ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION ISUES

My great grandfather watched as his friends die in the Civil War.

And I watched as my friends die in Vietnam.

None of them died for the Mexican flag. Everyone died for the American flag.

Texas high school students raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole, other students took it down. Guess who was expelled…

the students who took it down.

This message needs to be viewed by every American; and every American needs to stand up for America .

Let me make this clear! THIS IS MY COUNTRY!

6. No Social Security until you have earned it and paid for it !

7.  NOW find a place to lay your head!

We’ve gone so far the other way . . . bent over backwards not to offend anyone.

WAKE UP America ! ! !

Arizona Governor Considers Changing Immigration Law

- July 30, 2010

The fight over Arizona’s immigration law showed no signs of letting up Friday as the federal judge who blunted its force faced threats and the Republican governor who signed it considered changes to address any legal problems.

PHOENIX — The fight over Arizona’s immigration law showed no signs of letting up Friday as the federal judge who blunted its force faced threats and the Republican governor who signed it considered changes to address any legal problems.

In the days since U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton put on hold the most controversial parts of the law, hundreds of e-mails and phone calls — including some threats — have poured into the courthouse.

Seventy people have been arrested in demonstrations.

And a fund set up to help defend the new law added $75,000 Wednesday alone, giving the state more than $1.6 million to get Bolton’s ruling overturned.

Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law and appealed the ruling, has vowed not to back down, saying she’ll challenge Bolton’s decision all the way to the Supreme Court.

But Brewer said Friday she’d consider changes to “tweak” the law to respond to the parts Bolton faulted.

“Basically we believe (the law) is constitutional but she obviously pointed out faults that can possibly be fixed, and that’s what we would do,” Brewer told The Associated Press. She said she’s talking to legislative leaders about the possibility of a special session, but said no specific changes had been identified.

In her temporary injunction, Bolton delayed the most contentious provisions of the law, including a section that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws. Bolton indicated the federal government’s case has a good chance at succeeding in its argument that federal immigration law trumps state law.

But she allowed police to enforce the law’s bans on blocking vehicle traffic when seeking or offering day-labor services and a revision to the smuggling ban that lets officers stop drivers if they suspect motorists have broken traffic laws.

Bolton also let officers enforce a new prohibition on driving or harboring illegal immigrants in furtherance of their illegal presence.

Democrats scoffed at Brewer’s desire to change the law, with a key state House of Representatives minority leader calling it laughable.

“Why would we help her?” asked Rep. Kyrsten Sinema of Phoenix. “This bill is so flawed and clearly a federal judge agrees,” Sinema said.

House Speaker Kirk Adams said there would be little support among fellow Republicans to weaken the law.

Attorneys have begun reviewing the law to identify possible changes, he said.

The law’s chief sponsor, state Sen. Russell Pearce, said he would only back changes to make it stronger.

Even though the law’s critics scored a huge victory with the decision, passions among hundreds of immigrant rights supporters still flared at demonstrations near the federal courthouse in downtown Phoenix after the parts of the law that weren’t blocked took effect Thursday.

Federal officials in charge of court security wouldn’t say whether anyone made a death threat against Bolton and wouldn’t provide specifics of the threats they were examining, but said a majority of the e-mails and phone calls to the judge’s chambers and the court clerk’s office are from people who want to grouse about her ruling, officials said.

FROM CANADA FREE PRESS

July 30, 2010

Case Against Arizona & Governor Brewer

ONLY the US Supreme Court has Constitutional Authority to Conduct the Trial

By Publius Huldah  Thursday, July 29, 2010

Does anyone read the U.S. Constitution these days? American lawyers don’t read it. Federal Judge Susan R. Bolton apparently has never read it. Same goes for our illustrious Attorney General Eric Holder. But this lawyer has read it and she is going to show you something in Our Constitution which is as plain as the nose on your face.

Article III, Sec. 2, clause 2 says:

In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction…

“Original” jurisdiction means the power to conduct the “trial” of the case (as opposed to hearing an appeal from the judgment of a lower court). You all know quite well what a “trial” is – you see them all the time on TV shows: Perry Mason, Boston Legal, The Good Wife, etc. Witnesses testify and are cross-examined, etc.

The style of the Arizona case shows quite clearly that the named defendants are:

State of Arizona; and Janice K. Brewer,
Governor of the State of Arizona, in her
Official Capacity, Defendants.

Judge Susan R. Bolton has no more authority to preside over this case than do you

See where it says, “State of Arizona”? And “Janice K. Brewer, Governor of the State of Arizona, in her official Capacity”?  THAT (plus Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2) is what gives the US Supreme Court “original Jurisdiction”, i.e., jurisdiction to conduct the trial of this case. THAT is what strips the federal district court of any jurisdiction whatsoever to hear this case. Judge Susan R. Bolton has no more authority to preside over this case than do you (unless you are a US Supreme Court justice).

In Federalist No. 81 (13th para), Alexander Hamilton commented on this exact provision of Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2:

…Let us now examine in what manner the judicial authority is to be distributed between the supreme and the inferior courts of the Union. The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only “in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those in which A STATE shall be a party.” Public ministers of every class are the immediate representatives of their sovereigns. All questions in which they are concerned are so directly connected with the public peace, that, as well for the preservation of this, as out of respect to the sovereignties they represent, it is both expedient and proper that such questions should be submitted in the first instance to the highest judicatory of the nation. Though consuls have not in strictness a diplomatic character, yet as they are the public agents of the nations to which they belong, the same observation is in a great measure applicable to them. In cases in which a State might happen to be a party, it would ill suit its dignity to be turned over to an inferior tribunal….[boldface added, caps in original]

Yet Attorney General Eric Holder filed the case in a court which is specifically stripped of jurisdiction to hear it!

So! Counsel for the State of Arizona should consider:

1. File a Petition for Removal before federal district court Judge Susan R. Bolton demanding that the case be removed to the Supreme Court on the ground that under Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2, US Constitution, only the Supreme Court has jurisdiction to conduct the trial of this case.

2. If Judge Bolton denies the Petition for Removal, file a Petition for Writ of Mandamus in the Supreme Court asking that court to order Judge Bolton to transfer the case to the Supreme Court.

A Petition for Writ of Mandamus is an old common-law “extraordinary writ”: It asks a court to ORDER a lower court or other public official to something which it is its duty to do. In Kerr v. US District Court for Northern District of California (1976), the Supreme Court said, respecting the propriety of issuing writs of mandamus:

….the fact still remains that “only exceptional circumstances amounting to a judicial ‘usurpation of power’ will justify the invocation of this extraordinary remedy.”…(para 13)

When a federal district court judge presides over a case which the Constitution specifically prohibits her from hearing, and even issues a ruling enjoining the enforcement of a State Law, then that federal district court judge usurps power. She is specifically stripped – by Art. III, Sec. 2, clause 2 – of jurisdiction to preside over the case against the STATE of Arizona and against THE GOVERNOR of the STATE of Arizona.

For procedures for filing the Petition for Writ of Mandamus, see Supreme Court Rule 20.

Article IV, Sec. 4, requires the federal government to protect each of the States against invasion.Not only is the Obama regime refusing to perform this specific Constitutional duty – it seeks to prohibit the Sovereign STATE of Arizona from defending itself! This lawlessness on the part of the Obama regime is unmatched in the history of Our Country.

OK, counselors – Go for it! PH

From BIG GOVERNMENT DOT COM

Three Silver Linings in the Bad Arizona Court Decision

by Ken Klukowski

How Do Illegals Fare in YOUR Failed Nation, Mr. Presidente?

Think SB 1070 Is Racist, Oppressive? How Do Illegals South of Border Fare?

By John Lillpop  Wednesday, July 28, 2010

SB 1070, Arizona’s citizen-friendly, illegal-alien hostile bill has ruffled quite a few feathers, including those who occupy high places in government in Washington, D.C.

After putting up with the nonsense from Washington for years, I have concluded that the U.S.should scrap SB 1070 as well as all of Obama’s foolish fantasies about immigration reform.

We can do that and solve our illegal alien mess in one fell swoop by taking one simple step: Implement Mexico’s immigration laws in America!

Mexico, according to journalist and terrorist expert Dr. J. Michael Waller, has some of the strictest immigration laws of any country, and they enforce them to the letter.
Waller informs us that “Mexico has a radical idea for a rational immigration policy that most Americans would love. However, Mexican officials haven’t been sharing that idea with us as they press for the U.S. Congress to adopt the Marxist immigration reform bill.”

Waller adds: “That’s too bad, because Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue.

Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.”

Waller sharpens his point by commenting on the unnerving tendency of some legal scholars in the U.S. to use foreign laws as a reference point for deciding issues in America.

Waller states, “At a time when the Supreme Court and many politicians seek to bring American law in line with foreign legal norms, it’s noteworthy that nobody has argued that the U.S. look at how Mexico deals with immigration and what it might teach us about how best to solve our illegal immigration problem.”

And whereas U.S. laws are often cumbersome, complex instruments fathomable only to lawyers who charge upwards of $300 an hour, things are more to the point in Mexican law.

Again, quoting Waller: “Mexico has a single, streamlined law that ensures that foreign visitors and immigrants are:

• In Mexico legally;
• Have the means to sustain themselves economically;
• Not destined to be burdens on society;
• Of economic and social benefit to society;
• Of good character and have no criminal records; and
• Contributors to the general well being of the nation.

“The law also ensures that:

• Authorities have a record of each foreign visitor;
• Foreign visitors do not violate their visa status;
• Foreign visitors are banned from interfering in the country’s internal politics;
• Foreign visitors who enter under false pretenses are imprisoned or deported;
• Foreign visitors violating the terms of their entry are imprisoned or deported;
• Those who aid in illegal immigration will be sent to prison.”

Who could disagree with such a law? It makes perfect sense,” Waller states with unassailable logic.

Unfortunately, very little “perfect sense” is obvious in the ongoing debate on immigration reform here in the United States. Rather, the interests of the American people are often ignored or made subordinate by politicians from both parties.

Of greater interest to some in Washington, D.C., is feeding an insatiable corporate appetite for cheap labor, satisfying a wicked lust for cheap votes, and giving in to an inexplicable drive to promote America’s decay into a third-world abyss.

These ignoble interests trump rule of law, homeland security, economic and social stability, and preservation of American language and culture in the minds of some elected officials sworn to uphold and defend the U.S. Constitution.

By contrast, Waller notes that Mexican law and officials are focused on numero uno—that being Mexico!

Waller writes, “The Mexican constitution strictly defines the rights of citizens – and the denial of many fundamental rights to non-citizens, both illegal and illegal.

“Under the constitution, the Ley General de Población, or General Law on Population spells out specifically the country’s immigration policy.

“It is an interesting law – and one that should cause us all to ask, ‘Why is our southern neighbor pushing us to water down our own immigration laws and policies, when its own immigration restrictions are the toughest on the continent?’

“If a felony is a crime punishable by more than one year in prison, then Mexican law makes it a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.

“If the United States adopted such statutes, Mexico no doubt would denounce them as a manifestation of American racism and bigotry.”

Waller supports his main thesis by citing key articles of Mexico’s main
law.

Again quoting from the commentary:

“We looked at the immigration provisions of the Mexican constitution. Now let’s look at Mexico’s main immigration law.

“Mexico welcomes only foreigners who will be useful to Mexican society:

• Foreigners are admitted into Mexico “according to their possibilities of contributing to national progress.” (Article 32)
• Immigration officials must ‘ensure’ that ‘immigrants will be useful elements for the country and that they have the necessary funds for their sustenance’ and for their dependents. (Article 34)
• Foreigners may be barred from the country if their presence upsets ‘the equilibrium of the national demographics,’ when foreigners are deemed detrimental to ‘economic or national interests,’ when they do not behave like good citizens in their own country, when they have broken Mexican laws, and when ‘they are not found to be physically or mentally healthy.’ (Article 37)
• The Secretary of Governance may ‘suspend or prohibit the admission of foreigners when he determines it to be in the national interest.’ (Article 38)
• Mexican authorities must keep track of every single person in the country:
• Federal, local and municipal police must cooperate with federal immigration authorities upon request, i.e., to assist in the arrests of illegal immigrants. (Article 73)
• A National Population Registry keeps track of ‘every single individual who comprises the population of the country,’ and verifies each individual’s identity. (Articles 85 and 86)
• A national Catalog of Foreigners tracks foreign tourists and immigrants (Article 87), and assigns each individual with a unique tracking number (Article 91).

Foreigners with fake papers, or who enter the country under false pretenses, may be imprisoned:

• Foreigners with fake immigration papers may be fined or imprisoned. (Article 116)
• Foreigners who sign government documents ‘with a signature that is false or different from that which he normally uses’ are subject to fine and imprisonment. (Article 116)

Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned as felons:

• Foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)
• Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 118)
• Foreigners who violate the terms of their visa may be sentenced to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121). Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico – such as working with out a permit – can also be imprisoned.
• Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The General Law on Population says,
• A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally. (Article 123)
• Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)
• Foreigners who ‘attempt against national sovereignty or security’ will be deported. (Article 126)
• Mexicans who help illegal aliens enter the country are themselves considered criminals under the law.
• A Mexican who marries a foreigner with the sole objective of helping the foreigner live in the country is subject to up to five years in prison. (Article 127)
• Shipping and airline companies that bring undocumented foreigners into Mexico will be fined. (Article 132)”

Waller summarizes his review of Mexican law with this statement: “All of the above runs contrary to what Mexican leaders are demanding of the United States. The stark contrast between Mexico’s immigration practices versus its American immigration preaching is telling. It gives a clear picture of the Mexican government’s agenda: to have a one-way immigration relationship with the United States.”

Waller concludes his excellent work with a challenge that should be visited upon all 535 members of the U.S. Congress and President Obama as they consider immigration reform.

Waller’s challenge:

“Let’s call Mexico’s bluff on its unwarranted interference in U.S. immigration policy.

Let’s propose, just to make a point, that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) member nations standardize their immigration laws by using Mexico’s own law as a model.”

Congratulations to J. Michael Waller.* His is a voice of sanity that needs to be heard, especially by inmates wandering the halls and cloak rooms of Capitol Hill and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

*J. Michael Waller is vice president for Information Operations at the Center for Security Policy. A journalist and author, he brings expertise in terrorism, intelligence, the former Soviet Union, and the Americas. He previously served as a consultant to the U.S. Department of State.

Governors Voice Grave Concerns on

Immigration

By ABBY GOODNOUGH

BOSTON — In a private meeting with White House officials this weekend, Democratic governors voiced deep anxiety about the Obama administration’s suit against Arizona’s new immigration law, worrying that it could cost a vulnerable Democratic Party in the fall elections.

While the weak economy dominated the official agenda at the summer meeting here of the National Governors Association, concern over immigration policy pervaded the closed-door session between Democratic governors and White House officials and simmered throughout the three-day event.

At the Democrats’ meeting on Saturday, some governors bemoaned the timing of the Justice Department lawsuit, according to two governors who spoke anonymously because the discussion was private.

“Universally the governors are saying, ‘We’ve got to talk about jobs,’ ” Gov. Phil Bredesen of Tennessee, a Democrat, said in an interview. “And all of a sudden we have immigration going on.”

He added, “It is such a toxic subject, such an important time for Democrats.”

The administration seemed to be taking a carrot-and-stick approach on Sunday. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, in town to give the governors a classified national security briefing, met one-on-one with Jan Brewer, the Republican who succeeded her as governor of Arizona and ardently supports the immigration law.

About the same time as that meeting, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said on a taped Sunday talk show that the Justice Department could bring yet another lawsuit against Arizona if there is evidence that the immigration law leads to racial profiling.

Ms. Brewer said she and Ms. Napolitano did not discuss the current lawsuit. Instead, in a conversation she described as cordial, they discussed Arizona’s request for more National Guard troops along the border with Mexico, as well as other resources.

The Democrats’ meeting provided a window on tensions between the White House and states over the suit, which the Justice Department filed last week in federal court in Phoenix. Nineteen Democratic governors are either leaving office or seeking re-election this year, and Republicans see those seats as crucial to swaying the 2012 presidential race.

The Arizona law — which Ms. Brewer signed in April and which, barring an injunction, takes effect July 29 — makes it a crime to be an illegal immigrant there. It also requires police officers to determine the immigration status of people they stop for other offenses if there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they might be illegal immigrants.

The lawsuit contends that controlling immigration is a federal responsibility, but polls suggest that a majority of Americans support the Arizona law, or at least the concept of a state having a strong role in immigration enforcement.

