested by local and state authorities in 2004, the latest complete data available. They show that 73 of the 100 immigrants were arrested, collectively, 429 times — ranging from traffic tickets to weapons and drug charges.

Fine's office said its audit could not conclude precisely how many of the 262,105 illegal immigrants charged with criminal histories that year had been re-arrested. "But if this data is indicative of the full population of 262,105 criminal histories, the rate at which released criminal aliens are re-arrested is extremely high," the audit noted.

Before we do any sort of amnesty, we clearly need to step up the enforcement end of things so that we don’t have releases of individuals with a half-dozen criminal violations.

But then again, maybe I’m wrong – perhaps we need these hard-working criminals to commit the crimes that Americans won’t commit.

First it was maps and a survival guide -- now it seems that some Mexican authorities are going to provide GPS services to border jumping immigration criminals as they seek to break into the United States in violation of American sovereignty.

Two state government institutions are studying the possibility of giving Mexican migrants GPS locators that could be used to call the U.S. Border Patrol for help.

The locators would be given to migrants who are thinking of crossing the border, and would give U.S. Border Patrol agents the location of those in trouble. The U.S. government has yet to sign off on the project, which is still in the planning stages.

Hundreds of Mexicans are killed each year trying to sneak illegally into the United States. Many are lost or succumb to heat exhaustion in the desert, while others are killed trying to swim across the Rio Grande or hide in vehicles.

Supporters of the initiative argue that it could save hundreds of lives. Among those looking at the possibility is Jesus Torreblanca, who works for Puebla state's Commission for the Attention of Migrants.

"This won't guarantee that they won't be detained by the Border Patrol or face deportation, and it won't keep them from facing risks in the desert," he said today. "It is simply an effort at rescuing people while they are still alive."

He denied that the locators would encourage illegal migration.

"Our main purpose is to show people the enormous dangers they risk in crossing rivers, canals and deserts ... but the phenomenon of immigration is something that can't be stopped overnight," he said.

Mexico's Monterrey Tech University is developing the locators, which would be cheap and easy to carry and activate. They would be handed out for free to migrants.

Torreblanca said the locators might be ready by March.

It was unclear whether the U.S. government would approve such a project. In the past, similar campaigns to help migrants in distress have been criticized by U.S. anti-immigration groups as condoning illegal migration.

"The U.S. government has every right to protect its borders anyway it sees necessary," Torreblanca said. "The only thing that we ask is that they respect human rights."

And all we ask is that you folks in Mexican government respect American sovereignty -- and that you begin by acting to stop the incursions by your citizens into the United States, rather than helping them.

Not that we need a fence, a wall, or the full militarization of our nation's southern border or any such thing. After all, it isn't like we take such matters seriously in this country.!

A U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico.

According to the Border Patrol, an unknown number of gunmen attacked the site in the state's West Desert Region around 11 p.m. The site is manned by National Guardsmen. Those guardsmen were forced to retreat.

The Border Patrol will not say whether shots were fired. However, no Guardsmen were injured in the incident.

The Border Patrol says the incident occurred somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville. The area is known as a drug corridor. Last year, 124-thousand pounds of illegal drugs were confiscated in this area.

The Border patrol says the attackers quickly retreated back into Mexico.

Not, of course, that the US government would have done a damn thing if the gunmen had decided to stay. After all, they were just here to violate borders Americans are unwilling to violate.

I was discussing this issue with my favorite congresswoman just the other evening. I can't believe we both seem to generally agree with the New York Times!

In 1996, Congress ordered immigration officials to create a system to track everyone who enters the country and everyone who leaves. That sensible directive lay on a back burner until 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security then hastened to set up the U.S. Visit program, which requires people to be photographed and fingerprinted at ports of entry for checking against databases of terrorists and other undesirables.

That system has been running since 2004, and has plucked hundreds of bad people from the huge visitor stream without horribly disrupting tourism and business travel. But news came last week that the other half of the program — monitoring foreign travelers when they leave — has been abandoned.

The Homeland Security Department had hoped to begin tracking departures at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. But it has given up meeting that deadline after deciding that the cost — including time lost in long lines at the borders — would be prohibitive. Part of the problem is technological: tracking methods that would work are too expensive.

The Government Accountability Office, echoing the Bush administration’s conclusions, said that a cost-effective departure system may not emerge for five to 10 years. And so, after spending $1.7 billion since 2003 on the U.S. Visit program, the administration will keep doing what it has been doing at the nation’s land exits, which is basically nothing.

It’s good to know who’s leaving the country — and who isn’t. About a third of illegal immigrants are believed to be those who entered lawfully but stayed after their visas expired. Some of the 9/11 hijackers were in this group. Hunting such people down is not even theoretically possible until you know whom you are looking for.

Of course, the formerly great newspaper then turns the corner into another in a never-ending series of Bush-bashing rants about the Iraq war and cutting taxes, but the overall point is correct -- we cannot control the borders until we know who is entering and leaving, and that won't come cheap. But then again, national security is one of the few legitimate things for the federal government to be spending money on, according to the Constitution.

Except for the fact that the Jews were innocent of anything other than being Jews and were murdered for that, and border-jumping immigration criminals are guilty of violating American sovereignty and are simply being sent back to their homelands, immigration raids are exactly like Nazi persecution of the Jews!!!

U.S. Hispanic groups and activists on Thursday called for a moratorium on workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants, saying they were reminiscent of Nazi crackdowns on Jews in the 1930s.

They accused the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of "racial profiling," or selective enforcement against Hispanics, for arresting 1,300 workers on immigration violations in December 12 raids at meatpacking plants in six states.

"We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated," said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a news conference.

"This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up," Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. "Now they're coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?"

Such claims are nothing less than Holocaust denial on the part of advocates for immigration criminals. Every American, regardless of religion, race, or ethnicity, should stand up and denounce LULAC, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials for daring to spew such falsehoods.

And might I add this note.

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

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Once again putting the lie to the idea that border-jumping immigration criminals are not taking jobs away from American workers.

The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.

Among them was Derrick Stegall, who carefully filled out paperwork he hoped would get him an interview and eventually land him a job as a slaughterer. Two of his friends had been taken away by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and he felt compelled to fill their rubber boots.

"Luckily, they had no wives or family they left behind. But it was still sad. They left their apartments filled with all their stuff. I took two dogs one of them had. The other guy had a cat I gave to my sister," he said.

Greg Bonifacio heard about the job openings on television and brought his passport, his Colorado driver's license, his Social Security card and even a color photograph of himself as a young Naval officer to prove his military service.

"I don't want to hassle with any identification problems because of my last name," said Bonifacio, a 59- year-old Thornton resident of Filipino heritage.

I'd lay odds that you would find a similar reality in each and every community where these raids took place -- American citizens lining up out the door for good jobs that they need and want to do.

American jobs.

American workers.

They go good together -- when those workers are not aced out by those who violate our nation's laws -- and sovereignty.

That is what Swift & Co,, recently hit by immigration raids in six states, appears to have done.

Former employees are suing Swift & Co. for $23 million, alleging the meatpacking company conspired to keep wages down by hiring illegal immigrants.

The 18 former employees are U.S. citizens who worked at a plant in Cactus, north of Amarillo, one of six facilities raided in a federal sweep that led to the arrests of nearly 1,300 employees and temporarily halted Swift's operations.

"These plaintiffs are ... victims in a longstanding scheme by Swift to depress and artificially lower the wages of its workers by knowingly hiring illegal workers," said their attorney, Angel Reyes.

And there seems to be a good prima facie case. After all, how do you explain the rate of pay dropping from $20 an hour to $12 an hour over the last several years, even as wage rates in this country have been rising? Simple -- get rid of those expensive Americans and replace them with cheap foreign laborers in this country illegally.

These border-jumping immigration criminals were not "doing jobs Americans won't do". No, they were (and others are) doing jobs that Americans are ready, willing, and able to do -- taking money out of the pockets and bread out of the mouths of American citizens by depressing wages in the industries in which they work.

And unethical businesses like Swift & Co. are willing participants in their crime against the American people.

Which means, of course, that there will be no way of checking if folks have over-stayed their visas. Is there anything that the Department of Homeland Security is doing right?

In a major blow to the Bush administration’s efforts to secure borders, domestic security officials have for now given up on plans to develop a facial or fingerprint recognition system to determine whether a vast majority of foreign visitors leave the country, officials say.

Domestic security officials had described the system, known as U.S. Visit, as critical to security and important in efforts to curb illegal immigration. Similarly, one-third of the overall total of illegal immigrants are believed to have overstayed their visas, a Congressional report says.

Tracking visitors took on particular urgency after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, when it became clear that some of the hijackers had remained in the country after their visas had expired.

But in recent days, officials at the Homeland Security Department have conceded that they lack the financing and technology to meet their deadline to have exit-monitoring systems at the 50 busiest land border crossings by next December. A vast majority of foreign visitors enter and exit by land from Mexico and Canada, and the policy shift means that officials will remain unable to track the departures.

Is it time to dismantle DHS yet, and replace it with an effective agency for dealing with homeland security?

I guess I don’t understand why I should feel bad for the family in this story. After all, they are here breaking the law, and yet they are somehow presented to be victims of the government’s decision to enforce the law.

Isabel Ramirez wept as she clutched her 18-month-old daughter, Brenda, in the ramshackle trailer park where she lives.

Her husband, Juan, had been detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid on the Swift & Co. meatpacking plant where he worked, and she didn't know where he was.

"He was the only one working. He paid for everything, the bills, rent. I have three kids," 33-year- old Isabel Ramirez said.

As she spoke, her 7-year-old daughter, Laura, was at school, and her 3-year-old son, Juanito, kicking muddy snow by the trailer, was having a very bad day.
His father "is in jail," Juanito said. He threw a stick angrily down at the snow and turned and banged his head against the side of a broken trampoline.

As authorities began deporting workers rounded up in raids at meatpacking plants here and in five other states, this city, which for decades has run on illegal labor from Mexico, confronted an unexpected challenge: what to do about kids left behind.

I’ll answer the question for you – deport the kids with the parents if they were not born with American citizenship. If the kids were born here, revoke the parental rights and place them for adoption – or permit the parents to irrevocably renounce US citizenship on behalf of their children.

Now some of you might object that this proposal is harsh. Know what – you are right. But harsh measures are the only ones that will allow us take control of our border. And you might object that the foster care/adoption expenses would be high for those children taken into state custody. But then again, the taxpayers are already footing much of the bill for the millions of children of illegal aliens in this country, so the added cost would be significantly less than one might think.

And for those who think illegal immigration is a victimless crime, you might want to read this piece from MSNBC.

UPDATE: More efforts to portray the immigration criminals, their families, and their employer as victims of the government enforcing the law.

And in a move that is probably even more outrageous, this story tries to present the American consumer as the real victim -- something that I expect to see repeatedly as there is a concerted push for an amnesty.

Even as he prepares to leave office, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney is showing that he understands the importance of dealing with our nation’s immigration crisis.

Gov. Mitt Romney, who is weighing a White House bid, signed an agreement Wednesday that allows Massachusetts State Police troopers to detain illegal aliens they encounter over the course of their normal duties.

Under the terms of the agreement, made with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, an initial group of 30 troopers will receive five weeks of specialized training next year, paid by the federal government.

The troopers will be drawn from the Violent Fugitive Apprehension Squad, the Criminal Investigation Section, the Anti-Gang Unit, the Drug Enforcement Unit and the Community Action Team.

"The scope of our nation's illegal immigration problem requires us to pursue and implement new solutions wherever possible," Romney said in a statement. "State troopers are highly trained professionals who are prepared to assist the federal government in apprehending immigration violators without disrupting their normal law enforcement routines."

Oh, and one question – will Romney’s Democrat successor, Deval Patrick, maintain this policy?

UPDATE: And the answer is -- Deval Patrick doesn't give a damn about our nation's illegal immigration crisis.

After all, I've seen him to be pretty much a fraud on every conservative issue, so I'm not surprised by this statement.

Gov. Rick Perry, who built his re-election campaign on border security, told a gathering of border mayors today that building a wall along the border with Mexico is a "preposterous" idea.

"Now, strategic fencing in certain urban areas to direct the flow of traffic does make sense, but building a wall on the entire border is a preposterous idea," Perry said.

"The only thing a wall would possibly accomplish is to help the ladder business."

While Perry always opposed fencing the border, his re-election campaign de-emphasized that position.

Perry ran millions of dollars of television advertising portraying the border as an open zone of human and drug smuggling and as a potential pathway for terrorists. He launched a program to put live Internet cameras along the border and said he would ask the Legislature for $100 million for border security.

The campaign was widely seen as an effort to appeal to a Republican voting base angry at the federal government for failing to act to halt illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America.

Perry told the Texas Border Coalition that the national anti-immigrant rhetoric of the political campaigns was not constructive.

Governor Good-Hair has licked his finger, put it to the wind, and determined that amnesty and open borders are going to win in the next Congress -- and he wants to make sure he is on the right side.

A great column today in the Rocky Mountain news, dealing with the issue of crimes committed by illegal aliens -- and not the ones they commit merely because of their immigration status.

What percentage of arrests for DUI offenses in 2005 were illegal aliens? Recall that Justin Goodman of Thornton was killed in 2004 on his motorcycle by an illegal alien driver who had six prior DUI and other driving violations in Boulder and Adams counties. The man had never been referred to ICE for deportation.

Does the Denver city attorney's standing policy of not asking questions in court about the legitimacy of Mexican driver's licenses presented by defendants have any consequences for the law-abiding citizens of Denver? Recall that the man who killed police officer Donnie Young had used an invalid Mexican driver's license to avoid jail in Denver municipal court only three weeks before the slaying.

Why is it that a full year after the Colorado attorney general stated that one- quarter of Colorado's outstanding fugitive homicide warrants are for people who have fled to Mexico, no newspaper has asked how many of the individuals named in the warrants were illegal aliens with prior arrests? (In Los Angeles County, there are more than 400 such fugitive warrants.)

How are sanctuary cities like Durango, Boulder and Denver responding to SB 90, the new state law passed in 2006 to outlaw sanctuary cities? What is ICE doing to respond to SB 90?

If Denver received federal reimbursement for the incarceration of more than 1,100 illegal aliens in 2004, why were only 175 deported when they finished their terms? What subsequent crimes did the other 925 criminal aliens commit?

After the murder of officer Donnie Young in May 2005, the Denver ICE office renewed its routine surveys of the Denver jail population to identify illegal aliens subject to deportation. How many criminal aliens have actually been deported out of the Denver jail since then, compared to prior years when such checks were not being made?

There is a societal cost to our nation's lax immigration policies. Why don't we honestly discuss it and try to solve teh problem? Or will the newly elected Democrats surrender on the border issue like they want to in Iraq?

That is what this statement clearly implies.

Democrats will look again at the legislation mandating 698 miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and might seek to scrap the plan altogether when they take control of Congress next year.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, Mississippi Democrat, told reporters this week that he expected to "revisit" the issue when he becomes chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in the 110th Congress.

Never mind that fencing/walls are an important part of border security in urban areas where the proposed electronic monitoring system will be rendered ineffective by the ability to quickly hide in densely populated areas.

In other words, the Democrat solution to border control is erecting billboards that read "Welcome Undocumented Workers!"

H/T Blog From On High

And if there is, will it be based on preserving the security of our nation's borders and the sovereign right of the US to control immigration? Or will it involve another round of amnesty, legalization, and incentives for even more of border-jumpers to come to America in order to skip to the head of the immigration line? That is the question as Democrats take control of Congress.

Jolted by the dramatic shake-up on Capitol Hill, the incoming Congress may prove more receptive to sweeping immigration changes such as a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, lawmakers and policy experts said.

Among the causes: Democrats' big gains, a shift by Latino voters away from the GOP and the defeat of several conservative Republicans who ran on a strident anti-illegal immigration message.

"I do see a light at the end of the tunnel," Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, of Houston, the top Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee, said Wednesday.

But if Jackson-Lee sees a light, it is probably a flashlight being held by human traffickers leading even more illegals across the border. After all, she has steadfastly opposed shoring up our nation's borders.

And those of us worried about a repeat of the mistakes made in the 1980s with the Simpson-Mazolli amnesty legislation don't find the president's words comforting.

On Wednesday, President Bush identified immigration as an area in which he'd work with Democrats. And in comments directed to congressional conservatives who stymied his push for a guest-worker plan, Bush noted that strides have been made on border security.

"I would hope we can get something done," Bush said. "There's an issue where I believe we can find some common ground with the Democrats."

But if it involves legalization/amnesty, we may as well throw open the borders and admit that our nation can and will do nothing to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. And a guest worker program may be exactly that -- especially if it contains no effective enforcement provisions to make the "guests" leave.

Not only that, but the incoming Mexican president opposes our current efforts to illegal regulate border crossings.

In his first visit to Washington as Mexico's president-elect, Felipe Calderon is expected to urge President Bush today to resolve the immigration problem by investing in Mexico and eventually creating a European Union-style economic region where goods and services — and people — flow freely throughout North America.

* * *

Their cooperation will be key in determining the fate of 700 miles in new border fencing that Congress approved, but didn't completely fund, this year.

The fence has been heavily criticized in Mexico, and Calderon has called it an unnecessary barrier that threatens to permanently damage the relationship between the two neighbors and trading partners.

In other words, he wants to expand upon NAFTA -- something the Democrats are unlikely to go for. And the EU analogy will turn off conservatives, who recognize that the EU has eroded the sovereignty of European nations and placed it in the hands of a more or less unaccountable EU bureaucracy.

Any solution that doesn't involve building a fence to control access to the United States through regulated border checkpoints is doomed to failure -- and any solution that rewards those here illegally is a surrender of the national interest.

Otherwise the Houston Chroinicle missed the big story while reporting on the reaction of the Hispanic community (especially among those here illegally) to changes in HPD policies on working with immigration officials.

Immigration activist Maria Jimenez is quoted extensively in the article. But the attribution of comments becoenm indirect in the final paragraph.

"Everything is stalled on immigration reform," she said, but she nonetheless urged those who are eligible to vote, or who have family members who are, to cast their ballots in the upcoming election.

I've got no problem with her urging people to vote if they are eligible. I want to see every eligible voter vote. But this sentence could be read as a claim that Jimenez advocated the those ineligible to vote should vote if they have an eligible family member but are not eligible to vote themselves. I hope that she is not urging that fraudulent votes be cast. If that is what she called for, reporter Cynthia Leonor Garza missed the big story.

However, I hope that we are just seeing sloppy reporting/editting at the Houston Chronicle. It would not be the first time.

Yeah, it was a publicity stunt, but I think it indicates the fundamental lack of control we have of the border region, and the resulting lack of security.

Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande.

It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents.

“The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th District U.S. House of Representatives seat in Eastern Pennsylvania.

Three elephants, two African and an Asian, were taken out to a ranch near Boca Chica beach to perform, the 31-year-old Bhakta said.

He was in Brownsville to raise funds with friends and decided to get a first-hand look at border security while he was here, he said.

* * *

“If I can get an elephant led by a mariachi band into this country, I think Osama bin Laden could get across with all the weapons of mass destruction he could get into this country,” Bhakta said.

The only response from authorities was the arrival of the US Department of Agriculture, which seized the elephants because they were in a quarantine zone. The beasts wee released after they were sprayed for ticks.

Incredible!

So not only does Mexico intend to continue violating American sovereignty by aiding its citizens as they illegally cross the border into the United States, now they want the UN to tell the United States it cannot act to stop the passage of these Mexicn citizens by building a fence inside the borders of the United States!

Mexico's foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations.

Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on a European tour, that a legal investigation was under way to determine whether Mexico has a case.

The Mexican government last week sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing the plan for 700 miles of new fencing along the border. President-elect Felipe Calderon also denounced the plan, but said it was a bilateral issue that should not be put before the international community.

Derbez said Monday after meeting with French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy that it was a "shame" U.S. immigration policy had been used for what he claimed was a short-term political gain in the lead-up to midterm elections in the U.S. in November.

He said he discussed the issue with Douste-Blazy, and planned to bring it up in meetings with his Spanish and Italian counterparts during visits to Madrid and Rome. He vowed to work on the case until the "very last day" of President Vicente Fox's term, which ends Dec. 1.

