We Are Not Fools, Sen Rubio

No More Games

By: Erick Erickson (Diary) | June 13th, 2013 RedState

So many conservatives have been dancing around the issue of Senator Marco Rubio’s collaboration with Chuck Schumer to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

We have blamed his staff. We have blamed Democrats. We all like and respect the Senator, even if we disagree on this issue. We do not want to blame him for the mess the GOP now finds itself in holding a legislative tiger by the tail.

But having, by virtue of my radio show, listened over and over to those awful pro-immigration reform ads between my monologues, I think we need to stop playing games.

I say this because either Marco Rubio is being played the fool or we are being played the fool by Senator Rubio. He has become the face of support for this legislation and much of the support of the legislation from those on the right has come because of the good will so many of us have for Senator Rubio.

I am in the awkward position of being to the left of the Republican base. I support immigration reform that leaves most non-felon illegal aliens in the United States and provides them a path to legal work, though not citizenship. Citizenship is a step too far – as it unjustly rewards illegal aliens who purposefully chose not to follow our immigration laws.

But, I know a number of illegal aliens and represented a good many of them when I was a lawyer. They, having been unfairly treated by others due to their status, relied on me to redress clear wrongs against them.

These were good, hardworking people who wanted to comply with the law, wanted to work, and wanted to send money home to support families in their native countries. They did not want citizenship. They wanted a paycheck. I am to the left of my readers in supporting their right to stay here and earn a paycheck. I am to the left of my readers in that I oppose mandatory E-Verify. In my mind, no employer should ever have to ask the government if it can or cannot hire a worker.

But I am to the right of the Senate Republicans and Senator Rubio. The solution they propose will do nothing to stem the tide of illegal aliens coming into this country. This law will expand bureaucracy and will, claims to the contrary notwithstanding, expand the welfare state.

What’s more, Senate Republicans and Democrats are now collaborating on “improvements” to the legislation that do not actually improve the law, but rather provide cover for various Democrats and Republicans to make sure the votes are there for passage while ensuring those in tough spots can still vote against it and claim they opposed what they really, privately support.

Senator John Cornyn, chief among the Republicans now, is playing that game. He is offering up an amendment that supposedly will secure the border before setting up a pathway to citizenship. His amendment really does not do that, but provides a cover for Republicans to claim the amendment, and the law once the amendment passes, would. In truth, all Senator Cornyn has done is take the vast majority of the Gang of 8’s Title 1 “Border Security” Section, make a few modest revisions and slightly beef up security on the margins. The result is to follow instant legalization with a false impression of security, while maintaining the path to citizenship. Smoke-and-mirrors.

That brings us back to Senator Rubio. Is he being played or is he playing us?

Contrary to the Americans for Conservative Reform advertisement in which he appears, the law does not prohibit illegals from getting benefits. Sure, some welfare benefits will be excluded as will, though it is debatable, Obamacare, but a sizable portion of entitlement benefits actually flow through tax credits in the tax code that these immigrants would get.

Contrary to the advertisement, the law does not secure the border in any meaningful way, in fact the “border security on steroids” as the ad claims does not begin until after the citizenship push starts, hence the pretend effort of John Cornyn now that this has been exposed.

Contrary to the advertisement, the law will grant amnesty — it is a big play for citizenship even before the pretend efforts to secure the border take place. It is the amnesty Senator Rubio opposed in 2010, though in the advertisement he says we have right now “de facto amnesty”.

Senator Rubio, you, and I can agree to disagree on the legislation. He is entitled to change his mind. He does not deserve the invective hurled his way, including words like “traitor,” but then neither do those who have opposed this legislation and are cast as modern day eugenicists and racists.

The soundbites used in the Americans for Conservative Reform ads occurred before the markup of the legislation. But now we have the legislation before us as it was amended in committee. We should not have the law misrepresented to us in commercials, press conferences, and floor debates by any Senators on either side of the aisle. Sadly, that is what is happening. Yes, Senator Schumer, you know damn well that this law will not stop, but will encourage continued illegal immigration into this country. But you do not care.

I am just shocked, knowing what we now know, that Senator Rubio would continue to support this legislation and that other conservative Senators would too.

This legislation is not the compromise Republicans should sign on to. Republicans in the Senate should stop playing games and vote against the legislation, vote against the Cornyn amendment, and stop giving the Democrats cover to play their own political games with the hopes, ambitions, and lives of immigrants.

This is bad legislation designed to fix a problem it does not fix. No more games; it must be opposed.

Mexifornia, Islam and Europe

Until Mexicans and other Central Americans and Muslims immigrated here in significant numbers, every other immigrant group went through about the same sequence of stages of early discrimination followed by assimilation and acceptance. The Irish, the Italians, the French, the Germans, the Polish, etc., etc., etc. - all went through these stages and then became part of the American culture: part of the American dream and of American exceptionalism.

Then the liberals started in with their nasty concept of multiculturalism. Ethnic groups which had sacrificed everything to escape the culture of their homeland, started being told that their former culture was actually superior to American culture, and, rather than assimilate, they should retain and strengthen their own culture. Multiculturalism became part of that which is politically correct; liberals would never say that they were supporting other cultures over our own, but that was the practical effect of their policy, and the beautiful melting pot that led to the creation of the greatest country in the world has begun to turn into something resembling the former Yugoslavia.

We need to look at what has been happening in Europe, and we need to get serious about our borders, serious about Muslim immigration and serious about the great state of Mexifornia. We need to secure and protect our unique American culture and get back to assimilating those who immigrate legally into our country.

Will Multiculturalism End Europe?

By Pat Buchanan February 15, 2011 RealClearPolitics

Multiculturalism has "totally failed," says German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"State multiculturalism has had disastrous results," says Britain's David Cameron.

Is multiculturalism a failure in France? "My answer is clearly yes, it is a failure," says President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Ex-Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar has declared multiculturalism a failure in Spain, saying it divides and debilitates Western societies.

Only in Canada and the U.S., it seems, is the issue still in dispute.

Yet these European leaders are not leading anyone. They are far behind the people, and their belated appreciation of the idea of national identity is but a product of political panic. Take Merkel in Germany.

Last summer, Thilo Sarrazin published a book the title of which may be translated as "Germany Abolishes Itself."

Sarrazin argued that Germany's gastarbeiters, guest workers -- Turks, Kurds, Arabs -- are dumbing down the nation. While Germany's birth rate fell below replacement levels decades ago, these foreigners with less intelligence and much higher dropout, welfare and crime rates are rapidly replacing the declining German population.

"It is a matter of culture," said Sarrazin, and "Islam is the culture." This is why Muslim immigrants are "socially, culturally and intellectually inferior to most everyone else." Yet Sarrazin did use the phrase a "genetic minus" to describe migrants from the Middle East.

Were these the ravings of a neo-fascist intellectual and closet admirer of the late Fuhrer? Not at all. Sarrazin was a proud member of the Social Democratic Party of Willy Brandt and a board member of the Bundesbank.

With Merkel and the German establishment howling for his head, Thilo resigned, unrepentant. Two-thirds of Germans said he had a right to speak his mind, a third said they agreed with him, and "Germany Abolishes Itself" has sold over a million copies.

It was in response to the firestorm of the Sarrazin affair that Merkel discovered that multiculturalism was a failure. Her EU colleagues have since been falling all over one another to agree.

Another factor has contributed to the sudden awakening of the EU's elite -- an explosion of anti-immigrant parties that are siphoning off working-class voters from socialist parties and nationalist voters from conservative parties.

Among these are Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front in France, the British National Party, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, Geert Wilders' Freedom Party in Holland, the Swiss People's Party of Christoph Blocher, which won the battle to ban the burka, the Austrian Freedom Party and Alliance for Austria's Future, the Jobbik Party of Hungary, the Lega Nord in Italy, which favors secession, the Danish People's Party, and the Sweden Democrats, who just won a toehold in parliament.

What these parties share is that all are anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim and ethnonational. They want to retain, or restore, a nation of, by and for their own kind, with its own history, holidays, heroes, language, literature, music and art.

They are fiercely resistant to any dilution of the ethnic composition or cultural character of their countries.

What is the menace of multiculturalism these people see?

From Moscow to Marseilles, from Stockholm to Sicily, they see the Muslims pouring in and creating tiny nations within the nation, and being unwilling to embrace a new identity as Englishmen, French or German.