Republican governors at the Boston meeting were also critical of the lawsuit, saying it infringed on states’ rights and rallying around Ms. Brewer, whose presence spurred a raucous protest around the downtown hotel where the governors gathered.

“I’d be willing to bet a lot of money that almost every state in America next January is going to see a bill similar to Arizona’s,” said Gov. Dave Heineman of Nebraska, a Republican seeking re-election.

But the unease of Democratic governors, seven of whom are seeking re-election this year, was more striking.

“I might have chosen both a different tack and a different time,” said Gov. Bill Ritter Jr. of Colorado, a Democrat who was facing a tough fight for re-election and pulled out of the race earlier this year. “This is an issue that divides us politically, and I’m hopeful that their strategy doesn’t do that in a way that makes it more difficult for candidates to get elected, particularly in the West.”

The White House would not directly respond to reports of complaints from some Democratic governors.

But David Axelrod, the president’s senior adviser, said on Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the president remained committed to passing an immigration overhaul, and that addressing the issue did not mean he was ignoring the economy.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a good, healthy debate about the economy and other issues,” Mr. Axelrod said.

Mr. Obama addressed the economy last week during stops in Kansas City and Las Vegas, and has been calling on Congress to offer additional tax relief to small businesses.

And the heads of Mr. Obama’s national debt commission — Alan K. Simpson and Erskine B. Bowles — were on hand here on Sunday to press the economic issue.

The nation’s total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion, and Mr. Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming, and Mr. Bowles, a Democrat and the White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, offered a gloomy assessment if spending is not brought under control even more.

“This debt is like a cancer,” Mr. Bowles said. “It is truly going to destroy the country from within.”

Still, the issue of immigration commanded as much attention as anything here this weekend.

Ms. Brewer, who was trailed by television cameras all weekend, called the lawsuit “outrageous” and said the state was receiving donations from around the country to help fight it.

“I think Arizona will win,” she said, “and we will take a position for all of America.”

Immigration was not the only topic at the Saturday meeting between Democratic governors and two White House officials — Patrick Gaspard, Mr. Obama’s political director, and Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs. But several governors, including Christine Gregoire of Washington, said it was a particularly heated issue.

Ms. Gregoire, who does not face an election this year, said the White House was doing a poor job of showing the American public that it was working on the problem of illegal immigration.

“They described for me a list of things that they are doing to try and help on that border,” Ms. Gregoire said of the White House officials at the closed-door meeting. “And I said, ‘The public doesn’t know that.’ ”

She added, “We’ve got a message void, and the only thing we’re hearing is that they’re filing a lawsuit.”

Some Democrats also joined Republicans in calling for Congress to pass an immigration policy overhaul this year.

“There are 535 members of Congress,” said Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana, a Democrat. “Certainly somebody back there can chew gum and hold the basketball at the same time. This is not an either-or.”

Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico praised the Justice Department’s lawsuit, saying his fellow Democrats’ concerns were “misguided.”

“Policy-wise it makes sense,” said Mr. Richardson, who is Hispanic and who leaves office this year on term limits, “and Obama is popular with Hispanic voters and this is going to be a popular move with them nationally.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland — a Democrat who voiced apprehension about the lawsuit in the private meeting, according to the two governors who requested anonymity — said in an interview that he supported it.

“The president doesn’t have control over some of the timing of things that happen,” Mr. O’Malley said. “When those things arise, you can’t be too precious about what’s in it for your own personal political timing or even your party’s timing. When matters like this arise, I think the president has to take a principled stand.”

But Mr. Bredesen said that in Tennessee, where the governor’s race will be tight this year, Democratic candidates were already on the defensive about the federal health care overhaul, and the suit against Arizona further weakened them. In Tennessee, he said, Democratic candidates are already “disavowing” the immigration lawsuit.

“Maybe you do that when you’re strong,” he said of the suit, “and not when there’s an election looming out there.”

Mr. Ritter of Colorado said he wished the Justice Department had waited to sue Arizona until after the law went into effect, to give the public a chance to see how difficult it would be to enforce.

“It’s just an easier case to make,” he said. “I just think that law enforcement officers are going to have a terribly difficult time applying this law in a constitutional way.”

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting from Washington, and Katie Zezima from Boston.

Illegal Immigration Costs Us Net $100 Billion

Posted by hogan (Profile)

Friday, July 9th at 9:58AM EDT

5 Comments

From:   Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA

Date: Thursday 1JUL2010 5 p.m. EDT

MAJOR INSULTS IN THE PRESIDENT’S AMNESTY SPEECH TODAY

DEAR FRIENDS,

That was a very sad spectacle at American University this morning. To see all those national leaders of religion, unions, business, etc. applauding the President’s appeal for more foreign workers during a time of high unemployment was disheartening.

Be sure to go to your Action Buffet and take all actions that are shown there to protest this constant war by our nation’s elites against America’s working class, college students and taxpayers.

Here are a few of the key signals that I heard the President send today. You can read my analysis of all of them in my blog.

PRES. OBAMA DOESN’T KNOW THAT AMERICAN COLLEGE GRADS ARE HAVING ONE OF WORST YEARS EVER FOR FINDING A JOB?

“And while we provide students from around the world visas to get engineering and computer science degrees at our top universities, our laws discourage them from using those skills to start a business or power a new industry right here in the United States. Instead of training entrepreneurs to create jobs on our shores, we train our competition.”

JOBLESS AMERICANS ARE A SPECIAL INTEREST WHO MUST BE OPPOSED?

“In sum, the system is broken. And everybody knows it. Unfortunately, reform has been held hostage to political posturing and special-interest wrangling -– and to the pervasive sentiment in Washington that tackling such a thorny and emotional issue is inherently bad politics.”

Folks, just who ARE the “special interests” who are blocking “comprehensive immigration reform?”

THE LIE THAT DEMOCRATS ARE UNITED BEHIND AN AMNESTY

Interestingly, Mr. Obama did not turn his speech into the Republican-bashing screed that the open-borders groups had requested. Various political publications had indicated that he had been urged to turn his speech into a major campaign effort to inspire voters to turn on Republicans in the fall congressional elections for having blocked “comprehensive immigration reform.”

My guess is that the President realized that the truth in what several of those publications suggested — that there are more votes to be gained this fall by opposing amnesty than by promoting it.

Nonetheless, Pres. Obama implied several times in his speech that getting the amnesty through depends totally on Republicans. The further implication in that is that he has the Democrats all lined up.

PRESIDENT USES HIS FAILURE AT ENTRY/EXIT SYSTEM AS EXCUSE FOR AMNESTY

“In fact, because we don’t do a very good job of tracking who comes in and out of the country as visitors, large numbers avoid immigration laws simply by overstaying their visas.”

This was one of several references that the President made to his failure to enforce immigration laws already on the books.

But instead of pledging to do a better job in the future or acknowledging that as President he has it totally in his power to fix the problem he describes, he says the failure is the reason we must give permanent access to U.S. jobs to all illegal aliens in the country.

PROF. OBAMA DOES NOT UNDERSTAND IMMIGRATION HISTORY

“Of course, the tensions around immigration are not new. On the one hand, we’ve always defined ourselves as a nation of immigrants — a nation that welcomes those willing to embrace America’s precepts. Indeed, it is this constant flow of immigrants that helped to make America what it is. . . Each new wave of immigrants has generated fear and resentments towards newcomers, particularly in times of economic upheaval.”

Read my short explanation of how Mr. Obama’s historical perspective is skewed and non-factual.

TOUTING WORKER VERIFICATION WHILE REFUSING TO SUPPORT IT IN CONGRESS

“And we’re implementing and improving a system to give employers a reliable way to verify that their employees are here legally. But we need to do more. We cannot continue just to look the other way as a significant portion of our economy operates outside the law. It breeds abuse and bad practices. It punishes employers who act responsibly and undercuts American workers. And ultimately, if the demand for undocumented workers falls, the incentive for people to come here illegally will decline as well.”

In fact, Pres. Obama continually opposes requiring businesses to verify their new hires. The SAVE Act in Congress dies on the vine even though it would easily pass if Senate and House leaders would allow a vote.

Read my analysis of how he holds verification hostage — along with border security — for the ransom of getting amnesty passed.

Despite all the flowery language and his attempts to paint the majority of Americans as immoral because they oppose an amnesty, the President today failed to obscure the fact that our immigration system is broken because the person living in the White House — as the three occupants before him — refuses to do his job of enforcing the nation’s immigration laws.

Assimilation and the Founding Fathers

By Michelle Malkin (Archive) · Friday, July 2, 2010

In his immigration speech on Thursday, President Obama heralded America as a “nation of immigrants” defined not by blood or birth, but by “fidelity to the shared values that we all hold so dear.” If only it were so. Left-wing academics and activists spurned assimilation as a common goal long ago. Their fidelity lies with bilingualism (a euphemism for native language maintenance over English-first instruction), identity politics, ethnic militancy and a borderless continent.

Obama blames “politics” for the intractable immigration debate. Whose politics? The amnesty mob has taken to ambushing congressional offices this week to scream at lawmakers to choose “reform” (giving a blanket path to citizenship to millions of illegal aliens) or “racism” (their description of any and every legislative measure to stiffen sanctions for and deter the acts of border-jumping, visa-overstaying and deportation-evading).

Is there no middle ground for all sides to agree that clearing naturalization application backlogs should take priority over expanding illegal alien benefits, or that tracking and deporting violent illegal alien criminals should take precedence over handing out driver’s licenses to illegal aliens, or that streamlining the employee citizenship verification process for businesses (E-verify) and fixing outdated visa tracking databases should come before indiscriminately expanding temporary visa and guest worker programs?

Must every response to even the most modest of immigration enforcement measures be “RAAAAACIST”?

Further, as I’ve noted many times over the years when debating both Democrats and Republicans who fall back on empty phrases to justify putting the amnesty cart before the enforcement horse, we are not a “nation of immigrants.” This is both a factual error and a warm-and-fuzzy non sequitur. Eighty-five percent of the residents currently in the United States were born here. Yes, we are almost all descendants of immigrants. But we are not a “nation of immigrants.” (And the politically correct president certainly wouldn’t argue that Native American Indians, Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiians and descendants of black slaves “immigrated” here in any common sense of the word, would he?)

Even if we were a “nation of immigrants,” it does not explain why we should be against sensible immigration control. The Founding Fathers were emphatically insistent on protecting the country against indiscriminate mass immigration. They insisted on assimilation as a pre-condition, not an afterthought. Historian John Fonte assembled their wisdom, and it bears repeating this Independence Day weekend:

George Washington, in a letter to John Adams, stated that immigrants should be absorbed into American life so that “by an intermixture with our people, they, or their descendants, get assimilated to our customs, measures, laws: in a word soon become one people.”

In a 1790 speech to Congress on the naturalization of immigrants, James Madison stated that America should welcome the immigrant who could assimilate, but exclude the immigrant who could not readily “incorporate himself into our society.”

Alexander Hamilton wrote in 1802: “The safety of a republic depends essentially on the energy of a common national sentiment; on a uniformity of principles and habits; on the exemption of the citizens from foreign bias and prejudice; and on that love of country which will almost invariably be found to be closely connected with birth, education and family.”

Hamilton further warned that “The United States have already felt the evils of incorporating a large number of foreigners into their national mass; by promoting in different classes different predilections in favor of particular foreign nations, and antipathies against others, it has served very much to divide the community and to distract our councils. It has been often likely to compromise the interests of our own country in favor of another. The permanent effect of such a policy will be, that in times of great public danger there will be always a numerous body of men, of whom there may be just grounds of distrust; the suspicion alone will weaken the strength of the nation, but their force may be actually employed in assisting an invader.”

The survival of the American republic, Hamilton maintained, depends upon “the preservation of a national spirit and a national character.” “To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.”

As pro-amnesty extremists moan that “we didn’t cross the borders, the borders crossed us” and illegal alien marchers haul foreign flags above Old Glory, President Obama pretends that the “common national sentiment” our Founding Fathers embraced still binds us all together. Many of us still have faith in a strong, sovereign America — the unhyphenated, the law-abiding, the gratitude-filled sons and daughters and grandchildren of legal immigrants for whom such distinctions still matter. But it’s no thanks to the assimilation saboteurs who put “one world” over “one nation under God.”

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Clinton: Obama Admin to Sue Arizona Over Immigration Law

by Publius

Transcript from Real Clear Politics:Clinton: President Obama has spoken out against the law because he thinks that the federal government should be determining immigration policy. And the Justice Department, under his direction, will be bringing a lawsuit against the act. But the more important commitment that President Obama has made is to try to introduce and pass comprehensive immigration reform. That is what we need. Everyone knows it, and the President is committed to doing it.

Arizona Governor Blasts Eric Holder

by  John Gizzi

06/16/2010

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer scolded Atty. Gen. Eric Holder for holding open the prospect of a lawsuit when Arizona is already facing five legal challenges over the state’s new immigration law.

“I would much prefer for them not to file suit, given the fact that they could take the money and help me build a fence on my border,” Brewer said in an interview with three HUMAN EVENTS editors by phone from Phoenix.

Brewer also said she has decided to bypass her state’s top law enforcement official and hire private counsel to defend new immigration legislation in court because her attorney general opposes the measure.

Brewer has been in the national spotlight since her state enacted legislation authorizing law enforcement officials to question people they detain as to whether they are legal U.S. residents.

Brewer mentioned opposition to what is increasingly called “the Arizona laws” from fellow governors on border states, notably Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger of California. Brewer said she knew Schwarzenegger didn’t know what was in the bill because “he figured what he read in the paper was exactly what the bill said.”

Brewer’s announcement of bypassing Arizona Atty. Gen.Terry Goddard in favor of private counsel came days after Goddard (who is the leading Democratic contender for governor this year) told a group in New York he opposed the immigration measure that is headed for court challenges.

“He actually had spoken out publicly that he opposed the bill and stated that he thought it was unconstitutional,” said Brewer. “Therefore, the legislature gave me specific instructions in the legislation to go outside and hire my own counsel, which you know, obviously makes good sense. One would like to think that their lawyer was on their side.”

Brewer said she sent a letter to Holder on June 4 that answered questions from the Justice Department on the immigration measure. The letter, obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, urged the DoJ not to file charges against Arizona because there are already “five federal court lawsuits pending that challenge” the new law. “Every conceivable constitutional and any other legal challenge that can be raised about SB1070 will be thoroughly briefed, argued and then adjudicated by a United States court,” the letter continued, while also defending the tough illegal immigration statutes as “constitutionally permissible.”

“Everything constitutional that in fact they could ever talk about is in those other suits,” she told HUMAN EVENTS. “I would much prefer for them [DoJ] not to file suit, given the fact that they could take the money and help me build a fence on my border.”

Overall, the Governor’s legal team is asking the courts to dismiss the lawsuits.

“I hope [Holder's] read [the law] by now,” Brewer said, “so that he knows what it exactly says.”

Brewer, who met with President Obama recently, said he tried to keep some distance from the immigration law.

“When I spoke with the President, he indicated that he wasn’t going to make much comment about the law..He was going to leave it up to the Department of Justice to determine whether they were going to file suit or not. It’s an interesting way of stating, ‘You know, I don’t want to get my fingers too deep in that because I know the public supports it.’

Asked what fellow governors facing similar problems with their borders and illegal immigrants are saying, Brewer mentioned that she has “certainly spoken with [Texas Republican] Gov. [Rick] Perry and [New Mexico Democratic] Gov. Richardson and Gov. Schwarzenegger with regard to it. They, of course aren’t facing the problem that Arizona is because we now have been left as the gateway for all illegal immigration, drug cartels and gangs coming into the Americas.”

Brewer particularly singled out Schwarzenegger, recalling that “Arnold of course has stated publicly that he didn’t support it. He is much different than I am with regard to that. You know, we are a nation of laws and it’s illegal and that didn’t change his mind. He figured that what he read in the paper was exactly what the bill said and we kind of left it at that.”

Exclusive and Concurrent Jurisdiction Explained

The Arizona Immigration Law And The Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution

By Publius Huldah  Friday, June 4, 2010The Sovereign State of Arizona recently made a law which provides for the cooperative enforcement – with the federal government – of federal immigration laws throughout Arizona. The People of Arizona are suffering terribly from massive Invasions of their Southern Border; and because the federal government refuses to repel the Invasions, the People of Arizona are forced to defend themselves.