The U.S. Senate approved the border fence bill last month and President Bush has said he will sign it into law - despite last-minute pleas from the Mexican government for a veto.

"What should be constructed is a bridge in relations between the two countries," Derbez said.

Well, that would mean we need to tell both Mexico AND the UN that they can go to hell. This is entirely an internal matter, not subject to UN interference according to the UN charter. No question of human rights is impacted here.

Of course, if the UN does order the US to stop building the fence and allow unfettered illegal immigration, they would have no reason to object when the 82nd Airborne chose to "illegally immigrate" to Mexico with the assistance of the US Air Force and the US demanded that the Mexican government accede to its demand that the Mexican authorities unconditionally surrender to the United States and submit to annexation.

That is how this case should be handled.

Deny the claim.

Dismiss the suit.

Deport the plaintiffs.

A group of illegal immigrants who worked for Wendy's International Inc. is suing the restaurant chain because the company fired them after discovering it had missed a deadline for joining a federal program that would have helped them attain legal status.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in state district court in Houston, is a companion to a similar class-action suit filed last month in Dallas against Dublin, Ohio-based Wendy's, its subsidiary Cafe Express and the Houston-based business law firm Boyar & Miller.

The immigrants, who worked for Cafe Express, are seeking unspecified damages.

Between the two lawsuits, 40 illegal immigrants say they were fired after the company recently found that Boyar & Miller, the law firm Wendy's had hired, never filed paperwork for a 2001 legalization program that allowed immigrants with employer sponsorship or an American spouse to apply for citizenship.

Once the discovery was made, Wendy's was forced by law to fire the employees because of their illegal status. Immigrants in the program would have been insulated from being fired.

They are here illegally.

They had no right to be employed.

The company had no obligation to participate in the program.

The law required the firings.

As such, I don't see the basis for any legitimate claim -- and indeed, I only see the basis for the federal government to impose sanctions against Wendy's for employing the border-jumping immigration criminals in the first place.

So it is time for the federal government to do their duty in this case.

Round 'em up!

Rawhide!

We keep getting this nonsense from Vicente Fox, the President Pendejo of Mexico.

Mexican President Vicente Fox, who leaves office Dec. 1, has called the barrier "shameful" and compared it to the Berlin Wall. His spokesman yesterday urged Bush to veto the bill.

"This decision hurts bilateral relations, goes against the spirit of cooperation needed to guarantee security on the common border, creates a climate of tension in border communities," Ruben Aguilar told reporters.

I’ll tell you what – if you would keep your border jumpers and drug smugglers out of our country, and we wouldn’t need to build a fence. But since you and your country encourage and profit from both the trafficking in illegal drugs and the trafficking in human beings, we need it. Look in the mirror if you want to know why it has come to this.
Maybe your successor will do a better job with this matter.

Arizona Democrats want Republicans to denounce and apologize for one of their own – because they don’t like his ideas on immigration reform.

Several Arizona Democrats are calling on Republicans to denounce controversial comments by a prominent Mesa representative and take steps toward meaningful immigration reform, including tough sanctions on employers who hire illegal immigrants.

The comments last week by Rep. Russell Pearce advocating a return to a mass-deportation program from the 1950s called "Operation Wetback" have outraged many in the Latino community. But the state Republican Party has been silent on the issue, and a spokesman said the party has decided not to comment on the statements by Pearce, a House leader and one of the GOP's leading voices on immigration issues.

* * *

"We need to secure the border and go after employers hiring illegally," [Democrat Rpresentative Steve] Gallardo said. "We need comprehensive reform that is meaningful and successful, not a failed policy from the 1950s."

Actually, the program in question didn’t fail – it was remarkably successful in cutting the number of folks illegally entering and working in the country.

Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve. As many as 3 million illegal migrants had walked and waded northward over a period of several years for jobs in California, Arizona, Texas, and points beyond.

President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic. He did it quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents - less than one-tenth of today's force. The operation is still highly praised among veterans of the Border Patrol.

* * *

[O]n June 17, 1954, what was called "Operation Wetback" began. Because political resistance was lower in California and Arizona, the roundup of aliens began there. Some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, over 50,000 aliens were caught in the two states. Another 488,000, fearing arrest, had fled the country.

By mid-July, the crackdown extended northward into Utah, Nevada, and Idaho, and eastward to Texas.

By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had left the Lone Star State voluntarily.

Unlike today, Mexicans caught in the roundup were not simply released at the border, where they could easily reenter the US. To discourage their return, Swing arranged for buses and trains to take many aliens deep within Mexico before being set free.

Tens of thousands more were put aboard two hired ships, the Emancipation and the Mercurio. The ships ferried the aliens from Port Isabel, Texas, to Vera Cruz, Mexico, more than 500 miles south.

Now you can argue about whether such a program would be desirable today, but to call it a “failed policy� is clearly not accurate. Given that there were only about 3 million illegals in this country at the time, it is hard to argue that a program that got rid of half of them constitutes a failure. And it is certainly clear that the program was more successful than anything that is going on now.

Maybe the best answer would be to include such a program along with stiffer employer sanctions, a border fence, and proposals put in place other proposals suggested by both Democrats and Republicans – crackdowns on human smugglers and the use of increased technology. I suppose I’d even be open to a guest worker program – once we get the numbe of people illegally in this country down by 90-95%.

But apologize for floating the idea of trying a policy that worked? I don’t think so.

Recognizing that the policy in place for fourteen years was flawed, the Houston Police Department has modified its handling of immigration issues.

Under fire in recent months over its policy toward illegal immigrants, the Houston Police Department is unveiling new procedures today to allow more cooperation with federal agents trying to catch criminals living in the country illegally.

Officers still will not inquire about the immigration status of people they haven't arrested, so the changes are unlikely to quiet critics who have labeled Houston a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.

But the department is making several key revisions.

An announcement is expected today, less than two weeks after the shooting death of police officer Rodney Johnson caused simmering opposition to the department policy to flare anew. An illegal immigrant who previously had been deported is charged in the slaying.

Now what this means is that HPD won't go on ignoring violations of immigration laws, but will instead cooperate with federal authorities .

Among the changes to take effect this week:

•The department will hold people detained or arrested for traffic violations or other minor crimes — Class C misdemeanors — if warrant checks show they are wanted by federal agents for defying an order to leave the country or for returning after being deported in connection with a criminal case. Under existing policy, police generally did not hold such people for federal authorities, even if officers were aware of the federal warrants.

•The department will allow immigration agents unfettered access to the city's two jails, as they have had in the Harris County jail, and officers will start asking all arrestees whether they are citizens.

•Fingerprints of anyone booked into the jails without proper identification will be checked against a national fingerprint database. That could help officers identify wanted criminals, including people wanted for serious immigration violations, police say.

Now the policy does not go far enough, in my book. HPD officers should inquire about the immigration status of ALL individuals arrested or cited and then notify federal authorities of those here illegally. This is, however, a good start.

And for those who argue that immigration is a federal issue and that the local cops should not be involved in enforcing such laws, would you care to let us know what other federal laws you don't want cops enforcing?

Kidnapping?

Terrorism?

Drug trafficking?

Come on, surely there must be some other federal law besides the one against border jumping that you don't believe local cops should enforce.

And interestingly enough, the policy change was expedited by the murder of HPD Officer Rodney Johnson by a previously-deported, child-molesting, border-jumping immigration criminal.

The death of officer Rodney Johnson expedited the Houston Police Department's new policy of asking people arrested in minor crimes for identification and running criminal background checks on those who cannot provide it, but the change was being formulated before he was killed during the arrest of an illegal immigrant, Mayor Bill White said Sunday.

"That did provide an additional impetus to bring this to conclusion, but it was in the works anyway," White said at a news conference Sunday formally announcing the change. "Both Chief (Hurtt) and I, after that death, we asked for an expedited review of everything we could to identify people who are wanted (for criminal activity)."

I wonder -- will Houston city councilwoman Ada Edwards call Mayor White and Chief Hurtt "pimps" for making the change, as she did Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs when the GOP congressional candidate courageously called for the policy's change on the day of Johnson's funeral?

I mean after all, just because they are charged with drug offenses doesn't mean that they shoud be kicked out of the country, does it -- even if they entered illegally?

The Denver district attorney's office under gubernatorial candidate Bill Ritter approved plea bargains that prevented the deportation of illegal and legal immigrants charged with drug, assault and other crimes.

The office allowed defendants to plead guilty to trespassing on agricultural land instead of the crimes they actually were accused of 152 times from 1998 through 2004. Other counties - Jefferson, Adams and Arapahoe - had only 75 convictions combined for the crime, according to court records.

Former Denver District Attorney Norm Early, who was Ritter's predecessor, laughed when he heard about the farm charges in urban Denver.

"I reviewed all my case dispositions, and I never remember that coming up," he said.

A review of 15 of the agricultural trespass cases in Denver showed that heroin and cocaine charges, theft of motor vehicles and domestic violence crimes - miles away from any farm or open land - were transformed into agricultural trespass.

"This plea agreement was reached with the the specific purpose of not pleading guilty to an offense that would subject (the defendant) to deportation proceedings," wrote a defense attorney in a motion filed in a Denver court Oct. 11, 2000.

The defendant, Ernesto Leon Reyes, was a resident alien who was initially charged with five drug counts related to his possession and intention to distribute 2,000 grams of methamphetamine.

If convicted of the drug charge, Reyes could have been deported after serving time. Instead, after pleading guilty to the trespass on agricultural land charge, Reyes received probation and stayed in the United States.

Did you folks get that one -- drug dealers remained in this country because the DA's office didn't want to subject them to the "hardship" of going back where they came from. Sounds like prosecutorial malfeasance to me.

And now Bill Ritter and the Democrats want him to be Governor of Colorado.

Vote Republican in Colorado and the rest of the country for every office -- public safety and America's borders depend on it.

There was clearly no merit to this suit -- the law is clear that illegal immigrant parents of American citizens have no right to stay in this country simply because they managed to breed while breaking this country's laws. And there is no legitimate counstitutional claim here, either.

A federal judge struck a blow Friday to the hopes of an immigration activist who has taken refuge in a Chicago church to avoid deportation, dismissing her lawsuit against the government.

Elvira Arellano, 31, a Mexican national, had hoped that U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve would rule that deporting her would violate the constitutional rights of her 7-year-old son, Saul, an American citizen.

But St. Eve ruled that no one's rights would be violated by deporting Arellano back to Mexico. She did say, however, the child would suffer a hardship.

"The question before the court is whether that hardship is of constitutional magnitude -- under any construction of the alleged facts, it is not," St. Eve said in her order.

St. Eve concluded that the pending removal order does not prevent Saul from exercising his rights of citizenship.

"Saul will not suffer any injury to his constitutional right to remain in the United States," she said.

Indeed, I'm struck by this observation that the Constitution is not violated just because all options available to a person have negative aspects to them.

"In fact, the injury Saul alleges is not the same as the injury his mother will suffer. Her injury is compelled removal; his is the unenviable fork in the road [i.e., whether to uproot or to live apart from his mother] that arises as a result of his mother's compelled removal," the judge said.

Yes, the boy can stay in the United States -- whether under the guardianship of someone designated by his mother or as a ward of the state. Or Saul's mother may elect to take her son back to Mexico, which in no way impairs his citizenship rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The choice is entirely in the hands of Elvira Arellano.

But then again, this all comes down to choices made by the mother.

Arellano was supposed to surrender for deportation to Mexico on Aug. 15.

Instead, she and her son moved into a cramped room in the storefront church sandwiched between a bank and a beauty parlor in Chicago's heavily Puerto Rican Humboldt Park neighborhood.

She has frequently told reporters visiting the church she wants to stay in the United States to provide a better life for herself and her son.

"I'm not going to leave. This is a place where God has put me, this is God's will and I'm going to stay here," Arellano has said.

Arellano first was deported from the United States shortly after illegally crossing the border in 1997, according to immigration enforcement. She says she returned within days, went on to live in Oregon for three years and moved to Chicago in 2000.

She was arrested in 2002 at O'Hare International Airport, where she was employed as a cleaning woman, and subsequently convicted of working under a false Social Security number.

So you see, this woman has broken American law multiple times, twice sneaking into this country like a thief in the night, working illegally in this country and fraudulently using false documentation. Violating her deportation order and hiding out in a church in an attempt to avoid the workings of American law (gee -- where are the church-state separationists on this one?) Oh, yeah -- and choosing to have a child.

The time has come for a SWAT team to enter the church to arrest Elvira Arellano.

Cuff her.

Stuff her.

Send her back.

Oh, yes -- and indict Rev. Walter Coleman, pastor of Adalberto United Methodist Church for harboring a fugitive.

And by the way -- this story presents the best available argument for amending the Constituion to do away with birthright citizenship for the children of border-jumping immigration criminals.

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I know of few who advocate sending local police on immigration raids. On the other hand, many of us do insist that police should check the status of those arrested or cited in traffic stops. This is something that is happening more and more often around the country as police treat immigration violations like other illegal activity.

CHARLOTTE -- Police here operated for years under what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward illegal immigrants.

As elsewhere in the United States, law enforcement officers did not check the immigration status of people they came into contact with, and in the vast majority of cases, a run-in with the law carried little threat of deportation.

But that accommodation for the burgeoning illegal population ended abruptly in April, when the Mecklenburg County sheriff's office began to enforce immigration law, placing more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, others with traffic infractions.

The program takes one of the most aggressive stances in the United States toward illegal immigrants, and officials in scores of communities, including Herndon and Loudoun County, have been considering adopting their own version. The House earlier this month was weighing a measure "reaffirming" the authority of local law enforcement agencies to arrest people on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

Some Latino leaders say the program here is contributing to a discriminatory climate in which Hispanic drivers feel as if they are being "hunted" by police. And some law enforcement agencies elsewhere have shied away from enforcing immigration laws, saying that doing so would rupture any trust they have developed in Latino neighborhoods.

But advocates see it as a way to catch illegal immigrants who slip through porous federal enforcement measures and then run afoul of state or local police.

Perhaps the best way of explaining the goal of the program is found here, in the words of an immigration attorney.

"They're putting the pressure on these people. They're scaring them. People say we can't deport 10 million. But you don't have to. If you deport enough of them, others will go back voluntarily because they don't want to live in these conditions."

You deter behavior by giving it a negative consequence. While there will always be some illegal immigrants, we can deter folks from coming and encourage them to leave by making the conditions a bit more inhospitable.

Police check warrants and records. Checking citizenship is one more legitimate inquiry, given the plague of illegals that have come into this country in recent years. Let’s see more of it.

I wonder -- would the Houston Chronicle come out in favor of allowing bank robbers to keep any interest they earn or investment income derived from the money they stole?? I doubt it -- they would rightly argue that it is a case of permitting criminals to profit from their crime.

Why, then, should they allow border-jumping immigration criminals to profit from their violations of the law by making their children citizens if they are born in this country? Why should we permit "anchor babies"? I see no reason -- but the Houston Chronicle wants to allow lawbreaking foreigners to profit in this way.

They start by arguing against the scenario that has pregnant women coming north to have babies.

The evidence is anecdotal, but plausible. A growing number of undocumented immigrants, border health officials say, are bearing children in U.S. hospitals. The resulting cost is immense. It's believable, because although immigrant women have fewer children than they did 20 years ago, the number of immigrant women in this country is higher.

That's a far different scenario from the more sensational one peddled by some immigration-control activists. Droves of pregnant Latin American women, they suggest, are marching here across desert, mountain and river expressly to bear American children. Their so-called "anchor babies" ostensibly are part of the parents' plans to reduce their chances of deportation from the United States.

The distinction between these two accounts is an important one. In response to the so-called anchor baby trend, some lawmakers are proposing amending the U.S. Constitution to deny the citizenship now conferred on all infants born in the United States.

I'm willing to accept that argument -- though the statistics in some border counties would appear to confirm the thesis dismissed by the Chronicle.

But that does not logically lead to this conclusion.

A coherent immigration system would effectively police the borders, while creating sane laws for visiting or guest workers. Part of that law should include required payment into a bare-bones insurance pool. Obviously, such insurance would include prenatal and delivery care.

The way to ease the financial anchor around border hospitals' necks is not to kill the hopes of children starting life there. Stripping these infants of their chance to strive, invest and sacrifice on behalf of the land where they're born could cost this society infinitely more than the price of a hospital stay.

Except, of course, that granting citiZenship to such children encourages illegal immigrants to stay, to return after deportation, and allws for eventual line-jumping privileges as family members of US citizens when teh children are older. Let's not give any benefit to those who break our nation's laws by their mere presence int he country -- let's clarify the Constitution to make it crystal clear that the Fourteenth Amendment does not (and, if one considers the legislative history, was never meant to apply) to the children of those who are in the US in violation of our laws.

Let’s ignore the impact on wages and crime statistics. Let’s just look at the impact at local hospitals.

Rising numbers of undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Central America are streaming into Texas to give birth, straining hospitals and costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, health officials say.

Doctors and health officials say they are overwhelmed by both the new arrivals and those immigrant mothers who already are in the state. Even Houston's feeling the pinch. An estimated 70 percent to 80 percent of the 10,587 births at Ben Taub General Hospital and Lyndon B. Johnson General Hospital last year were to undocumented immigrants, administrators say.

Also feeling the strain is Starr County, an already poor South Texas county that has the region's only taxpayer-supported hospital district.

Immigrants "want a U.S.-born baby" and know that emergency room staffers don't collect any money up front, said Dr. Mario Rodriguez, an obstetrician in Starr County.

"The word is out: Come to Starr County and get delivered for free. Why pay $1,000 in Mexico when you can get it for free?" Rodriguez said.

''When we are separated only by the distance of the river, it's easy to do," Starr County hospital administrator Thalia Muñoz said. "It's gotten worse, and it's because the economy in Mexico is not good and because we provide all these benefits."

Yep – you and I, dear taxpayers, are providing “free delivery� for Mexican children who then have all the rights of American citizenship because of their parents’ wrong-doing. And all while we are expected to pay our own medical bills.

What does it cost?

Starr County Memorial Hospital had $3.6 million in uncollected medical bills in 2005, up from $1.5 million in 2002. The total when fiscal 2006 ends on Sept. 30 is expected to hit $3.9 million, chief financial officer Rafael Olivarez said. Unpaid bills for the past five years will reach nearly $13 million, he said.

To make up for the shortfall, Starr County's hospital district is proposing a 25 percent tax hike.

Already, the U.S. government is pitching in, setting aside $1 billion in Medicaid funds to pay for emergency care received by undocumented migrants over the next four years.

But Olivarez said getting the reimbursements isn't easy. Federal officials ''told us at a meeting they would pay us about 20 cents on the dollar," he said. "But it's better than nothing."

And here in Houston, the cost is staggering.

In all, 57,072 patients visited the district's hospitals, clinics and health centers last year, and nearly a fifth were undocumented, Rasp said. The cost of their treatment was $97.3 million, up from $55 million in 2002.

One county spending nearly $100,000,000 care for criminal aliens who violate our laws by their very presence.

It is time to stop.

Ask their status. Refuse them all but life-saving medical care.

Round ‘em up.

Ship ‘em back.

Rawhide!

UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

After all, they are all just here looking for a better life and honest work. They certainly don't contribute to the crime problem.

Yeah, right.

I'd suggest you ask Officer Rodney Johnson, a 12 year veteran of the Houston police Department. Unfortunately, you can't.

A simple traffic stop — as routine for Rodney Johnson as putting on his uniform or waving to the residents of the southside neighborhoods he often patrolled — turned suddenly tragic Thursday evening when the veteran Houston police officer was shot and killed as he sat in the front seat of his patrol car near Hobby Airport.

When other officers arrived minutes later at the scene in the 9300 block of Randolph, a handcuffed man remained in the back seat of the squad car along with a pistol thought to have been used in the shooting.

Just after 5 p.m., Johnson had stopped a pickup with two people inside. It was unclear why he detained or handcuffed the driver, though an officer familiar with the incident said he had no identification on him. At least one female passenger left, possibly with Johnson's permission, but Police Chief Harold Hurtt said he thought officers had found the woman and were bringing her to headquarters for questioning.