And their fears are not unjustified.

For just as the populist parties are deeply ethnonational, proud of their identity as Swiss, Austrian, German, English, Dutch or Flemish, the newcomers, too, are deeply ethnonational: Turkish, Arab and African.

And Islam is a faith that is itself anti-multicultural.

Devout Muslims do not believe all religions are equal. They believe there is one God, Allah, and submission to his law is the path to paradise. They do not believe in freedom of speech and the press if it means mocking the Prophet. They do not believe in Western dress codes or mixing men and women in schools and sports. They do not believe all lifestyles are equal. Some think adulterers should be stoned and honor killings are justified for girls who disgrace the family.

They wish to live their faith and their culture in our countries, to live alongside us but to dwell apart.

"If you come to France," said Sarkozy last week, "you accept to melt into a single community, which is the national community, and if you do not want to accept that, you cannot be welcome in France."

A little late for that. Some 5 million to 8 million Arabs and Muslims are in France, their birth rate is higher, and more are on the way.

The real questions: Whose idea was it to bring these people in? And what do France, Britain and Germany do if they say: This is a democracy, we will live as we wish to live, according to our beliefs, not yours.

How does a liberal, permissive society that celebrates diversity impose its values on a militant immigrant minority that rejects them?

Answer: It doesn't. All the rest is chatter.

This is what James Burnham meant when he wrote that liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide.

Behind the Arizona Border Dilemma

While guilt-ridden progressives and immigration activists march with illegals (committing acts of violence not ever seen at Tea Party rallies) and demand that Arizona be punished, the Obama Administration wrings its hands. It reminds one of Jimmy Carter as Iranian thugs, supported by the Iranian government, kidnapped and brutalized American diplomats within our embassy in Tehran (American territory). Let us understand what is going on at and south of our border:

Border disorder

By RALPH PETERS

April 29, 2010 New York Post

South of the border, down Mexico way, a new and savage revolution rages just beyond our inspection lanes. After less than five years of fighting, estimates of the dead have reached 22,000.

The rate of killing accelerates each month. And Washington covers its eyes like a kid at a scary movie. Well, the Mexican narco-insurgency, in which well-armed guerrilla forces confront the authority and presence of the state, is our No. 1 security challenge.

The chaos in northern Mexico has far deeper implications for our country than Islamist terror or even an Iranian nuclear capability (as grim as those threats are).

The rule of law has collapsed from Tijuana on the Pacific's edge to Matamoros and the Gulf of Mexico. Major cities are now "ungoverned spaces," as our diplomats refer tidily to distant trouble spots.

More people now die violently on our southern border than in Somalia, Yemen or even Afghanistan. But Washington doesn't know what to do about Mexico. So Washington does nothing much.

Our ruling class simply doesn't feel the pain. So the DC elite demonizes Arizona's desperate effort to shove the narco-revolution's disorder back across the border. Murdered ranchers, overwhelmed emergency rooms and soaring crime rates in our border states mean less to the White House than a terrorist detainee's claims of abuse. Our governing elite pretends that illegal immigration, torrential crime where illegals cluster, overcrowded prisons, Mexico's narco-insurgency, legal cross-border commerce and the drug trade are separate issues, to be addressed discreetly.

But these issues are all interwoven with the Mexican government's existential crisis. Drug wealth fuels criminal empires. Those narco-empires are now so powerful that they've risen against the state. Human trafficking is a useful sideline for drug lords. And illegal immigration drives crime rates in bankruptcy-threatened US cities and states.

Cross-border trade's the next target. Narco-insurgents now feel sufficiently confident to attack Mexican army installations and US consulates. The maquiladoras, those thousands of assembly plants along the border, won't escape the mayhem. Given their enormous contribution to Mexico's fiscal stability and employment rates, those plants are obvious targets as the narco-challenge to the state intensifies.

Mexican journalists, too, have been killed by the hundreds. Their torture and execution doesn't generate much excitement north of the border, though. It's their bad luck to be butchered by Mexican narcos. Had they been killed accidentally by US forces in Iraq or Afghanistan, they'd be famous martyrs.

And Arizona's "discriminatory" new state law empowering police to pursue criminal aliens? Should Phoenix let the rule of law collapse because Washington prefers political correctness to public safety? In DC, it's about politics. In Arizona, it's about survival.

It bewilders me that my fellow citizens don't take the disintegration of government authority in northern Mexico seriously. As I've written repeatedly, no country is more important to us socially, economically and security-wise than Mexico. Afghanistan's fluff by comparison.

Precisely 100 years ago, in 1910, the Mexican Revolution erupted in northern Mexico -- already the most prosperous and industrially developed portion of the country. That revolution lasted a bloody, destructive decade.

It wasn't the bandido affair beloved of Hollywood knuckleheads, but a complex contest for power with large armies, strategic campaigns, major battles, trench warfare, barbed wire and machine guns. In 1915, the military vision of the self-taught Gen. Alvaro Obregon -- destined to become Mexico's president -- was more sophisticated than that of the US Army. Mexico pioneered the 20th century's revolutions.

Since then, northern Mexico -- from the border cities southward through the industrial powerhouse of Monterrey -- has continued to be the country's primary agent of change. Influenced by its proximity to America, the north long has been a different country from the impoverished states south of the capital.

Now a new Mexican revolution is underway in the vital north. In 1910, idealists struggled to change an autocratic regime. In 2010, criminal syndicates fight to wrest power from a democratic government and to grab market share from each other.

(In an eerie parallel, a bloody strike in the northern mining center of Cananea helped ignite the 1910 revolution; today, a three-year-long strike in Cananea by mining and metal workers signals a new generation's impatience with the status quo -- and we're just not paying attention.)

During that earlier revolution, the citizens of El Paso, Texas, and Douglas, Arizona, gathered to watch the battles just across the border as Pancho Villa's troops drove out the Federals, then as the Constitutionalists defeated Villa. Those spectators were confident in their immunity as American citizens.

We're no longer immune.

Who Is Foiling Immigration Enforcement?

For the second day in a row, a very perceptive editorial column appeared in the Providence Journal that explained a lot. Like most traditional and patriotic Americans I have been baffled by the difficulties we, as a nation, have in enforcing our borders. Although I understand that America-hating leftists want to destroy our harmony, it seems self-evident that we are not a sovereign nation if we can not pass and enforce laws that determine who we want to have enter our country and become citizens. It also seems self-evident that, except for political refugees, we want mostly to encourage the immigration of peoples who bring skills that we need into our country.

Why do we have such difficulty carrying out this fundamental concept? This article answers that question.

Interests foil immigration enforcement

JAMES C. SHEEHAN June 3, 2009 Providence Journal

LAWS, IN GENERAL, are intended to provide for the orderly regulation of society and protection of individual liberty. National laws are established for the common good through the democratic process by majority votes in Congress. One such law governs border control and immigration policy. While 72 percent of Americans believe it is “very important” to reduce illegal immigration and enforce the borders (Rasmussen, 2007), this law is not being effectively enforced. If Americans overwhelmingly support effective border control and controlling illegal immigration, why has our government not adequately enforced national immigration law? The answer is simple — an unusual collection of special interest groups have worked successfully to prevent the proper enforcement of immigration laws.

Some oppose the enforcement of immigration laws for altruistic reasons.

They believe that any person should have the opportunity to enter our country, legally or not, to seize their own piece of the American dream, reunite with family, and/or send wages back home. No matter the reason, over time, illegal immigrants become enmeshed in the fabric of their community, establishing strong bonds of friendship and family.

Once this occurs, community members are reluctant to let the lives of these semi-permanent residents be disrupted. Through various social, religious and political organizations, illegal immigrants and their friends and family have organized to prevent the enforcement of established immigration laws. Furthermore, these organizations have sought to normalize the status of illegal immigrants residing here.

One good example of this movement is the push to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants under the pretext of public safety.

A very powerful and well-funded special interest that works hard to combat the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws is American business, as represented by state and local chambers of commerce and, by extension, perhaps, some in the Republican Party. These associations battle enforcement of laws such as E-verify, an effective tool requiring employers to verify the legal status of new hires, because they allege that the E-verify system is a burden to businesses. In fact, the E-verify system is cheap, relatively easy to implement, and very accurate. In truth, these groups fight enforcement of E-verify because they must hew to the wishes of numerous chapter members who undoubtedly employ illegal immigrants at below-market wages. In general, this unlawful practice also undermines years of hard-fought labor laws in the workplace.