Here is the text of the amazingly innocuous Arizona Law. Read it, and you will know more about it than the Attorney General of the United States, Eric Holder! On May 13, 2010, Holder testified before Congress that he hadn’t read the Arizona Law; even though on previous occasions, he attacked the Law as “an unfortunate one”, which is subject to “potential abuse” and the “possibility of leading to racial profiling”. In short, he, Eric Holder, doesn’t think the Arizona Law is “necessarily a good idea”. Oh my!

Of course, Holder’s personal views are irrelevant when it comes to official Acts of Sovereign States. The only legitimate Question is this: Does the Arizona Law violate the U.S. Constitution? And the clear answer to that Question is, “No!”

Supremacy clause

1. Let us look at the “supremacy clause” of the Constitution. Article VI, clause 2 says:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof … shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. [emphasis added]

Note the two emphasized phrases, for therein is the Answer to the Question.

a) First, we must learn that only Laws made by Congress which are pursuant to the Constitution qualify as part of the supreme Law of the Land. Alexander Hamilton says in Federalist No. 27 (last para):

…the laws of the Confederacy [federal government], as to the ENUMERATED and LEGITIMATE objects of its jurisdic-tion, will become the SUPREME LAW of the land; to the observance of which all officers, legislative, executive, and judicial, in each State, will be bound by the sanctity of an oath. Thus the legislatures, courts, and magistrates, of the respective members [States], will be incorporated into the operations of the national government AS FAR AS ITS JUST AND CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY EXTENDS; and will be rendered auxiliary to the enforcement of its laws… [emphasis in original]

In Federalist No. 33 (next to last para), Hamilton says:

…But it will not follow…that acts of…[the federal govern-ment] which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the..[the States], will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such…[Art. VI, cl. 2] EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION … [emphasis in original]

In the next paragraph, Hamilton points out that a law made by Congress which is not authorized by the Constitution,

…would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution….

So! When Congress makes laws which are not within its enumerated powers, such pretended laws are mere acts of usurpation and have “supremacy” over nothing.

b) Second, note that Art. VI, clause 2 also shows that only laws of States which are Contrary to the Constitution must fall. States may make whatever laws they wish (consistent with their State Constitutions) except as prohibited by the US Constitution. Laws specifically prohibited to the States are listed at Art. I, Sec. 10. States also may not properly make laws which contradict the Constitution. For example, a State Law which purported to permit 25 year olds to be US Senators would contradict Art. I, Sec. 3, clause 3, and thus would fail under the “supremacy clause”.

So Remember! When a State Law is not contrary to the Constitution, it remains in full force & effect and is not affected one jot by the “supremacy clause”.

Exclusive jurisdiction

2. Let us now look at “exclusive jurisdiction” – those very few matters in which the federal government has sole authority to act. Obviously, when Our Constitution bestows sole authority on the federal government, then any State Law to the contrary would fall. Hamilton explains this in Federalist No. 32 (2nd para):

…the State governments …clearly retain all the rights of sovereignty which they before had, and which were not… EXCLUSIVELY delegated to the United States. This exclusive delegation …of State sovereignty would only exist in three cases… [emphasis in original]

Hamilton then describes the three cases where the Constitution grants to the federal government exclusive authority to act:

(a) Where the Constitution expressly grants an exclusive authority to the federal government; as in Art. I, Sec. 8, next to last clause, which grants to Congress the power to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever,” over the District of Columbia, Forts, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.

(b) Where it grants an authority to the federal government, and prohibits the States from exercising that same authority; as in Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 1, which authorizes Congress “To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises”; and Art. I, Sec. 10, clause 2, which declares that, “No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports….”

(c) Where it grants an authority to the federal government, to which a similar authority in the States would be absolutely & totally CONTRADICTORY and REPUGNANT; as in Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 4, which declares that Congress shall have power “to establish an UNIFORM RULE of naturalization throughout the United States.” This must necessarily be exclusive; because if each State had power to prescribe a DISTINCT RULE, there could not be a UNIFORM RULE.

So! These three are the only cases where the federal government has exclusive authority. In all other matters within the ENUMERATED powers, the federal and State governments have “concurrent jurisdiction”. [Of course, as shown below, the States governments have exclusive jurisdiction over most of the matters within their respective Borders.]

Concurrent jurisdiction

3. Let’s look now at “concurrent jurisdiction” – where the Constitution authorizes the federal government to act and does not prohibit the States from acting on the same matter. Here, the federal government and the States have “a concurrent and coequal authority” (Federalist No. 32, 3rd para)! Might there be some conflicts when both the federal government and State governments are acting on the same matter? Yes! But as Hamilton pointed out:

It is not …a mere possibility of inconvenience in the exercise of powers, but an immediate constitutional repugnancy that can …alienate and extinguish a pre-existing right of sovereignty [in the States]. (4th para)
The necessity of a concurrent jurisdiction in certain cases results from the division of the sovereign power; and the rule that all authorities, of which the States are not explicitly divested in favor of the Union, remain with them in full vigor…[This]is…clearly admitted by the whole tenor of the…proposed Constitution. We there find that, notwith-standing the …grants of …authorities [to the federal government], there has been the most pointed care in those cases where it was deemed improper that the like authorities should reside in the States, to insert negative clauses prohibiting the exercise of them by the States…[Art. I, Sec. 10] consists altogether of such provisions. This circumstance is a clear indication of the sense of the convention, and furnishes a rule of interpretation out of the body of the…[proposed Constitution], which…refutes every hypothesis to the contrary. (5th para)

So! Even where the Constitution delegates a power to the federal government, the Sovereign States retain a concurrent and coequal authority over the same matter unless the Constitution specifically prohibits the States from exercising that power.

The Congress shall have Power … To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization..

4. Now let us look at Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 4. This is the clause which some in the “open borders” crowd claim “trumps” the Arizona Law. Well, well! Theirs is a silly argument indeed, and we can dispose of it easily. The clause reads:

The Congress shall have Power … To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization…

James Madison explains in Federalist No. 42 (4th para from end) the reason for the clause. Under the Articles of Confederation, the various States had their own rules for qualifying for citizenship:

By the laws of several States, certain … aliens, who had rendered themselves obnoxious, were laid under interdicts inconsistent…with…citizenship…What would have been the consequence, if such persons…had acquired the character of citizens under the laws of another State, and then asserted their rights as such … within the State proscribing them? … [C]onsequences would probably have resulted, of too serious a nature not to be provided against. The new Constitution has accordingly … made provision against them …by authorizing the general [federal] government to establish a uniform rule of naturalization throughout the United States.

So! All this clause does is grant to the federal government exclusive authority to set the criteria for citizenship. The only way Arizona could violate Art. I, Sec. 8, clause 4 would be if Arizona made a law which purported to set different criteria for citizenship in Arizona.

5. Now let us look at the Arizona Law. But you must prepare yourself for the shocking facts of this Law! When Arizona officials have made lawful contact with illegal aliens, they are going to turn them over to the custody of the federal government! Yes! Arizona officials actually propose to turn these illegal aliens over to the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or to the United States Customs and Border Protection. Oh my!

Other provisions of the Arizona Law address crimes committed by illegal aliens and others within the borders of the State (criminal trespass, human smuggling, impeding traffic while picking up day laborers, harboring & concealing illegal aliens, and knowingly employing illegal aliens). After the illegal aliens have served their sentences, they will be turned over to ICE or US Customs and Border Protection! Shocking, isn’t it?

So, where’s the conflict with the US Constitution? Identify Article, Section, & Clause, if you please! Is anyone so silly as to assert that it violates the U.S. Constitution for officials of the Sovereign State of Arizona to turn illegal aliens over to the federal authorities? Is anyone so silly as to assert that the Sovereign State of Arizona has no criminal jurisdiction over illegal aliens who commit crimes within the Borders of that Sovereign State? When illegal aliens murder, rape, and rob citizens of the Sovereign State of Arizona, does their status as illegal aliens immunize them from responsibility for their crimes? Is it the hysterical predictions that “racial profiling” might occur? Just what is “racial profiling”, and where is that prohibited in the Constitution? And if the Southern Border is being invaded by Mexicans and Muslims from the Middle East, should Arizona officials stop blue-eyed blonde-haired people who are speaking Norwegian just to show that they don’t notice when someone looks Mexican or Muslim and speaks Spanish or Arabic? Are We a People who have lost our minds? Do we continue to permit political correctness to blind us to Reality? Do we continue to pretend that the naked Emperor is wearing clothes?

Alexander Hamilton shows in Federalist No. 32 (3rd para) the proper questions to ask: Is there anything in the US Constitution which makes the powers asserted by the Sovereign State of Arizona EXCLUSIVE in the federal government? Is there anything in the US Constitution which prohibits the States from exercising the powers which Arizona exercises in her Law? No and No! In fact, Arizona has exclusive jurisdiction over illegal aliens who commit violations of Arizona’s Criminal Laws. And the federal government simply has no authority whatsoever to interfere. And to the extent the federal government does interfere, its actions would not be pursuant to the Constitution, but would be mere usurpations of power and would deserve to be treated as such.

There is nothing in the US Constitution which prohibits Arizona from exercising the powers in her Law. So far is this from being the case, that a plain and conclusive argument to the contrary is to be deduced from Art. I, Sec. 10, last clause:

No State shall …keep Troops…in time of Peace…or engage in War, unless actually invaded…

So! Not only may the Sovereign State of Arizona turn illegal aliens over to the custody of the federal authorities, and not only may that State prosecute illegal aliens for their crimes committed within the Borders of that State, Arizona may also keep troops and engage in War to defend herself from the Invasions. It has been shown before that Art. IV, Sec. 4 requires the federal government to protect each of the States against Invasion. But the federal government refuses to do its duty! The Sovereign States have express authority to do it themselves. They must do it, or be overrun. PH

Who is Crossing Our Border

This is a link to a broadcast out of Atlanta about who is crossing the border in AZ.

According to the Border Patrol the public is being mislead as to WHO is coming into the US from Mexico.    This IS THE TRUTH. as reported by WSBTV in Atlanta.

Video 1 http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438021/index.html.

Video 2 http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438712/index.html.

Reply to Calderon on Illegal Immigration

I took to the floor of the House yesterday in strong opposition to President Calderon’s remarks.  It strikes me as utterly unacceptable for a foreign head of state to lecture Americans on American immigration policy and just as unbecoming for the American Left to cheer him on.

Click here to view the video of my speech.

Click here to see President Calderon cheered by the Democrat majority in Congress.

It comes as no surprise though, that taking this vocal role has earned me a place squarely in the cross hairs of the Pelosi attack machine. They’re not messing around. They are opening new chapters of the Progressive Democrats of America all over my district in preparation for a nasty campaign to unseat me in the fall.

I want you to know that I intend to re-double my efforts in thi sgreat battle for the future of our country.  And I know you will be there fighting beside me.

Can I count on your urgent support to counter what I expect to be an aggressive effort to silence my criticism of Obama, Pelosi and Calderon? With your generous online contribution of $250, $100, $50 or even the legal maximum of $2,400, I will have the resources to continue my efforts to restore American founding principles to the forefront of our national debate.

It is an honor to have you by my side.  Thank you.

Sincerely

Most Americans don’t believe Mexico wants to stop the illegal flow of its citizens into this country and think America’s southern neighbor should be asked to compensate U.S. taxpayers for costs incurred by illegal immigration.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 13% of Adults think Mexico wants to stop illegal immigration. Sixty-seven percent (67%) say Mexico does not want to stop its citizens from
entering the United States illegally. Another 20% are not sure.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon in his meeting today with President Obama complained that Arizona’s new immigration law encourages discrimination. But Arizona officials say the new law is needed in part because illegal immigration is causing big public safety and financial problems for the state.

Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Americans think Mexico should be asked to compensate U.S. taxpayers to offset such costs. Twenty-four percent (24%) disagree and say Mexico should not be asked for compensation. Seventeen percent (17%) are not sure.

As the United States wrestles with a future of historic-level deficits, 67% of voters nationwide say illegal immigrants are a significant strain on the U.S. budget.

Most voters (55%) now favor passage of an immigration law like Arizona’s in their own state. When asked specifically about the chief provision of the Arizona law, support is even higher. Sixty-nine percent (69%) believe a police officer should be required to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for a traffic violation or violation of some other law if he suspects the person might be an illegal immigrant.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it’s in the news, it’s in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on May 17-18, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

According to news reporters, the Mexican Embassy in Washington, D.C. is preparing friend-of-the court briefs to support lawsuits challenging Arizona’s new law. Only 12% of Americans believe it is appropriate for a foreign country to help challenge U.S. laws in U.S. courts. Seventy-two percent (72%) say it is not appropriate, and again 17% are undecided.

Twenty-seven percent (27%) view Mexico as an ally of the United States, while 14% describe it as an enemy. Fifty-three percent (53%) view Mexico as somewhere in between the two. These findings are consistent with a survey last August but are up from earlier last year when the Mexican government was seeking restrictions on U.S. gun sales it argued were linked to growing drug-related violence.

The majority of Republicans, Democrats and adults not affiliated with either party feel that the Mexican government does not want to stop illegal immigration and that Mexico should be asked to compensate U.S.taxpayers for costs associated with illegal immigration. But Republicans and unaffiliateds believe both things much more strongly than Democrats.

Members of the president’s party are also more inclined to view Mexico as an ally than are Republicans and unaffiliated adults.

Most voters continue to say as they have for years that gaining control of the border is more important than legalizing the status of undocumented workers. But most also favor a welcoming immigration policy that excludes only “national security threats, criminals and those who would come here to live off our welfare system.”

The Obama administration announced in March that it was halting funding of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, but 59% of Americans believe the United States should continue to build that fence.

Please sign up for the Rasmussen Reports daily e-mail update (it’s free) or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. Let us keep you up to date with the latest public opinion news.

See survey questions and toplines. Crosstabs are available to Premium Members only.

The real reason for the AZ law that just passed:

This is one of the best explanations of why the AZ legislature passed the law that you will never hear on the Main Stream Media.  This needs to be circulated far and wide:

Subject: Arizona – The real reason

I’m Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. I want to explain SB 1070

which I voted for and was just signed by Governor Jan Brewer.

Rancher Rob Krantz was murdered by the drug cartel on his ranch a

month ago. I participated in a senate hearing two weeks ago on the

border violence, here is just some of the highlights from those who

testified.

The people who live within 60 to 80 miles of the Arizona/Mexico Border

have for years been terrorized and have pleaded for help to stop the

daily invasion of humans who cross their property . One Rancher

testified that 300 to 1200 people a DAY come across his ranch

vandalizing his property, stealing his vehicles and property, cutting

down his fences, and leaving trash. In the last two years he has found

17 dead bodies and two Koran bibles.

Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his

ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in

front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind

them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These

people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way. This

was not the only rancher we heard that day that talked about the drug

trains.

One man told of two illegal’s who came upon his property one shot in

the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced

them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun

fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the

ranch and they can’t leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left

when they come back.

The border patrol is not on the border. They have set up 60 miles away

with check points that do nothing to stop the invasion. They are not

allowed to use force in stopping anyone who is entering. They run

around chasing them, if they get their hands on them then they can

take them back across the border.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal’s and 20% of Arizona prisons are

filled with illegal’s. In the last few years 80% of our law

enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal.

The majority of people coming now are people we need to be worried

about. The ranchers told us that they have seen a change in the people

coming they are not just those who are looking for work and a better

life.

The Federal Government has refused for years to do anything to help

the border states . We have been over run and once they are here we

have the burden of funding state services that they use. Education

cost have been over a billion dollars. The healthcare cost billions of

dollars. Our State is broke, $3.5 billion deficit and we have many

serious decisions to make. One is that we do not have the money to

care for any who are not here legally. It has to stop.

The border can be secured. We have the technology we have the ability

to stop this invasion. We must know who is coming and they must come

in an organized manner legally so that we can assimilate them into our

population and protect the sovereignty of our country. We are a nation

of laws. We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to

protect the integrity of our country and the government which we live

under.

I would give amnesty today to many, but here is the problem, we dare

not do this until the Border is secure. It will do no good to forgive

them because thousands will come behind them and we will be over run

to the point that there will no longer be the United States of America

but a North American Union of open borders. I ask you what form of

government will we live under? How long will it be before we will be

just like Mexico , Canada or any of the other Central American or

South American countries? We have already lost our language,

everything must be printed in Spanish also. We have already lost our

history it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our

borders.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going

to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding. The ACLU and the leftist

courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but

it was an effort to try and stop illegal’s from setting up businesses,

and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to

local law enforcement when there is probable cause like a traffic stop

to determine if they are here legally. Federal law is very clear if

you are here on a visa you must have your papers on you at all times.