A source familiar with the scene said Johnson was shot four times through the plastic shield separating the front and rear seats. Johnson managed to push his emergency button before collapsing. The 12-year veteran of the department was taken to Ben Taub General Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

A tragedy, beyond all question. Houston mourns for a hero who died in a senseless shooting.

But why the shooting over the traffic stop? Because the shooter was going to face deportation -- again.

[Homicide Capt. Dale] Brown said the suspect did not tell investigators why he fired.

"Nothing definitive ... ," Brown said. "My personal belief is that he was upset about being arrested rather than being written a ticket. And I believe he was upset, because he knew he was going to be discovered as a deported alien, and that he was going to spend several years in a federal prison before being deported."

[Juan Leonardo] Quintero was deported as an illegal felon in 1999, following a charge of indecency with a child, Brown said.

Court records show Quintero was given deferred adjudication in that case. Brown said Quintero's previous criminal record included an arrest for driving while intoxicated, for driving with a suspended license and for failing to stop and give information after an automobile accident.

I guess he hoped that he could get away and avoid being sent back where he came from -- twice -- in violation of American laws. After all, what is the blood of a single American cop when compared to the right of a wetback child molester to stay in the US in violation of American laws?

Houston's ineffective and incompetent Chief of Police, Harold Hurtt, blames the feds for the shooting, and feels that the murder of one of his officers is no reason for Houston cops to start helping to enforce our nation's immigration laws, even though the first thing every wetback does upon entering the United States is to break the law.

After a capital-murder charge was filed against an illegal immigrant in connection with the death of Officer Rodney Johnson, Chief Harold Hurtt firmly defended the Houston Police Department's policy of not enforcing immigration laws.

"If the government would fulfill their responsibility of protecting the border," he told reporters Friday afternoon, "we probably would not be standing here today."

* * *

Hurtt called a provision sponsored by U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, that would cut federal funding to police departments that did not enforce immigration laws "misguided and wrong" and said the measure would detract officers from dealing with more serious crimes.

I'll agree that the federal government needs to do more, but banning the enforcement of immigration violations by HPD is no more sensible than banning the arrest of those sought for other federal crimes.

I support the Culberson bill.

I support closing the border and fencing it off to keep these immigration criminals out of my country.

And I support the state of Texas quickly sending Juan Leonardo Quintero to Hell, where he belongs -- and billing Mexico for all expenses incurred in trying, housing, and executing him.

And to those of you offended by my use of the word "wetback", might I suggest that you can go set up the "Welcome Home" party for Quintero in his future infernal abode. a murdering, child-molesting border-jumping sumbag like him deserves no respect from any American.

This is outrageous.

Some parents in Freeport were livid after they said a Velasco Elementary School assembly last week included a requirement that children say the pledge of allegiance to the Mexican flag.

One mother, who has a daughter enrolled at the school, told KTRH News she couldn’t believe a school assembly would include children holding small Mexican flags and reciting a pledge in Spanish. “Where is the sensitivity to the men and women who have fought and died for this country?� the mother asked.

Several parents have complained to the Brazosport Independent School District administration, school officials confirmed, but claims that students were required to recite a pledge to the Mexican flag were simply false, a school spokesman said.

Brazosport District Spokesman Stuart Dornburg said, “A group of parents, who are volunteers, did get up on stage and recite the pledge to the Mexican flag … the students did not recite the pledge.�

If you are so enamored of Mexico, it isn’t all that far. And please make it a one-way trip.

Even the paper from San Antonio, with its surfeit of illegal immigrants, is willing and able to see why we need something more done to secure the border against border-jumping immigration criminals.

Imagine the folly of passing a law without the mechanism or the will to enforce it. Imagine if there were no penalties, no fines or jail sentences, for crimes like robbery.

People might get the notion that, despite the official ban, it was all right to steal.

This analogy applies to illegal immigration.

In 1986, President Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act, granting amnesty to almost 3 million people who were in this country illegally.

The legislation, while showing compassion to the immigrants already here, was not intended to create an open border, and to balance the amnesty, lawmakers included several provisions to strengthen the enforcement of immigration laws:

Sanctions for employers who knowingly hired illegal immigrants.

Increased border controls.

Programs to verify the immigration status of workers applying for welfare benefits.

Except for sporadic raids of employers who hired illegal immigrants, however, little changed. The immigrants lived in the shadows, but the lack of enforcement emboldened the workers and their employers. And, as a result, the illegal immigration population has swelled to 12 million.

Either we control our borders, or those illegally crossing our borders control us. We must have an immigration bill this year, with sanctions against both employers and border-jumpers.

And its a damn site better than anything being done by leaders on the state and national level -- especially since Congress has abandoned the issue for this year.

Texas should deploy 10,000 state National Guard troops to the border and issue special worker cards for immigrants, gubernatorial candidate Kinky Friedman said Wednesday as part of his "Keep It Simple, Stupid Politician" plan.

* * *

Friedman said Texas should immediately deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the border to reinforce several hundred who are there now.

"We've been waiting for 153 years for Washington to help us with the border. They're not going to do it," he said.

Friedman said he would require immigrants to buy "taxpayer I.D. cards" that would allow them to work legally in Texas, and proposed fines of up to $50,000 against employers who hire illegal immigrants without the card.

Now I don't know that Texas can issue its own immigration documents, but we at least have someone proposing a common sense plan.

For that matter, I suspect Kinky has scored points with some Houstonians with frank words about our other immigration problem -- Katrina evacuees whose presence has lowered our quality of life.

In a Houston campaign appearance, the maverick independent also expressed a dim view of Hurricane Katrina evacuees still in town.

"The musicians and artists have mostly moved back to New Orleans now," he said, according to KHOU (Channel 11). "The crackheads and the thugs have decided to stay here. They want to stay here. I think they got their hustle on, and we need to get ours."

He wants the state to give Houston $100 million for more police officers to deal with a spike in street crime related to the evacuees.

And yes, he does generalize a bit too broadly. But given the spike in crime associated with the low-lifes shipped here from New Orleans, the failure of many of the evacuees to take any part in supporting themselves, and the constant whining for hand-outs from those peole (we've got kids still using their evacuee status as an excuse for not bringing pens and paper to school -- a year after the storm), many Houstonians are ready to load them back onto the buses and send them back across the Louisiana state line.

After all, if the House and/or Senate go Democrat this year, we will never get an amnesty-free border bill passed and signed.

A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election.

President Bush had made comprehensive changes in immigration laws a priority, even making the issue the subject of a prime-time address, but House Republicans have been determined not to move ahead with any legislation that could be construed as amnesty for anyone who entered the country illegally. They held hearings around the country in recent weeks to contrast their enforcement-only bill with a Senate measure that could lead to citizenship for some.

“I don’t see how you bridge that divide between us and the Senate,� said Representative Peter T. King, Republican of New York and chairman of the Homeland Security Committee. “I don’t see it happening. I really don’t.�

Democrats say they are not surprised by the immigration impasse and believe some Republicans would prefer to keep the issue alive to stir conservative voters rather than reach a legislative solution.

This will not please the GOP base -- no matter how good the legislation the GOP leadership is preparing to deal with is.

With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administration’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects.

All of that is important -- and all of it should have been dealt with sooner. And the failure to deal with immigration issues because of divisions within the Congress simply means that an issue that resonates with many voters across the political spectrum will never pass in this Congress.

The Houston Chronicle laments the high poverty statistics in parts of Texas -- but I believe they ignore something.

The U.S. Census Bureau released new poverty estimates on Wednesday. The outlook for Texas is troubling indeed, and should prompt self-examination from state leaders and voters both.

According to the new data, one in six Texans lived in poverty last year. And Texas was home to three of the nation's 10 poorest counties, including the top two — Cameron County, with 42 percent below the poverty level, and Hidalgo County, with 41 percent. With 29 percent of its population poor, El Paso County was listed as the country's fourth least-prosperous.

A full quarter of all Texas children are poor, the Bureau's American Community Survey found. Almost 20 percent of Texans are economically deprived, which the government defined for a family of four as earning $19,971 or less. Only 13 percent of Americans overall were found to be poor.

The news was no more heartening in Houston. A full 29 percent of black families here were impoverished, a jump from 25 percent in 2000. Among Hispanics, the number living in poverty climbed to 30 percent from 26 percent. Fewer white Houstonians, 9 percent, were found to be poor.

Look at those Hispanic statistics -- what percentage of them are among the "undocumented" community. I recognized very quickly that the counties mentioned are among the most Hispanic -- and most illegal -- in the state.

And the statistics on African Americans? Do these numbers include the Katrina evacuees who we have welcomed into our midst -- many of whom are stuck in a cycle of chronic, generational dependence on public aid rather than work? We have witnessed this crew demanding ever more cash from the public teat so that they might avoid seeking and finding employment until they can return to their homes in the welfare state of Louisiana. Does this skew the numbers?

We don't get that sort of analysis -- because if such analysis was given, we might have obvious policy solutions for both that fly in the face of liberal dogman.

Time for this country to quit being the patsy on illegal immigration -- and allowing the border-jumping invaders to become so comfortable that they think they have anything approaching the rights of a US citizen.

More cases like this one would be a good start.

The deportation Friday of a well-educated Venezuelan couple who admitted lying about their citizenship when they registered to vote in Boone County has struck a chord among those who are in the United States illegally, their lawyer said.

Abraham E. Gomez, 46, and his wife, Mayen C. Gomez, 41, entered the United States legally on a visa, but became illegal when they overstayed, said attorney John Arnett.

Still, the couple, both of whom have college degrees, settled in Union, obtained jobs, and sent their two children to school.

Over the past six years, along with dozens, if not hundreds of illegal immigrants in Boone County, they have become part of the community, Arnett said, their status almost forgotten.

It may have been their downfall, he said.

"After being here for a while, they got lulled into a false sense of security," he said.

"They don't think that way now, that's for sure."

Their arrest - along with the arrests of dozens of illegal immigrants in connection with an investigation into the Northern Kentucky home-building industry - has not gone unnoticed among those in the United States illegally.

Arnett said he knows several such people who have returned home for fear of being caught.

In 2004, the Gomezes went to get their driving licenses. While at the courthouse, they registered to vote, falsely checking the box that said they were United States citizens.

"They knew they were not citizens of this country when they checked the form, but they had no criminal intent," Arnett said. "In their country, they are required to vote."

They were arrested earlier this year after agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement received an anonymous tip. In a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, they pleaded guilty to falsely claiming they were U.S. citizens in exchange for a recommended sentence of probation and deportation.

That sentenced was imposed Friday.

The conviction also means the couple is prohibited from ever entering the United States again, even as visitors, Arnett said.

And don't let the screen door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Under no circumstances should any alien not yet legally admitted to the United States be held to have any rights beyond the right to continue breathing.

The case of a Juárez woman who said she was physically abused in 2001 by an immigration officer at the Paso del Norte Bridge prompted a decision by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals this month that non-U.S. citizens have constitutional rights at ports of entry.

"It doesn't matter whether you are a U.S. citizen or not, you have rights. It may seem obvious but nobody had said it before," said El Paso lawyer Lynn Coyle, who represents the woman, Maria Antonieta Martinez-Aguero.

The decision sets a precedent and could lead to more lawsuits on the border, legal experts said.

The decision came in response to a preliminary motion by the immigration officer seeking to dismiss the case on grounds that his alleged victim did not have constitutional rights to be free from false imprisonment and the excessive use of force by law enforcement officers because she had not made official entry into the United States, among other reasons.

The officer, Humberto Gonzalez, now a Border Patrol agent, denies the abuse.

"By no means did he do the things she said he did," said his lawyer, Jeanne "Cezy" Collins.

What this decision means, in effect, is that the US Constitution applies to foreigners before they are even in the United States as defined by the laws of the United States and relevant court precedents dating back decades. Stupid decision -- even more stupid than holding that illegal aliens have rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States.

Imagine that -- a cop who catches lawbreakers acting to see that the law is enforced. Who could oppose that? Besides the ACLU and groups that support border-jumping immigration criminals, of course.

The Rhode Island State Police will review a trooper's actions during a July 11 traffic stop on Route 95 in Richmond, when he detained 14 people who he suspected were in the country illegally, a state police spokesman said.

The internal investigation stems from a complaint the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union filed this week, on behalf of 11 of the 14 people involved, said Maj. Steven O'Donnell.

The ACLU took the case after the driver and several passengers alleged during a Providence news conference last month that Trooper Thomas Chabot overstepped his authority by taking immigration enforcement into his own hands.

They also alleged that Chabot threatened to shoot anyone who tried to escape the van that morning as it was escorted to the Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office in Providence.

The traffic stop occurred at 6:30 a.m. near Exit 4 south, where Chabot was posted at a speed checkpoint. Chabot's report states that he pulled the van's driver over for failing to signal a lane change.

After the driver provided a license and ID, Chabot asked the passengers for identification, his report states. When only a few could do so, he then "asked if any of them had immigration credentials proving their U.S. citizenship."

None did. Chabot contacted ICE authorities, and he and another trooper escorted the van to the ICE office on Dyer Avenue in Providence. The 14 were found to be in the country illegally, and they now face deportation.

Who came up with the goofy idea that illegal aliens have any rights beyond breathing?

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

Because a group of politicians intervened in the case.

And also so that the deportation order will be mooted if Congress passes amnesty.

Eleven illegal immigrants from the Chicago area, arrested in a high-profile nationwide sweep, received an unexpected reprieve Monday after elected officials and the public weighed in on their behalf.

An immigration judge in Chicago granted the former employees of IFCO Systems a one-year stay of deportation. In return, the immigrants pledged not to appeal the deportation orders.

The delay gives the immigrants a chance to stay in the country if Congress approves a bill granting legal status to many of the nation's 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants. That measure has stalled, for now, but many analysts think the prospects will improve after the November elections.

DHS officials are weighing the option of appealing this decision.

Marc Raimondi, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said the department was still evaluating the judge's decision but would likely appeal a one-year extension.

"In order for the immigration system to have any integrity, the laws have to be enforceable," Raimondi said. "We aren't going to be influenced by public sentiment. We are going to be influenced by enforcing the immigration laws."

That doesn't sit well with one politician.

[Congressman Luis] Gutierrez will ask the Department of Homeland Security to suspend all deportations to give Congress time to pass a legalization bill, the congressman's spokesman Scott Frotman said. Frotman said it does not make sense to deport illegal immigrants "because these are people who would ultimately be affected by the law."

And I'm asking DHS to expedite every single deportation case -- and I'm asking the people of Gutierrez's district to vote him out and replace him with a congressman who believes in enforcing American law.

Vin Suprynowicz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is a libertarian, and admits that on principle he supports open borders -- but only once teh welfare state is eliminated and replaced with a true system of free enterprise capitalism. Absent that, he argues that our nation's immigration laws should be vigorously enforced.

We can't even get the federal government to stop enforcing their absurd marijuana laws when we so direct them by majority vote. So, if they "have to enforce all the laws," why in hell won't they enforce sensible immigration laws, currently on the books, that have overwhelming public support?

In support of that position, Vin takes on the standard "pragmatic" arguments against even trying to enforce those laws.

The "pragmatic" objections are pretty lame.

"Who would replace them in the work force?"

All the regular work -- and lots more -- got done when millions of boys went into the armed services on short notice in 1941. If we need more workers, stop sending out "disability" checks to drunks. When they get hungry, they'll work.

"But once we give them amnesty, they'll pay more in taxes than they cost us."

Actually, under the proposed Senate amnesty, illegals could cost us billions more. Remember, the reason 85 percent of Mexicans currently in this country are here illegally is because most don't have the education or job skills to beat out would-be immigrants from Asia, Africa, or Europe in any fair contest for high-paid jobs, in the first place.

"Actually, the reverse is true: The federal government will give billions to the illegal aliens," writes author Bradley Steffens and Las Vegas-based certified financial adviser and tax preparer Scot Fairchild. Nothing in the Senate amnesty legislation "prevents illegal aliens from qualifying for the earned income credit. All a family of four has to do is file a tax return showing earnings lower than $37,263 (tax year 2005) and it will be eligible for the EIC. The credit can be up to $4,400 (tax year 2005) per family. A family filing five years of back taxes could receive a check from the government for $22,000. Multiply that by the estimated 3 million illegal alien families, and the government could pay out $66 billion in earned income credits, roughly $660 for each of America's 100 million taxpayers."

What's that? "But it's not feasible to round up and deport millions of illegal aliens"?

Wrong. Former Managing Editor John Dillin recalled in the July 6 Christian Science Monitor how "Fifty-three years ago, when newly elected Dwight Eisenhower moved into the White House, America's southern frontier was as porous as a spaghetti sieve." We had 3 million illegal migrants.

"President Eisenhower cut off this illegal traffic ... quickly and decisively with only 1,075 United States Border Patrol agents -- less than one-tenth of today's force."

Ike appointed retired Gen. Joseph "Jumpin' Joe" Swing, a former West Point classmate and veteran of the 101st Airborne, as the new INS commissioner. On June 17, 1954, "Operation Wetback" began. Over the objections of "business-friendly" politicians like Lyndon Johnson and Pat McCarran, some 750 agents swept northward through agricultural areas with a goal of 1,000 apprehensions a day. By the end of July, more than 50,000 aliens were caught. An additional 488,000, fearing arrest, fled the country. By September, 80,000 had been taken into custody in Texas alone, and an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 illegals had voluntarily fled the Lone Star State. Illegal migration had dropped 95 percent by the late 1950s.

Yeah, that's right -- jobs will get done if we incentivize work rather than idleness. The newly legalized immigrants will have a claim on more taxpayer money. A serious effort at rounding up some illegals will lead many more to return home. Remember those three arguments and use them the next time you are told why we cannot make a serious effort to enforce the immigration laws we have rather than pass new ones.

UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

Something has got to be done to fix this problem -- not only do border-jumping immmigration criminals walk among us with impunity, those arrested on serious criminal charges are let free -- even when they are repeat offenders eligible for deportation.

TAMPA - The immigration agent didn't like the looks of Manuel Pardo's Social Security card. When the 20-year-old from Mexico was questioned, he admitted it was fake.

Pardo and several other immigrants were picked up at a brothel in Dover that night in June 2003, a Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office report shows. Five months earlier, Pardo tried to attack some people with a shovel and was charged with aggravated assault. He served 24 days in county jail.

After Pardo was picked up at the brothel, the federal immigration agent ordered him to remain in Orient Road Jail until he could be transferred for deportation proceedings.

Federal officials said Pardo was deported, but three weeks ago he was back in the county jail, charged with driving without a valid license. Although it is a felony to return to the United States after deportation, he was released on $500 bail.

He walked out nine hours after he was picked up.

It seems we don't have sufficient jail space to hold criminal wetbacks pending their deportation -- even when the charges are directly related to their immigration status.

It seems clear that one step needed is the adoption of a policy that either expeditites or eliminates hearings in such situations. Our policy needs to be that such deportations occur quickly and efficiently.

Load 'em up! Ship 'em back! Rawhide!

Looks like another instance of the Mexican government acting to undermine American sovereignty.

Two Tucson-based immigrant-aid groups were expected to sign an agreement of hospitality with the Mexican government Tuesday evening.

Members of the Coalición de Derechos Humanos/Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras and the faith-based No More Deaths movement were scheduled to sign the document, along with Jesus Lopez Quiroz of Mexico's National Institute of Migration and Enrique Flores Lopez of Sonora's State Commission for the Care of Migrants.

No More Deaths members say the agreement will formally allow the U.S.-based organizations to provide food, water, footwear and basic medical care to migrants on the Mexican side of the international border.

No More Deaths, which provides food, water and medical assistance to illegal entrants in distress on the U.S. side, has a new program of providing aid to migrants returned by U.S. authorities to Mexican ports of entry at Nogales and Agua Prieta.

The Coalición de Derechos Humanos/Alianza Indígena Sin Fronteras is a grass-roots organization that aims to promote respect for human and civil rights and fights what it calls the militarization of the southern border region.

When are we going to cut off aid to the Mexican government until it acts to stop, rather than assist, the violation of our border by its citizens? And will the American government take action against these groups that are clearly aiding and abetting the violation of American law?

Citizens in Houston have announced a petition drive to put a measure on the ballot ending the de facto sanctuary policy for illegal immigrants.