Moreover, hiring illegal immigrants also denies low-skilled citizens and legal residents an opportunity to work at entry-level jobs, and provides businesses that exploit illegal workers an unfair advantage over their competitors who do not exploit illegals.

Ironically, even some union leaders now oppose the enforcement of America’s immigration laws. Illegal immigrants who are able to obtain false papers are readily hired in various sectors of the economy, such as the hospitality industry or construction. Legal or not, these workers are welcomed by unions because they help to revitalize waning union ranks with fresh dues-paying members. Of course, there is strength in numbers, and illegal workers give union leaders additional clout in negotiations. Interestingly, union leaders arguably can still offer management their services at a relative discount since many of their non-citizen members are probably willing to work for less than citizen workers.

Politically speaking, powerful members of the Democratic Party have a vested interest in illegal immigration, too, because they believe that illegal immigrants who benefit from longstanding Democratic mainstays — social-welfare programs — will vote to support the Democratic Party if they become lawful citizens of this nation. Of course, some claim that illegal immigrants already are voting in large numbers in this country because of weak election laws that often do not require positive identification to register to vote or to cast a vote.

While each of the aforementioned special interests derives some personal benefit from illegal immigration, the burden is shouldered squarely by a majority of lawful citizens. While illegal immigrants pay some taxes, research shows that they do not pay enough to offset the dollars paid out through federal and state government programs that support them. Illegal immigrants receive government-subsidized health care, social services and education that probably can be measured in the billions of dollars annually. Worse yet, illegal immigrants who violate the law are crowded into our nation’s prisons, costing countless millions more.

Our nation is in financial crisis and many states, including Rhode Island, are facing formidable deficits. The U.S. and Rhode Island can no longer afford a de-facto policy of open borders, especially when Rhode Island may be forced to cut aid to cities and towns, education, state worker pensions and health-care benefits to lawful citizens.

Still, it is the confluence of special interests that prevents proper enforcement of immigration laws. Until a majority of citizens take a stand on this issue, some elected representatives will continue to kowtow to the special interests that personally benefit from illegal immigration. After all, many politicians also personally benefit from illegal immigration by way of special-interest contributions and/or voter support at election time.

If you wish to know whose interests your elected officials represent on the issue of illegal immigration, please contact them by visiting: www.sec.state.ri.us/vic.

Mexican Smuggler Shot by Agents Goes to Prison

There was a further development in the mysterious case of Border Agents Campeon and Ramos who are in prison serving 10 years for the shooting in the butt of the illegal alien drug-smuggler, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila. I use the term, “mysterious”, because no-one can really figure out how the two Agents could have been convicted and sentenced to 10 years in the first place, nor why President Bush has steadfastly refused to consider pardoning these men. I have written before about this case and of the lies and dissembling by the federal prosecutor, Johnny Sutton. Now Aldrete has been sentenced to jail.

This means that the main witness against the Border Agents is now a convicted and jailed felon with less time to serve than the Agents. Sutton knew that he was an often-armed drug-smuggler during the Agents’ trial. This means that our government placed the word of a drug smuggler over the testimony of serving agents of the U.S.A. When are they going to get the break they deserve or we the truth about this whole matter?

Smuggler shot by agents gets 9½ years in prison

Mexican national sentenced for part in later incidents

Aug. 6, 2008 Houston Chronicle

EL PASO — An admitted drug smuggler shot by a pair of former U.S. Border Patrol agents was sentenced to nearly a decade in federal prison Wednesday.

Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while fleeing from an abandoned marijuana load in 2005, was sentenced to 9½ years in prison for his role in other smuggling efforts months after he was shot.

The sentence was issued a little more than a week after a federal appeals court upheld lengthy sentences for the former agents convicted in the shooting. Their case has drawn national attention, prompting several members of Congress to call on President Bush to commute their sentences or pardon them outright.

Aldrete, of Juarez, Mexico, pleaded guilty in April to two counts of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, and one count each of conspiracy to import a controlled substance and conspiracy to possess a controlled substance.
Before being sentenced, Aldrete insisted that he was not a career smuggler and asked the court for leniency.

"I don't do this for a living," Aldrete, who spoke in Spanish, told U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone. "I did it again because I had to cover the debt" from the first failed smuggling attempt.

Aldrete said his family was threatened, forcing him to again smuggle large loads of marijuana in 2005, while cooperating with the U.S. government in the case against agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean.

He was shot in February of that year.

Cardone rejected his apologies, telling Aldrete that he squandered an opportunity to stay clean after being given immunity for the original smuggling effort in exchange for his testimony against Ramos and Compean.

"I just don't believe you were a minor ... player," Cardone said. "You had ample opportunity ... and you still decided to engage in (drug smuggling.)"

Aldrete testified against the agents in their 2006 trial, telling a jury that he was unarmed when he was shot as he ran toward Mexico after a brief scuffle with Compean.
Ramos and Compean, who were convicted of shooting Aldrete and then trying to cover up the incident, argued that they believed Aldrete had a weapon.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld most of the agents' convictions while tossing out charges that the men tampered with an official proceeding.

The ruling left intact the mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years for the each agent's convictions on the charge of discharge of a weapon in the commission of a crime of violence.

Relatives of both agents were in the courtroom for Wednesday's sentencing.
Monica Ramos, Ignacio Ramos' wife, said the sentence brought some relief, but was hardly justice for her family.

"I'm not going to say this is a victory," Monica Ramos said. "I think for the first time our justice system worked."

Two Openings for Republicans

In a year when Democrats are expected to roll over Republicans in the Congressional races, two issues are certain winners for Republicans if they can avoid wimping out to liberal threats and RINO nonsense: energy and immigration. The nation was treated to a raw demonstration of the power of the illegal immigration issue when a liberal governor of liberal New York state proclaimed the issuance of drivers licenses to illegals. Governor Spitzer, now retired in disgrace, had to reverse his order, and Hillary Clinton lost all her momentum by hemming and hawing over this issue.

Now also $4.00 gasoline may have galvanized support for a relaxation of ridiculous environmental regulations that prevent us from developing our own energy. Man’s progress, standard of living and job growth far outweigh most environmental concerns. Environmental extremists and Nazis have shut us down.

If the Republican candidates can convince the nation that they are the party that will stop illegal immigration, and that they are the party that will push through oil drilling and nuclear plant construction, and that the Democrats want to stop all drilling and have open borders, we have a chance to make some headway politically and substantively.

May 21, 2008 Politico.com
Categories: energy

House Republicans unveil energy agenda

House Republicans unveiled their energy policy agenda Wednesday morning on the steps of the Capitol, hoping to put a spate of bad headlines behind them and seize the upper hand on a critical issue, as gas prices once again hit record highs.

The GOP plan was particularly focused on increasing domestic production, an idea Democrats have been cool to due to environmental concerns and a desire to focus on alternative energy sources rather than domestic drilling.

The Republican agenda also called for conservation tax credits, the increased use of nuclear power, an emphasis on coal to liquid technologies and for construction of new oil refineries.

On the production issue, Republicans called for increased drilling in the outer continental shelf, tapping into domestic oil share reserves and once again calling for drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, which has been a flashpoint in the energy debate going back to the early 1990's.

“It defies reality that China is drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba, but we cannot drill off of our own shores,” said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.).

The energy issue has been thrust into the political spotlight in recent months, as gas prices continue to skyrocket.

Oil prices hit another record on Wednesday, reaching $132 per barrel, while the national average for a gallon of gasoline also set a record, topping $3.80.
In addition to the Wednesday press conference, House Republicans laid out their agenda in a strategy memo for members obtained by Politico.

“Republicans are committed to a comprehensive energy reform policy that will boost supplies of all forms of energy right here at home to reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy, protect us against blackmail by foreign dictators, create American jobs, and grow our economy,” the document states.

Republicans also piled on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), accusing her of not doing enough to address rising gas prices after taking control of Congress in 2006.

"Once a nightmare scenario, $4 gasoline has become a harsh reality – on Speaker Pelosi’s watch – and now Americans are paying nearly $1.50 more per gallon at the pump than when the Speaker took office," the strategy memo states.

The speaker hit back quickly on Wednesday, calling the GOP plan “stale rhetoric” that will do little to solve the problem.