That is the law. In Arizona all you need to show you are a legal

citizen is a driver license, MVD identification card, Native American

Card, or a Military ID. This is what you need to vote, get a hunting

license, etc.. So nothing new has been added to this law. No one is

going to be stopped walking down the street etc… The Socialist who

are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do something and

that something the Socialist wants us to do is just let them come.

They want the “Transformation” to continue.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of

freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I

can to protect our Constitutional Republic . Living in America is not

a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American

is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the

Constitution the law of our land which says what you must do to be a

citizen of this country. Freedom is not free.

From a Naturalize US Citizen of Mexican Heritage.

This was written by a Mexican who is now a naturalized US Citizen, and I think it’s a great explanation of the illegal immigration issue.

Here is the quote:

“If you had tickets to a sports event, concert, Disneyland, or for an airline flight, and when you got to your assigned seat you found someone else was in that seat, what would you do? You would call for a person in charge of ticket checking and have the person in your seat removed. You would properly be asked to show your ticket, and you would gladly and proudly do so, for you have bought and paid for that seat. The person in your seat would also be asked for a ticket, which they would not be able to produce. They would be called “gate crashers” and they would properly be removed.

Now in this huge stadium called the USA we have had millions of gate crashers.

We have been asking security to check for tickets and remove the gate crashers.

We have been asking security to have better controls in checking at the door.

We have asked security to lock the back doors. Security has failed us. They are still looking the other way. They are afraid to ask to see the tickets. Many people say there is unlimited seating, and whether there is or not, no one should be allowed in for free while the rest of us pay full price!

In “section AZ”, of “Stadium USA“, we have had enough of the failures of Security. We have decided to do our own ticket checking, and properly remove those who do not have tickets.

Now it seems very strange to me that so many people in the other 49 “sections”, and even many in our own “section” do not want tickets checked, or even to be asked to show their ticket! Even the head of Security is chastising us, while not doing his own job which he has sworn to do.

My own ticket has been bought and paid for, so I am proudly going to show it when asked to do so.  I have a right to my seat, and I want the gate crashers to be asked to show their tickets too.

The only reason that I can imagine anyone objecting to being asked for their ticket is that they are in favor of gate crashing, and all of the illegal activities that go with it, such as drug smuggling, gang wars, murder, human smuggling for profit, and many more illegal and inhumane acts that we are trying to prevent with our new legislation. Is that what I am hearing from all of the protestors such as Phoenix Mayor Gordon, US Rep. Grijalva, even President Obama?  If you are not in favor of showing tickets, (proof of citizenship, passport, green card, or other legal document) when asked, as I would do proudly, then you must be condoning those illegal activities.”

Written by a US Citizen, Globe, Arizona.

Mexico’s illegals laws tougher than Arizona’s

Jerry Seper

Mexican President Felipe Calderon denounced as “racial discrimination” an Arizona law giving state and local police the authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and vowed to use all means at his disposal to defend Mexican nationals against a law he called a “violation of human rights.”

But the legislation, signed April 23 by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, is similar to Reglamento de la Ley General de Poblacion — the General Law on Population enacted in Mexico in April 2000, which mandates that federal, local and municipal police cooperate with federal immigration authorities in that country in the arrests of illegal immigrants.

Under the Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony, punishable by up to two years in prison. Immigrants who are deported and attempt to re-enter can be imprisoned for 10 years. Visa violators can be sentenced to six-year terms. Mexicans who help illegal immigrants are considered criminals.

The law also says Mexico can deport foreigners who are deemed detrimental to “economic or national interests,” violate Mexican law, are not “physically or mentally healthy” or lack the “necessary funds for their sustenance” and for their dependents.

“This sounds like the kind of law that a rational nation would have to protect itself against illegal immigrants — that would stop and punish the very people who are violating the law,” said Rep. Steve King of Iowa, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary subcommittee on immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law.

“Why would Mr. Calderon have any objections to an Arizona law that is less draconian than his own, one he has pledged to enforce?” Mr. King said.

Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security, described Mr. Calderon’s comments as “hypocritical to say the least.”

“I would have expected more from Mr. Calderon,” said Mr. Kyl, who serves as the Senate minority whip. “We are spending millions of dollars to help Mexico fight the drug cartels that pose a threat to his government, and he doesn’t seem to recognize our concerns. He ought to be apologizing to us instead of condemning us.”

Mr. Kyl, along with fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, has introduced a 10-point comprehensive border security plan to combat illegal immigration, drug and human smuggling, and violent crime along the southwestern border. It includes the deployment of National Guard troops, an increase in U.S. Border Patrol agents and 700 miles of fencing, along with other equipment and funding upgrades.

He said skyrocketing violence on the border, including the recent killing of an Arizona rancher by an illegal immigrant he had gone to assist, has not gone unnoticed by the public, adding that until the federal government provides the necessary funding and manpower to adequately secure the southwestern border, Arizona will not long remain the only state to pass legislation to do it on its own.

Rep. Ted Poe, Texas Republican and a member of the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees, described Mr. Calderon’s criticism as “arrogant and hypocritical.” He said Mexico’s immigrations laws are “even tougher than those in the United States” and it was inappropriate to denounce the Arizona law when “Mexico does the very same thing.”

“Mexico wants people to come to the United States and to send their money home,” he said. “They want to make their problems our problems — that’s their foreign policy. President Calderon should spend more time focusing on problems in his own country instead of criticizing Arizona for doing what Mexican law requires its own to do.”

Rep. John Culberson, a Texas Republican who has advocated for stricter border enforcement policies, said the Arizona law was enacted as a result of the nation’s “failed immigration policies.”

“We should focus our time and resources on enforcing policies that work, like zero tolerance, which has reduced crime and illegal immigration dramatically along our southern border,” he said.

Ricardo Alday, a spokesman at the Mexican Embassy in Washington, did not return calls for comment.

But the embassy has said the Mexican government is “deeply concerned by the potential dire effects” that the Arizona law will have on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States — about 450,000 of them in Arizona.

“As it has been raised by national Latino and immigration rights organizations, initiatives that exclusively criminalize immigration create opportunities for an undue enforcement of the law through racial profiling,” Mr. Alday said in an April 15 statement.

The ambassador also warned of the “likelihood of negative effects that this measure … may have for the future development of friendship, commercial, tourist and cultural ties” between Mexico and Arizona.

The Arizona law, which is set to take effect in midsummer, authorizes state and local law enforcement officers — during lawful stops only — to determine the immigration status of people for whom there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally. Known as Senate Bill 1070, it was enacted in response to a dramatic rise in violence along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Reasonable suspicion is a legal standard requiring that before someone is arrested or detained there must be reasonable belief that the person has been, is or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.

A Rasmussen Reports poll has found that 70 percent of likely voters in Arizona approve of the legislation, while 23 percent oppose it.

Half of the nearly 1 million illegal border crossings into the United States each year occur in Arizona, according to a report by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which also said Arizona taxpayers spend more than $2 billion a year on education and health care for illegal immigrants and their children.

“The porous border is virtually a welcome mat for criminal organizations that run drugs and other contraband through the state,” the immigration watchdog group said, adding that kidnappings in Phoenix are at a record high.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who was arrested Saturday during a rally at the White House calling on Congress and the Obama administration to enact immigration reform, said more states “could adopt Arizona’s draconian law” if Congress doesnt act now.

“We must have fair and balanced reform to ensure immigrants are full participants in our economic recovery,” said Mr. Gutierrez, chairman of the Democratic Caucus Immigration Task Force, for which he is the party’s leading strategist and spokesman on immigration issues. “Enforcement-only tactics break up families, disrupt businesses, distract local law enforcement and drain local budgets.”

In signing the bill, Mrs. Brewer said she would “not tolerate racial discrimination or racial profiling” and emphasized an amendment to the bill that prevents law enforcement personnel from using a person’s race as the only factor in implementing the law.

“This protects all of us — every Arizona citizen and everyone here lawfully,” she said.

The key legal issue, according to attorneys on both sides, will be whether the state law interferes with the federal government’s duty to handle immigration.

Criticism of the Arizona law has come from several sources, including President Obama, who described it as an example of “irresponsibility” by the state. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. has said the Justice Department is considering a legal challenge to the law.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week that the Arizona law could distract the agency from using its resources to go after serious criminals. She said there were concerns that at some point “we’ll be responsible to enforce or use our immigration resources against anyone that would get picked up in Arizona.”

She said she vetoed similar measures when she served as Arizona governor from 2003 to 2009.

On Sunday, she called the Arizona law “really a cry of frustration,” while noting that “more assets have been put into Arizona in the last 15 months than ever in history.”

“But, you know what, there’s still a frustration out there. It’s a frustration ultimately that will only be solved with comprehensive immigration reform,” she said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and the National Immigration Law Center (NILC) also are preparing legal challenges.

During a Phoenix news conference last week, MALDEF President and General Counsel Thomas A. Saenz said “a vigorous and sophisticated legal challenge will be mounted” before the bill’s implementation this summer “to prevent this unconstitutional and discriminatory law from ever taking effect.”

Linton Joaquin, NILC’s general counsel, added that the Arizona law “sends a strong message to all immigrants to have no contact with any law enforcement officer.” He said the “inevitable result” would not only be to make immigrants more vulnerable to crime and exploitation, “but also to make the entire community less safe by aggressively discouraging witnesses and victims from reporting crimes.”

The Rev. Eve Nunez of the Arizona Latino Commission and National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference said the Arizona law will be divisive and demonstrates the need for Congress to pass an immigration reform bill.

“A lot of pastors are very fearful they will be fined for transporting members of their congregation in their church vans. Churches are already losing members,” she said. “There is great fear in the Hispanic community. It is very sad that in a state that should be welcoming the stranger, we are allowing oppressive laws to pass.”

Mr. King defended the bill, saying Arizona and other states are being forced to “step up and fill the void” left by the failure of the Obama administration and Homeland Security Department to secure the nation’s borders.

“I commend Arizona for standing up for the rule of law,” he said.

Mr. King also noted that critics of the law have distorted what it says. He said the law allows state authorities to inquire into the immigration status based only on a “reasonable suspicion” that the person is unlawfully present in the United States.

As a state senator in Iowa, he was the principal sponsor of a workplace drug and alcohol testing bill in 1998 that also relied on “reasonable suspicion.” That bill allowed the taking of urine or other samples from employees for whom there was a reasonable suspicion that they were under the influence.

“That bill passed into law in 1998 and there has not been a constitutional challenge to it yet,” Mr. King said.

Arizona state Sen. Russell Pearce, the bill’s author, said a constitutional challenge would “determine whether our nation enforces its immigration laws and secures its borders or becomes victim to its enemies.”

Joe Legal V Jose Illegal

You have two families: “Joe Legal” and “Jose Illegal”.
Both families have two parents, two children, and live in California .

Joe Legal works in construction, has a Social Security Number and makes $25.00 per hour with taxes deducted.

Jose Illegal also works in construction, has NO Social Security Number, and gets paid $15.00 cash “under the table”.

Ready? Now pay attention…

Joe Legal: $25.00 per hour x 40 hours = $1000.00 per week, or $52,000.00 per year. Now take 30% away for state and federal tax; Joe Legal now has
$31,231.00.

Jose Illegal: $15.00 per hour x 40 hours = $600.00 per week, or $31,200.0 0 per year. Jose Illegal pays no taxes. Jose Illegal now has
$31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays medical and dental insurance with limited coverage for his family at $600.00 per month, or $7,200.00 per year. Joe Legal now
has $24,031.00.

Jose Illegal has full medical and dental coverage through the state and local clinics at a cost of $0.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal makes too much money and is not eligible for food stamps or welfare. Joe Legal pays $500.00 per month for food, or $6,000.00 per
year.. Joe Legal now has $18,031.00.

Jose Illegal has no documented income and is eligible for food stamps and welfare. Jose Illegal still has $31,200.00

Joe Legal pays rent of $1,200.00 per month, or $14,400.00 per year. Joe Legal now has $9,631 .00.

Jose Illegal receives a $500.00 per month federal rent subsidy. Jose Illegal pays out that $500.00 per month, or $6,000.00 per year. Jose Illegal still has $ 31,200.00.

Joe Legal pays $200.00 per month, or $2,400.00 for insurance. Joe Legal now has $7,231.00.

Jose Illegal says, “We don’t need no stinkin’ insurance!” and still has $31,200.00.

Joe Legal has to make his $7,231.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, etc.

Jose Illegal has to make his $31,200.00 stretch to pay utilities, gasoline, and what he sends out of the country every month..

Joe Legal now works overtime on Saturdays or gets a part time job after work.

Jose Illegal has nights and weekends off to enjoy with his family.

Joe Legal’s and Jose Illegal’s children both attend the same school. Joe Legal pays for his children’s lunches while Jose Illegal’s children get
a government sponsored lunch. Jose Illegal’s children have an after school ESL program. Joe Legal’s children go home.

Joe Legal and Jose Illegal both enjoy the same police and fire services, but Joe paid for them and Jose did not pay.

Do you get it, now?

If you vote for or support any politician that supports illegal aliens…

You are part of the problem!

It’s way PAST time to take a stand for America and Americans!

What are you waiting for?  Pass it on.

Fact Sheet: Arizona’s SB1070 Immigration Enforcement Law

Arizona’s Gov. Brewer signed SB1070 into law in April of 2010. Combined with HB2162 (which amends SB1070), the new law will:

• Make it illegal in the State of Arizona for an alien to not register with the government, thus being an “illegal alien” (already the case at the federal level: 8 USC 1306a; USC 1304e)
• Allow police to detain people where there is a “reasonable suspicion” that they’re illegal aliens (see the recent court case Estrada v. Rhode Island for an idea of what “reasonable suspicion” might entail)
• Prohibits sanctuary cities (already prohibited at the federal level, 8 USC 1373) and allows citizens to sue any such jurisdiction.

70 percent of Arizona voters support the new law. Much of the outcry in the press has stemmed from misinformation about the law that may have originated with the local paper, The Arizona Republic.

Reality vs. Myth: SB1070

Myth No. 1: The law requires aliens to carry identification that they weren’t already required to carry.

Reality: It has been a federal crime (8 United States Code Section 1304(a) or 1306(e)) since 1940 for aliens to fail to carry their registration documents. The Arizona law reaffirms the federal law. Anyone who has traveled abroad knows that other nations have similar requirements.

The majority requests for documentation will take place during the course of other police business such as traffic stops. Because Arizona allows only lawful residents to obtain licenses, an officer must presume that someone who produces one is legally in the country. (See News Hour clip 3:45 seconds in)
Myth No. 2: The law will encourage racial profiling.

Reality: The Arizona law reduces the chances of racial profiling by requiring officers to contact the federal government when they suspect a person is an illegal alien as opposed to letting them make arrests on their own assessment as federal law currently allows.

Section 2 was amended (by HB2162) to read that a law enforcement official “may not consider race, color, or national origin” in making any stops or determining an alien’s immigration status (previously, they were prohibited in “solely” considering those factors). In addition, all of the normal Fourth Amendment protections against racial profiling still apply.

Myth No. 3: “Reasonable suspicion” is a meaningless term that will permit police misconduct.
Reality: “Reasonable suspicion” has been defined by the courts for decades (the Fourth Amendment itself proscribes “unreasonable searches and seizures”). One of the most recent cases, Estrada v. Rhode Island, provides an example of the courts refining of “reasonable suspicion:”

A 15 passenger van is pulled over for a traffic violation. The driver of the van had identification but the other passengers did not (some had IDs from a gym membership, a non-driver’s licence card from the state, and IDs issued from the Guatemalan Consulate). The passengers said they were on their way to work but they had no work permits. Most could not speak English but upon questioning, admitted that they were in the United States illegally. The officer notified ICE and waited three minutes for instructions.
The SB1070 provision in question reads:
“For any lawful contact made by a law enforcement official or agency of this state . . . where reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States, a reasonable attempt shall be made, when practicable, to determine the immigration status of the person.”

Myth No. 4: The law will require Arizona police officers to stop and question people.

Reality: The law only kicks in when a police officer stopped, detained, or arrested someone (HB2162). The most likely contact is during the issuance of a speeding ticket. The law does not require the officer to begin questioning a person about his immigration status or to do anything the officer would not otherwise do.

Only after a stop is made, and subsequently the officer develops reasonable suspicion on his own that an immigration law has been violated, is any obligation imposed. At that point, the officer is required to call ICE to confirm whether the person is an illegal alien.

The Arizona law is actually more restrictive than federal law. In Muehler v. Mena (2005), the Supreme Court ruled that officers did not need reasonable suspicion to justify asking a suspect about their immigration status, stating that the court has “held repeatedly that mere police questioning does not constitute a seizure” under the Fourth Amendment).