The heated national debate on immigration may give a boost to the Houston group that wants local police to help crack down on illegal immigrants, but getting the proposition on the ballot still won't be easy.

"It is a lot of effort and takes a lot of volunteers to mount a campaign like this," said Bruce Hotze, who has helped organize several successful petition drives but so far is not involved in this one. "It can be done."

On Tuesday, a new group called Protect Our Citizens announced a petition drive to require a citywide November vote on the contentious issue of whether to allow city police to question people about their immigration status.

Even with the recent spotlight on immigration issues, getting the necessary 20,000 signatures from registered Houston voters by Sept. 1 will take organization, volunteers and money, analysts said.

"It's doable," said University of Houston political scientist and pollster Richard Murray. "They'd have to hit the ground running."

Protect Our Citizens director Mary Williams said the group is doing that. It was contacted Wednesday by several community leaders and residents who wanted to help with the project, she said.

"It's a very basic grass-roots type of reaction," Williams said.

Petition supporters want to change a Houston police order, which they call a "sanctuary policy," that prohibits officers from seeking information about the immigration status of people they encounter, and from detaining anyone solely for being in the country illegally.

It is time to pull up the welcome mat for illegals in Houston.

Well, at least one GOP presidential hopeful is willing to step up and try to do something about illegal immigration. That candidate is Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

Governor Mitt Romney is seeking an agreement with federal authorities that would allow Massachusetts state troopers to arrest undocumented immigrants for being in the country illegally.

Currently, State Police have no authority to arrest people on the basis of their immigration status alone, said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. If they arrest immigrants for violations of state law, troopers can call a centralized US Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in Vermont to check on their status, and can detain immigrants if federal officials request it.

Under the agreement Romney is seeking, troopers would have greatly expanded powers: They could check an immigrant's legal status during routine patrols such as during a traffic stop and decide whether the immigrant should be held.

``It's one more thing you can do to make this a less attractive place for illegal aliens to come to work," Romney said.

The governor has instructed his legal counsel to contact Immigration and Customs Enforcement to begin the process. The powers, Romney said, would give the State Police a way of ``finding and detaining illegal aliens in the ordinary course of business."

Federal immigration authorities would provide the troopers with 4 1/2 weeks of training in immigration laws and procedures, civil rights, and avoiding racial profiling.

If the proposal is approved, Massachusetts would join a handful of states and localities that have entered into such pacts since they were first authorized in 1996. That list includes Florida, Alabama, and a few counties in California and North Carolina, where a limited number of officers have been trained to enforce immigration laws.

This move is an exemplary one – and I encourage my own governor, Rick Perry, to implement the same policy here in Texas.

It looks like there will be no immigration reform before the election in November.

In a defeat for President Bush, Republican congressional leaders said Tuesday that broad immigration legislation is all but doomed for the year, a victim of election-year concerns in the House and conservatives' implacable opposition to citizenship for

"Our number one priority is to secure the border, and right now I haven't heard a lot of pressure to have a path to citizenship," said Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., announcing plans for an unusual series of hearings to begin in August on Senate-passed immigration legislation.

"I think it is easy to say the first priority of the House is to secure the borders," added Rep. Roy Blunt (news, bio, voting record), the GOP whip.

This isn't a defeat for the president so much as it is a defeat for the American people, as every delay in getting a handle on the immigration issue allows that many more illegals across teh border, that many more anchor babies to be born, and increases teh expense to taxpayers.

Not that Hastert's rhetoric is wrong -- we need immigration reform that actually considers what the American people want.

"We are going to listen to the American people, and we are going to get a bill that is right," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, who said he had informed Mr. Bush of the plan.

But what that means is that the negotiations for a new bill will not begin until after Labor Day -- making the volatile issue a bit too hot to handle in the weeks leading up to the election, with all sides engaging in rhetorical excesses in an attempt to get votes rather than make good policy. We are already seeing some of that now.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino sought to put the House announcement in a positive light, saying the field hearings could "possibly provide an opportunity to air out issues" that she conceded are "complex." But she added: "The president is undeterred in his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform."

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), who is leading the fight against the Senate plan, said: "Odds were long that any so-called 'compromise bill' would get to the president's desk this year. . . . The nail was already put in the coffin of the Senate's amnesty plan. These hearings probably lowered it into the grave."

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), one of the main authors of the Senate plan, called the announcement "a cynical delaying tactic."

So expect immigration to be a major issue in the fall elections, but do not expect there to be any significant results until 2007 -- which means that GOP efforts to retain control of thehouse and Senate are vital if there is any hope of avoiding a bill with real amnesty provisions and little in the way of border control.

Georgia's tough new laws related to illegal immigration is apparantly stopping some border jumpers from buying houses in the state.

wo months ago, all Alina Arguello had to do to find Latino home buyers was put up a sign and answer her phone.

But ever since Georgia passed one of the most stringent and far-reaching immigration laws in the nation, the number of Latino buyers who call the Re/Max agent's home office in suburban Atlanta has dwindled from about 10 to two a day.

"We're seeing a drastic drop," she said. "There's just a tremendous amount of people who want homes, but are not calling." Many real estate agents and mortgage providers who cater to Spanish-speaking immigrants across Georgia say that the flourishing Latino home buying market has faltered since April, when Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act.

Almost immediately, Latino home buyers pulled out of contracts. Some who had already bought, put their homes on the market. And many prospective buyers stopped searching for homes.

Although Georgia's new legislation does not prohibit illegal immigrants from owning property, many wonder whether they will want to live in Georgia when it begins to come into effect in July 2007.

The law will require companies with state contracts to verify employees' immigration status, penalize employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, curtail many government benefits to illegal immigrants and require that jailers check the immigration status of anyone who is charged with a felony or driving under the influence.

Oh dear -- requirements that workers be here legally, that companies not break the law by hiring illegals, cutting off the financial incentive to settle in the state, and requiring that immigration criminals arrested for serious crimes be identified (and presumably reported to immigration authorities). How could the state of Georgia possibly enact such an unreasonable law!

There is a chill wind blowing here in America among the average ordinary people. We want those who violate our laws and disrespect our sovereignty OUT OF THE USA. So to all border jumpers who don't like the vlimate change, i suggest taking up residence in your homelands.

These people have broken our nation's laws. Why the sympathetic portrayal by the media when law enforcement tries o do something about it?

SAN DIEGO - Fewer parents are walking their children to school in this border city's Linda Vista neighborhood. The crowd of day laborers huddled in a parking lot outside McDonald's has dropped by half.

A sense of unease has spread in this community of weather-worn homes since immigration agents began walking the streets as part of a stepped-up nationwide effort targeting an estimated 590,000 immigrant fugitives. Other illegal immigrants are being rounded up along the way.

Juana Osorio, an illegal immigrant from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, said her neighbors have largely stayed indoors since agents visited her apartment complex June 2.

"People rarely leave their houses now to go shopping," Osorio, 37, said as she clutched a bottle of laundry detergent in a barren courtyard. "They walk in fear."

Her husband, Juan Rivera, 29, has stopped taking their two children to the park on weekends. "We want to go out but we can't," said Rivera, a construction worker.

In a blitz that began May 26 and ended Tuesday, federal agents arrested nearly 2,200 illegal immigrants, including about 400 in the San Diego area — more than any other city.

Now wait just one minute. These people have an option -- go back to Mexico (or where ever they came from -- but in most cases that is Mexico). Apply to come to this country legally. Quit breaking American law.

And if you cannot bring yourself to do that, be afraid -- very afraid.

I used all those zeros intentionally -- and that is only the money spent by the Harris County Hospital District directly out of local funds.

KTRH has learned the Harris County Hospital District is shelling out millions of dollars every year to treat people who are here in this country illegally.

When you subtract what patients paid for hospital district services, and money from federal grants and other sources, $97.3 million dollars is what the local property taxpayer subsidized the district budget for undocumented immigrant care in 2005. That's 14 percent of the entire hospital system's operating budget.

You did read that correctly -- unreimbursed medical costs for these sovereignty-violating foreigners are 14% of the annual budget for the entire hospital system. Put differently, that makes it $1 out of ever $7 spent by the hospital district -- or over $25 for each man, woman and child in the county.

But it gets worse. The state and federal governments reimburse an additional $28,000,000. That takes it up to over $125,000,000 in government subsidized medical care for those who have entered this country illegally or stayed past the expiration of their visas. That raises the cost to over $33 per Harris COunty resident.

The Harris County Hospital District's unreimbursed costs of caring for illegal immigrants approached $100 million last year, a 77 percent increase in three years.

"The costs are increasing because the population of undocumented immigrants is increasing and the cost of health care is rising," said hospital district spokesman Bryan McLeod.

The unreimbursed costs rose from $55 million in 2002 to $97 million in 2005, the hospital district said in a report released Friday. Last year's figure represented 13 percent of the district's $760 million operating budget.

The district treats about 300,000 patients annually, but lacks enough funds and facilities to care for all of the county's uninsured and underinsured residents, estimated to number between 800,000 and 1.2 million, McLeod said.

Commissioner Steve Radack, who requested the report on the district's costs of treating undocumented immigrants, said county residents are shouldering a burden created by the federal government.

The federal government doesn't prevent illegal immigration, but hardly reimburses local counties where the immigrants most frequently settle and use public health care facilities, he said.

"The federal government allows people to come here illegally," Radack said. "Because of that the cost shouldn't fall on the local taxpayer."

The district treated more than 57,000 illegal immigrants last year, at a cost of $128 million. The federal and state governments reimbursed about $28 million, and the patients themselves paid about $3 million. Over the past 11 years, the district has paid about $607 million in unreimbursed costs for treating undocumented immigrants.

The district does not directly ask patients if they are in the country legally, but infers their status from other information gleaned during patient screenings, officials said.

Well, maybe we should just be appreciative that the border-jumping immigration criminals graciously paid a whole $3,000,000 for their own medical care last year. That would be a whopping 2.34% of the total cost of treating illegals at the Harris County Hospital District -- or less than $1 per resident of Harris County.

And that does not include the medical care written off by private hospitals. Anne Linehan over at blogHOUSTON points to the information supplied by one caller to the Chris Baker radio show on KTRH.

Chris Baker was discussing this yesterday and one of his callers identified herself as an employee of a private, fourteen-hospital group here in the Houston area. She said they routinely write off anywhere from 40 to 60 surgeries each week, because the patients are here illegally and are unable to pay. She said the paperwork will often have Social Security numbers such as 111-11-1111, or 999-99-9999, and bogus addresses, but since hospitals are prohibited from turning anyone away, there is nothing they can do about it.

Now consider the implications of that figure. Little or no reimbursement from the state or federal government for thise surgeries (not to mention other treatment that is written off) means that the costs are being spread around to those of us who have insurance (or those who can afford to pay cash -- a small percentage of the public indeed). That means increased costs for all of us every time we walk (or are wheeled through) the door for treatment. That probably means that each and every one of us is paying significantly more for the treatment of those who are here illegally.

And the sad thing is that nothing is being done about this problem. The feds are not interested in stopping illegal immigration. The hospitals don't take immigration information directly, for fear of scaring sick illegals away from medical care -- and even if they discover that a patient is undocumented, they do not report them to immigration authorities.

Medical costs ae escalating every year -- and I cannot help but believe that one factor is the free medical care given to law-breaking border-jumpers at the expense of each and every US citizen.

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Why can't we do this along the entire border? After all, border jumpers are already criminals.

On June 1, the three Ordaz-Valtierra brothers from Mexico illegally crossed the Rio Grande with the same dream that so many other Latin American immigrants have: head north from the border, get jobs and start sending money home.

Their journey, instead, ended in a federal courthouse here, where, dressed in orange prison jumpsuits, each was charged with the federal misdemeanor crime of entry without inspection. Each pleaded guilty and was sentenced by a U.S. magistrate judge to 15 days. Under guard of U.S. marshals, they were put in shackles and bused to a West Texas jail to serve their time and await deportation home.

"I'm sorry," Juan Carlos Ordaz-Valtierra, 27, said through an interpreter as he stood before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis G. Green. "I didn't think it was this difficult to cross into your country."

It wasn't. But this year, most of the 210-mile stretch of riverbank between the small border cities of Eagle Pass and Del Rio became a "zero tolerance zone." If apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol, illegal immigrants are prosecuted by federal authorities for a misdemeanor, sent to jail for 15 to 180 days and then deported. If they are caught illegally entering the country a second time, they are eligible for a felony charge of illegal entry and as much as two years in federal prison.

"Catch and release" -- in which Mexican citizens are returned promptly to Mexico, but citizens of other countries are given a notice to appear in immigration court at a later date, set free and never tracked down by authorities -- would end here, said Department of Homeland Security officials at a Washington news conference earlier this year. "Catch and remove" would start. And, officials predicted, as this tough policy became known, immigrants would be discouraged from crossing through this slice of southwest Texas.

Every border jumper, every time. Make it clear that we will catch you, we will charge you, and we will remove you from our shores, with harher penalties to come.

Imagine that you get a letter telling you that you owe over $15,000 in back taxes on income from jobs a couple of thousand miles from your home -- and that you had not held any job during the time period in question. This woman doesn't have to imagine -- it happened to her.

ne woman's Social Security identification number has been used by at least 81 people in 17 states. Though impossible to verify in every case, information gleaned from criminal investigations, tax documents and other sources suggest most of the users were probably illegal immigrants trying to get work.

Audra Schmierer, a 33-year-old housewife in this affluent San Francisco suburb, realized she had a problem in February 2005, when she got a statement from the IRS saying she owed $15,813 in back taxes — even though she had not worked since her son was born in 2000. Perhaps even more surprising, the taxes were due from jobs in Texas.

Schmierer has since found that her Social Security number has been used by people from Florida to Washington state, at construction sites, fast-food restaurants and even major high-tech companies. Some opened bank accounts using the number.

The federal government took years to discover the number was being used illegally, but authorities took little action even then.

"They knew what was happening but wouldn't do anything," said Schmierer. "One name, one number, why can't they just match it up?"

It is becoming a more and more common problem in America -- especiallysince the IRS and Social Security do not tell immigration authorities about the proble. All they do is contact the employers. Oh, yeah, and possibly fine them.

Under current law, if the Social Security Administration or the Internal Revenue Service find multiple people using the same Social Security number, the agencies send letters informing employers of possible errors.

The IRS can fine employers $50 for each inaccurate number filed, a punishment that companies often dismiss as just another cost of doing business.

"Sending letters is the limit to what can be done," Social Security spokesman Lowell Kepke said. "We expect that will be able to fix any records that are incorrect."

Fifty bucks.

No wonder employers ignore the law -- it is cheaper than doing things legally.

That needs to be fixed.

Councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs has been working to end the city’s sanctuary policy for illegal immigrants for some time. She authored a column in today’s Houston Chronicle.

OVER the past few months, the temperature has risen significantly in the immigration debate. Citizens and leaders at all levels of government are working together to find long-term solutions.

At a time when we are working diligently to put a stop to the flow of illegal immigration, I chose to vote against the renewal of a $100,000 federally funded contract for a day labor center in Houston's East End. This center assists people in finding work. It is the only city-authorized, federally funded day labor site remaining in Houston. Recent studies show that at least 85 percent of people who access day labor sites are illegal immigrants — a statistic punctuated by a May 18 Houston Chronicle article that points out that 100 percent of the day laborers a reporter talked to at this North Sampson Street site were illegal.

This is clearly a city issue. By funding this center, the city of Houston is supporting the process of hiring illegal immigrants. This is wrong.

But this does not have to be a partisan, divisive decision. In the past, day labor centers in our city have received support from City Council members regardless of party affiliation. The sites were offered as an alternative to day laborers loitering on private property while waiting for work, a common complaint received in City Council offices. Unfortunately, the calls are still coming in.

These sites have not stopped the problems that they were intended to, and in fact, they are having the opposite effect, by nurturing the increasing flow of illegal immigrants who have turned to our city to find work.

Meanwhile, Houston's "sanctuary city" status is only making a bad situation worse. This is a Houston Police Department policy that City Council members have no control over, and it should be abolished. The policy, forbidding Houston police from inquiring into anyone's immigration status, was established years ago under a previous city administration, has been reauthorized periodically and can only be rescinded by Mayor Bill White.

Council could try to bypass the mayor with a resolution opposing the "sanctuary city" policy, but that is unlikely to occur in our strong mayor form of government in which the mayor sets the council agenda. Even if such a resolution were passed, the mayor would be under no obligation to do away with the policy.

In addition, such a resolution would potentially open Pandora's box, encouraging the consideration of other resolutions dealing with federal matters, such as the war in Iraq. These resolutions would be merely symbolic and would not have a direct impact on federal legislation.

Congress can help put a stop to "sanctuary cities" across the nation by denying federal funding to cities that refuse to enforce immigration laws. For example, Houston faces sanctions, including a loss of highway funds, if the 2007 federal ozone standards deadline is not met.

Similar penalties could be imposed if cities fail to comply with immigration laws. At the local level, the responsibility to revoke Houston's "sanctuary city" policy falls squarely on the shoulders of the mayor.

Changes are needed to the Federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which currently clears the way for day labor sites to receive federal funding.

The act outlines our nation's welfare and immigration policy, which states that "self-sufficiency has been a basic principle of United States immigration law since this country's earliest immigration statutes" and that immigrants within our nation's borders "not depend on public resources to meet their needs" — yet it includes exceptions for programs and services that could be construed to allow day labor sites. This federal loophole must be closed.

The issue of illegal immigration is not just a federal one. It starts at our national borders but quickly spreads into cities such as Houston, where work is readily available.

As a top destination for illegal immigrants, we must do everything we can to assist in enforcing our existing immigration laws while responding to increasing demands for labor and honoring our tradition of welcoming immigrants legally.

It is very simple – the city of Houston (indeed, every community) needs to work with the federal government to enforce our immigration laws and ensure border security, not assist those who break our laws and violate our sovereignty out of a well-intentioned but misguided sense of compassion based on the notion that illegal immigrants are “just good people who want jobs and a better life.� While that may be true, it cannot excuse their law-breaking.

Shelley Sekula-Gibbs is one of those seeking to replace Tom Delay on the CD22 ballot. She has a solid record in favor of enforcing and strengthening our nation's immigration laws. Stands like this show her to be a pro-border conservative worthy of that nomination.

The humanity of it all -- border-jumping immigration criminals are receiving substandard wages and working in unsafe conditions -- in their illegal jobs rebuilding New Orleans.

Illegal immigrants helping to rebuild this shattered city are working in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earning far less than their legal counterparts, a study says.

Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment, according to the study by professors at Tulane University and the University of California at Berkeley.

Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less — if at all — earning on average $10 per hour, compared with $16.50 for documented workers, the study said.

"What is fundamentally unfair is these are workers who have responded to a national priority to rebuild this city and yet whose rights are being violated," said Laurel Fletcher, director of Berkeley's International Human Rights Law Clinic and one of the study's co-authors.

What isn't mention is that their wages and working conditions are much better than those in Mexico and the other Latin American countries.

I do find this law to be particularly galling -- what other law-breakers do we provide such protection for in the course of their criminal activity?

Under federal labor law, illegal immigrants are afforded the same health and safety protections as documented workers. And regardless of their legal status, laborers can sue most employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act for violation of the minimum wage law and overtime regulations, according to the researchers.

Before you ask, I don't find it acceptable for employers to expoit border-jumping immigration criminals who violate our nation's sovereignty and laws. There is but one solution to this terrible situation in New Orleans and other places in this county where such exploitation presumably exists.

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

Can't folks understand that border-jumping immigration criminals are not permitted to work in the United States -- and so when they lose a job it really does not matter why they were fired. They certainly are not entitled to their job back or damages for being fired.

A group of immigrant workers, some of whom are in the U.S. illegally, are claiming an auto supplier fired them because they were trying to join the United Auto Workers, but the company says they were fired because they could not provide valid Social Security cards.

The UAW and the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, an immigrant rights group, are helping the fired workers file a complaint against Hope Global Industries with the National Labor Relations Board. It's illegal to fire or intimidate workers for attempting to organize.

"This isn't about invalid Social Security numbers," said Elena Herrada, a member of the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice. "It's about workers who begin to stand up for their rights, and they lose their jobs."