"President Bush and congressional Republicans have spent the last seven years doling out billions of dollars in subsidies to the Big Oil companies, instead of working for an energy independence plan for America," Pelosi said in a statement.

Pelosi highlighted recent House-passed bills to suspend shipments to the strategic petroleum reserve, hold OPEC responsible for price fixing and efforts to invest in renewable fuels, as examples of Democratic action on the issue.

Republicans, however, honed in on the production issue, with some calling for immediate action.

“The time for talk is long past,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). “It is time for action.”

What the country has to realize is that the Democrat leaders, like Nancy Pelosi, are only posturing, because it is their game plan to see gasoline prices go skyhigh in order to squash the driving habits of Americans. If it were completely up to them, we would all be driving tiny European-like cars or not at all.

We Won’t Forgot the Persecuted Border Control Agents

I have written several times about the Border Patrol Agents, Campean and Ramos, who were convicted and sent to prison for 11-12 years for shooting and wounding slightly a Mexican drug smuggler caught crossing the border. The case has always smelled to high heaven, and now an official complaint has been lodged against the federal attorney who prosecuted the case. Many observers have concluded that these agents were railroaded to placate the Mexican government who object to any rough handling of criminals who cross our border no matter how despicable are the crimes they carry out on U.S. citizens.

Ethics Complaint Filed Against Johnny Sutton

Contact: Don Swarthout, President, Christians Reviving America's Values (CRAVE), 859-219-1222, 859-619-2811 cell

WASHINGTON, May 12 /Christian Newswire/--Don Swarthout, President of Christians Reviving America's Values (CRAVE) has filed an ethics complaint with the Texas Bar Association against Prosecutor Johnny Sutton. In this complaint Swarthout charges Sutton's office willfully misled the jury in order to convict Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean for simply doing their jobs.

Swarthout has asked the Texas Bar Association to investigate Johnny Sutton for actions strikingly similar to Prosecutor Mike Nifong's mishandling of the Duke lacrosse rape case. The evidence suggests Johnny Sutton is just as guilty as Mike Nifong of unethical prosecutorial behavior.

Swarthout said, "This whole case stinks to the highest parts of heaven. How is it possible in America to convict two Border Agents for simply doing their jobs and send them to prison for 11 and 12 years? How is it possible for Johnny Sutton's office to ruin the lives of two of our Border Agents based on the word of a known Mexican drug smuggler? Why did Johnny Sutton's office twist the facts of this case and hide evidence simply to get a conviction?"

More than 90 U.S. Senators and Congressmen have reviewed this case and have asked President Bush to pardon Border Agents Ramos and Compean. These 90 elected officials represent both Democrats and Republicans. All of them agree Johnny Sutton's prosecution leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Known drug smuggler Aldrete Davila was portrayed by Sutton as almost an "innocent bystander." In fact, he was involved in a second drug delivery to the United States during Sutton's prosecution of Ramos and Compean. This fact was covered up by Sutton's office.

It may be possible for reasonable people to disagree about whether Sutton's statements constitute "outright lies." However, the facts now in the public domain make it abundantly clear Sutton's statements were willfully misleading to the jury and that is the basis of this ethics complaint.

********************

Saturday, May 26, 2007
From Sea to Shining Sea

Border Agent Prosecutor Appears On Glen Beck
Johnny Sutton, the U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted the Border Control Agents Ramos and Compean, the agents who received lengthy prison sentences (11 and 12 years) for firing at and hitting an illegal-alien, drug smuggler, appeared on the Glen Beck show the other night to discuss this case.

I had previously heard Sutton in an interview with Bill O’Reilly discuss this case, and I was very disturbed at that time with the impression he made. His answers and demeanor indicated that a government cover-up of a mishandled case was in progress. I have posted articles about this case before, taking the position that these agents should not have been prosecuted, but should have been disciplined for improper, after-the-fact reporting procedures.

After this latest appearance, I am more convinced than ever that a gross injustice has been done to these men (they have been beaten up in prison). What appears more likely than a collusive effort with the government of Mexico to prosecute any agent who fires at an illegal (this Mexican is a major drug smuggler who was subsequently caught again in the act), as has been suggested in many quarters, is that Sutton was just angered that Ramos and Campean’s actions after the fact have jeopardized other cases Sutton was working on, and he went after them to teach them a lesson.

If you have been following this case, Ramos and Campean “may” not have followed procedures in filing their after-action report. All the evidence against them for the shooting itself was provided by the drug smuggler himself, who was granted immunity.

This case continues to cry out for a presidential pardon, and Sutton is making himself look more and more foolish and vindictive by appearing on TV to smear the agents.

English-Only Showdown

English-Only Showdown

Does Nancy Pelosi really object to a common language in the workplace?

November 28, 2007, John Fund, Opinion Journal (Excerpts)

”Should the Salvation Army be able to require its employees to speak English? You wouldn't think that's controversial. But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding up a $53 billion appropriations bill funding the FBI, NASA and Justice Department solely to block an attached amendment, passed by both the Senate and House, that protects the charity and other employers from federal lawsuits over their English-only policies.

The U.S. used to welcome immigrants while at the same time encouraging assimilation. Since 1906, for example, new citizens have had to show "the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English." A century later, this preference for assimilation is still overwhelmingly popular. A new Rasmussen poll finds that 87% of voters think it "very important" that people speak English in the U.S., with four out of five Hispanics agreeing. And 77% support the right of employers to have English-only policies, while only 14% are opposed.

But hardball politics practiced by ethnic grievance lobbies is driving assimilation into the dustbin of history. The House Hispanic Caucus withheld its votes from a key bill granting relief on the Alternative Minimum Tax until Ms. Pelosi promised to kill the Salvation Army relief amendment…..

“Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.), who authored the now-stalled amendment to prohibit the funding of EEOC lawsuits against English-only rules, is astonished at the opposition he's generated. Rep. Joe Baca (D., Calif.), chair of the Hispanic Caucus, boasted that "there ain't going to be a bill" including the Alexander language because Speaker Pelosi had promised him the conference committee handling the Justice Department's budget would never meet. So Sen. Alexander proposed a compromise, only requiring that Congress be given 30 days notice before the filing of any EEOC lawsuit. "I was turned down flat," he told me. "We are now celebrating diversity at the expense of unity. One way to create that unity is to value, not devalue, our common language, English."….

“The alternative to Americanization is polarization. Already a tenth of the population speaks English poorly or not at all. Almost a quarter of all K-12 students nationwide are children of immigrants living between two worlds. It's time for people of good will to reject both the nativist and anti-assimilation extremists and act. If the federal government spends billions on the Voice of America for overseas audiences and on National Public Radio for upscale U.S. listeners, why not fund a "Radio New America" whose primary focus is to teach English and U.S. customs to new arrivals?

In 1999, President Bill Clinton said "new immigrants have a responsibility to enter the mainstream of American life." Eight years later, Clinton strategists Stan Greenberg and James Carville are warning their fellow Democrats that the frustration with immigrants and their lack of assimilation is creating a climate akin to the anti-welfare attitudes of the 1990s. They point out that 40% of independent voters now cite border security issues as the primary reason for their discontent.

In 1996, Mr. Clinton and a GOP Congress joined together to defuse the welfare issue by ending the federal welfare entitlement. Bold bipartisan action is needed again. With frustration this deep, it's in the interests of both parties not to let matters get out of hand.” Opinion Journal

A Compassionate View of Illegal Immigration?

All my life I have prided myself as a reasonable and compassionate person - and someone with sympathy for the plight of immigrants. That has all gone out the window in recent years, as the number of illegals and the crimes they commit has become an obscenity, compounded by the obvious attempts by illegals to make over the United States into some kind of Mexican tributary, where Spanish is the "official" language, and the tax receipts from citizens support their lifestyle.

I have lost all sense of compassion and reason; I want it stopped, and I have no compassion left for the children or any other unfortunate victims of this whole disaster. It's just too bad. Build the fence; shut down the illegal entries; raid the businesses employing them, and when we stumble on them, ship them out. Then, when we have reestablished our sovereignty and our control over our own borders, I will be in a mood to listen to plans for temporary workers' permits and some way to earn legal citizenship. Until then Mr. Huckabee can just go jump in a lake.