TAKE ACTION NOW TO SECURE OUR BORDERS

90 Percent of Americans Want Immigration Problems FIXED, Not Reformed

By Jerry McConnell  Wednesday, May 5, 2010In the Dick Morris Report published on TheHill.com on May 4, 2010, he says about Obama, “In his frequent messages calling for higher Latino and black turnout and his condemnation of the Arizona immigration law, Obama is trying to recapture over immigration the voter approval he lost over healthcare.”  It appears quite likely according to a Gallup Poll, that Obama will definitely not recapture any voter approval, and is very likely to lose even more than he wishes.

The Gallup Poll that was presented by CNS News.com on May 05, 2010 which was conducted on May 1-2, states that “9 out of 10 Americans Say Secure the Border This Year.”  It couldn’t get more definitive than that.  NINETY PERCENT of Americans; those are your employers, Mr. Obama; and lest you say that they are all Republicans, just don’t bet your lunch money on it.

The poll asked Americans if they would say ‘it is moderately to extremely important to them for the federal government to take steps this year to secure the border against illegal immigration’ and 9 out of 10 questioned answered positively.  Only ten percent said it was not that important.  However, 42 percent said it was extremely important, 26 percent said it was very important and 21 percent called it moderately important.

Those, Mr. Obama, are numbers that you just can not slough off as unimportant.  That is 90 percent of the people telling you to TAKE ACTION NOW TO SECURE OUR BORDERS.  And that doesn’t mean to send a handful of new border patrol agents to work on the problem; it means DO IT RIGHT, and DO IT NOW!

That question was followed by Gallup with another question asking “whether it was extremely important, very important, moderately important, or not that important to them that the U.S. government develop a plan to deal with the large number of illegal immigrants who are already living in the United States.”

In almost identical fashion, NINETY PERCENT of the respondents answered affirmatively regarding extremely, very or moderately important while only TEN PERCENT replied that it was not that important.

So it would appear that should the President choose to hang his hat and hopes on those 10 percenters who didn’t feel it was that important, he could find himself out of a job in 2012, if not sooner.  Obama has a way of choosing to ignore anything that is not to his liking or that shows that his positions are not favorable to a high percentage of the REAL citizens of this country.  He is extremely disdainful of the people who provide the tax dollars to operate the United States of America, but it is a group that should not be denigrated nor ignored.

Accompanying the poll data was information on reasons why those poll respondents voted as they did and that was that “61 percent of Americans say they are very concerned that illegal immigrants are putting an unfair burden on U.S. schools, hospitals, and government services.”  Also, 55 percent of the respondents said that “they were ‘very concerned’ that allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States might be encouraging others to come here, and 53 percent said they were ‘very concerned’ that illegal immigrants making low wages might make U.S. employers less willing to pay American workers a decent wage.

This poll should show our federal government that our citizens of the entire country are overwhelmingly in favor of not just immigration reform as some in Congress and Obama as well are taking into consideration.  The citizens damn-well want it CORRECTED.  To ignore this great a number of American citizens is to act differently at their own peril.  November is not that far away and memories are not that short that they will forget between now and then.

Get your act together, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and other activists of negativity such as Schumer, and his cronies.  You have been warned; I suggest you act accordingly.

A brief history of immigration

Fights over immigration law have been going on in the U.S. since the 1790s.

By Frances Symes

As a nation of immigrants, Americans have struggled with border laws for 200 years.

For much of the 20th century immigration was controlled by a system of complicated quotas, restricting the number of legal immigrants by nationality and assigning over two-thirds of all quota numbers to Britain, Ireland, and Germany while sharply limiting immigration from Southern Europe, Asia, and Africa.

After a 40-year campaign by minority groups for reform of federal immigration laws, the origins quota system was abolished in 1965.

As the country debates changing immigration laws once again, we took a closer look at how the rules have changed throughout history.

Below, a timeline of major legal changes:

1790: The first federal law on naturalization, which had previously been under the control of the individual states, establishes uniform rules by setting the residence requirement at two years.

1802: Law establishes basic requirements for naturalization, including good moral character, allegiance to the Constitution, a formal declaration of intention, and testimony from witnesses.

1862: An act prohibits the transportation of Chinese “coolies” on American ships.

1864: The first Commissioner of Immigration appointed by President to serve under the Secretary of State. An act authorizes immigrant labor contracts whereby would-be immigrants would pledge their wages to pay for transportation (repealed in 1868).

1875: An act prohibits the entry of undesirable immigrants for the first time, excluding criminals, prostitutes, and Asians transported without their free and voluntary consent.

1882: Chinese Exclusion Act suspends immigration of Chinese laborers to the U.S. for ten years, provided for deportation of Chinese illegally in the U.S., bars Chinese from naturalization, permits the entry of Chinese students, teachers, merchants, or those “proceeding to the U.S. … from curiosity” (repealed in 1943).

1891: The first comprehensive national immigration law establishes a Bureau of Immigration under the Treasury Department; restricts immigration by adding to the inadmissible classes of persons, including those “likely to become public charges,” those suffering from contagious disease, and felons. Law also forbids the encouragement of immigration by advertisement; allows the Secretary of the Treasury to prescribe rules for inspecting the borders and directs the deportation of aliens who entered the U.S. unlawfully.

1903: Immigration Act is the first measure to provide for the exclusion of aliens on the grounds of their political opinions by excluding “anarchists, or persons who believe in, or advocate, the overthrow by force or violence the government of the United States.” The law also provides for the deportation of aliens who became public charges within two years after entry from causes existing prior to their landing.

1906: Naturalization Act makes knowledge of the English language a requirement for naturalization.

1907: A major codification of previous immigration laws authorizes the president to refuse admission to certain persons when he was satisfied that their immigration was detrimental to labor conditions in the U.S. and creating a joint commission to make an investigation of the immigration system. Those findings were the basis of the comprehensive Immigration Act of 1917.

1917: Immigration Act excludes illiterate aliens from entry, further restricts immigration from Asia, bars natives of the “Asia-Pacific triangle,” and broadens the classes of deportable aliens.

1921: Quota Law is the first law to limit the number of aliens of any nationality entering the United States depending on number of foreign-born persons of that nationality already living in the United States. Aliens belonging to any “recognized learned profession” and those employed as domestic servants are exempt from the quota system.

1924: Immigration Act establishes the national origins quota system. Starting in 1927, the annual quota for any country or nationality is set in proportion to the number of inhabitants in the continental U.S. having that national origin in 1920. A preference is set for unmarried children under 21, parents, spouses of citizens aged 21 and over, and immigrants skilled in agriculture. The law also says that that no alien may enter without an immigration visa issued by an American consular officer abroad.

1943: Act provides for the importation of temporary agricultural laborers from North, South and Central America to aid agriculture during WWII.  The program is later extended through 1947, and develops into the Mexican “Bracero Program,” which lasts through 1964.

1948: Displaced Persons Act is the first U.S. policy for admitting persons being persecuted in their native country. It permits the admission of up to 205,000 persons over two years. The law is later amended and extended through 1952.

1951: Law amends the Agricultural Act of 1949, which served as the basic framework under which the Mexican Bracero Program operated. Under the law, the U.S. government sets up reception centers at or near the Mexican border to provide transportation, subsistence, and medical care to Mexican laborers, and guarantees that employers play prevailing wages and provide housing and adequate meals at a reasonable cost.

1952: The McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act brings into one comprehensive statute the multiple laws which govern immigration and naturalization in the U.S. The law revises the quota system of 1924 while keeping in place limits on immigrants of certain nationalities, and giving preference to skilled aliens and relatives of U.S. citizens.

1965: Congress abolishes the national origins quota system, eliminating national origin, race, or ancestry as a basis for immigration to the U.S. The law also allocates immigrant visas on a first come, first served basis. Still, it keeps in place a system of three categories of permissible immigrants, with caps on immigrants from the Western Hemisphere, all other nations, and immediate relatives of citizens.

1980: Refugee Act declares the goal of providing “a permanent and systematic procedure” for the admission and resettlement of refugees of special humanitarian concern to the U.S.

1986: Immigration and Control Act creates the first finces for employers who knowingly hire foreigners in the country illegally. Under a compromise, the bill creates a mechanism for giving legal status (or amnesty) to millions of illegal aliens who could prove they had resided continuously in the U.S. since before 1982. It also creates a program to give seasonal agricultural workers temporary resident status.

1990: Another overhaul of immigration laws reverses the visa system set up in the 1965 law. It expands the total immigration level and revises the levels set for certain categories of immigration, including the immigration of family members and employment-based immigration. It establishes special visas for highly skilled and non-agricultural temporary workers.

1993: The North American Free-Trade Agreement Implementation Act allows temporary entry on a reciprocal basis between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

1996: Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act restricts federal benefits for illegal aliens and legal non-immigrants while maintaining their access to emergency medical services, disaster relief, treatment for communicable diseases, programs delivered by community agencies, and benefits related to work. It makes most legal immigrants, except refugees, those who had worked in the U.S. for the equivalent of 10 years and veterans, ineligible for Social Security and food stamps until they became citizens, and barrs future immigrants from receiving most low-income federal benefits for five years after arrival.

1996: Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act focuses on stemming illegal immigration and authorizes more funding for border patrols and fences. It also speeds detention and deportation procedures, creates new penalties for alien smuggling and establishes pilot programs aimed at identifying illegal immigrants in the workplace.

Frances Symes is a researcher for Congressional Quarterly.

Sources: CQ Almanac, US Citizenship and Immigration Services

Justice Department: Border Patrol Agents Assaulted Daily, Kidnappings Every 35 Hours in Phoenix, 1 in 5 Teens Using Drugs Predominantly Supplied by Mexican Traffickers
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
A Customs and Border Patrol agent patrols along the international border after sunset in Nogales, Ariz. Thursday, April 22, 2010. Illegal immigration and border security are heating up as issues after the slaying of a border-area rancher and imminent passage of state legislation to crack down on illegal immigration. (AP Photo/Matt York)

(CNSNews.com) - Three Border Patrol agents are assaulted on the average day at or near the U.S. border. Someone is kidnapped every 35 hours in Phoenix, Ariz., often by agents of alien smuggling organizations. And one-in-five American teenagers last year used some type of illegal drug, many of which were imported across the unsecured U.S.-Mexico border.

These facts are reported in the recently released National Drug Threat Assessment for 2010, published by the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department. They ought to add some perspective to the national debate raging over Arizona’s new law that requires local law enforcement officers to make a “reasonable attempt” to determine the immigration status of persons they legally come into contact with and whom they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally

Assaults on Border Patrol agents have massively escalated in recent years, according to the Justice Department threat assessment, which was released on March 25. “Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) agents increased 46 percent from 752 incidents in FY2006 to 1,097 incidents in FY 2008,” says the assessment. Given that there are 365 days in the year, 1,097 assaults equals 3 per day.

“Contributing most to this increase were rocking assaults, which rose 77 percent from 435 incidents in FY2006 to 769 incidents in FY2008,” said the assessment. A “rocking assault,” the assessment explains, “is defined as the throwing of rocks at Border Patrol agents by drug or alien smugglers with the intent of threatening or causing physical harm to the agent.”

The assessment also noted that Border Patrol agents are sometimes murdered in the line of duty. “However, some assaults against USBP agents in California have been deadly,” it said, “including the January 2008 murder of a USBP officer who was struck and killed by the automobile of a fleeing drug suspect in Imperial County and the fatal shooting of a USBP officer investigating suspicious activity in Campo in July 2009.”

The assessment indicates that kidnappings have become commonplace in Phoenix, Ariz., because families involved in alien smuggling have moved there to escape inter-smuggling-organization violence in Mexico.

“Although much of the violence attributed to conflicts over control of the smuggling routes has been confined to Mexico, some has occurred in the United States,” says the Justice Department assessment. “Violence in the United States … has been limited primarily to attacks against alien smuggling organization (ASO) members and their families—some of whom have sought refuge from violence in Mexico by moving to U.S. border communities such as Phoenix. For example, in recent years, kidnappings in Phoenix have numbered in the hundreds, with 260 in 2007, 299 in 2008, and 267 in 2009.”

The 267 kidnappings in Phoenix in 2009 equals one kidnapping every 1.37 days—or one every 35 hours.

“Nineteen percent of youth aged 12 to 17 report past year illicit drug use,” the report says. That is approximately one out of every five teenagers in the United States.

The main drug suppliers for these American teenagers are Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs), which increasingly dominate the U.S. market for illegal drugs.

“Mexican DTOs continue to represent the single greatest drug trafficking threat to the United States,” says the Justice Department assessment. “Mexican DTOs, already the predominant wholesale suppliers of illicit drugs in the United States, are gaining even greater strength in eastern drug markets where Columbian DTO strength is diminishing.”

Drug production is up in Mexico, the assessment said, and thanks to a massive network of criminal gangs on this side of the border with whom they can do business, the Mexican DTOs now distribute their wares in communities all across America.

“Mexican DTOs increased the flow of several drugs (heroin, methamphetamine, and marijuana) into the United States, primarily because they increased production of those drugs in Mexico,” said the assessment.

“In 2009, midlevel and retail drug distribution in the United States was dominated by more than 900,000 criminally active gang members representing approximately 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities.”

“Mexican DTOs were the only DTOs operating in every region of the country,” said the threat assessment.

Arizona immigrant law energizes

Hispanics, Democrats

By Tim Gaynor

PHOENIX (Reuters) – U.S. Hispanics and Democratic lawmakers furious over Arizona’s harsh crackdown on illegal immigrants expect huge weekend rallies across the United States, piling pressure on President Barack Obama to overhaul immigration laws in this election year.

Protest organizers said on Wednesday outrage over the Arizona law — which seeks to drive illegal immigrants out of the state bordering Mexico — has galvanized Latinos and would translate into a higher turnout for May Day rallies in more than 70 U.S. cities.

“The marches and demonstrations are going to be far more massive than they otherwise would have been,” said Juan Jose Gutierrez, a Los Angeles rally organizer who runs an immigration assistance company.

The backlash began on Friday after Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a measure that requires state and local police to determine a person’s immigration status if there is “reasonable suspicion” they are undocumented. Critics say it is unconstitutional and opens the door to racial profiling.

Republican backers of the law say it is needed to curb crime in the desert state, which is a key corridor for drug and migrant smugglers from Mexico.

A Rasmussen Reports poll on Wednesday found that almost two-thirds — 64 percent — of voters in the state favored the measure.

The crowds on the streets, from Los Angeles to New York, could be the biggest since 2006, when hundreds of thousands of marchers urged former President George W. Bush to overhaul of federal immigration laws. He tried, but failed in Congress.

“With what’s going on in Arizona we see renewed energy for folks to fight for immigration reform,” said Marissa Graciosa, of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, an organizer of rallies and vigils on Friday and Saturday.

In Washington, a diverse group of more than two dozen lawmakers — Hispanics, blacks, Asians, whites — held a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday to denounce the Arizona law as a violation of civil rights.

“What Arizona has done is that it has galvanized, united, fortified, focused our immigration movement,” Democratic Representative Luis Gutierrez declared at the news conference.

MEXICAN TAXI BOYCOTT

The Arizona law has catapulted the immigration issue back to the front and center of U.S. politics in this congressional election year, and ratcheted up pressure on Obama to keep a pledge to Hispanics to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

“It is going to allow us to ultimately say — when all is said and done — that this was the clear pivotal moment,” said Gutierrez, who is head of the congressional Hispanic caucus’ immigration task force.

U.S. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid, who faces a tough re-election battle in Nevada where Latinos helped clinch victory for Obama in 2008, said on Wednesday he would work to pass energy legislation before tackling immigration reform, although both are seen as election-year long shots.

Passing an overhaul offering a path to citizenship for many of the 10.8 million illegal immigrants in the United States would consolidate support for Democrats among Hispanics, the country’s largest minority, but would run the risk of energizing Republican opposition to Democratic lawmakers in swing states and districts.

Arizona’s bold move reverberated well beyond its borders, sparking calls for economic boycotts and celebrity interventions.

Colombian-born pop star Shakira said she will travel to Phoenix on Thursday to help campaign against the new law, and would meet with Mayor Phil Gordon, police and Latino families. She sought a meeting with Governor Brewer but was turned down, her publicist said.

Adding to calls to shun the state, Saint Paul, Minnesota, Mayor Chris Coleman on Wednesday banned publicly funded travel to Arizona. The state law set a “dangerous example to the rest of the country,” he said, by creating a culture that made racial profiling acceptable.