Hope Global President and CEO Robert Louis-Ferdinand said the company did not learn of the workers' union efforts until after they were fired.

"That's outrageous," Louis-Ferdinand said of the charge.

The dispute comes several weeks after the Social Security Administration notified Hope Global that the workers, whose employment ranged from more than a year to just a few months, had provided the company with Social Security numbers that did not match their names, which is often a signal workers are in the country illegally.

"We had no choice," but to fire the workers, Louis-Ferdinand said. "We're way too small of a company to live in fear of IRS penalties and not comply with the law."

So there is a valid reason for firing these invaders -- they provided false documents, and this was brought to the company's attention by the federal government. It means one thing, clear and simple -- these immigration criminals were working in this country illegally. Fire them and ship them back where they come from.

But there is one stupid aspect to federal labor law that does need to be fixed.

Linn Hynds, a labor law expert in Detroit, said the National Labor Relations Act entitles workers to union representation whether they are in the country legally or not.

A right to union representation? For jobs they cannot legally hold? That is absurd!.

As foreigners who have invaded our country in violation of our national sovereignty, the only thing these people should be entitled to is to be dumped unceremoniously back in their homeland.

Many of us have been saying this for some time -- why is it only now that we hear such talk out of the Administration?

President Bush told the nation's most prominent business group yesterday that "unscrupulous" employers have contributed to the illegal immigration crisis in the United States by knowingly hiring undocumented workers, and called for steep new penalties on those exploiting the shadow economy.

As part of his emerging public campaign for the immigration legislation pending in Congress, Bush visited the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to emphasize his focus on enforcement and to combat the conservative complaint that his immigration proposals add up to amnesty for millions of foreigners violating U.S. immigration law.

"Businesses that knowingly employ illegal workers undermine this law and undermine the spirit of America," the president said during a speech against a backdrop of U.S. flags, images of the Statue of Liberty and the slogan "Comprehensive Immigration Reform." "And we're not going to tolerate it in this country." Although most businesses abide by the law, he said, "there are some unscrupulous folks who want to take advantage of low-cost labor."

We really do not need immigration reform -- we need immigration law enforcement. Start aggressively enforcing the laws agaisnt employing illegal immigrants. Shipe them back wehn they are caught. Increase teh force at the border and explicitly authorize local law enforcement to aid with the task (to shut up the anti-border, pro-criminal folks who oppose enforcement). We can deal witht he problem quite effectively with just those steps -- and many of the border jumpers will head south if they can't find work.

Will the president match his rhetoric with action?

Can you believe the gall of these border-jumping invaders? Not only are they demanding the right to stay in this country despite having entered illegally, they also want their jobs back -- jobs that they cannot legally hold!

Dozens of undocumented immigrants demanded their jobs back Thursday after being fired during an immigration raid here in Chicago.

Twenty-four workers were let go from IFCO Systems of North America after customs agents raided the plant during a sweep last April.

IFCO is a container company located off Damen and the Stevenson Expressway. It's accused of harboring and transporting illegal workers.

The workers rallied outside the federal immigration court on East Monroe Street. Inside, they begged a judge not to deport them.

"Last night was a very scary time for these families. They didn't know. The kids didn't go to school because they wanted to be here because they didn't know if their parents were gonna come home," said Ema Lozano with Center Without Borders.

The workers will have to wait several months to find out if they'll get their jobs back.

The judge granted a continuance until Oct. 12.

Why should this matter take until October to decide?

Round 'em up!

Ship 'em back!

Rawhide!

Ever wonder how many bricks were delivered to Congress (the Senate in particular) during the recent debate over immigration? Or about what happened to them once they arrived?

Well, here are your answers.

If the impact was notable, so were the logistical difficulties, particularly given the mail screening and other protective measures put into effect at the Capitol after the anthrax attacks of 2001.

Initially, organizers of the Send-a-Brick Project encouraged people to send bricks on their own, and Ms. Heffron said things had gone relatively smoothly.

But many people, she said, preferred that the organization itself send the bricks and an accompanying letter to selected lawmakers.

The project will do it for an $11.95 fee. So when 2,000 individually boxed bricks showed up at once, Senate officials balked, threatening to force the group to pay postage to have each delivered to its intended recipient. The dispute left the bricks stacked up until an agreement to distribute them was worked out.

"We received them and we delivered them to all the addressees," said a spokeswoman for the office of the Senate sergeant-at-arms.

As the bricks landed in Congressional mailrooms and cramped offices, the effort was applauded in some offices but drew a bemused response elsewhere.

"Given the approval ratings of Congress these days, I guess we should all be grateful the bricks are coming through the mail, not the window," said Dan Pfeiffer, a spokesman for Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana.

The senders of the bricks were encouraged to add a letter telling lawmakers that the brick represented a start on building a border wall.

Many could not resist putting their own message on the bricks. "No Amnesty," said a typical one, referring to a contested Senate plan to allow some illegal immigrants to qualify eventually for citizenship. "Stop the Invasion, Build a Wall," said another brick painted like a flag and shown on the group's Web site at www.send-a-brick.com.

Besides the border fence, the group supports technology improvements for border security, added money and personnel for the Border Patrol and an enhanced security presence in general on the southern border.

The brick effort was scheduled to wind down this week, though the organization encouraged people to continue if they desired.

On Tuesday, representatives of the architect of the Capitol collected bricks from lawmakers' offices and stacked them on loading docks with plans to donate them to a nonprofit group.

This is actually a pretty fun article -- though it shows just how out of contact some of our legislators really are.

That is what I'm getting from this post over at Euphoric Reality. Here are some of the elements the new "immigration bill" includes, according to Heritage Foundation senior research fellow Robert Rector.

*The bill supposedly would protect American workers by ensuring that new immigrants would not take away jobs. However, the bill's definition of ''United States worker'' includes temporary foreign guest workers, so the protection is meaningless.

*It extends the Davis-Bacon Act's requirement for the payment of ''prevailing wage'' to all temporary guest workers. That puts them ahead of Americans, who have this protection only on federal job sites.

*Foreign guest farm workers, admitted under the bill, cannot be ''terminated from employment by any employer ... except for just cause.'' In contrast, American ag workers can be fired for any reason.

Now what that means is that foreign workers admitted under the guest-worker provisions won't just get "jobs that Americans won't do" -- they potentially can get jobs that Americans want to do, if the employer prefers to hire foreign workers. It guarantees them the "prevailing wage" -- usually the union scale, while not guaranteein American workers that wage. Furthermore, it eliminates the "at will" employment provisions of most state laws in relation to these foreign workers -- meaning that they have a level of job security denied American citizens. So let's see here -- equal rights to American jobs, higher wages guaranteed, and more job security than American workers have. Remind me whose county this is again, and who the members of the US Senate represent?

Kate O'Beirne and Mickey Kaus have more.

Michelle Malkin has details on this shocking provision of the Senate immigration bill, as well as the granting of amnesty to everyone who can walk, run, crawl, jump, fly or swim into the USA.

Does the Senate immigration bill essentially give Mexico veto power over our border fences? Hearing this from several readers and sources. Reader Greg writes:

Senator Cornyn gave Lou Dobbs a statement saying the last-minute Amendment SA 41[8]8 says Mexico must be consulted before any fence is constructed.

From F/R thread:

I heard this on Sean Hannity's Fox Radio broadcast a short while ago and just now on "Lou Dobbs Tonight" on CNN:

Arlen Specter, according to Congressman John Kyl of Arizona, slipped a provision into the Immigration Bill the Senate passed today requiring the U.S. to consult with Mexico BEFORE building a wall in any area along the border.

I'm checking into it. If anyone has more specific info, please send along. Update: It's Dem Sen. Chris Dodd's amendment included in Specter's manager's package that passed.

The Senate by Cboldt blog reports:

UPDATE @ 17:16 - Senator Specter notes that the managers package is ready for a vote, he says that it (the package) makes making sausage look good. Senator Kyl asks to speak for one minute on the managers amendment. He says it has been in busy negotiations, right up until now. Federal, state and local entities in the US would be required to consult with Mexican government before building a wall. I predict this amendment, S.Amdt.4188, will pass. Off to find the language that Senator Kyl referred to.

UPDATE @ 17:23 - Found it. Senator Dodd talked against a fence on May 18, and his S.Amdt.4089 contains the following language:

(b) CONSULTATION REQUIREMENT.--Consultations between United States and Mexican authorities at the federal, state, and local levels concerning the construction of additional fencing and related border security structures along the United States-Mexico border shall be undertaken prior to commencing any new construction, in order to solicit the views of affected communities, lessen tensions and foster greater understanding and stronger cooperation on this and other important issues of mutual concern.

UPDATE @ 17:40 - Bonus prediction (the managers' amendment), now four for four. Senator Frist voted against the managers' amendment, for what it's worth.

S.Amdt.4188 - Specter: Managers' amendment, a collection of amendments, including Dodd's S.Amdt.4089 that requires local, state and federal governments to consult with Mexican counterpart authorities before commencing new construction, was PASSED on a 56 - 41 vote.

Republicans who voted for the Mexican consultation requirement:

Bennett, Bond, Brownback, Chafee, Coleman, Collins, Craig, Graham, Hagel, Lugar, Feingold, Collins, McCain, Specter, Stevens, Warner, Martinez, Murkowski, Snowe and Voinovich

Dems who voted against:

Lincoln

Let's hope the House of Representatives stands tough -- but based upon recent actions related to the Jefferson case, I'm not hopeful.

UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

I've have no desire to ignore employers -- and neither do any of the other conservative bloggers I know.

Just once, I'd like to see a corporate executive whose company has knowingly hired illegal immigrants doing the perp walk for his offenses --- handcuffed, disgraced, chaperoned by law enforcement officials as cameras record his every tentative step. For just a few days, I'd like to see the conservative blogosphere roasting the textile mill managers and onion field owners who routinely make a mockery of immigration law with a wink and a nod at forged documents.

I don’t disagree up to this point – and have seen many of my fellow bloggers make exactly that point. We would like to see much greater enforcement of employer sanctions. In fact, one reason we don’t like the amnesty proposals set out by the hug-a-wetback crowd is because we recall that the last time there was an amnesty (back in 1986), the feds quickly dropped all pretense of employer sanctions once the amnesty was in place. Indeed, that simply opened the floodgates, as more and more illegals came with the certainty (confirmed by current rhetoric) that another amnesty would come once critical mass was reached. We don’t blame these folks for wanting to come to America – we blame their governments for pushing them north and or government for doing so little to stem their tidal flow.

That is why I am outraged by the next part of this column.

Business executives remain a core Republican constituency, so it's unlikely they'll end up facing criminal charges for illegal hiring. Besides, darker-hued Mexicans and Guatemalans seem to make more inviting targets than middle-aged white men.

From time to time, I've suggested that the most inflammatory rhetoric swirling at the fringes of the illegal immigration debate is born not of legitimate concern about overwhelmed social services but rather out of an old-fashioned xenophobia that cannot accept "the other." That suggestion is usually greeted with denunciations from critics who claim they merely want the nation to enforce its laws.

So why is there so little criticism of business executives who routinely flout the law? Why has the legislation endorsed by law-and-order Republicans emphasized border security but slighted workplace enforcement?

Are there some xenophobes out there? Yeah – but most are much more concerned about law and order than the Latin Peril. While many of us are concerned about the displacement of America’s culture, history, and language, we are more concerned about the economic impact of illegal immigration. And the Sensenbrenner bill (supported by most conservative bloggers) did include harsh sanctions against employers – it is the Senate bill and the President’s proposal, both trashed as harsh by the liberals, that fails to substantially address the demand side of the illegal immigration equation.

So while Cynthia Tucker wants to make it about race, for most conservatives it is not. I guess it is just her reflexive liberalism requiring that anything involving conservatives ultimately come back to our presumed racistsexisthomophobicfascist tendencies. Too bad she cannot move past that crap and stay on point, for she has a good one.

She is, after all, right when she notes the failure of government to act to stop employers from hiring illegals.

The more promising solution lies in cutting off the flow of jobs. If a few business executives were imprisoned for illegal hiring, the practice would experience a sudden drop in popularity. And if our southern neighbors come to understand that there is no work available for undocumented workers, fewer --- far fewer --- will try to sneak into this country.

The technology required to implement a nationwide system for instant verification of Social Security numbers would be much cheaper and more reliable than the motion detectors, dirigibles, unmanned predator drones and other high-dollar gizmos that Homeland Security wants to buy for the southern border. It would work as easily and quickly as an instant credit check. With such a system, business owners could be required to verify employment status; they'd lose the ruse of forged documents. But Congress has not appropriated funds to develop a nationwide verification tool.

Nor has it made any effort to remove the myopic regulations that hinder workplace enforcement. For example, the Social Security Administration is able to identify companies that routinely employ lots of workers using fake numbers. But by law, Social Security is forbidden from forwarding the names of those companies to Homeland Security.

Don't think this useless system results from mere oversight or incompetence. The dysfunctional hodgepodge of regulations is preferred by the GOP, its business constituency and more than a few middle-class Americans, who benefit from cheap labor. Sure, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has started to do a few high-profile raids of factories and fields certain to yield undocumented laborers. But those raids will wither away after November.

I cannot disagree with a word she says on the matter. We have the technology, but not the will to use it. Let’s send Congress and this administration the message that it is time to take real steps against employers of illegals.

Let's treat Mexicans like Mexico treats Americans and other foreigners.

Even as Mexico presses the United States to grant unrestricted citizenship to millions of undocumented Mexican migrants, its officials at times calling U.S. policies "xenophobic," Mexico places daunting limitations on anyone born outside its territory.

In the United States, only two posts — the presidency and vice presidency — are reserved for the native born.

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

Mexico's Interior Department — which recommended the bans as part of "model" city statutes it distributed to local officials — could cite no basis for extending the bans to local posts.

One more reason to close the southern border and deport the immigration criminals who stream in from Mexico.

This US diplomat is undercutting the immigration policies of the United States. As such, US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza needs to be fired by the President -- or Congress needs to act to force his resignation.

U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza described building a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border as un-American in a speech to the University of Texas at Austin graduating class Saturday night.

"Simply building walls does not speak America to me," said Garza, a former Texas railroad commissioner and a close friend to President Bush. "I know we can be both a welcoming society and a secure and lawful one."

Congress currently is debating proposals for building fences as a means of controlling illegal immigration. President Bush, who has opposed fences in the past, this week endorsed a limited fence-building proposal for Arizona and California.

The Chonicle calls his speech "a message of tolerance for the millions of Latin American immigrants who have poured into the United States in recent years". That is a miccharacterization. Garza's speech was nothing less than an apologia for law-breaking and border-jumping by those who disrespect our country, and a call for more of the same. As such, Tony Garza does not speak for the overwhelming majority of Americans -- and if President Bush does not wish to further alienate the American people, he needs to fire his old friend immediately, for it is his message that is truly un-American.

OPEN TRACKBACKING: Conservative Cat, Outside the Beltway, Samantha Burns, Liberal Wrong Wing, Business of America is Business, Third World County, Adam's Blog, Blue Star Chronicles, Stop the ACLU

Send this guy back to Honduras -- not only is he here illegally, but he clearly doesn't understand the American concept of freedom of speech.

An Honduran teenager arrested for stealing an anti-immigration protest sign is facing deportation after authorities discovered he was allegedly in the country illegally, authorities said.

Joel Martines, 19, was arrested last Thursday after he allegedly stole a sign being carried by an anti-immigration protester outside a 7-11 convenience store, Southampton police said.

The site is popular with day laborers, many of whom are suspected of being in the country illegally, and has lately been the scene of protests by those favoring strict enforcement of immigration laws.

In addition to being charged with the felony theft of the sign, Martines was also charged with a misdemeanor for allegedly giving police false information about his age and identity.

While in custody, officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency then determined that Martines allegedly entered the country illegally on Feb. 21, 2005, through Eagle Pass, Texas.

A spokeswoman for the Suffolk County District Attorney's office could not immediately say whether Martines was still in the custody of local authorities, or whether he was being processed by ICE officials.

Let's keep him here just long enough to get him the felony conviction needed to permanently bar him from US under the new Senate immigration bill. He is not needed or wanted here.

Suffice it to say that virtually no one is happy with the proposal put forward in last night's speech by the President last night.

President Bush said last night that he will dispatch 6,000 National Guard troops starting next month to help secure the porous U.S.-Mexican border, calling on a divided Congress and country to find "a rational middle ground" on immigration that includes providing millions of illegal workers a new route to citizenship.

"We do not yet have full control of the border, and I am determined to change that," Bush said. He also called on Congress to end the U.S. practice of releasing into the country tens of thousands of people caught illegally crossing the southern border because officials lack the jail space or legal authority to detain them or send them home. He said every foreign worker should be required to hold a high-tech, tamper-proof identification card so U.S. companies could determine whether their employees are legal.

Unfortunately, this plan is flawed. The troops deployed to the border region are there for purposes of pushing paper, not stopping the flow of foreign invaders into the southwerstern part of the United States. Rather than stopping incursions by Mexican troops bringing illegal people and illegal drugs across the border, they will be filling out forms, processing paperwork, and answering phones.

In a rare prime-time speech from the Oval Office, Bush said the nation must move immediately to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants from its southern border by sending in the National Guard to free up U.S. Border Patrol agents in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The Guard troops will provide intelligence, surveillance and logistical assistance over the next two years -- not armed law enforcement.

It contains what amounts to an amnesty plan, in the form of a guest worker program and a "head of the line" citizenship program that puts the lawbreakers ahead of the law abiding.

We are a nation of laws, and we must enforce our laws. We are also a nation of immigrants, and we must uphold that tradition, which has strengthened our country in so many ways. These are not contradictory goals -- America can be a lawful society and a welcoming society at the same time. We will fix the problems created by illegal immigration, and we will deliver a system that is secure, orderly, and fair.

Unfortunately, what he is saying is that this "mation of laws" is going to allow those who broke the law to keep the major booty of their illegal activity -- life in the United States and eventual citizenship.

But let's face it -- there is no chance of the hard-line proposal of the House of Representatives being passed and signed. Doing nothing will result in more disaster at the border. Ands a plan that does impose meaningful border controls is better than the status quo. I therefore have to agree with Dafydd over at Big Lizards.

So that's it; if the anti-immigrant side of the GOP -- fair or not, that is the impression they leave -- persists in this folly, the idea that we can round up and deport eleven million people, and that we can just seal off the border and keep all the foreigners out, then bid adieu to the House, the Senate, and the White House, and gird yourself for twenty years of absolute hell on Earth. Because if we blow this, then that's how long the Republicans will have to wander in the wilderness until we're back in power.

Twenty years of socialist misery. Twenty years of staggering tax increases. Twenty years of racial preference poured down our throats with a gasoline funnel. Twenty years of imperialist judges nullifying elections and ruling by decree.

Twenty years of increasingly savage terrorist attacks; America will be Israel under Barak.

But at least, thank God, we will have stuck to our guns and refused to compromise in any way, shape, form, manner, style, jot, or tittle.

For the love of God, people... compromise means you must give a little. There is a middle ground. And if I'm wrong, if there is not, then we are all lost -- because John's side does not have the support of the American people and will never win.

Here are our choices:

1. We settle on a reasonable compromise bill that includes both border enforcement and also immigration reform, a guest-worker program, and some eventual normalization; and we try to make it the best bill we can, given those constraints; or...

2. We rend the party, the Democrats win, and then you'll find out what "amnesty" and "open borders" really mean. And minor things like the entire war on jihadi terrorism will trampled underfoot by the Democratic thugs who seize control of our country.

And all for the want of the simple art of giving a little to get a lot.

Think. Think. Think two times, three times... and don't throw away this magnificent opportunity -- just because you only get three-quarters of a loaf instead of the whole bloody thing on a golden plate.

I'd rather have a plan proposed by President Tancredo -- but if the best we can do is a plan by President Bush, I'll take it, because it is a damn site better than what we will eventually get from President Hillary Clinton, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Here’s another item in the running for ‘Dumb Headline of the Year’.

Was 'U' instructor's speech free - or racist?

This ignores the very real possibility that, as would appear to be the case in this instance, that speech may be both.

Comments a University of Minnesota instructor made at an immigration rally are causing controversy about what is and is not considered racist.