Immigration group: Huckabee a 'disaster'

November 30, 2007, Washington Times

By Stephen Dinan - Groups that support a crackdown on illegal aliens haven't settled on their champion in the race for the White House, but there's little doubt which Republican scares them most — former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"He was an absolute disaster on immigration as governor," said Roy Beck, president of NumbersUSA, a group that played a major role in rallying the phone calls that helped defeat this year's Senate immigration bill. "Every time there was any enforcement in his state, he took the side of the illegal aliens."

As Mr. Huckabee rises in the polls, his opponents are beginning to take shots at him on immigration. Just as problematic for the former Arkansas governor, however, is that the independent interest groups that track the issue are also giving him the once-over, and don't like what they see.

"Huckabee is the guy who scares the heck out of me," said Peter Gadiel, president of 9-11 Families for a Secure America, a group instrumental in fighting for the REAL ID Act that sets federal standards for driver's licenses.

Some leaders said Mr. Huckabee reminds them of President Bush, who pushed for legalization of illegal aliens and a new supply of foreign guest workers, despite his base calling for better border security and enforcement.

"I would say that Huckabee comes from the same perspective on the issue that George W. Bush came from — that out of a strong sense of compassion, he tries to identify with someone who comes to the United States, even if they came illegally," said Steven A. Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies.

Mr. Huckabee yesterday defended his record, but he said if voters are looking for the toughest guy, he's not their man.

"Is my answer satisfactory to all the Republicans? The answer's 'no.' " he said. "Some people want me to be a lot harsher. I think my answer is the honest and the right one."

The former governor said the borders should be secured and said he opposes sanctuary cities shielding illegal aliens and opposes amnesty, though he does think illegal aliens can be put on a path to citizenship — something many conservatives equate to amnesty.

But he said he finds a lot of anger and frustration directed at immigrants who don't speak English.

"Unfortunately, instead of being angry at the federal government for totally failing us in this, they sometimes get angry at the people themselves," he said.

He also said he's willing to take the heat for pushing for illegal alien students to be able to get taxpayer-funded financial aid and college scholarships.

"Our country is better than that, to punish children for what their parents did in breaking the law. If that costs me the election, it costs me the election, but somewhere along the line we cannot just pander to the anger and hostility without challenging it," he said.

Mr. Huckabee said he will produce a full plan to address illegal entry at some point, and he said he hasn't worked out specifics yet for who would get a path to citizenship and how.

"At some point, they do have to go back and start, they do have to pay a monetary fine, there has to be some type of restitution made for the law that has been broken, but it has to be reasonable and commensurate with the violation," he said.

As Mr. Huckabee's campaign gains attention — he is polling in first place in Iowa, the site of the first nominating contest — his immigration stance is getting a closer look. Fellow candidate Mitt Romney questioned him about his financial aid plan during Wednesday night's debate, and the video of that made the rounds of the immigration-control groups yesterday.

None of the groups has endorsed any candidates in the Democratic or Republican races, and they are divided on who the best candidate is.

On Thanksgiving, Mr. Beck wrote an e-mail to his supporters praising the immigration plan of Fred Thompson, a former senator who is running for the Republican nomination and who has called for attrition through enforcement.

"I really was blown away. I said, my gosh, this is an incredible platform," Mr. Beck said in an interview this week.

James J. Boulet Jr., executive director of English First, which wants to make English the official language of the government, said Mr. Romney had the best official record on that issue, opposing bilingual education during his term as Massachusetts governor.

Both Mr. Romney and Mr. Thompson have said they wouldn't create a new pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens, and Mr. Romney also has hinted he wants illegal aliens to go home through attrition. But Mr. Beck said Mr. Thompson's plan is the most detailed at this point, and he praised Mr. Thompson's call to even end some immigration programs such as the diversity visa lottery.

"The fact that he has OK'd these positions on such a volatile topic shows he really takes voters' concerns seriously and he believes there ought to be more than just sound bites about it," Mr. Beck said.

Reps. Ron Paul of Texas, Tom Tancredo of Colorado and Duncan Hunter of California all win near universal praise from the group leaders, but the leaders question whether any of the three have a shot at winning the nomination. Most of the leaders dismissed Arizona Sen. John McCain, a longtime advocate of legalizing illegal aliens, saying he appears to have little shot of winning the nomination.

As for Rudolph W. Giuliani, several leaders said his record as New York mayor was worrisome — he ran a sanctuary city, which means the identity of illegal aliens was kept from authorities in some cases — but they are impressed with his tough border-security position.

Immigration ‘bargain’?

This editorial that appeared in the main Providence newspaper kind of floored me and probably anyone else who reads this paper regularly. The Journal usually supports liberal ideas and probably is best described as somewhere between moderate Democrat and RINO Republican in its philosophy. When Senator Lott appeared on Fox News tonight and described the opponents of the amnesty-immigration bill as people who did not really know what was in the bill, his arrogant comments prodded me to post this Journal article.

Immigration ‘bargain’?

June 21, 2007, Providence Journal Editorial

President Bush made an unusual visit to Capitol Hill last week to support the little-loved “grand bargain” on immigration. Most objection in the Senate has come from fellow Republicans who regard instant amnesty for 12 million or more illegal immigrants with a wary eye.

Let us throw out a few considerations. The first is that there’s been too little information on the costs to taxpayers of legalizing many millions of mostly unskilled workers, who would instantly be eligible for a variety of public benefits.

For example, how would the plan affect spending on the Earned Income Tax Credit?

This is a federal program that returns money to low-income workers, in effect subsidizing their pay. It is a worthy program, but one that would be strained if huge numbers of legalized people suddenly qualify for it. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the credit would cost U.S. taxpayers $20 billion in the first 10 years after the proposed amnesty went into effect.

The Heritage Foundation has come up with a projected cost of retirement benefits for this group, including Medicare, of $2.6 trillion. We can’t assess the accuracy of that number, but it is a large one. Let’s hear other projections.

Mr. Bush had been marketing an amnesty directed toward people who have been in America a long time and pay their back taxes. But the bill sets the deadline date at Jan. 1 of this year — less than seven months ago — and although it calls for $5,000 fines, it totally drops the requirement for paying back taxes.

We are not averse to the idea of an amnesty, but it must be paired with a genuine commitment to stopping future illegal immigration. That was to be the deal on the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The amnesty came off without a hitch, but the sanctions against the employers who hire illegal workers were ignored. Instead of requiring firms to check an applicant’s eligibility against a national database, the law let them simply accept identification documents that looked plausible.

A huge market in counterfeit and stolen identities bloomed, in effect gutting the law. Making matters worse, President Bush virtually abandoned all efforts to go after employers who blatantly employed illegal workers. The new bill is supposed to overcome that flaw — it does require that IDs be checked against a computerized registry — but given the pathetic history of early immigration-policy “reform” and the opposition of low-paying employers to these new rules, we can’t help but be skeptical.

Wouldn’t it make sense to boost everyone’s confidence by first enforcing the law on the books? Add to that a database requirement and let’s see what happens.

America already admits legally about three-quarter of a million immigrants every year. We question adding so-called temporary workers to the total. First, we would fully expect large numbers of these “temporary” guest workers to simply overstay their visas, as happens now. (Who can blame them?) So the temporary-worker program must realistically be regarded as adding to the permanent numbers.

We are also troubled by the notion of an indentured-servant-like class of worker. Temporary workers can be exploited by their employers and they’d further depress the wages of unskilled Americans and legal immigrants.

Americans need a lot more serious analysis of the grand bargain before they sign on. It may not be much of a bargain at all.

BREAKING NEWS: HOUSE KILLS FENCE

As reasonable people wait to hear what amendments are offered to resurrect the amnesty-immigration bill, there is a report that the Democrat House of Representatives has just voted to enact such severe restrictions on further completion of the previously authorized 700 mile fence as to bring it to a screeching halt. These restrictions impose new environmental safeguards, the need for local consultation and other roadblocks clearly intended to stop any further fence building – no matter what new funding or new authorizations are passed.

This is such deceit and such a clear slap in the face to those wanting something positive done to stop illegal immigration that it almost takes your breath away. That’s not all. Initial reports are that no-one, from President Bush to Secretary of Homeland Security Chertoff objected to these incredible changes. Whether they were informed of the vote taken today is unknown at this time.