The National Conference of State Legislatures said similar state immigration enforcement laws may be proposed in Georgia and Texas in coming months, following a summer recess.

In Mexico, where the government has warned its citizens living in or traveling to Arizona that they could be harassed, taxi drivers organized their own peculiar boycott.

“We don’t give service to gringos from Arizona,” was the phrase some Mexico City taxi drivers painted in white on their rear windows.

(Additional reporting by Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Tom Ferraro and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington and Catherine Bremer in Mexico City; editing by Mary Milliken and Eric Walsh)

To Hell with Earth Day, May Day & Cinco De Mayo By JB Williams

Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday, not an American holiday. Unless Americans are ready to concede their nation to Mexico, they need not celebrate Mexican holidays.

More… Victory in Arizona: God Bless Governor Jan Brewer! By John Lillpop

Let the record show that on April 23, 2010, the Janet Napolitano era of partisan pandering to invading criminals was abruptly ended by an extraordinary act of courage and intelligence by a responsible American, Janet Brewer, Governor of Arizona.

More.

- FOXNews.com

- April 15, 2010

ICE Busts Massive Human Smuggling Ring That Stretches Length of U.S.

More than 800 law enforcement agents swooped down on a massive human smuggling ring in Arizona early Thursday morning, delivering a “stunning blow” to a criminal network that helped shuttled illegal immigrants all around the country.

More than 800 law enforcement agents swooped down on a massive human smuggling ring in Arizona early Thursday morning, delivering a “stunning blow” to a criminal network that helped shuttled illegal immigrants all around the country.

Thursday’s strike is the largest coordinated action ever led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which partnered with eight other federal, state and local agencies to arrest 47 suspects in Phoenix, Tucson, Nogales and Rio Rico, Arizona.

“Alien smugglers are a scourge,” ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton said. “They violate our borders … [and] profit at our expense by knowingly breaking our laws, day in and day out. Today we turned the tables on the smugglers.”

ICE agents targeted shuttle van services they believe have ferried thousands of illegal immigrants from southern Arizona to Phoenix, providing passengers fake $30 ride receipts and even coaching them on how to answer law enforcement agents if the buses were stopped at immigration checkpoints along the highway. From there the illegal immigrants were left at drop-houses or brought to shuttle services that offer rides to destinations all over the West Coast.

ICE alleges that the businesses are part of a larger smuggling operation that carries illegal immigrants over the border from Mexico “to the far corners of the United States” — places as far-flung as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Morton said multiple rings had been “stopped in their tracks,” touting what he called an “unprecedented level of cooperation” with Mexican federal police, which arrested a leading smuggler south of the U.S. border on Thursday.

Inside the U.S., the owners and operators of the Tucson-based Saguaro Roadrunner Shuttles, America’s Shuttles, Guerro’s Shuttles and Nogales Express Shuttles were all targeted in the raid, as were the operators of a fifth shuttle company in Phoenix, Sergio’s Shuttle.

On the surface the vans appear like any other shared-ride shuttles, taking about a dozen passengers around southern Arizona. But ICE officials said the companies relied almost entirely on criminal activity.

ICE dubbed the investigation “Operation In Plain Sight” because of the “brazen” nature of the alleged smuggling scheme, which helped immigrants from Mexico, Central America and even China escape the watchful eye of border agents.

“The defendants wrongly believed they could operate with impunity by hiding behind the veil of legitimacy these businesses provided,” said Morton, adding that ICE has “dismantled these transnational organizations and literally seized the engines that were driving the criminal enterprise.”

U.S. Attorney Dennis K. Burke said the operation dealt a “stunning blow” to international smuggling, “a vast conspiracy unearthed and now dismantled.”

ICE officials said the smugglers were not believed to be violent, but stressed the far-reaching implications of their alleged crimes.

“This isn’t a mom and pop enterprise. It’s major international crime operating across borders with profits literally into the billions,” Morton said.

“The smugglers care about only one thing: money. They aren’t concerned about the human cost or the toll smuggling takes on our quality of life, the integrity of our borders or our nation’s security.”

Law enforcement agents executed dozens of search and arrest warrants as far away as Tennessee on Thursday, the culmination of an investigation that has lasted more than two years.

Officials denied that the timing of the raids was tied to the murder of Arizona rancher Robert Krentz, who was gunned down on his own property on March 27. Officials investigating the killing believe an illegal immigrant may have been responsible for the killing, which occurred near Arizona’s border with Mexico.

The raids — long in the making — had been delayed multiple times, ICE officials said.

Thursday’s actions involved agents from nine law enforcement agencies: ICE, FBI, DEA, ATF, Customs and Border Protection, Arizona’s Department of Public Safety, Pima County Sheriff’s Department, Tuscon Police Department and Phoenix Police Department.

ICE officials said they were not focusing on rounding up illegal immigrants but on bringing in the smugglers themselves, some of whom are citizens and legal residents of the U.S. The agency said it would take appropriate enforcement action if illegal immigrants were encountered during the raids.

Indictments were being issued against the owners and operators of the shuttle services on charges that include money laundering, alien smuggling and conspiracy. Suspects are due in court as early as Friday.

Officials said they seized $10 million in assets, including real estate, vehicles used for the smuggling and other property.

ICE officials predicted that the strike would put an immediate freeze on smuggling activity in Arizona, having “dismantled” the smuggling network and arrested key players in the international ring.

Though ICE predicted other groups would move in to take the place of the smugglers rounded up Thursday, the agency believes it will take a good deal of time for so sophisticated an operation to be put in place again.

Border Murder Highlights Administration’s Failure

by Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski

The tragic murder of a Good Samaritan rancher by an illegal immigrant in Arizona has people yelling for an effective response to this outrage. Although most illegal immigrants are just human beings that are desperately seeking to provide for themselves and their families, this murder shines a spotlight on the Obama administration’s utter failure to secure our borders and uphold the rule of law.

A top story on March 30 is that Arizona rancher Robert Krentz was apparently gunned down by an illegal immigrant. Krentz’s family has maintained a ranch in southern Arizona since 1907, and he was known as a compassionate man who gave water and medical care to illegal immigrants crossing his land from Mexico.

Krentz was found shot to death, slumped over his vehicle on his ranch. Police dogs tracked the shooter to the Mexican border 15 miles away, indicating that the shooter was almost certainly someone in this country illegally from Mexico.

The murder of this good man casts in stark relief the outrageous failure of President Barack Obama and Secretary Janet “the system worked” Napolitano to deal with the enormous problem America faces as a result of illegal immigrants. Perhaps if they weren’t so busy taking over the economy (which the Constitution forbids them from doing), they’d actually secure the border (which the Constitution requires them to do).

(more…)

Here Are OUR ‘Voter’ Numbers Countering the Pro-Amnesty ‘March For America’

By Roy Beck, Wednesday, March 24, 2010, 10:42 AM EDT – posted on NumbersUSA

Our grassroots mobilization numbers are in for last weekend, and I have no doubt that there were far more of you standing up for 25 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job than there were marchers on the National Mall demanding that the jobs stay with 8 million illegal aliens.

And when we just count voters among them and us, well . . . . . .

As has been well-documented, the big pro-amnesty march/rally on Sunday and the last two months of PR build-up across the country was backed by tens of millions of dollars from George Soros, Carnegie Foundation, Ford Foundation and the giant SEIU unions.

All that was available to back unemployed Americans was the volunteer personpower of compassionate, community-minded U.S. voters who answered our call to make their voices heard.

And, boy, did you!

• More than 7,000 of you signed up to visit the home offices of more than 400 Members of Congress last Friday.
• More than 8,000 of you responded to our request for you to make phone calls into the DC offices of all 535 Members of Congress on Monday.
• More than 90,000 came onto our website on Sunday while we were webcasting our interviews and coverage of the pro-amnesty march.
• Our computerized telecommunication system processed 149,216 faxes into Congress during the Friday through Monday period.

Although some march enthusiasts have bandied about figures like 200,000 for the size of the march, most observers have put the number between 60,000 and 100,000. Our personal visits with officials who deal with these marches all the time and privately estimate based on how many big screens are put up, the parts of the Mall grid that are packed and the parts that are loosely filled, etc., it sounds like 60,000 is the more likely figure.

Whatever the actual number, which nobody knows, it was a big and impressive turnout.

And, as some of the pro-amnesty blogs have said in ridiculing NumbersUSA’s efforts, riding a bus across America and spending a day or two in DC is a whole lot larger commitment than somebody sending a fax or phone call from home.

Nonetheless, candidates for office next fall ultimately have to care about only one thing about each person — the vote.

It doesn’t matter whether the person behind the vote came to DC or made a phone call, it all boils down to one vote per voter.

And that is where the scales tip decidely in our favor.

I can just about guarantee you that 98% or more of the people behind the numbers up there in those NumbersUSA bullet points are U.S. citizens who can vote.

On the Mall Sunday?

Well, in order to vote, you have to be a U.S. citizen. To be a citizen, you have to pass an English test. We had a dozen people in multiple teams scattered throughout the rally and found that a high majority of those present could not communicate in English at all. Even if a lot of the marchers were legal residents, it is doubtful that many of them are citizens and voters.

The SEIU unions bused in a lot of mute human props (and I’m not talking about their mimes) for their theatre on the Mall. But will anybody in Congress really be more concerned about those non-voters than all the voters who visited, phoned and faxed their offices over our S.T.O.P. Amnesty in 4 Days campaign?

The pro-amnesty side may have the big bucks to generate a lot of op-eds from the elites and a lot of noise from non-voters, but most Members of Congress still know that most of their voters back home have views more in keeping with all the people who participated In NumbersUSA’s four days of mobilized suppport for our 25 million Americans without a full-time job.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Latest Farmers Branch Rental Ordinance Struck Down

Updated 6:53 PM CDT, Thu, Mar 25, 2010

Getty Images

A federal judge has ruled that a Farmers Branch ordinance banning illegal immigrants from renting apartments is unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle of Dallas ruled Wednesday that the ordinance was an attempt to enforce U.S. immigration laws, something only the federal government can do.

“Ordinance 2952 is a regulation of immigration and is preempted by the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution because the authority to regulate immigration is exclusively a federal power,” she wrote.

The ordinance established a licensing system for renters in Farmers Branch. Renters would be required to pay a $5 fee and obtain a residential occupancy license issued by the city’s building inspector. Under the system, the building inspector would verify a renter’s immigration status with federal officials if the renter did not declare him or herself a citizen or national of the United States. The city would revoke the licenses of people the federal government said were in the country illegally.

Farmers Branch Appeal Could be Expensive

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Boyle said in her ruling that the measure uses federal immigration classifications in ways that aren’t authorized or contemplated by federal law.

“As a result, the ordinance creates and additional restriction on alien residence in the city,” she wrote.

The judge also said in her ruling that Ordinance 2952 “directly and substantially” regulates the residence of immigrants in Farmers Branch, which interferes with the uniform enforcement of federal immigration laws.

The city has for years been trying to enforce bans on landlords renting to illegal immigrants. Federal courts have also struck down other versions of the ordinance.

Mayor Tim O’Hare, who supports Ordinance 2952, told The Dallas Morning News that he favors appealing the ruling, but said the City Council would have to vote on that.

The City Council will vote next month on whether or not to continue fighting.

But Elizabeth Villafranca, a restaurant owner, said the money the city would spend on appealing could be better spent.

“This is irresponsible, especially in these economic times,” she said.

Villafranca said continuing the fight could also hurt development.

“Big businesses are not going to come here to do new development if the city is perceived as being backward,” she said.

But O’Hare said the city has seen development, and is likely to see more with DART rail on the way.

“What is the cost of doing nothing?” he said. “And the cost of doing nothing, it affects your school districts, it affects your shopping centers.”

O’Hare said he thinks the city can win on appeal.

“What we seem to have gotten away form in this country is doing what the people that elected you want you to do,” he said.

Get More:
Read the judge’s opinion and order (PDF)

Previous Coverage:

• Farmers Branch Must Pay $470,000 in Fees
• Farmers Branch Legal Fight Costs Big Bucks
• Former FB Council Member Sues City
• Judge: City Withholding Documents in Illegal Immigrant Ban
• Apartments Ask About Tattoos, But Shy Away from Immigration

NBC DFW’s Lita Beck and Ken Kalthoff contributed to this report.

Copyright Associated Press / NBC Dallas-Fort Worth

First Published: Mar 24, 2010 3:52 PM CD

Refugee numbers so far this year

Posted by acorcoran on February 19, 2010

We are 4 months into the 2010 fiscal year.  The Obama Administration is aiming to resettle 80,000 refugees by September 30th.   Check out the numbers here.  So far we have brought into an economy in recession 22,502.   Top sending countries are as follows:

Burma:  3,859

Bhutan (really Nepal):  3,849

Iraq:  3,639

Somalia:  1,111

For those concerned about Muslim immigration.  Most of the Iraqis are Muslims, all of the Somalis are Muslims and a smattering of the Burmese are Muslims.  The Worldwide Refugee Processing Center keeps track of the religions of all refugees entering the US, but they won’t release that information to the public.  Indeed the general public cannot access this site.

http://refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/refugee-numbers-so-far-this-year/

Recent Media On Capturing Hispanic Vote Misses That Most Hispanics Think Immigration Too High

By Roy Beck, Thursday, February 25, 2010, 2:45 PM EST – posted on NumbersUSA

Highly paid PR firms for the open-borders lobby have gotten stories in many major newspapers this month suggesting that the only way to attract the Hispanic vote is to favor a comprehensive amnesty and also an increase in foreign workers. But a massive Zogby poll shows Hispanic views to be quite different.

If 56% of likely Hispanic voters (according to Zogby) think immigration already is too high, and only 7% think it is too low, why would a politician push for a jump in immigration? Not only would it apparently satisfy only 7% of likely Hispanic voters, but it definitely would turn off the majority of other voters concerned about high unemployment.

Several former Bush allies are working overtime to keep elected Republican leaders from helping unemployed Americans by importing less foreign labor.

Basically, what they are saying is that even if high immigration hurts U.S. workers, the Republicans should do the wrong thing in order to attract more Hispanic votes.

They aren’t just wrong morally, they are wrong in their counting. If few Republican candidates ever get more than 35% of the Hispanic vote, why would they think they can attract more by pushing for higher immigration when 56% of Hispanic voters want less?

Other open-borders consultants are pushing Democratic leaders to force a vote on amnesty this year as the only way to get Hispanics to come to the polls and vote for Democrats. But when Zogby gave likely Hispanic voters the choice between making illegal immigrants go home over time through better enforcement and giving them a path to citizenship, they favored attrition through enforcement by 52% to 34% over amnesty.

The one thing the consultants have right is that it makes a difference how politicians oppose amnesty and oppose foreign labor importation. Obviously, if the rhetoric is aimed at opposing Hispanics specificially, that is going to hurt with the Hispanic vote. But both Democrats and Republicans need to constantly remember that immigration policy is not about ethnicity but about numbers.

It is nice to have Zogby’s confirmation that likely Hispanic voters look for a practical numerical immigration policy in about the same way as the rest of U.S. voters.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

NumbersUSA’s blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety, including this paragraph, and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted.

Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.

States Pass E-Verify Laws

• Overview
• Update
• Polls
• In the News

Overview

Several states have passed legislation requiring employers to use E-Verify. E-Verify is an employment verification tool managed by the Department of Homeland Security that uses information from the Social Security Administration and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to determine an applicant’s eligibility to work.

Related Issues

188,358 Businesses Using E-Verify – Generating 5 Million Inquiries Since October

Tuesday, February 23, 2010, 4:03 PM EST – posted on NumbersUSA

A new report from the Department of Homeland Security reveals that 188,358 businesses are using E-Verify at nearly 700,000 worksites. More than 50,000 businesses have signed up for E-Verify in the last six months and the number of worksites has almost doubled since January of 2009.

The number of inquiries since October of 2009 is 5.1 million. There were approximately 6 million total inquiries in all of 2008.

Arizona has the largest number of businesses using E-Verify with 33,110 businesses at 58,871 worksites. Arizona requires all businesses – public and private – to use E-Verify. Mississippi and South Carolina also have mandatory E-Verify laws in place for all businesses and have 3,039 and 4,346 businesses registered, respectively.

California has the largest number of worksites using E-Verify with 15,320 businesses using the system at 71,033 worksites. There have been 642,912 inquiries in California, second most in the nation. Missouri businesses have run 890,701 inquiries since October of 2009, most in the nation. Missouri requires all state agencies and contractors to check new hires through E-Verify.