Susana De Leon, an activist and part-time instructor of Mexican-American studies, was involved in a verbal confrontation at the rally in Owatonna.

"Yes, people from Europe are wet backs man... their backs so wet because they had to cross an ocean to get here,� De Leon said at the rally.

De Leon is also an immigration attorney who led the rally in Owatonna.

She added that it is not possible for minorities to be racist against white people.
Nathan Smit, of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction, says he felt her comments were racist toward white people.

“It actually almost hurt my feelings,� Smit said.

De Leon said the confrontation escalated because members of the immigration group were being intimidating.

"Eventually they came and shove a sign in my face, and they're murmuring under their breathe the most terrible racist things,� De Leon said. “So there's a point, yes, I take the sign and I take it away."

Another member of the immigration reduction group said it was De Leon who escalated the confrontation – with her words.

"I would never say those things to anybody, even if I didn't like them,� said Paul Westrum. “But the thing is, because she's a minority she thinks she can get by with it."

Vivian Jenkins Nelson, a diversity expert from the Inter-race Institute and author of the ‘Diversity Dictionary’, would not condemn De Leon’s language, but did say it was not helpful.

"There are much bigger conversations that need our attention and effort than name calling at a rally somewhere,� Jenkins Nelson said.

Westrum and Smit said her language would be considered racist if a white person had used those terms.

But Westrum is more angry that she is paid by the public.

"I'd like to see her services terminated,� he said.

University officials declined 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS’s request for an interview, but they said state employees have the same freedoms of speech and have the right to participate in political and social protests.

This speech is not classroom speech or speech made in any kind of official capacity. Rather, it is speech made as a private citizen. As such, the University has no basis upon which to take action against DeLeon. Paul Westrum’s call for her termination is really a call for the university to abrogate her rights as an American citizen – something no true patriot can support.

Which is not to say that I believe DeLeon’s words are appropriate or accurate – they are not. But the First Amendment generally protects reprehensible speech as well as praiseworthy speech.

Oh, and by the way, i have no problem with the word "wetback". It is a perfectly acceptable term for those who violate our laws, one that treats them with the contempt they so richly deserve. It is completely appropriate to use it for them, to distinguish them from citizens of the United States and welcome guests who have followed our laws to come here. It is a reference to status, not race, and therefore its use cannot be regarded as racist by any thinking person (which lets out most liberals and open-border advocates).

MORE AT Michelle Malkin, Ogre, Gringoman, Hot Air, Harisdrop, American Mind, ryanVOX, Commentary Page, Landgazing, Anchor Rising

Ask them in Herndon, Virginia, where yesterday's election swept several supporters of a day-labor center for illegal immigrants out of office.

Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and two Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration.

Residents replaced the incumbents with challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers living in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located.

The labor center forced the western Fairfax County town into the national spotlight last summer as the immigration debate grew deeply contentious. Even though fewer than 3,000 people voted yesterday, advocates on both sides of the issue looked at the Herndon election as a test of public sentiment. Outside groups such as the Minuteman Project, which opposes illegal immigration, intervened in the debate, and Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, is suing the town over the establishment of the center.

The council voted 5 to 2 last August to establish the center, but yesterday's vote created an apparent 6 to 1 majority in opposition. Steve J. DeBenedittis, 38, a health club operator and political newcomer, defeated Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly with 52 percent of the vote. Council members Carol A. Bruce and Steven D. Mitchell, who voted for the center, also were turned out of office. Jorge Rochac, a Salvadoran businessman who supported the center and was seeking to become the town's first Hispanic council member, also was defeated.

Elected to the council were challengers William B. Tirrell, Charlie D. Waddell, Connie Haines Hutchinson and David A. Kirby, all opponents of the facility, which was created to help immigrants connect with employers each day.

Two incumbents were reelected. Dennis D. Husch, who was one of the two council members to vote against the center, received more votes than any of the eight other council candidates. J. Harlon Reece was the lone supporter who was reelected. He received the fewest number of votes among the six winners.

I would urge national leaders to consider these results very carefully -- Americans don't want amnesty, we want border control, business sanctions, and the removal of law-breaking border-jumpers.

Tom Tancredo offers a view of what one would really be like.

We are talking about illegal aliens, not mere “immigrants.� If legal immigrants stopped working for a day, we would miss the services of physicians, nurses, computer programmers, writers, actors, musicians, entrepreneurs of all stripes, and some airline pilots…as well as the CEO of Google. That would be more than an inconvenience, but it won’t happen because legal immigrants are not out marching angrily for rights that are already protected by our courts.

But if illegal aliens all took the day off and were truly invisible for one day, there would be some plusses along with the mild inconveniences.

Hospital emergency rooms across the southwest would have about 20-percent fewer patients, and there would be 183,000 fewer people in Colorado without health insurance.

OBGYN wards in Denver would have 24-percent fewer deliveries and Los Angeles’s maternity-ward deliveries would drop by 40 percent and maternity billings to Medi-Cal would drop by 66 percent.

Youth gangs would see their membership drop by 50 percent in many states, and in Phoenix, child-molestation cases would drop by 34 percent and auto theft by 40 percent.

In Durango, Colorado, and the Four Corners area and the surrounding Indian reservations, the methamphetamine epidemic would slow for one day, as the 90 percent of that drug now being brought in from Mexico was held in Albuquerque and Farmington a few hours longer. According to the sheriff of La Plata County, Colorado, meth is now being brought in by ordinary illegal aliens as well as professional drug dealers.

You know – that sounds pretty good to me. Decreased crime, decreased drug use, and decreased stress on medical, educational and social services.

What’s not to like – if you love America?

UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

Those participating in tomorrow's boycott may congest our streets, and may provide a certain disruption of the economy Certainly that is their goal.

Now that immigrants have grabbed the nation's attention, what next?

Monday has been set aside for immigrants to boycott work, school and shopping to show how much they matter to their communities. But with some growing tired of street protests, and others afraid they'll be deported or fired for walking out, people are planning to support the effort in myriad ways.

Some will work but buy nothing on Monday. Others will protest at lunch breaks or at rallies after work. There will be church services, candlelight vigils, picnics and human chains.

The range of activities shows both how powerful the immigrants' rights movement has become in a matter of weeks, and that organizers don't yet have a clear focus on its next step.

But this boycott won't be absolute.

No, they aren't boycotting everything American.

They are not boycotting American liberties, the likes of which they are not guaranteed in their own homelands and which are specifically prohibitted to foreigners in Mexico and a number of other Latin American countries.

They aren't boycotting American social services -- they will still use the free health care and cash the welfare checks provided by the American taxpayer.

They will still use our roads and mass transit, again heavily subsidized by American citizens and legal immigrants.

Personally, I urge those participating in tomorrow's events to boycott one -- and only one -- American thing.

Boycott American air.

Hold your breaths until you turn blue -- for the entire 24 hours.

And meditate upon this paraphrase of a MeCHA slogan.

“Para los ciudadanos, todo. Para los mojados, nada.� -- For the citizens, everything. For the wetbacks, nothing.

It looks like members of Mexico’s Congress have no scruples against interfering with the internal affairs of the United States of America. They are sending a delegation to “El Norte� to support and participate in Monday’s “Day Without Immigrants�.

Mexican lawmakers issued a declaration of support for immigrant protests planned in the United States on Monday and said they will send a delegation to Los Angeles to show their solidarity.

The declaration, issued late Thursday by all the political parties in the lower house of Congress, contrasts with the position of Mexico's Foreign Department, which has said it will discipline any consular officials who take part in the protests.

The delegation of lawmakers will meet with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, it said in a news release from Congress.

"The only thing we are looking for is to end this dehumanizing situation and get the recognition of the migrant labor force," Federal Deputy Maria Garcia said. "People who go looking for work should not be treated like criminals with the risk of being tried in federal courts."

Activists are urging immigrants across the United States to skip work, avoid spending money and march in the streets to demonstrate their importance to the U.S. economy.

The protest, dubbed "A Day Without Immigrants," comes as the U.S. Congress debates immigration bills proposing everything from toughened border security to the legalization of all 11 million undocumented migrants in America.

Interestingly enough, such participation would be illegal if it were reversed – say, a group of American politicians traveling to Mexico to participate in a rally against the corruption endemic in the Mexican political system or the official collusion with drug trafficking. You see, this little provision is a part of the Mexican Constitution.

"Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country."

So you see, these individuals are coming here to participate in a rally that US government officials would be forbidden to participate in if it were held in Mexico. Heck, if the situation were reversed, many of those protesting would be forbidden to participate in the protest, and would be subject to summary deportation without due process!

Once again, we see Mexico's leaders demanding the US act in a manner that Mexico itself would not -- and could not -- act under its own Constitution.

On the other hand, Mexicans get free medical care in the US, courtesy of citizen-taxpayers who receive no such free care.

Take this case of a Canadian man who still, after a week, has received no medical care from Mexican doctors despite serious, possibly life-threatening, injuries.

A Cape Breton woman whose son survived a fall from a sixth-floor balcony in Mexico says doctors there won’t set his broken bones without cash up front.

Carol Campbell says her son, Jason Campbell, broke both legs and his pelvis in the fall last Wednesday at a Mexican tourist resort in Puerto Vallarta, where he remains in hospital.

His mother says since then, the 25-year-old has been given only pain medication and antibiotics.

"My son is still laying there with broken legs, broken pelvis, bones coming out of his legs," the woman told Global News on Monday in Sydney.

"His legs are swelling worse than balloons, his eye, I don’t know what state his eye is in, his teeth, he’s bruised everywhere."

Jason Campbell was in Mexico with friends. His family admits he had been drinking before he fell.

His father, Wallace Campbell, says "all I know is, from the doctors down there, is he is going to be paralyzed for the rest of his life and as far as internal bleeding, they won’t let me know anything."

The family says doctors are demanding up to $40,000 to treat Campbell’s broken bones.

His mother says he didn’t have a health plan in Alberta, where he now works in the oil industry.

Now the family is trying to raise money to get him home.

"We have some fundraising going on in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Ontario and Alberta," says Theresa Petrie, the young man’s sister-in-law.

Carol Campbell says she has turned everwhere to get help for her son — the Canadian Consulate in Mexico, the Canadian Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa, friends, family and politicians.

Gordie Gosse, an NDP member of the Nova Scotia legislature, says it’s a sad situation.

"We have a Canadian citizen that’s stuck in a foreign country in very severely, bad shape at this time and needs medical attention right away — and has been injured now for almost a week, and has no medical attention."

As i have asked in the past -- can't we treat those who have broken our nation's laws with as much disdain as Mexico shows foreigners in their country -- legal or otherwise? That would solve the illegal immigration problem in short order.

Oh those poor law-breaking border jumpers!

Stepped-up immigration enforcement in South Texas has made a long-standing predicament even worse: Increasing numbers of undocumented residents find themselves trapped, unable to get past beefed-up highway checkpoints.

Many are teenagers who rarely stray from their towns and neighborhoods for fear of getting deported.

''These kids go to school here, they've grown up here, and are as American as anyone, except they have no documents," said Kyle Brown, a McAllen immigration lawyer. "They can't go back to Mexico and can't go out of the Valley. It's a problem we see over and over."

Such immigrants are thought to number in the tens of thousands, Brown and other immigration lawyers say, and their ranks are growing as the illegal immigrant population swells.

Typical is the Carrizales family. Irma Alvarado de Carrizales is a legal U.S. resident. But two of her four children have no documents.

Travel is risky, said Carrizales, who lives in the McAllen area. And family getaways — jaunts to Sea World, the Alamo or Six Flags Over Texas — are out of the question.

"South Padre Island is the only place we can go," she said. ''We are prisoners of the Valley."

No, you are foreign invaders who refuse to return to your proper side of the border. You are lawbreakers who think your crimes should be without consequences. The fact that you have to hide out from the authorities is no more a violation of your rights or dignity than the need of an escaped convict to avoid attracting the attention of the police while on the lam.

I’ll gladly denounce the perpetrator of these threats.

The lieutenant governor and the mayor of Los Angeles, both Hispanic Democrats, have received threats amid a national debate over immigration policy, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Monday.

Schwarzenegger told reporters about the threats against Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante during a news conference in his office Monday.

Other elected officials of Mexican heritage have also received threats, Schwarzenegger said, but he did not name them.

Bustamante spokesman Steve Green said the lieutenant governor appeared at some immigration rallies with Villaraigosa in March and received "nasty e-mails" afterward. The death threat _ "The only good Mexican is a dead Mexican" _ came about three weeks ago on a postcard, he said.

Americans of Mexican descent and legal aliens are welcome in my book, even when I disagree with them. Even my opposition to illegal aliens does not extend to cold-blooded murder.

UPDATE: I seem to have used a certain term in this post, a term that I have always understood as referring to immigration status, but which i am now informed is racially/ethnically insensitive. I apologize. I won't change the word on my site, though, because I do not go back and hide my mistakes or bury evidence of my own errors.

Mom and Dad are here illegally – they need to be deported. None of the extraneous details about the kids are relevant.

It was about 6:30 in the evening and the woman had dinner on the stove.

Her husband came though the door after a dusty day of work with Cornejo & Sons Construction. He was cheery as always, she said. But the U.S. Marshals that came to the porch of their Wichita home minutes later changed that.

The marshals arrested Jaime Villagrana following his indictment on four counts of using a fake Social Security number to land his job. He is in the U.S. illegally and after being deported once before, had returned.

For some Americans and a majority of Kansans, the question of how the U.S. should deal with illegal immigration is cut and dried: Find those who shouldn't be here and deport them.

But the reality of deportation is complicated, those who deport illegal immigrants for a living say.

Villagrana and his wife, Manuela, for example, have two young children who were born in Wichita and are by law American citizens.

Villagrana's take-home pay -- after taxes and Social Security deductions -- supported his family, but his 7-month-old son, Guillermo, has an undiagnosed illness that requires a respirator and 20-hour-a-day professional attention He has received thousands of dollars in Medicaid services for his care.

If Villagrana is prison, and Manuela is forced to leave, what will happen to the children?

In the debate over whether the U.S. should more aggressively deport those who are here illegally, cases like the Villagranas show that easy answers are hard to find.

There are three options available here – let the parents decide.

The first one is for the parents to take the children with them. The kids can return when they are adults, and start the process of bringing the parents over after the turn 18. That is the legal method of immigration.

The second is for them to find a nice American family to raise the children for them – or a family member who is here legally (notice that the status of the husband’s brother is pointedly not addressed). The kids can then sponsor the parents back when the turn 18. Again, that is the proper legal process for getting the parents into the country.

The third option is terminating the parental rights of the parents, for it sounds like it is not in the best interests of the children to be sent to Mexico. We might even consider writing such a provision into American law, automatically severing the parental rights of any illegal whose child is born an American citizen. These children would be legally free for adoption by American families, and would be raised in America as American citizens. And the beauty of this approach is that the illegal immigrant birth-parents would have no claim to being family members. This would certainly eliminate the incentive to have anchor babies, for they could then never sponsor the deported parents into the US – and it certainly is easier than amending the Constitution to deny citizenship to the children of illegals.

Do I sound heartless, given the health problems of little Guillermo? Probably – but my personal choice would be option number two or three, which would ensure that this child has all the benefits that come with American citizenship.

But I have not one ounce of sympathy for the parents – they have broken our laws and invaded our country. They need to be removed immediately.

To paraphrase a slogan popular among supporters of illegal immigration, “Para los ciudadanos, todo. Para los mojados, nada.�

For the citizens, everything. For the wetbacks, nothing.

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Guess what – it wasn’t the GOP that backed the proposal in the House immigration bill that makes illegal aliens felons. It was the Democrats.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) issued a joint statement on Tuesday making it clear that it was Democrats who insisted on making unlawful presence in the United States a felony rather than a misdemeanor.

"In December, the House of Representatives passed a strong border security bill aimed at securing our borders and preventing illegal immigration," the statement said.

"However, on December 16, 2005, there were 191 House Democrats who voted to oppose House Republican efforts to reduce the crime of unlawful presence in the United States from a felony to a misdemeanor. Instead, they voted to make felons out of all of those who remain in our country illegally. (Some conservative Republicans also favored making unlawful presence a felony.)

"While we are disappointed with the House Democrat's lack of compassion and the continued efforts by Senator Reid to block action on immigration legislation so that Congress can proceed to conference, it remains our intent to produce a strong border security bill that will not make unlawful presence in the United States a felony."

But which party is now portrayed as the friend of the illegal immigrant? The one that overwhelmingly opposed making unlawful presence in the US a misdemeanor.

Who says the MSM isn’t biased? Who says that immigrant groups are not in the pocket of the Democrat party? Who says that the Democrats aren’t hypocrites?

No one I know, that’s for sure.

They marched for the rights of lawbreakers, and were fired as a result. Now they want their jobs back.

A manager at a Detroit meatpacking plant said Monday that 15 immigrant women were fired last month after attending a protest for immigrant rights. He said they had been told that they would be terminated if they missed work on the day of the protest.

But the workers and an activist working on their behalf said the women were given no such assurances. If the workers knew they would have been fired for attending the March 27 rally in Detroit, they never would have skipped the morning shift, said Elena Herrada, a Detroit activist who is trying to help the women get their jobs back.

Herrada and about 20 union officials went Monday to Wolverine Packing Co. offices on Rivard to inquire about what happened. They were given a letter signed by general manager Jay Bonahoom, explaining why the workers were terminated.

* * *

Bonahoom said that as far as Wolverine knows, the workers were documented, but an employment agency does the actual hiring. He said the workers had been told, "written and verbally," on the Friday before the protests that their attendance was mandatory on the day of the protest.

They were fired "for standing up for their rights," Herrada said.

The fired workers were natives of Mexico and many had worked at the plant for several years. Most have children and are worried about supporting their families, Herrada said.

They should have thought of that when they skipped work. But then again, it is questionable whether any of them had the right to be in this country at all, much less working here. Take this woman who was fired as an example.

"It was not fair,'" said Mercedes, a 31-year-old Detroit woman who attended the rally and was fired. "We went to fight for our rights." Mercedes is undocumented and asked that her last name not be used.

Want to bet that her friends fall in the same category?

That is certainly what it looks like, since it refuses to stop (and even encourages) the massive violation of American sovereignty by its citizens.

Fox, according to Casey Wian on CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight (March 31), "is still refusing to do anything to stop the millions of illegal aliens ... saying he won't restrict the freedom of movement of Mexican citizens."

The Associated Press reports, "Mexico has long cited a freedom-of-movement clause in its Constitution as prohibiting any attempt to stop would-be Mexican migrants from massing at border towns. Former Mexican Interior Secretary Santiago Creel actually said his country would never help to secure the southern border. 'We are not going to do that,' Creel told Jerry Kammer of the Copley News Service. Creel claimed Mexico's Constitution provides for 'complete freedom of movement' for Mexicans inside Mexico. 'We can't put up a checkpoint or a customs station inside our territory,' Creel said."

Yet these statements seem contrary to the Constitution and law when the whole picture is viewed. Starting with the fact that there is more to the applicable constitutional article than just its first sentence.

Article 11 states: "Everyone has the right to enter and leave the Republic, to travel through its territory and to change their residence without need of a letter of security, passport, safe-conduct or other similar requisites. The exercise of this right will be subordinate to the powers of the judiciary in cases of criminal or civil liability, and to those of administrative authority with regard to limitations that laws on emigration, immigration and general health of the Republic, or on pernicious foreign residents in the country, may impose."

And the key of course is in the second sentence, namely "will be subordinate to" — with the General Population Law being the primary directive.

Mexico, you see, can act to secure its border with the US -- but chooses not to do so.

More to the point, laws already exist to do exactly that. Besides -- stopping the border-jumpoing would lead to social and economic pressures to reform the corrupt Mexican political system.

But Mexico instead finds it profitible to let its exces workers head to El Norte and send back billions -- and so ignores its own laws while encouraging the violation of ours.

Mr. Fox -- if you have no respect for US law, at least show some respect for the laws of Mexico.

Tell that to the American citizens who lost their jobs in this story.

An Alabama employment agency that sent 70 laborers and construction workers to job sites in that state in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says the men were sent home after just two weeks on the job by employers who told them "the Mexicans had arrived" and were willing to work for less.