Reviving the Immigration Bill

Although like most conservatives, I am against the current immigration bill recently set aside in the Senate, I do accept the notion that our border-control and immigration system is broken and needs fixing. Whether the system is not working mostly because exising laws are deficient, whether current funding is inadequate or whether the problem is a lack of desire to enforce existing laws is not completely clear, but probably a mix of the three is closest to the truth. As a conservative and as a former business-owner, I know that government is, on most matters, inefficient, ineffective (except for unintended consequences), corrupt, bureaucratic, stifling and filled with employees whose main concern is not to get in trouble or do very much work. Any time a new system or a changed system is designed for government execution, these realities must be taken into consideration, and "keep it simple, stupid" is a good principle to follow.

For now, I'm willing to accept the hypothesis that the federal government is hampered by inadequate laws and insufficient funding to do its main job in this area, which is: 1. Stop illegal immigration, 2. Provide the workers and skills we need to keep moving forward, 3. Provide and control the temporary workers employers need seasonally, and 4. Deal with illegals now here with some compassion, but slowly, carefully, and with regard to those who obeyed the rules.

I'm also willing to accept with an open mind further attempts to modify and revive this bill, SO LONG AS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS STOPPED, AND WE KNOW IT'S STOPPED BEFORE ANY OTHER PROVISIONS KICK IN.

Senate Leaders Agree to Revive Immigration Bill
New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 14 — Senate Democratic and Republican leaders announced on Thursday that they had agreed on a way to revive a comprehensive immigration bill that was pulled off the Senate floor seven days ago.

The majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said they expected the bill to return to the floor before the Fourth of July recess.

In a joint statement, Mr. Reid and Mr. McConnell said: “We met this evening with several of the senators involved in the immigration bill negotiations. Based on that discussion, the immigration bill will return to the Senate floor after completion of the energy bill.”

The immigration bill, ardently sought by President Bush, would make the biggest changes in immigration law and policy in more than 20 years.

It would increase border security, crack down on companies that employ illegal immigrants, establish a guest worker program and offer legal status to most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

The agreement does not guarantee that the bill will be approved by the Senate or become law.

Supporters of the bipartisan bill predict that some conservative Republicans will try to block a vote on final passage, because of concerns about the legalization program.

Predicting “procedural barriers,” Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the third-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership team, said, “Three or four senators will try to block every amendment.”

The House has held many hearings on immigration this year. House Democratic leaders, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have expressed concerns about major provisions of the Senate bill, including one that would give less weight to family ties in deciding who can immigrate to the United States.

A White House spokesman, Scott M. Stanzel, said, “We are encouraged by the announcement from Senate leaders that comprehensive immigration reform will be brought back up for consideration.”

The bill stalled on June 7, when supporters garnered just 45 of the 60 votes needed to end debate. Republican senators said that they had not been allowed to offer enough amendments.

Under the agreement reached on Thursday, the Senate will consider about 22 amendments, half from Republicans and half from Democrats.

Earlier in the day, trying to start the bill moving again in the Senate, Mr. Bush called for an immediate burst of $4.4 billion in spending to show that the government was committed to “securing this border once and for all.”

Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia, described the call for $4.4 billion as “a good start.” But Mr. Isakson said Mr. Bush needed to do more to secure the border and to show that he was serious about enforcing immigration laws.

Comments by Republican senators on Thursday suggested that they were feeling the heat from conservative critics of the bill, who object to provisions offering legal status. The Republican whip, Trent Lott of Mississippi, who supports the bill, said: “Talk radio is running America. We have to deal with that problem.”

At some point, Mr. Lott said, Senate Republican leaders may try to rein in “younger guys who are huffing and puffing against the bill.”

Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, welcomed the president’s support for more spending on border security, but said, “There’s no reason why we should be forced to tie amnesty to it.”

Mr. Bush said the $4.4 billion would “come from the fines and penalties that we collect from those who have come to our country illegally” and apply for legal status.

Representative Duncan Hunter of California, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, scorned such linkage.

“The idea that we will have border security only if it’s paid for by illegal immigrants is unacceptable,” Mr. Hunter said.

Matthew A. Towery, a political analyst in Atlanta who was once a campaign chairman for Newt Gingrich and is now chief executive of a polling firm, Insider Advantage, said: “Having George W. Bush come out and speak in favor of the immigration bill does not do any good for Republican senators. He just irritates the conservative base of the Republican Party, which has abandoned him on this issue.”

A new proposal floated on Thursday in an effort to deter the hiring of illegal immigrants would put biometric identifiers into Social Security cards. That change would make the cards more difficult to forge and counterfeit, Mr. Schumer said.

Now What On Securing America?

Now that the Amnesty Bill has been soundly defeated:
BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE; BUILD THE DAMN FENCE.

You will remember that only last year a 700 mile fence was authorized, but only a small portion was funded, and an even smaller portion (2/10ths of 1% or 2 miles) has actually been built. Is it any wonder that we don’t trust any of them on this matter – not Democrats whose previous ‘good’ works opened the floodgates, not RINO Republicans, and not President Bush? We are for a reasonable Guest Worker Program; we are for Earned Citizenship on a case-by-case basis, BUT NOT UNTIL ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IS STOPPED AND NOT UNTIL WE KNOW IT’S STOPPED.

Enforcement before amnesty
By David Frum, LATimes, June 9, 2007

THE SHELVING of the Senate's Kyl-Kennedy immigration bill opens a chance for real reform — reform that respects the wishes and protects the interests of a large majority of the American people.

The next effort to fix the broken system must accomplish four things: Stop new illegal immigrants from entering the country. Induce existing illegals to return home. Reorient immigration policy to favor those who make a net economic contribution to the U.S. over those who do not. And bow to the will of the 70% of Americans who feel that current immigration levels are too high.

Illegal immigration is not some sort of uncontrollable natural phenomenon. It can and should be regulated.

Illegal immigrants come to the United States because the United States doesn't do much to stop them. Yes, there's a Border Patrol, but the patrol can't be on every inch of the border. That's why most Americans want a border wall. Elude the patrol — or overstay your visa, as one-quarter of illegals do — and it's ollee-ollee-oxen free.

Illegal immigrants come to the U.S. to work. If we make it substantially more difficult for them to find work, substantially fewer of them will come, and many of those already here will return home.

It's estimated that about 750,000 illegal immigrants enter the United States every year. If so, that implies that more than 10% of the illegal population arrived within the last 24 months, and about one-third arrived since George W. Bush's inauguration. These people are not deeply rooted in the U.S.

Our first priority should be to create a system that allows employers to instantly and reliably check whether a job applicant is legally entitled to work here. Social Security cards should include photographs. Employers should be able to feed the card into a scanner and confirm that a prospective employee is eligible to work here.

And if an employer hires an illegal immigrant, he or she should be held accountable. Violators of the Clean Water Act can be fined up to $25,000 a day for a first offense; comparable liability would go far in enforcing immigration laws.

Beyond that, police should check the residency status of everybody they have legal cause to stop or question. All arrested illegals should be swiftly deported. States and localities should stop accommodating illegality with hiring halls and driver's licenses issued with no regard for residency status. If we emphasized such enforcement, we probably would not need a border fence.

Eventually, of course, we'd bump up against an irreducible minimum of hard cases: illegal immigrants with strong family ties in the U.S., or with military service to their credit, or who have lived here for a decade or more without otherwise violating the law. At the end of half a decade of enforcement, amnesty for such people might well be appropriate. But enforcement has to come first.

The current U.S. legal immigration system does not serve the needs of the country much better than its tolerance of illegality. A decade ago, the National Academy of Sciences studied the aggregate social costs and benefits of current immigration policy. It estimated that U.S. immigration policy adds about $10 billion a year to the national income — that is, less than one-tenth of 1%, virtually nothing.

Yet for particular states and towns, mass migration is a cause of trauma and upheaval. We all know that the population of those without healthcare insurance is rising — with all manner of attendant woes. But did you know that three-quarters of the increase is driven by immigration? And all of this for virtually zero net economic benefit.

One thing the Kyl-Kennedy bill did right was to redirect U.S. policy away from family reunification and toward merit-based immigration. It went about it wrong, allowing too much time to elapse before the new system went into effect, which would have allowed additional millions of less productive immigrants into the country — and ultimately into Medicare, Medicaid and other costly social programs. Real reform means a policy that "recruits" small numbers of highly skilled immigrants — people who earn enough to buy their own health insurance and who pay more in taxes than they cost in social benefits — which would enrich the welfare of all citizens of the U.S.