See a map of states with mandatory E-Verify laws in place.

Conservative Leaders (not activists) Cold-Shoulder The Jobless By Ignoring Immigration

By Roy Beck, Sunday, February 21, 2010, 8:46 PM EST – posted on NumbersUSA

Most of the spotlighted conservative leaders at the giant CPAC convention this weekend showed that they are far more interested in the feelings of Republican Party major donors than in offering help for 25 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job.

Americans might have hoped that finally at this meeting there would be a sign of true leadership in stopping the massive importation of new foreign workers during a jobs depression. But on that topic, hope was as scarce as at the Obama White House.

But reports from those at the convention (I wasn’t there) indicated that the thousands of (mostly young) conservative attendees seemed to have a much better grasp of what the country needs on immigration.

They exploded into a standing ovation when a freshman congressman on Saturday finally broke the taboo and stated emphatically:

We need to lock down the border and enforce visas, reject amnesty and enforce our current laws, get rid of our rewards and incentives to be here illegally, mandate E-Verify . . . .

– Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)

For three days, one star speaker after another from Congress, from the media, from the conservative pantheon and from potential presidential hopefuls glaringly avoided immigration when given the microphone in the big room. (See P.S. about a couple of exceptions.)

The mood for the convention had been set even before the opening of the annual extravaganza for conservative activists when some of the inside leadership of the convention made a big news splash with the argument that conservatives should stop talking about limiting immigration (and should support some kind of amnesty) if the Republican Party is to have a decent chance at winning elections in the future.

I’ve got news for those kinds of conservatives: The political independents of America — who are deciding one key election after another — are not going to be attracted to the same Big-Business-As-Usual, Country-Club Republicanism of the Bush era that always put immigration ahead of struggling American workers and their families.

And the many eye-witness reports from the conversations in the hallways and exhibit areas suggest that immigration-avoidance doesn’t sell well with the rank-and-file conservative activists, either.

There were a couple of excellent break-out sessions where small audiences could actually hear the immigration issue discussed as if it demands an urgent response. But it seems there was a pent-up desire to hear immigration tackled in a forthright way in the Big Room. There was a satifying release of emotion when Chaffetz finally violated the immigration blackout.

All the potential presidential hopefuls could have had the adultation Chaffetz received as their own if they had only dared to speak the obvious truth that came during Chaffetz’ address on foreign policy:

If we are going to have an effective foreign policy that is true to our convictions then we need to address illegal immigration.

No longer can we ignore the immigration problem. I believe it’s highly immoral and very exploitive.

Remember that Chaffetz is the young upstart who challenged incumbent Congressman Chris Cannon in the Republican primary of 2008 and beat him because the voters wanted an alternative to Cannon who was the House Republican leader for amnesty.

Cannon had represented the approach to immigration advocated by the only CPAC leaders who spoke up on immigration this year (for amnesty). Chaffetz broke the taboo in Utah just as he broke it at CPAC.

Cannon stood for the cheap-labor business lobbyists and campaign contributors. Chaffetz stood for the unemployed Americans.

The conservative and Republican stars who spoke in the Big Room decided not to take sides between the Cannon and Chaffetz approach. They just decided to ignore immigration. And that meant ignoring 25 million U.S. workers who want a full-time job and can’t find one, in part because immigration policy gives out 160,000 permanent and temporary, new and renewal work visas EVERY MONTH.

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

P.S. Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) brought the room down on immigration in break-out session. And California gubernatorial candidate Steve Poizner in the Big Room (on the topic “Saving Freedom from the California Model”) said the state magnets for illegal immigration have to be cut off “once and for all” and the borders have to be secured by National Guard if necessary.

NumbersUSA’s blogs are copyrighted and may be republished or reposted only if they are copied in their entirety, including this paragraph, and provide proper credit to NumbersUSA. NumbersUSA bears no responsibility for where our blogs may be republished or reposted.

Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.

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Numbers USA

February 22, 2010

From:   Roy Beck, President, NumbersUSA

Date:   Sunday 21FEB2010     11 p.m. EST

CPAC convention shows that cheap-labor GOP controlling conservative stars

THERE ARE ALWAYS IMMIGRATION ACTIONS YOU CAN TAKE FOR FREE AT www.NumbersUSA.com.

DEAR CONSERVATIVE MEMBERS OF NUMBERSUSA,

It looks like even the conservative national leaders are pulling back from doing anything about immigration.

Most of the spotlighted conservative leaders at the giant CPAC convention this weekend showed that they are far more interested in the feelings of Republican Party major donors than in offering help for 25 million Americans who can’t find a full-time job.

Americans might have hoped that finally at this meeting there would be a sign of true leadership in stopping the massive importation of new foreign workers during a jobs depression. But on that topic, hope was as scarce as at the Obama White House.

But reports from those at the convention (I wasn’t there) indicated that the thousands of (mostly young) conservative attendees seemed to have a much better grasp of what the country needs on immigration.

They exploded into a standing ovation when a freshman congressman on Saturday finally broke the taboo and stated emphatically:

“We need to lock down the border and enforce visas, reject amnesty and enforce our current laws, get rid of our rewards and incentives to be here illegally, mandate E-Verify . . . . ”

– Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)

For three days, one star speaker after another from Congress, from the media, from the conservative pantheon and from potential presidential hopefuls glaringly avoided immigration when given the microphone in the big room.

The mood for the convention had been set even before the opening of the annual extravaganza for conservative activists when some of the inside leadership of the convention made a big news splash with the argument that conservatives should stop talking about limiting immigration (and should support some kind of amnesty) if the Republican Party is to have a decent chance at winning elections in the future.

Read the rest of my blog at this link.

Friends, the old-time elites of the Republican Party have shown over the weekend that they are gaining control of the Tea Party movement message (more about that tomorrow) and have already largely gained control at the CPAC conservative leadership. They are determined to keep conservative citizen movements from pushing for immigration reductions.

If you are concerned about this trend, I hope you will forward this email to all of your conservative lists and friends.

And remember, that there are always immigration actions you can take for free at www.NumbersUSA.com.

THANKS,

Californians for Population Stabilization

February 17, 2010

America stands virtually alone among first-world democracies in granting automatic citizenship or birthright citizenship to babies born by women illegally in this country. Our latest CAPS Issues piece, “American Jackpot: The Remaking of America by Birthright Citizenship,” produced in cooperation with NumbersUSA and U.S., Inc., explains how and why the incorrect interpretation of the 14^th amendment has been exploited to our detriment and what can be done to end it.

Having a U.S. citizen baby is a lure to illegal entrants, to legal immigrants and to “birth tourists” who come here from many parts of the world.

American Jackpot: The Remaking of America by Birthright Citizenship

By Mark Cromer, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
Birthright Citizenship

There is something sublimely grand about the term itself, evoking the notion that the most fundamental civic right an American can possess-citizenship-through which access to virtually all other constitutionally enshrined rights and protections pass, is bestowed to all who are blessed enough to take their first gasp of earthly air on American soil. It is held among our people’s core beliefs as something that is intrinsically American, an iconic reflection of the generous character of the American spirit that delivers on the Statue of Liberty’s plea to send her those huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Indeed, the United States today stands virtually alone among power-house industrial democracies in granting unequivocal birth citizenship. The notion of being an instant American if born on United States soil has been so romanticized at critical junctures in our evolving popular culture it is now seen by many as a fundamental characteristic of the American identity. Consequently, the growing calls to end the practice are viewed by some as a heretical departure from what makes this country a beacon of hope to so many around the world.

So there’s no small amount of irony in the fact that the policy of granting birthright citizenship in America has become a core gravitational ‘pull factor’ that has resulted in the largest sustained wave of mass human migration ever witnessed in the history of the nation-state; a human tsunami that has played a critical role in the rapid erosion of the quality of life that so many immigrants seek on these shores. It also increasingly poses a non-consensual makeover of the culture that American citizens had neither voice nor vote in unleashing.

CLICK HERE to keep reading.
CLICK HERE to send to your local media outlets.

If you would like hard copies to send to your Congressional Representatives, please contact us at: media@CAPSweb.org

Numbers USA

February 17, 2010

DEAR FRIENDS,

The liberal Democratic impulse seems to have moved the Obama Administration to make some good decisions in reversing Bush Administration rules for temporary foreign agricultural workers.

We put a fax on your Action Board corkboard yesterday that you can send to all from your state who sit on the U.S. House and Senate committees that oversee and fund the Labor Department which will see that new rules are implemented.

ACTION: Send this fax.

An Associated Press report on the new Obama regulations states that they will:

• require growers to make a greater effort to offer their crop-picking jobs to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens already in this country
• mandate that jobs be posted on an electronic registry to more widely publicize jobs to U.S. workers
• increase the minimum wage for the foreign workers by about a dollar an hour

I haven’t had a chance to see a full analysis of all the rule changes, but my first inclination is to say bravo, bravo and bravo to the Obama Administration.

At the end of the Bush Administration, it had issued new regulations to make it easier for growers to bring in foreign labor and to pay them less.

Unions and other liberal groups howled that the rules would further disadvantage some of the most vulnerable workers in America just because giant business lobbying groups had the power to do it.

The liberal impulse has been just right on this immigration issue.

” . . . labor and immigrant rights groups claimed the Bush administration regulations had the effect of depressing wages and made it harder for domestic workers to apply for the jobs.”

– Associated Press, “Labor Dept reverses Bush-era regulations on seasonal foreign farm workers” by Sam Hananel, 11FEB2010

The labor and immigrant rights groups — which usually are our opponents on immigration issues — are making the point we always make about importing foreign labor, whether permanently or temporarily:

When you increase the supply of labor in an occupation, you lower the value of labor which depresses wages and especially disadvantages the U.S. workers who already are in that occupation.

The changes reflect the administration’s commitment ” to providing fair wages and strong labor protections for the most vulnerable groups of workers.”

– Labor Secretary Hilda Solis

The rules “restore some protection against employers that would like to hire cheap foreign labor.”

– Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice

AP noted that the Bush administration had responded to pressure from the growers to loosen the H-2A visa rules which they claimed were so time-consuming that farmers sometimes had to let crops rot in the fields because they couldn’t find enough workers at harvest time. AP stated that the new rules would retain some of the efforts to streamline processing times, “but not enough to satisfy growers.”

NumbersUSA has never been able to validate the claims of widespread “crops rotting in fields.”

But NumbersUSA has had some sympathy for the growers’ complaints about needless red-tape and delays in the H-2A program. (By the way, there is no limit on how many foreign workers any grower can bring through the H-2A program.)

• We advocate a process that is vigorous in posting job openings on the internet for all domestic unemployment offices and job placement organizations to use with ease.
• We favor a pre-approval process of foreign workers in their home country so that when a grower is short-handed even three days before harvest it will be possible to engage contract-labor companies which will be able to notify and transport the foreign labor to the farm in time for the harvest.
• But the H-2A program should always be the last resort.

Every major study of ag work has found that U.S. citizens and legal immigrant farmworkers in this country do not get nearly enough hours of work during the year. In fact, the studies find, the U.S. tends to have a surplus of farmworkers (who disproportionately are foreign born) who lack good systems for placing them in available jobs when they open up.

I don’t know about you but I really don’t want to feel guilty every time I sit down to eat, thinking that my food has been provided in part by farm workers who are paid poverty wages and kept in a peasant status. Various studies have suggested that the hourly pay for field workers could be DOUBLED without raising our prices at the supermarket by more than 5%.

I say that wages and working conditions in the fields should be whatever it takes to fill the jobs with domestic labor. Why should we expect any job in America to pay less than an American wage at less than American working conditions.

Some spokesmen for the growers claim that higher wages will force them to cease producing certain crops (which will have to be grown in other countries) and switch to different crops. I don’t see the harm in that. The farmers will still be working their land and making money off it. But they will be doing so with crops that don’t require impoverished workers who depend on taxpayers to provide for most of their needs.

As long as the H-2A visa provides the ability of a grower to procure foreign labor in just a few days in case of an emergency, the Obama idea of providing more pressure to find domestic workers who will be earning a better livelihood seems great to me.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT OF DECENT TREATMENT OF AMERICAN AG WORKERS,

DHS Estimates 1 Million Fewer Illegal Aliens

Tuesday, February 9, 2010, 8:00 PM EST – posted on NumbersUSA

A new DHS reports estimates that the population of illegal aliens living in the United States declined by nearly 1 million from the start of 2008 to the start of 2009. The report says that 11.6 million illegal aliens resided in the country in January of 2008, but they estimate a drop to 10.8 million in January of 2009.

From 2008 and 2009, the illegal alien population increased by 27%. The new 10.8 million estimate is the lowest since 2005 and the first time there has been a decrease since 2000 (although DHS did not estimate the illegal alien population from 2001-2004).

Of the 10.8 million, 8.5 million are from North America with an overwhelming 62% coming from Mexico.

California continues to have the largest illegal alien population with more than 2.6 million illegal aliens living in the state. More than 1.6 million reside in Texas with 720,000 residing in Florida.

In 2008, the year of the cited decrease, the United State conducted some of its largest worksite immigration enforcement actions in history. Immigration Customs and Enforcement officials arrested 600 suspected illegal aliens at a Mississippi electrical plant, more than 300 at a poultry plant in South Carolina, and close to 400 suspected illegal aliens at a Kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa.

See the full DHS report

Half of Immigrant Families on Welfare! SIGN PETITION to Suspend Future Unneeded Immigration

LET’S REALLY DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS IMMIGRATION WELFARE DRAIN

TODAY, IT IS A PETITION CAMPAIGN

Yesterday, I gave you some opportunities to contact your own Members of Congress demanding that they stop importing poverty and importing pressure for more government by adding 23 million people to immigrant households each decade.

Today, we’re starting a petition campaign to the 3 leaders who pretty much run Washington — Pres. Obama, Speaker of the House Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid.

This petition is based on one fact:

HALF OF IMMIGRANT HOUSEHOLDS WITH CHILDREN

COLLECT WELFARE BENEFITS!!

If you are outside Pelosi’s District or Reid’s state, a petition is a better way to get to them than our usual fax system.

It also is an easier way for you to get new people involved in fighting for more sensible immigration policies.

Every friend or relative who is concerned about skyrocketing federal budget deficits or the growth in government is likely to be disturbed by this.

Yes, HALF of all immigrant families are using welfare, especially food and Medicaid welfare! This includes illegal AND legal immigrants. Amazing. See my blog to read the whole ugly story.

With Pres. Obama pledged to reducing our deficits, isn’t this a good time to send hundreds of thousands of petitions to him, Reid and Pelosi suggesting a suspension of most immigration that is driving those deficits up?

Let’s reach out to as many American voters as possible to sign the petition (full text below).

In this time of spiraling deficits and government cutbacks, the nation’s top elected officials are all calling for MORE immigration and even AMNESTY for illegal aliens.

Please sign the petition here ask for the opposite policies.

Petition Campaign to Obama, Reid and Pelosi. (See text below.)

Text of petition

Half of all immigrant households with children are on welfare. HALF! These are supposed to be people doing “jobs Americans won’t do.” Sounds more like they’re collecting government benefits U.S. citizens can’t get!

President Obama, Senate Leader Reid, and Speaker Pelosi, we call on you to SUSPEND all future non-essential immigration.

The federal budget deficit$1.4 Trillion and rising can’t afford to pay out Medicaid and food stamp benefits to more poor immigrants that America obviously does not need.

And yet, all of you are calling for INCREASED immigration and even an AMNESTY for illegal aliens! Your judgment is badly flawed! Higher immigration and amnesty will cause taxes and deficits to rise.

It’s time for you to admit that your ideas about immigration are out-of-date and destructive. Suspend non-essential immigration now!

That’s the petition.

Friends, can’t you find 10 people to sign that petition because they are horrified that half of all the immigrant families brought into the country each year require welfare?

Please sign the petition here. Then fill in a bunch of referrals.

1/2 immigrant households use welfare — 23 million added to immigrant households each decade

ARE YOU CONCERNED ABOUT THE SIZE OF GOVERNMENT AND THE FEDERAL DEBT?

NumbersUSA doesn’t take a stand on whether government should be smaller or bigger. But we are amazed at the national Republican leaders who criticize Pres. Obama for bloating government but then they do nothing to reduce immigration.

In fact, we have learned that GOP leaders in Washington are telling their colleagues that they don’t want Congress to do anything about immigration during this election year.

They don’t want to deal with immigration even though government data shows that ONE-HALF of all immigrant households with kids use the welfare system — while federal immigration policy adds 23 million people to those households every decade!