Linda Swope, who operates Complete Employment Services Inc. in Mobile, Ala., told The Washington Times last week that the workers -- whom she described as U.S. citizens, residents of Alabama and predominantly black -- had been "urgently requested" by contractors hired to rebuild and clear devastated areas of the state, but were told to leave three job sites when the foreign workers showed up.

"After Katrina, our company had 70 workers on the job the first day, but the companies decided they didn't need them anymore because the Mexicans had arrived," Mrs. Swope said. "I assure you it is not true that Americans don't want to work.

"We had been told that 270 jobs might be available, and we could have filled every one of them with men from this area, most of whom lost their jobs because of the hurricane," she said. "When we told the guys they would not be needed, they actually cried ... and we cried with them. This is a shame."

Mrs. Swope said employment agencies throughout Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi faced similar problems, when thousands of men from Mexico and several Central and South American countries -- many in crowded buses and trucks -- came into the three states after Katrina, looking for employment and willing to work for less money.

And no doubt the jobs here are being funded with the dollars of US taxpayers -- dollars which are being shipped back to Mexico and other parts of Latin America.

Because you see, there really are not many "jobs Americans won't do". The problem is that illegal labor undercuts American wages and fattens the bottom line of greedy, unethical employers.

We need employer sanctions now -- to save American jobs for Americans.

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After all, wouldn't a lot of illegals be found at these rallies? Turn loose the folks charged with getting rid of illegals at a time and place where we know there will be many illegals -- we could make a good start to removing the law breakers.

In churches, shops and sidewalks across the Washington region yesterday, thousands of people bustled in preparation for a rally that immigration advocates say could be a pivotal moment for Latinos and other groups seeking to demonstrate their political clout.

Organizers of the National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice -- or La Marcha , as some volunteers are calling it -- said it could draw as many as 180,000 people to the Mall and hundreds of thousands more in nearly 100 cities nationwide.

Although no one knows for certain how many people will show up at the D.C. rally, the event has the potential to complicate the afternoon rush hour.

This afternoon, scores of buses will begin moving protesters from throughout the region to the District. CASA of Maryland, an immigrant rights group, has arranged for more than 40 buses to take them to Seventh Street NW between Madison and Jefferson drives. Fifteen additional buses will run a loop six times between CASA's Silver Spring office and the Takoma Metro station and are expected to carry about 5,000 people, said Kim Propeack, advocacy director for CASA.

Mexicanos Sin Fronteras, a D.C.-based immigrant rights group, will send about 20 buses from Virginia to Meridian Hill Park in the Adams Morgan area, said Farah Fosse of the Latino Economic Development Corp., a local organizer.

There, the participants will join neighborhood residents in a march down 16th and 15th streets NW to the Mall. Police plan to temporarily close some streets along the way.

If they want to step out and demand rights and citizenship, we should impose upon them a basic duty -- following the laws of the United States.

Would that the will existed to start today.

Could this be the solution?

Senate Republicans reached agreement last night on a compromise immigration measure that they believe will garner enough bipartisan support to break through a parliamentary impasse that has stymied progress on a high-stakes border security bill for two weeks.

Under the agreement, the Senate would allow undocumented workers a path to lawful employment and citizenship if they could prove -- through work stubs, utility bills or other documents -- that they have been in the country for five years. To attain citizenship, those immigrants would have to pay a $2,000 penalty, back taxes, learn English, undergo a criminal background check and remain working for 11 years.

Those who have been here a shorter time would have to return to one of 16 designated ports of entry, such as El Paso, Tex., and apply for a new form of temporary work visa for low-skilled and unskilled workers. An additional provision still under consideration would disqualify illegal immigrants who have been in the country less than two years.

Like it or not, sending all the illegals back would be impossible -- we lack the will and the means. After all, what do you do with someone who has been in this country for 15 years and who has three US citizen children? What do you do with folks who are married to US citizens? This plan recognizes the different levels of ties that have developed within the illegal immigrant population -- differences I see on a daily basis at my school -- and tries to use them. to make reasonable distinctions.

I may not like the amnesty provisions of this (or any other) bill, but I recognize that there is a realistic need for some accommodation of those who have been here hte longest.

We ought to prohibit all political participation by aliens -- no contributions, no lobbying, no demonstrations.

We ought to deny all aliens employment in this country, until and unless it can be demonstrated that no American will take a given job. No foreigners -- or even naturalized citizens -- should be permitted to hold any position as military officers, American-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports.

Immigrants, even after naturalization, should be prohibitted from holding elective or appointed office -- or serving as members of clergy.

Property rights should be severely restricted for immigrants, denying them ownership of real property or concessions for mineral exploration and production.

All aliens engaged in illegal conduct -- including immigration offenses -- should be subject to apprehension and citizen's arrest by any American.

Any and all foreigners -- even those in the United States legally -- should be subject to immediate expulsion by the executive branch without due process and without recourse to the courts.

By now, of course, readers must be horrified, and must be wondering if I have gone insane. After all, how could I possibly conceive of such laws, much less suggest implementing them agains these poor, defenseless immigrants streamingover the border from mexico -- good people who just want to work?

Easy -- these are identical to elements of the MEXICAN CONSTITUTION related to the rights of immigrants and limitations upon them. These restrictions are pointed out by the Center for Immigration Security in their new report, Mexico's Glass House.

For example, according to an official translation published by the Organization of American States, the Mexican constitution includes the following restrictions:

* Pursuant to Article 33, "Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country." This ban applies, among other things, to participation in demonstrations and the expression of opinions in public about domestic politics like those much in evidence in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere in recent days.

* Equal employment rights are denied to immigrants, even legal ones. Article 32: "Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions, or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable."

* Jobs for which Mexican citizenship is considered "indispensable" include, pursuant to Article 32, bans on foreigners, immigrants, and even naturalized citizens of Mexico serving as military officers, Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports.

* Article 55 denies immigrants the right to become federal lawmakers. A Mexican congressman or senator must be "a Mexican citizen by birth." Article 91 further stipulates that immigrants may never aspire to become cabinet officers as they are required to be Mexican by birth. Article 95 says the same about Supreme Court justices.

In accordance with Article 130, immigrants - even legal ones - may not become members of the clergy, either.

* Foreigners, to say nothing of illegal immigrants, are denied fundamental property rights. For example, Article 27 states, "Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters, and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters."

* Article 11 guarantees federal protection against "undesirable aliens resident in the country." What is more, private individuals are authorized to make citizen's arrests. Article 16 states, "In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities." In other words, Mexico grants its citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to police for prosecution. Imagine the Minutemen exercising such a right!

* The Mexican constitution states that foreigners - not just illegal immigrants - may be expelled for any reason and without due process. According to Article 33, "the Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action."

Hey, if these provisions are good enough for Mexico to enforce against poor innocent foreigners just looking for work and a better life, then certainly the government of Presidente Pendejo Vincente Fox cannot object to the enforcement of similar provisions in this country -- much less our own significantly less draconian immigration laws.

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

(H/T Michelle Malkin)

UPDATE: Over at Colossus of Rhodey, there is a lot more information on just how much Mexico restricts foreigners.

It's worth noting the chutzpah it takes for an illegal immigrant to join a protest which claims illegals have a right to stay, live and work in the U.S. Maybe these illegals, especially Mexicans, ought to consider how their own country treats illegal immigrants, particularly from Central America:

Mexico’s own immigration policies are the exact opposite of what it relentlessly advocates in the United States. Its entry permits favor scientists, technicians, teachers of underrepresented disciplines, and others likely to contribute to “national progress.� Immigrants may only enter through established ports and at designated times. Anyone not presenting the proper documentation and health certificates won’t get in; the transportation company that brought him must pay his return costs. Foreigners who do not “strictly comply� with the entry conditions will face deportation. Steve Royster, who worked in the American consulate in Mexico from 1999 to 2001, presided over several deportations of Americans who had overstayed their visas. “They were given a choice: accept deportation or go to jail,� he says.

Providing full college tuition or all-expenses-paid secondary and primary education for illegal American students in Mexico? Unthinkable. Until recently, U.S.-born children of Mexican parents weren’t even allowed to enroll in Mexican public schools, reserved for Mexican citizens only. The parents would have to bribe officials for Mexican birth certificates for their kids. (The 1998 change in the Mexican constitution to allow dual nationality now makes enrollment by U.S.-born Mexicans possible.) “We’re not friendly with immigrants; that’s a big difference with the speech we have here with American schools,� admits a Mexican diplomat.

Mexico’s border police have reportedly engaged in rapes, robberies, and beatings of illegal aliens from Central and South America on their way to the U.S. Yet compared with the extensive immigrant-advocacy network in the U.S., few pressure groups exist in Mexico to protest such treatment. If Americans run afoul of Mexico’s border police, watch out. In 1996, the Mexican police beat and shot in the back a teenage American girl who had led them on a high-speed chase in Tijuana.No one in the U.S. or Mexico raised a fuss, at least publicly.

Contrast that incident with another that occurred in the U.S. a few months earlier. A vanload of Mexican illegals in California had fled from the border patrol and the Riverside County deputies, throwing metal bars and beer cans at their pursuers and sideswiping cars to divert attention. When the van stopped, the deputies caught two of the fleeing occupants and beat them. Mexico’s foreign ministry turned the beating into an international human rights incident, attributing it to “discriminatory attitudes that lead to institutional violence.� Mexican diplomats formally protested to state and federal officials, and helped the two beaten Mexicans file multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the deputies and Riverside County.

More of the duplicitous, hypocritcal "Do as we say, not as we do" attitude towards the rights of foreigners, legal or not, down in Mexico. Isn't it time that we insist upon playing by the same rules as they do, rather than becoming the safety valve for all of Mexico's social and economic problems?

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A post in three parts relating to the high school immigration walkouts -- including a glimpse into my own classroom.

* * *

Michelle Malkin has photos from one of the many high school demonstrations regarding the immigration bill.

Be prepared to be outraged. The kids purposely insulted the American flag and flew it subordinate to the flag of Mexico.

My students and i had a bit of a discussion on these demonstrations during last period yesterday. Rumor is that they are going to do a walkout sometime today, and 2since I overheard discussion, I thought I should address it.

I may be accused of going a little bit Jay Bennish, but I think you will see where what I did differed.

My comments went something like this -- though I am condensing a bit.

"All right, guys, I'm not going to pretend that I haven't heard some of the chatter about the plans some of you have for tomorrow.

{confused comments from some students, and disingenuous denials from the ring leaders}

You know, I'm the last guy in the world to tell someone not to express their oipinion, but I think this whole walkout thing we've been seeing on Channel One and I've heard you kids talking about here is a bad idea. If you kids walk out, you can expect ISS, Suspensions, or even tickets -- and since I keep the gradebook, I know that some of you really don't need to be out of class any more this grading period.

Besides, do you know how these walkouts are being received by your average middle aged, middle class Anglo like me? Do you? You know, the folks who represent a majority of Americans nationwide? I'll be glad to tell you.

{the ringleaders are enthusiastic, and the rest of the class would like a chance to stop working}

I was listening to one of the talk radio stations over the last couple of days -- I don't remember which one, with all that's been going on in my life -- and you had a guy saying "I see all these folks waving Mexican flags and chanting "Mexico! Mexico! Mexico!' I want to go down there and start shouting 'Go back to! Go back to!'

{one of the ring leaders responds "Mister, I think somebody wants to get his ass jumped doing that."}

Jose, you're missing my point. My point is this -- has waving a Mexican flag and chanting "Mexico!" done anything to get this guy on your side? Do you think it is doing anything to get your average middle aged, middle class Anglo on your side?

{"uhhh... No"}

Why not?

{"Cuz this isn't Mexico."}

Yeah -- and what are you supposedly protesting for.

{"To let Mexicans who are here stay here and become citizens."}

And if you wave Mexican flags and chant "Mexico!", what does it sound like you are more interested in being?

{"Mexican. What's wrong with being proud of being Mexican?"}

Nothing -- but I think you are missing the point. If you want to be proud Mexicans and wave the Mexican flag, that's great. But a lot of Americans are going to look at that and think there is a great place for you if you want to do that -- Mexico. If you want to show us that you want to be American citizens and work and live here and follow our laws, what might be a better thing for you to do?

{various kids respond -- "Carry American flags." "Shout 'USA'." "Don't disrupt school."}

Yeah, those are all good. Besides, who are the folks you most need to influence?

{Again, various kids -- "The president" "Congress" "The governor" "Mayor Bill White"}

Well, maybe not the governor or the mayor, but the first two are exactly right. What can you do to influence them? And I'm not just talking about on this issue, but I mean on anything.

{one jaded kid -- "What? You want us to write them letters? Ain't no on e gonna read letters from us."}

Yeah, they will. Maybe not the President, and maybe not Congressman Gene Green or either Senator from Texas, but someone who works for them will. They record what folks are wrting about, and pass the information on to their bosses.

{time for the challenge -- "Yeah, right. They don't care. They won't even write back."

You would be surprised. Whenever I write, I get a letter back. It may be a few weeks, but they at least acknowledge the letter. And it can change people's minds. Heck, you can even call their offices and talk to a real live person.

{"I don't know who or where to call or write."}

Do you really want the addresses and phone numbers? I'll get them for you before you leave this room -- they aren't hard to find. You can call or write them instead, and make a responsible protest -- show that you know how to be a good American, whether you are here legally, illegally, or are an American citizen. Show that you know how to work within the system.. I'll even make you a deal -- if you feel like writing a letter to the President or the Senators, or the Congressman, I'll even proofread and edit it for you before it goes in the mail. I don't care if I agree with you or not -- I'll be proud of you doing things the right way. I'll even mail it if you bring it in an addressed envelope with a stamp on it."

We talked about the immigration issue for a while -- I used examples of line-jumping in the cafeteria, and whether they would rather have someone who followed the rules or who "backstroked across the river" as a neighbor. the funny thing is, even the kids who I believe to be here illegally (or the children of illegals) said they would prefer those who follow the law.

Where it got down to a real awkward discussion was when someone asked about dealing with the illegals who are already here.

"I guess the problem is this -- we've got maybe 15-20 million illegal aliens in this country. That is somewhere between 5 and 8 perscent of the American population. What are we going to do with them? A lot of folks, myself included, can't see reqarding them by waving a magic wand and giveng them citizenship -- how is that fair to the folks who have waited for years to get their green card legally? On the other hand, rounding them all up and sending everybody back would be pretty near impossible -- and would be a real hardship when you have families where some are American citizens and some are not. So it sounds good, until you think it through. So there has to be some middle ground -- and that is what the bill the Senate is dealing with is trying to do. Read the paper, go ont he internet, do something to find out what exactly the bill does. Do it for yourself -- and then write or call if you feel like it. Do the thing that a responsible citizen does when he or she feels strongly about something.

I eventually got the addresses and phone numbers and put them on the board while they did their assigned work.

And a few were quickly jotting them down, like maybe they were thinking about writing or calling.

Maybe they learned something a damn sight more important to them than the politics and economics of Europe between the two World Wars. And maybe I found a way to teach on some of those "politics and government" standards that are easy to overlook as we spring towards the TAKS test next month.

* * *

As I was leaving school to go to the hospital to sit with my wife, I saw a group of kids (around 200 -- about 8-10 % of our students) leaving campus shortly before the bell for first period rang. They were headed towards the Senior High School (Grades 11 & 12) campus. I wondered what would happen next, and prayed it would not involve school bus transportation.

Later in the day, I got filled in by one of our French teachers when she came to visit at the hospital.

By the time the kids reached the other campus, there were about 20-30 police cars there to meet them. They were parked so that the kids could not go anyplace except into the district football stadium. A couple of them circled behind to make sure the kids didn't go back.

Herded into the stands, their parents were called to pick them up. Those whose parents couldn't come had to stay in the stadium until the end of the day -- though they could take shelter on th interior of the stadium once the wind and the rain started. All got unexcused absences, and will not be permitted to make up work. I suspect that additional sanctions will be forthcoming.

My district doesn't play -- and I am proud of that fact.

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Where, exactly, does Mrs. Clinton stand on illegal immigration? What about penalties for their employers? Does that include members of her own family?

NEWARK, N.J., March 27 (UPI) -- An embarrassing hole in security surrounding former U.S. President Bill Clinton turned up when one of his chauffeurs was found to be a wanted man.

Shahzad Qureshi, 42, was in one of three cars awaiting Clinton at Newark Airport last week when a Port Authority policeman happened to check license plate numbers.

The computer came back showing the Pakistani national had skipped a residency-status hearing in 2000, and a deportation order had been issued by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the New York Post reported.

Qureshi was still in jail Monday awaiting immigration processing, the report said.

Could it be that the Clintons, much like certain other liberal elitists, believe that the law does not apply to them?

I hope the state or federal government intervenes to take control of this lawless situation.

At a time when communities across the nation are considering efforts to crack down on illegal immigration, one small city south of downtown Los Angeles is charting a different course.

In Maywood, where 96% of the residents are Latino, and more than half are foreign-born, the City Council has vowed to make the municipality a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants, and over the last few months it has set out to prove it.
First, the city eliminated the Police Department's traffic division after complaints that officers unfairly targeted illegal immigrants. Then it made it much more difficult for police to tow cars whose owners didn't have driver's licenses, a practice that affected mostly undocumented people who could not obtain licenses.

In January, the City Council passed a resolution opposing a proposed federal law that would criminalize illegal immigration and make local police departments enforce immigration law. Now, some in the community are pushing to rename one of the city's elementary schools after former Mexican President Benito Juarez and debating measures to improve the lives of illegal immigrants.

Maywood leaders say they hope their actions will serve as a counterpoint to other cities, such as Costa Mesa in Orange County, that have moved forward with crackdowns on illegal immigrants and groups like the Minutemen border patrols.

"You just couldn't keep quiet. I think we needed to amplify the debate by saying that no human being is illegal," said Councilman Felipe Aguirre, 53. "These people are here … making your clothes, shining your shoes and taking care of your kids. And now you want to develop this hypocritical policy?"

Someone needs to tell this idiot that even if we accept his logic that no human beings are illegal, the actions of human beings can be – including illegally entering, residing, and working in the United States.

Imagine -- you form a neighborhood watch group to keep track of suspicious -- and possibly criminal -- activities in the area. You take photos of individuals in public places to turn over to the cops.

In response, you are subject to a threat like this.

“We are going to be in front of their houses, and the schools of their kids and go to their work. If they are going to do this to us, we are going to respond in the same way, to let people know their neighbors are haters and snitches, that they are anti-criminal. They are going to hear from us.�

Such a threat ought to provoke outrage, and a strong governmental response to crack down on those who are supporting the enforcement of laws against those who break them.

But not in this case in Maryland.

Casa de Maryland, a taxpayer funded group that assists illegal immigrants, has made a public threat to the children of the grassroots Minuteman Civil Defense Corps that have made headlines since last fall monitoring day labor centers in the Washington DC area.

An article published yesterday by the Sean Sands of Maryland Community Newspapers Online quoted Casa de Maryland’s Executive Director Gustavo Torres saying “We are going to picket their houses, and the schools of their kids and go to their work. If they are going to do this to us, we are going to respond in the same way, to let people know their neighbors are extremists, that they are anti-immigrant. They are going to hear from us.�

The Minutemen have been photographing contractors picking up illegal aliens for work at the Wheaton day laborer center in Maryland spurring conflict with the illegal immigrant supporters.

Casa de Maryland, according to their own website, was “designed to address the multiple conditions of poverty and disenfranchisement that control the lives of many Latino immigrants and refugees“ and “achieves its goals through programs in areas such as leadership, organizing, women's empowerment, tenant support, employment, legal services, health, education, social services, and immigration assistance.�

Casa de Maryland offers an email and phone number where someone can coordinate potential employers with “experts in construction, carpentry, landscaping, babysitting, housekeeping, painting tiling, moving, odd jobs and more.� Casa de Maryland claims to have placed approximately 5,760 men and women in different daily, temporary and permanent job settings in 2004.

Not only is this group open about breaking the law, but in Maryland, those who make threats against the children of those engaged in legal political activity are subsidized by the government -- because the laws they are breaking are those against immigration crimes and the criminals they are assisting are border-jumpers. Not only that, but they proudly trumpet their efforts to help illegal aliens find work with the assistance of local government, business, and labor groups.