I speak as an immigrant myself: Aside from urgent humanitarian refugee cases, U.S. immigration policy should serve the economic interests of the U.S. as a whole, not the individual wishes of particular industries, interest groups or families.

The abandonment of the Kyl-Kennedy bill heeds the wishes of most Americans. It opens the way for a new approach: Enforcement first, amnesty last, and lower numbers of more highly skilled immigrants above all.

Devastating Report on Immigration Bill

We are being told that the choice is between a bad bill and no bill. We are being promised that this bill will make things better even if there are provisions that are deeply troubling. We are being told that illegal immigration will be mostly ended before the Guest Worker and the Amnesty provisions kick in. We have heard all this before, and we don't believe it.

Now, the Congressional Budget Office, an official arm of the U.S. Congress has issued an analysis of this bill (Kennedy-McCain) that justifies our concerns and is devastating in its conclusions. Things are even worse than we thought.

Illegals bill stems traffic only 25%
By Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES, June 5, 2007

The Senate’s immigration bill will cut annual illegal immigration by just 25 percent, and the bill’s new guest-worker program could lead to at least 500,000 more illegal aliens within a decade, Congress’ accounting arm said yesterday.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said in its official cost estimate that many guest workers will overstay their time in the plan, with the number totaling a half-million in 2017 and reaching 1 million a decade later.

“We anticipate that many of those would remain in the United States illegally after their visas expire,” CBO said of the guest-worker program.

In a blow to President Bush’s timetable, the CBO said the security “triggers” that must be met before the guest-worker program can begin won’t be met until 2010. Mr. Bush had hoped to have those triggers—setting up a verification system, deploying 20,000 U.S. Border Patrol agents and constructing hundreds of miles of fencing and vehicle barriers—completed about the time he leaves office in January 2009.

The bill is the result of a “grand bargain” reached by a small bipartisan group of senators and the Bush administration in closed-door negotiations. Under the deal, illegal aliens get immediate legal status and a pathway to citizenship, businesses get access to a stream of temporary workers in the future, and future immigration will take into account needed skills.

Senators returned yesterday after a weeklong vacation to make a last push to pass the bill by Friday.

The Senate yesterday adopted four amendments by unanimous consent, including one that curbs courts’ ability to review revocations of visas. But because of the slow pace of work before their vacation, senators have most of the contentious votes still to come.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, warned Democrats not to try to cut off Republicans’ amendments.

“We need to have maximum opportunity for the largest number of amendments to be considered before we entertain the notion of shutting down debate on this important measure,” he said.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the top Republican in the negotiations for the grand bargain, yesterday laid out the “killer” amendments he said will break the grand bargain and cause him to have to oppose the bill: creating a separate employer-sponsored system of up to 300,000 new green cards; giving temporary workers a path to citizenship; and changing the dates or definitions to allow broader family migration.

Mr. Kyl said if any of those passed, “I certainly would not support the legislation, I would do everything I can to get it defeated.”

But Sen. Robert Menendez, New Jersey Democrat, said he will insist on amendments to change the dates for family immigration and rejected Mr. Kyl’s threat.

“No one has a monopoly on how best to provide for comprehensive immigration reform,” Mr. Menendez said.

Meanwhile, the bill appears to have picked up steam on the left, with immigrant rights groups saying that even though they aren’t happy with the bill, they want the Senate to pass it.

In a conference call yesterday, representatives of the National Council of La Raza and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials told reporters that instead of opposing the bill, they intend to try to alter it later in the legislative process.

While much of the debate so far has focused on the policy decisions in the bill, questions are being raised about whether the bill’s programs can work.

CBO’s report said it was “uncertain” how much future illegal immigration would be cut by the bill. Past enforcement measures have “historically been relatively ineffective,” the analysts said, but said this bill’s measures—extra agents, prosecutors and investigators, fencing and workplace sanctions—will have some effect.

“CBO estimates that those measures would reduce the net annual flow of unauthorized immigrants by one-quarter,” the report said.

Still, with up to an estimated 1 million illegal aliens entering each year, CBO is assuming a large problem will remain.

The report said the bill would increase discretionary spending by $43 billion over the next decade, but new workers would pump $48 billion into the government, mostly in Social Security taxes, during that time.

CBO provides official cost estimates for most bills voted on by Congress. The estimates are based on studies of past programs and evaluation of each bill’s requirements.

Among the costs would be a new 4,500-employee government bureaucracy to administer the employee-verification system. CBO said it expects the system to handle 20 million verifications initially, with the number peaking at 160 million in 2010 before settling on an annual volume of between 70 million and 75 million verifications.

The report also figures that the new enforcement and verification will cut down on annual illegal immigration, but only by about 25 percent—short of the expectation of some lawmakers defending the bill

As for the security-enhancement triggers, CBO said an amendment passed last week to increase the number of agents to be hired and deployed means the goal won’t be met until late 2010. The original goal was to hire 18,000 Border Patrol agents, but under the amendment that passed on a voice vote the Homeland Security secretary must now certify that 20,000 Border Patrol agents have actually been trained and deployed.

“CBO judges that the expanded requirements would add six months to the time necessary to meet them and that the secretary’s certification would occur near the end of fiscal year 2010,” the report said.

Border Agent Prosecutor Appears On Glen Beck

Johnny Sutton, the U.S. Attorney whose office prosecuted the Border Control Agents Ramos and Compean, the agents who received lengthy prison sentences (11 and 12 years) for firing at and hitting an illegal-alien, drug smuggler, appeared on the Glen Beck show the other night to discuss this case.

I had previously heard Sutton in an interview with Bill O’Reilly discuss this case, and I was very disturbed at that time with the impression he made. His answers and demeanor indicated that a government coverup of a mishandled case was in progress. I have posted articles about this case before, taking the position that these agents should not have been prosecuted, but should have been disciplined for improper, after-the-fact reporting procedures.

After this latest appearance, I am more convinced than ever that a gross injustice has been done to these men (they have been beaten up in prison). What appears more likely than a collusive effort with the government of Mexico to prosecute any agent who fires at an illegal (this Mexican is a major drug smuggler who was subsequently caught again in the act), as has been suggested in many quarters, is that Sutton was just angered that Ramos and Campean’s actions after the fact have jeopardized other cases Sutton was working on, and he went after them to teach them a lesson.

If you have been following this case, Ramos and Campean “may” not have followed procedures in filing their after-action report. All the evidence against them for the shooting itself was provided by the drug smuggler himself, who was granted immunity.

This case continues to cry out for a presidential pardon, and Sutton is making himself look more and more foolish and vindictive by appearing on TV to smear the agents.

Some Thoughts on Immigration Reform

We are being told that this is a “fair” bill and that this is the best we can do. Conservative and traditional Americans who wish to preserve the values and institutions that made this country great must understand that one-worlders and secular-progressives, like Senators Kennedy, Reid and Durbin, and also Americans who hate America, have taken over our educational system and our information and entertainment media and have great influence within our political system.

The new immigration bill, as it now stands, contains amnesty for illegals now here, a guest worker program and stronger measures to control our borders. It also provides that the amnesty and guest-worker provisions would not kick in until the border control measures are in place and certified to be working.

Somewhere in this great country, there is probably someone who believes this. One of the biggest problems that the Republican leadership has now is that the Republican rank and file don’t believe them. On immigration, we don’t believe President Bush, and we don’t believe Senator McCain that illegal immigration will be substantially ended before the amnesty and guest worker provisions kick in. If nothing else, the ability of the affected agency, CIS, to carry out these provisions is laughable.

The Immigration Bill: Comprehensive or Incomprehensible?
By Fred Thompson, May 19, 2007, RealClearPolitics

Most Americans know that we have an illegal immigration problem in this country, with perhaps as many as 20 million people residing here unlawfully. And I think most Americans have a pretty good idea about how to at least start solving the problem - secure our nation's borders.

But there's an old saying in Washington that, in dealing with any tough issue, half the politicians hope that citizens don't understand it while the other half fear that people actually do. This kind of thinking was apparent with the "comprehensive" immigration reform bill that the U.S. Senate and the White House negotiated yesterday.

I'd tell you what was in the legislation, but 24 hours after the politicians agreed the bill looked good, the Senate lawyers were still writing what may turn out to be a one thousand page document. In fact, a final version of the bill most likely will not be made available to the public until after the legislation is passed. That may come five days from now. That's like trying to digest an eight-course meal on a fifteen-minute lunch break.