How much government help do they get each year? Take a look.

From Casa de Maryland’s 2004-2005 annual statement the Minuteman Civil Defense Press Corps found 51% of the groups $2.7 million came directly from grants issued on behalf of Montgomery County.

That's right -- over half of this group's money comes from the government. They are openly conspiring to break the laws of the united States, and tye are receiving government money to do it! I'd suggest that you contact Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan and the Montgomery County Council to voice your displeasure over the county's use of taxpayer money to fund the breaking of immigration laws, violations of the civil rights and liberties of the Minutemen by grant recipients, and the stalking of innocent children. In addition, you might consider contacting those that violate federal law by participating in the job's program -- Clark Construction, Allentuck Landscaping Company and the AFL-CIO (how do members feel about their dues funding cheap illegal labor over American workers). And for all the good it will do, contact Gustavo Torres and tell him that he needs to reconsider engaging in pedophile-like child-stalking to intimidate American patriots whose only offense is supporting the laws of the United States.

The founder of the Minutemen puts it well.

In response to the threats, Minuteman Civil Defense Corps President Chris Simcox said, “Threatening children like this is outrageous. Casa de Maryland’s funding should be pulled and its contracts cancelled. It is beyond belief that taxpayer dollars are funding this thuggish behavior."

And lest you think it is all hot air, we've already seen the first assault on a Minuteman monitoring CASA de Maryland's illegal immigrant jobs program.

Hat Tip -- Jo's Cafe

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All sorts of compassionate idiots have supported providing driver's licenses and other official documents to border-jumping immigration criminals. The idea was that, since they are here anyway (in violation of the law), they should be helped to live their lives in a legal fashion.

What these fools overlooked is that such criminals have very little respect for the law, and would gladly engage in fraud to obtain the legal documents that make continuing their law-breaking easier.

Tennessee has ended its policy of issuing "certificates for driving" to illegal immigrants, citing federal investigations that uncovered applicants using fraudulent documents — and even bribing state workers — to obtain driving privileges, officials said Friday.

The state began giving immigrants the certificates in July 2004, with the hope of balancing homeland security and traffic concerns. The cards give holders the legal right to drive but, unlike driver's licenses, they are not to be used for identification purposes. For instance, they cannot be used to board an airplane.

The Tennessee model was criticized early on from diverse quarters. Anti-immigration forces worried that it gave legitimacy to illegal immigrants. Immigration rights groups feared that police and others would be confused, and therefore inconsistent, in dealing with the cardholders.

Officials in the capital of Nashville grew concerned in recent months as federal investigations uncovered instances of fraud by illegal immigrants. Bob Corney, a spokesman for Tennessee's Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen, said the governor's office was informed that immigrants were coming from other states to get the IDs, using forged residency documents.

Last month, a former worker at a driver's license office was sentenced to 24 months in federal prison for issuing more than 40 certificates to unqualified immigrants, taking a $400 bribe for each fraudulent card.

So as you can see, trying to make life easier for criminals results in more crime. The proper solution to the problem of border-jumping immigration criminals is tough enforcement, including arrest, imprisonment, and deportation with a lifetime bar on reentry.

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I think that Australia’s Treasurer, Peter Costello, pegs it exactly in a speech he recently gave.

No one is going to respect a citizenship that is so undemanding that it asks nothing. In fact our citizenship is quite a demanding obligation. It demands loyalty, tolerance and respect for fellow citizens and support for a rare form of government - democracy.

We have a robust tolerance of difference in our society. But to maintain this tolerance we have to have an agreed framework which will protect the rights and liberties of all. And we are asking our citizens to subscribe to that framework.

I do not like putrid representations like Piss Christ. I do not think galleries should show them. But I do recognise they should be able to practise their offensive taste without fear of violence or a riot. Muslims do not like representation of the prophet. They do not think newspapers should print them. But so too they must recognise this does not justify violence against newspapers, or countries that allow newspapers to publish them.

We are asking all our citizens to subscribe to a framework that can protect the rights and liberties of all. These are Australian values. We must be very clear on this point. They are not optional. We expect all those who call themselves Australians to subscribe to them. Loyalty, democracy, tolerance, the rule of law - values worth promoting, values worth defending. The values of Australia and its citizens.

Change the words “Australia� and Australian� to “America� and “American� and this entire speech clearly defines what the view of every American patriot should be.

I guess that since these illegals don't have a huge bloc of supporters urging that their staus be ignored, it is no surprise that they are departing for their homeland.

By now the shipping container carrying Jonathan Langan's material life in the United States has arrived in Ireland. The plush green furniture, his American flag and the construction tools of his trade are all gone from his Queens apartment.

Langan, a lanky, red-haired Irishman, was bidding a final farewell to his adopted country. He didn't leave for want of work -- his fledgling construction company was booming. Success was his problem. The more prosperous his company became, the more Langan feared he would get snared by immigration agents.
"You don't want to give off red flags because you're not supposed to be working," said Langan, 24, who lived illegally in the United States for three years. "It's too dangerous, what happens if you get caught."

The green is draining out of the Irish immigration boom that revitalized neighborhoods across New York over the past two decades. Fear of getting caught in a post-Sept. 11 net coupled with the booming economy in Ireland is drawing thousands of Irish back to the Emerald Isle. Numbers vary on how many have left: The Irish government estimates that about 14,000 Irish returned from the United States since 2001, with more than half of them coming from New York. The Census Bureau reported that between 2000 and 2004, the Irish population throughout the United States shrank by 28,500 people, to 128,000.

Now, if we could only get a certain larger group of illegal aliens to depart in similar proportions. But they won’t – their government does not want them back, and there is a segment of American society who choose ethnic solidarity over respect for the laws of the United States.

So instead, it's "Erin Go Home" and not "Hasta La Vista, Baby!"

I do not believe that any reasonable person would believe that those illegally in the United States have any rights other than to go back where they came from.

About 400 Latinos concerned about the rights of immigrants who enter the country illegally to work met Saturday in Riverside to fight plans for increased enforcement from Washington and Costa Mesa.

The Mexicano/Latino Leadership Immigration Summit focused mostly on legislation approved in the House of Representatives that would build a fence along parts of the Mexican border.

"We're not terrorists, just hardworking people trying to make a living," said speaker Hector Preciado of the Greenlining Institute, a Northern California public policy and advocacy group.

Participants also mentioned Costa Mesa's decision to allow police to enforce some federal immigration laws and seek deportation of felony suspects. The Orange County Sheriff's Department is working on a similar proposal.

You may be hardworking people, Hector, but you are also lawbreakers. Go back where you came from, and then apply to come here the right way.

The Minutemen lost their battle to march in the Laguna Beach Patriot’s Day Parade. It was the right decision by the judge in the case.

A judge ruled Tuesday that organizers of Laguna Beach's annual Patriots' Day Parade have the right to exclude members of the volunteer border patrol group Minuteman Project.

The group's co-founder, illegal immigration opponent Jim Gilchrist, sought to be included in the parade lineup but the parade committee voted to ban the Minuteman Project on political grounds.
Parade organizers "have a right, within certain limits, to put on the parade they want to put on," Orange County Superior Court Judge Michael Brenner said.

It was not clear whether Gilchrist would seek an appeal. A message left for his attorney, Richard Ackerman, was not immediately returned.

The Minuteman Project uses volunteer civilians to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border for illegal immigrants. Two members of the group who live in Laguna Beach, a bohemian town of 24,000 tucked into coastal hills, filled out an application to enter a float in the March 4 parade.

The parade committee turned down the application because it found the group's participation would violate its bylaws, which ban organizations with a religious or political affiliation or message.

The committee also argued it could reject or accept whomever it wants because it is privately funded and receives no taxpayer money.

President Bush is so hell-bent on getting his guest-worker program up and running that he is willing to undermine national security to do so. The proposed new budget fails to include full funding for Border Patrol agents.

President Bush's new budget again fails to fund the entire number of Border Patrol agents mandated by Congress but for the first time includes funds for his proposed guest-worker program.

The budget calls for 1,500 new U.S. Border Patrol agents and 6,700 new detention beds for illegal aliens awaiting deportation -- far more than last year's budget, but still short of the 2,000 new agents and 8,000 new beds per year that he and Congress agreed to in the December 2004 intelligence-overhaul bill.

I have to disagree with the spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security who was sent out to try to blow smoke up our buts.

"It's a very strong budget, and the request clearly reflects the priority that is placed on securing our borders," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke, who said it reflects a comprehensive strategy that includes personnel, beds, technology such as sensors and drone aircraft, and fences like the one being built near San Diego.

The budget includes money for 560 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention officers and agents, and 257 immigration lawyers as part of the administration's effort to return home more non-Mexican illegal aliens. The administration hopes that this will help end the "catch-and-release" policy, under which most non-Mexicans who are caught never are deported.

The 1,500 Border Patrol agents bring the total authorized to 13,819 -- a 42 percent increase since September 11, 2001, but still at least 1,000 short of the number for which the December 2004 bill called.

Short by 1000 agents – that is hardly a strong budget by any reasonable definition. It is a pathetic attempt to get around the clear demands of the American people to take border security seriously.

And rather than stop illegal immigration and get rid of the law-breakers, the budget sets the stage for legalization by fully funding the guest-worker program. Here’s hoping that Congress diverts that $247 million to fully funding the needed personnel and detention beds instead of the President’s scheme to open the borders to temporary workers who will not leave when their time is up.

After all, Mexican officials are involved in aiding and abetting the border-jumping criminals – so how can we expect them to help end the problem?

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested a Mexican immigration official who was allegedly trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the United States, the Mexican government said Sunday.

Immigration agent Francisco Javier Gutierrez was arrested at a checkpoint near Alamogordo, N.M., about 100 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border, the Mexican Interior Department said in a news release.

Gutierrez had been fired on corruption allegations last year but returned to his job after winning a court case in which he claimed he had been unfairly dismissed, according to the National Immigration Institute.

The Mexican government promised to cooperate with U.S. authorities in the case. A spokesman for the Border Patrol in El Paso, Texas, declined to comment Sunday.

Gutierrez's arrest comes just days after the Mexican and U.S. governments exchanged terse diplomatic notes about security on the border.

We must acknowledge that, in this, the Mexican government is our enemy, not our ally.

Not only are the cabrones running the Mexican government denying the possibility that their troops are helping smuggle drugs into the US, but now they are accusing the US military of doing so.

Mexico's top diplomat suggested Thursday that American soldiers disguised as Mexican troops may have been in the military-style Humvee filmed earlier this week protecting a marijuana shipment on the border.

Foreign Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez also told a news conference that U.S. soldiers had helped drug smugglers before. However, he offered no evidence.

* * *

Derbez said Thursday that the men photographed by Texas law enforcement could have been Americans.

"Members of the U.S. Army have helped protect people who were processing and transporting drugs," Derbez said. "And just as that has happened ... it is very probable that something like that could have happened, that in reality they were members of some of their groups disguised as Mexican soldiers with Humvees."

Yes, there have been stray individuals who have done so -- and they are arrested, indicted, prosecute, and imprisoned. These things do not happen in Mexico to police and military.

And then there is this little outrage.

Derbez also said his country will send a diplomatic note to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding that U.S. officials tone down their comments on Mexico's security and immigration problems.

Why don't we send some troops over the border into Mojado Land to do something about its security and immigration problems instead.

You know, just to make it clear that we are serious about cross-border incursions by the Mexican military? Especially if they are helping to smuggle drugs or illegal aliens.

Men dressed as Mexican Army soldiers, apparent drug suspects and Texas law enforcement officers faced off Monday on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande, an FBI spokeswoman said today.

Andrea Simmons, an agency spokeswoman in El Paso, told The Associated Press that Texas Department of Public Safety troopers chased three SUVs, believing they were carrying drugs, to the banks of the Rio Grande during Monday's incident.

Men dressed in Mexican military uniforms or camouflage were on the U.S. side of the border in Texas, she said.

Simmons said the FBI was not involved and referred requests for further details to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin of Ontario, Calif., reported today that the incident included an armed standoff involving the Mexican military, suspected drug smugglers and nearly 30 U.S. law enforcement officers. It said Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States.

The incident follows a story in the Bulletin on Jan. 15 that said the Mexican military had crossed into the United States more than 200 times since 1996.
Chief Deputy Mike Doyal of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department told the newspaper that Border Patrol agents called for backup and were joined by Hudspeth County deputies and DPS troopers. Mexican army personnel had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border, the newspaper said.

Doyal said deputies captured a Cadillac Escalade that had been reported stolen from El Paso, and found 1,477 pounds of marijuana inside. He said Mexican soldiers set fire to one of the Humvees stuck in the river.

The site is near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso, it said.

Why no shooting in this situation (or any of the other 200+ incidents)?

"It's been so bred into everyone not to start an international incident with Mexico that it's been going on for years," Doyal said. "When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can you do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us."

The border in this area is clearly marked – it is called the Rio Grande – and such crossings are frequent. They are denied by the Mexican government.

It is time for the US to make this a shooting war. It might be the only thing that will get the attention of the Mexican authorities and make them realize that the US is serious about border security.

If we really are serious about border security.

MORE AT: Michelle Malkin, Jawa Report

This is becoming more of a problem – what will the US do about it?

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday.

The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed.

It also cautions agents to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican units, to employ "shadows and camouflage" to conceal themselves and to "stay as quiet as possible."

Border Patrol spokesman Salvador Zamora confirmed that a "military incursion" warning was given to Tucson agents, but said it was designed to inform them how to react to any sightings of military and foreign police in this country and how to properly document any incursion.

Mr. Zamora added that although incursions by the Mexican military do occur, they usually have taken place in areas of the border "not marked by monuments or signs." He said U.S. military units also have crossed mistakenly into Mexico.

Is it time for US border agents – or perhaps military personnel – to shoot to kill when confronted with invading military forces? Will we defend our sovereignty as we did in the 1840s and 1010s, or will we simply let foreign troops cross our frontier with impunity?

When the city of Costa Mesa decided to allow its police to enforce violations of immigration law found in the course of other police work, it provoked quite a controversy.

Activists clashed in Costa Mesa on Tuesday night over the city's decision to become the nation's first authorizing its police department to enforce federal immigration laws.

A 3-2 vote last month to train police officers to work with federal immigration officials and sheriff's deputies to determine the immigration status of suspects arrested for other crimes has made the city a battleground in the national controversy over immigration policy.

Mayor Allan Mansoor, who proposed the idea, has stressed that enforcement will focus on those accused of serious crimes and that no random sweeps will occur.

"The public has been demanding this," said Mansoor, who is also an Orange County sheriff's deputy.

About 80 activists massed before Tuesday's council meeting, singing in Spanish and carrying hand-painted signs reading "Nobody Is Illegal" and "Mansoor Is a Bigot." Other signs proclaimed the United States the property of Mexico and Americans as the interlopers.

Some 40 opponents of illegal immigration also gathered, some shouting, "America is a nation of laws!"

I have only one thing to say to the border jumpers and their supporters -- INTERLOPE THIS!

Guillermo Martinez threw a rock at a Border Patrol agent while trying to jump the US border. The agent responded to this life-threatening assault by opening fire. The result? One dead violent immigration criminal.

Now the Mexican government, which protects its southern border, is using the incident to demand that the US not ratchet-up its own border security.

"This occurrence does no more than provide evidence that only a law that guarantees legal entry and is respectful of human rights can resolve the migratory problem both countries face," Ruben Aguilar, the chief spokesman for President Vicente Fox, said Monday.

Many Mexicans oppose the U.S. measure, which would build more border fences, make illegal entry a felony and enlist military and local police to help stop undocumented migrants.

Aguilar said the death of Guillermo Martinez showed that extending border walls will not curb illegal immigration.

Martinez died Saturday in a Tijuana hospital, the Baja California state attorney general's office said. He died one day after he was shot by a U.S. Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San Diego, according to witnesses cited by Mexican officials.

Raul Martinez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol said the agent had been "assaulted by an individual who threw a large size rock."

"The agent, fearing for his life at that time, fired one round at the individual, who fled back to Mexico," Martinez said Monday.

The spokesman, who is not related to the dead 18-year-old, said U.S. investigators were unsure if the victim had been struck by the bullet because he crossed back into Mexican territory.

Mexico's federal Attorney General's Office said the probe was opened against "whomever is found to have been responsible," but did not name a suspect. Mexico generally does not try to apply its laws to events that occurred in other nations.

Investigate all you want – the government of Mexico has no authority in this case. And please consider Mexico’s own policies before demanding that we open the borders to any Juan, Jose, and Pedro who wants to come to this country.

Mexican officials have grown increasingly vocal in their opposition to the House bill passed Dec. 16, which Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez branded as "stupid and underhanded." Fox has called it shameful.

Officials of Mexico's federal Human Rights Commission have acknowledged that Mexico already employs some of the same methods in its own territory. But Aguilar again attacked the U.S. measure Monday, saying "walls and police crackdowns never will resolve migration problems."

But we really know what the issue is all about. It isn’t one dead border jumpe.

In 2004, Mexican migrants in the United States sent home more than $16 billion in remittances, according to Mexico's central bank, giving the nation its second biggest source of foreign currency after oil exports.

It is all about the cash.

The Washington Post tells us today that there is a split on immigration.

When Congress returns to the unfinished business of immigration early in the new year, lawmakers will be trying to reconcile sometimes conflicting public attitudes on an issue that has become a crusade to some conservative Republicans but has defied effective solutions over the past three decades.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken in mid-December found Americans alarmed by the federal government's failure to do more to block the flow of illegal immigration and critical of the impact of illegal immigration on the country but receptive to the aspirations of undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States.

"You wonder why politicians are not always consistent," said Republican pollster Glen Bolger. "It's because public opinion's not always consistent."

Immigration still ranks below the war in Iraq, terrorism, health care and the economy on the public's list of priorities, but in many parts of the country -- not just those areas near the Mexican border -- it has become an issue of pressing significance because of its economic, racial and, more recently, national security implications.

If there is any consensus today, it is on the need for enhanced border security, driven not only by traditional concerns about jobs and the strains illegal immigrants put on state and local resources but also by newer worries that the porous border makes America more vulnerable to terrorists. The public and politicians are far more divided on the difficult question of how to treat the roughly 11 million illegal migrants already in the country.

In other words, there isn't as great a split as the Post seems to think there is. Border security and immigration reform are generally supported -- so we want to stop the border hemmoraging that has gone on for years. The only place for division is over what to do with those who have already jumped the fence or breast-stroked across the Rio Grande. We are not sure about amnest or enforcement.

And I understand the ambivalence. My students here in Houston are 50% Hispanic. Of those, at least half are the children of non-citizens, including a number of children who are in this country ilegally themselves. Do I wish to see my students and/or their families deported? For the most part, no I don't (I always have the kid I want deported to the third ring of Hades or beyond the orbit of Pluto) -- my love for these kids as individuals prevents me from taking such a position. But how do we then deal with the issue of their immigration status? That is the sort of issue that confounds American public opinion on the issue.

So I'll ask you -- how do we deal with the 11 million?

It seems that American pedophiles are traveling to Mexico in search of victims.

On a sweltering afternoon in this glitzy tourist resort, Alex Fernandez laughed and joked with a group of his fellow homeless teenagers until the subject of prostitution came up. Then his smile disappeared, and the face of the skinny 14-year-old turned to a cold, unblinking stare as he described how grown men, sometimes Mexicans and sometimes foreign tourists, regularly take him to hotels and pay to have sex with him.

"Yes, they buy me. The business gets me food. It gets me clothes," said Fernandez, sitting in the shade of a basketball stand to escape the blazing sun. "No one else helps me. What do you want me to do?"

Despite a concerted effort to crack down on pedophiles in both Mexico and the United States, child prostitution continues unabated in Mexican tourist resorts such as Acapulco and Cancun as well as border cities such as Ciudad Juarez. Investigators estimate the number of Mexican children who are victims of commercial sexual exploitation — including prostitution, pornography and human trafficking — has increased to 20,000 from 16,000 in the past five years. Many of those who pay for sex with the boys and girls are American, Canadian and European tourists.

What's more, this child sex trade is also being brought north. We've had several arrests here in Texas in recent weeks related to children being smuggled from Mexico to become prostitutes.