We've tried the "comprehensive" route before to solve the illegal immigration problem with a bit more care and deliberation, and the results haven't been good. Back in May 1985, Congress promised us that it would come up with a comprehensive plan to solve the problem of illegal immigration and our porous borders. Eighteen months later, in November 1986, that comprehensive plan was signed into law.

Twenty-two years and millions of illegal immigrants later, that comprehensive plan hasn't done what most Americans wanted it to do -- secure America's borders. Now Washington says the new "comprehensive" plan will solve the problem that the last comprehensive plan didn't.

The fact is our border and immigration systems are still badly broken. We were reminded of this when Newsweek reported that the family of three of the men, arrested last week for allegedly plotting to kill American military personnel at Fort Dix, New Jersey, entered the U.S. illegally more than 20 years ago; filed for asylum back in 1989, but fell off the government's radar screen when federal bureaucrats essentially lost track of the paperwork. Wonder how many times that's been replicated?

Is it any wonder that a lot of folks today feel like they're being sold a phony bill of goods on border security? A "comprehensive" plan doesn't mean much if the government can't accomplish one of its most basic responsibilities for its citizens -- securing its borders. A nation without secure borders will not long be a sovereign nation.

No matter how much lipstick Washington tries to slap onto this legislative pig, it's not going to win any beauty contests. In fact, given Congress's track record, the bill will probably get a lot uglier -- at least from the public's point of view. And agreeing to policies before actually seeing what the policies are is a heck of a way to do business.

We should scrap this "comprehensive" immigration bill and the whole debate until the government can show the American people that we have secured the borders -- or at least made great headway. That would give proponents of the bill a chance to explain why putting illegals in a more favorable position than those who play by the rules is not really amnesty. Fred Thompson

We know that we do not have the ability or the ruthlessness to round up the 12 or 20 million illegals now here and deport them. These people are now taxing our social structure and resources; if they and their families are given amnesty and become legal, this will destroy our Medicare and Social Security Systems, and mean the end of the Republican Party.

I do not see what is wrong with shutting down illegal immigration, putting in place a guest worker program and a more liberal “legal” immigration policy and continuing to deport illegals on a case by case basis as we are supposed to be doing now. Please get in touch with your senator and representative and demand that amnesty be removed from this bill.

Added note: The U.S. has now constructed 3/10ths of one percent (2 miles) of the 700 miles of fencing on the southern border provided for in 2006's Secure Fence Act.

Not too late to keep America American

The bad news is that many of us with families to support and jobs that occupied our energies went so long without realizing that a sizable portion of the American public hate their country and want to bring us down to the average level of the rest of the world. The good news is that some of us have awakened to the danger and have no intention of allowing a bunch of spoiled brats to dither away the freedoms, the traditions and the standard of living our fathers and forefathers sacrificed so much to attain. From schemes to combat man-made global warming, to unlimited illegal immigration, to assigning a “hate speech” label to efforts to resist the Sharia here, the one-worlders are at work. Not while I still draw breath.

Not too late to keep America American
James P. Pinkerton
Newsday.com
March 29, 2007

The same bad idea that is ruining Europe threatens to ruin the United States, too. Indeed, the news that Uncle Sam can't find more than 600,000 of what the government calls "fugitive aliens," those who have been ordered out of the country but slipped past the enforcement system, reminds us, yet again, that border enforcement and maintenance of sovereignty are low priorities for Washington.

The bad idea threatening both America and Europe is this: Borders don't matter. Why not? Because patriotism is deemed some sort of infantile disease to be grown out of. Therefore, a conglomerated government is the only way to assure docility and passivity for the masses - oops, make that peace and prosperity.

This multinational view has been held by elites for a long time. Karl Marx, still a hero to many policy-minded intellectuals, was an early prophet of a borderless world. But don't take my word for it: Here's Thomas Friedman of The New York Times, praising Marx in his 2005 bestseller, "The World is Flat":

"Reading 'The Communist Manifesto' today, I am in awe at how incisively Marx detailed the forces that were flattening the world during the rise of the Industrial Revolution, and how much he foreshadowed the way these same forces would keep flattening the world right up to the present." Isn't that neat? Friedman surely thinks so; he reprints more than a page of Marx's purple prose.

Friedman is no Communist. But he is a globalist. And so, if Marx's motto was "Workers of the world, unite," Friedman's seems to be "Globalists of the world, unite." And, in the end, the impact is similar: Nations, and national traditions, are plowed under.

In the past, some have dreamed that the League of Nations, or the United Nations, could foster a kind of world federalism. But that dream cracked up on the hard rocks of national reality - not everyone wants to share a fate with Russia, Iran or Zimbabwe. So the flatteners and federalizers downsized, at least for a while; only continents would be unified.

Hence the European Union, stretching now from Ireland to Bulgaria, includes some 500 million people. That all sounds great - for an empire. Indeed, Brussels, capital of the European Union, has become an imperial city; its palaces, bulging with Eurocrats, issue foggy declarations about the "Idea of Europe."

But here's a sharp truth: Europe is not an idea; it's a place, a place for Europeans. These folks have a shared history and a shared religious tradition, Judeo-Christianity - or at least they did until the European Idealists, eager to flatten their own local customs in the name of politico-economic unification, opened the border to millions of Muslim immigrants.

Unfortunately, the globalizing plan hasn't produced harmonious odes to joy. Instead, big cities have been scarily divided into ethnic and religious combat zones. Muslims were happy to cross flattened frontiers into Europe, but they never had any intention of flattening their own adherence to rigid Sharia law. No wonder, then, that 56 percent of Europeans, finally waking up to the change that's been foisted upon them, believe that the Union "does not represent ordinary people."

Now back to America, where our elites maintain the same faith in continent-flattening. "Visionaries," Democratic and Republican alike, have long advocated a "free trade zone" to include all of North America, and then all of South America. And along with free trade, of course, comes the free movement of peoples.

So of course 623,292 non-citizens facing deportation orders couldn't be found in the United States as of last year - a 16 percent increase over the previous year - according to a recent report from the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security.

Can this erosion of sovereignty be reversed? It might be too late to save Europe from Brussels-ization, followed by Islamicization. But surely it's not too late to save America - if we can all agree, despite our other divisions, to keep being uniquely American. James P. Pinkerton

Immigration Problem Heading for Catastrophe

While our politicians maneuver for future votes from immigrants and work on all sorts of schemes while nothing gets done, the real situation facing the United States is barely noticed. Click here or here to see a video that shows what lies ahead if we continue to toy with this issue.

Why Did Republicans Lose? Because We Were Betrayed

Here in Florida we have the spectacle of a new Republican Congressman named Vern Buchanon (from Katherine Harris’ old district) voting with the Democrats on almost every vote taken in the new Congress. This is a perfect example of the kind of thinking that has disgusted and turned off so many grassroots Republicans – Republicans who zipped up their purses and stayed home last November. No sooner do elected Republicans get to Congress by promising to uphold Republican causes and traditional values, but they fall prey to the Washington disease where voting on the basis of feeling good and pandering to the press and to the thousands of entrenched liberals takes over.

My regular readers know that I have been a strong supporter of President Bush on most issues, but on the one issue that is most important to me – illegal immigration, I think he is giving us a con job. I believe that the recent uptick in enforcement efforts along our borders and with employers is a smoke screen to get us to let down our guard when an amnesty program is put forth by Democrats and by RINO Republicans.

I am perfectly willing to support a guest worker program and a reasonable plan for earned citizenship, but I want a fence and illegal immigration stopped cold before I will even consider these programs. I was fooled before, in 1986, by an amnesty that had disastrous effects. I won’t be fooled again – particularly since stopping illegal immigration is vital to preventing the entry of terrorists wanting to kill us.

How do I know that President Bush is engaging in a con job? Because he has made his feeling on this issue clear over and over again. Because in Mexico this week he referred to illegal immigration as “migration”. Here is the definition of that word: Migration - geographical movements of individuals or groups for the purpose of permanently resettling (Columbia University Encyclopedia).

I am waiting for a candidate other than Tom Tancredo to lead the charge against the impending betrayal of American citizens that Congress is contemplating on the issue of illegal immigration. I will support that candidate for the presidency. I'll say one thing; it won't be Senator McCain.