ACTION: If at least one of your 3 Members of Congress is a Republican:

You should find a fax to send them here telling them how disgusted you are that Republican leaders don’t want to reduce immigration and its gigantic cost to government.

ACTION: If you have taken our Interests Survey and indicated you are an Independent or Swing Voter, you should find two faxes to send:

(1) Fax to Republican National Chairman Michael Steele, telling him that he is wrong to tell Congress not to try to fix immigration this year because most Independent voters are holding their votes for politicians who will reduce deficits by getting rid of unnecessary costs like immigration.

(2) Fax to Republican leaders of the Senate and House, and give them the same message you are giving Steele.

ACTION: If your U.S. Representative is one of the few good guys and gals who is actually working to reduce immigration this year, you will find a fax here to cheer them on.

ACTION: If all of your Members of Congress are Democrats:

Look on your customized Action Board for other faxes that need sending.

Friends, it appears that national Republican leaders believe they can win back Congress by just letting the Democrats mess up while the Republicans do nothing to try to help protect Americans from the burdens of radically high immigration levels.

It is up to all of us to let them know that this behavior is not acceptable and will not be rewarded.

READ MY BLOG FOR DETAILS ON MASSIVE WELFARE DRAIN
OF LEGAL & ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

I hope you will click for a quick read of my blog explaining this issue and what congressional leaders are ignoring.

Here are a few of my points:

“For those of you whose primary political interest is stopping the growth of government or even shrinking it, you have to contend with national leaders who say they agree with you but who refuse to deal with immigration. They say immigration is a “social” issue that isn’t related to government spending and deficit issues. They couldn’t be more wrong.”

“With one-half of immigrant households with kids being poor enough to use the federal, state and local welfare systems, is there anybody blind enough to think that adding 2.3 million people a year to immigrant households is not driving huge increases in government?”

“Republican leaders may say they want to shrink Big Government, but not if it gets in the way of pleasing their cheap-labor corporate donors and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”

“The intent of the Republican leaders is to ensure that 23 million people continue to be added to the heavily welfare-using immigrant households each decade. That is one form of bigger government that the Republican leaders love.”

“Minutemen Prepare, Its Coming here!”

Juárez Students Massacred

MEXICO CITY – A gangland death squad killed at least 13 people, all but two of them high school students, and wounded as many as 17 others in an attack early Sunday in the bloody border city of Ciudad Juárez.

A squad of gunmen stormed a party shortly after midnight in a working class neighborhood on the city’s east side, a few minutes’ drive from the city’s police headquarters. The party was to celebrate a championship soccer game between two high schools and one student’s birthday.  While some of the attackers barricaded access to the residential street with their cars, others went room to room inside a small concrete house firing into the crowd of some 60 partygoers, witnesses said. Some students escaped by jumping over garden walls or taking refuge in neighboring houses. Others were gunned down as they fled.

“They went directly into the house and started shooting,” an unnamed neighbor told El Diario, a Juárez newspaper. “Some people ran, and they chased them down.” Police and soldiers didn’t arrive at the scene until well after the attack ended.

Photographs of the scene, published online by Juárez media, show several rooms of a humble concrete house riddled with bullets, with large pools of blood on the floors and on the sidewalk outside. Police recovered 200 bullets from the scene. Police didn’t immediately provide names and ages of the victims, but said most were between 15 and 20. Local media reported that Adrián Encino, 17, who recently had been honored by the state governor for academic achievement, was among those killed.

“He died in my arms,” said the boy’s sobbing grandfather, who’d rushed to the site.

A couple working a small stand selling snacks to the teens also were shot, the man killed and his wife severely wounded. Several of the wounded students were reported in very serious condition, and police warned the death toll could rise.

Such massacres have become alarmingly frequent since President Felipe Calderón launched a crackdown on Mexico’s criminal gangs more than three years ago. The gangland violence has killed more than 16,000 people since then, about a quarter of them in and near Juárez.

More than 2,600 people were slain last year in the city of 1.3 million people.  Officials said one of the slain students recently testified about another gangland killing in Juárez.  Sunday’s atrocity capped a violent month in Juárez in which at least 220 people were murdered, including 10 on Saturday. Across Mexico, gangland violence killed more than 800 people last month, according to a tally by Mexican media.

Also on Sunday, as many as 20 suspected gangsters attacked a police station with assault rifles and grenades in the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas. A policeman and two civilians, who were at the station to pay a fine, were killed. And in Sinaloa, the Pacific Coast state considered the cradle of Mexico’s drug gangs, gunmen ambushed a car carrying a state police official, killing him, another man and three women.

The bound bodies of seven men were dumped Saturday in Iguala, a small city southwest of Mexico City. Notes left with the corpses warned that the men’s fate awaits all “thieves, kidnappers and corrupt lawyers.” By DUDLEY ALTHAUS – Houston Chronicle. http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/13_teens_adults_killed_at_party_on_Mexican_border.html

In a recent article published by Al Garza, President of Patriots Coalition called; Bloody Borders, defines the horror south of the border.

“The viciousness of the Mexican cartels has been beyond belief. The Stanford Review indicated that between 2007-2009 at least 6800 people were murdered in “drug-related crimes”.

One officer of an elite army squad was killed in Tabasco, and the cartel gunman also killed 11 members of his family, including 6 children. Drug-related murders, decapitations, rapes, tortures, and human trafficking have been rampant the last few years. The cartels use those as means to terrorize the populace and to “suppress opposition”. Over 28,000 weapons were captured last year in Mexico. The Aztecas cross-border street gang had a hit-man member, Antonio Mendoza Ledezma, who confessed to police he had killed 140 people and had ordered the murders of another 60 since 2002. The cartels are in the business of selling illegal narcotics and trafficking human beings. They will do whatever it takes to gain the filthy lucre that those two enterprises bring.”

“Remember, If We Don’t Stop Amnesty, Drug Criminals Will Become U.S. Citizens!”

Jim Gilchrist – Founder and President of the Minuteman Project, Inc.

You must READ MORE……

News Flash

Letter From the Border

Deborah (Waters) Craig writes: I enjoyed returning to my hometown, for the recent anti illegal immigration rally, however I was disappointed to see my hometown newspaper, The Signal,  perpetuating uniformed, disproved, negative stereotypes of Minutemen, especially, a with letter sourcing, of all people, George Bush. Is the Signal still waiting for the weapons of Mass Destruction to be found in Iraq?

My husband and I are members of the Original Minuteman Project founded by Jim Gilchrist. For the past five years we have worked at the Mexican Border in Campo CA. Like Mr. Gilchrist, and many other Minutemen, my husband is a Purple Heart Veteran who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, which he continues to do to this day.

In additional to calling in  countless of numbers illegal border crossers and drug runs, the Minuteman at Campo have removed tons of trash left on Public Lands by Illegal Border Crossers. My husband attended a Civilian Border Watching Program run by the Yuma Border Patrol and the United States Department of Homeland Security. He was the sole civilian witness to the assassination of Border Agent Robert Rosas by Illegal Border Crossers over the summer. We also monitor and photograph the building of any fencing.

With the the complete disintegration of the Law and Order in Mexico, especially in the border towns, the security of our Border is more crucial than ever.

Here a photo I took of a group of heroic Minutemen, standing at  the place were Border Agent Robert Rosas was assassinated by an illegal border crosser.

Deborah Craig – Minutewoman

Don’t stop now, READ MORE

Dear Minutemen, Please forward this Minuteman Alert to at least 7 friends today. It is time to spread the word and protect our beloved nation. Make this your mission and help bring awareness to this critical issue.

Thank you,

Time To Gear-Up For The Coming Amnesty Fight!

Support The Continued Work Of The Minutemen!

Please click here to send your most generous donation.

Jim Gilchrist founded the multi-ethnic Minuteman Project on Oct. 1, 2004, after years of frustrated efforts trying to get a neglectful U.S. government to simply enforce existing immigration laws. Jim Gilchrist is a passionate defender of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and an avid supporter of law enforcement organizations. He has appeared on over 3,500 radio and TV news and commentary shows in shows in the past twelve months, and he believes he is only one of millions of 21st century minutemen / women / children who want the U.S. to remain governed by the “rule of law” and who want proactive enforcement of our national security protections and our immigration legal code.

Support the continued work of the Minuteman Project on behalf of our beloved nation.

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Immigration January 31, 2010

FAKE I.D. MILL SHUT DOWN IN VIRGINIA

BY: Minuteman Michael Cutler

ALERT: As you may remember, the findings of the 9/11 Commission determined that the 19 terrorists on 9/11 used dozens of false identities and variations of their true identities in furtherance of their terrorist objectives, paving the way for the Real ID Act.

The Virginian-Pilot article reports on the success of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) in an investigative effort that involved the infiltration of a criminal organization that specialized in cranking out false identity documents. According to the article, three suspects have been arrested and charged and all three are identified as being illegal aliens. The article did not report on the nationalities of the defendants, but it is to be presumed that they are citizens of a Latin American country.

The article also notes that for just $150, a person could create a brand new identity for himself. The article then makes the point that these documents would enable an illegal alien to seek employment in the United States. This use of such false identity documents, in and of itself, certainly represents a crime. However, while the article failed to mention it, I will: The use of false identity documents in order to establish a phony identity is also a tactic that is used by criminals and terrorists.

One of the first things a law enforcement officer does when he arrests a suspect is to fingerprint that suspect in an effort to determine the identity of the person he has in custody. Often job applicants are fingerprinted, especially if the prospective employee is to be bonded or work in an area that involves sensitive issues. Anyone who holds a security clearance is required to be fingerprinted to ascertain the identity of the employee to whom sensitive information may be provided.

To a criminal or terrorist, the truthful answer to one of the most commonly asked questions, “Who are you?” could uncover their malevolent intentions and unravel a criminal enterprise or terrorist attack. The use of false identity documents should be thought of as camouflage that conceals the identity and, potentially, the intentions of the person using the false documents.

I have seen arrest records that required extension sheets just to deal with the myriad false identities used by some of the criminals I have investigated and/or arrested as an INS special agent. Yet the title of the article simply addresses the use of false identity documents by “illegal immigrants.”

Fraud can take two forms - the manufacture of false or altered identity documents and schemes by which aliens are provided with lawful status or even United States citizenship by concealing material facts that would, if known, disqualify that alien from receiving immigration benefits. In some cases, the scheme involves marriage fraud, labor certification fraud or political asylum fraud. In addition, these tactics can and have been used to secure visas from U.S. consular officials at American consulates and embassies in foreign countries.

All of these efforts to produce counterfeit or altered documents or defraud the immigration system or the visa issuance program create a true nightmare for our nation and literally open the door to the entry and embedding of criminals and terrorists in addition to those illegal aliens whose goals are limited to securing illegal employment.

In May of 2004, I testified before the House Subcommittee on Border Security and Claims, at the behest of contacted by the subcommittee’s then-ranking Democrat, Sheila Jackson Lee. The subject of that hearing was “Pushing the Border Out on Alien Smuggling: New Tools and Intelligence Initiatives.” The focus was the issue of “traditional” alien smuggling in which aliens are assisted in running our nation’s borders, as well as the issue of visa fraud and immigration benefit fraud.

Consequently, I am certainly happy to see successes in combating those who would provide false identity documents but in the interest of clarity it is important to understand that these documents can be used for far more nefarious purposes than simply facilitating the employment of illegal aliens in the United States. It is also important to understand that these sorts of false documents were a real problem when our government na?vely implemented the amnesty of 1986. Back then, false rent receipts, pay stubs and other such “supporting documents” were cranked out at “warp speed” with the then crude tools available to such document mills that were purchased by aliens who sought to substantiate false claims to having resided in the United States for the requisite period of time in order to qualify to apply for amnesty.

The fraud rate back then was astronomical and today, with sophisticated desktop publishing available for relatively low costs, these document mills would easily provide millions of illegal aliens with credible-looking supporting documents that illegal aliens would, no doubt use to defraud the immigration system if our government is sufficiently inept and corrupt to enact another amnesty under the aegis of “Comprehensive Immigration Reform.”

In conjunction with the investigations conducted by the 9/11 Commission, 94 terrorists were identified as having operated in our country in the decade leading up to the attacks of September 11, 2001. Of those 94 individuals, 59 were determined to have used immigration fraud as a means of entering the United States and/or embedding themselves in communities around the United States.

The creation and use of false identity documents represents no less than a threat to national security.   It is incomprehensible and unforgivable that there are but a mere handful of special agents at ICE who are dedicated to uncovering these fraud rings and putting them out of business. It is also hard to comprehend how a news report on such a document ring would fail to consider how such false identity documents represent a huge threat to the security of our nation and the safety of our citizens.

January 29, 2010 – Michael Cutler – FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Michael Cutler is a Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies and a recognized authority who addresses the implications of immigration on national security and criminal justice.  Feedback: editorialdirector@familysecuritymatters.org – www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.5383/pub_detail.asp

You have got to READ MORE……

NEWS FLASH

LETTER FROM THE BORDER

Deborah (Waters) Craig writes: I enjoyed returning to my hometown, for the recent anti illegal immigration rally, however I was disappointed to see my hometown newspaper, The Signal,  perpetuating uniformed, disproved, negative stereotypes of Minutemen, especially, a with letter sourcing, of all people, George Bush. Is the Signal still waiting for the weapons of Mass Destruction to be found in Iraq?

My husband and I are members of the Original Minuteman Project founded by Jim Gilchrist. For the past five years we have worked at the Mexican Border in Campo CA. Like Mr. Gilchrist, and many other Minutemen, my husband is a Purple Heart Veteran who took an oath to defend the Constitution of the United States, which he continues to do to this day.

In additional to calling in  countless of numbers illegal border crossers and drug runs, the Minuteman at Campo have removed tons of trash left on Public Lands by Illegal Border Crossers. My husband attended a Civilian Border Watching Program run by the Yuma Border Patrol and the United States Department of Homeland Security. He was the sole civilian witness to the assassination of Border Agent Robert Rosas by Illegal Border Crossers over the summer. We also monitor and photograph the building of any fencing.

With the the complete disintegration of the Law and Order in Mexico, especially in the border towns, the security of our Border is more crucial than ever.

Here a photo I took of a group of heroic Minutemen, standing at  the place were Border Agent Robert Rosas was assassinated by an illegal border crosser.

Deborah Craig – Minutewoman

Don’t stop now, READ MORE

January 30, 2010

Reaction to Pres. Obama’s address — And try out our NEW state faxing system

FEDERAL OFFICIALS WILL DAWDLE, BUT YOUR STATE LEGISLATORS CAN PUSH ILLEGAL ALIENS OUT OF JOBS AND GIVE THEM TO UNEMPLOYED CITIZENS!

(See my specific analysis of the President’s comments on immigration below.)

Friends, the State of the Union Address tonight made it clear how unlikely it is that federal politicians care enough about unemployed Americans to end immigration policies that fill millions of U.S. jobs with foreign workers.

So, NumbersUSA tonight is starting a nationwide effort to contact all 7,000-plus elected members of state legislatures to persuade them to require E-Verify to kick illegal foreign workers out of an estimated 7 million construction, service, manufacturing and transportation jobs.

Click here to send faxes to your own elected officials in the state House and Senate. .

We have invested a large amount of time, money and effort into duplicating our unique congressional faxing system so it can be used for citizen pressure on 50 state captitols.

We are rolling out this potent new activism weapon tonight.

THIRTEEN states have already passed laws mandating E-Verify for state government contractors or for all employers. Your state could do this, too.

PRES. OBAMA APPEARED AFRAID TO MAKE HIS SUPPORT FOR AMNESTY CLEAR TONIGHT

Pres. Obama’s obtuse sentence on immigration in his address to the nation revealed a great fear of how the American people would react if he directly called for more foreign workers and for permanent jobs for the estimated 8 million illegal foreign workers.

He seemed to be trying to signal to the supporters of amnesty and “comprehensive immigration reform” that he was still behind them but in words that the voters watching on TV wouldn’t understand.

Click here to read the President’s exact words and the rest of my blog that analyzes them.

If the President really believed that putting Americans back to work were an emergency that called for tough measures, he would have announced a suspension of most new immigration of foreign workers and mandated E-Verify verification to keep illegal aliens out of U.S. jobs.

But we aren’t hearing much better out of congressional Republican leaders.

Friends, shock your state legislators the rest of the week with the level of faxing support for a state mandate for E-Verify.

This is a new system. If you have any difficulty, click here and let us know your problem

THANKS,

State Faxing is Up and Running

Most of us know our House Rep and two Senators by name. We at NumbersUSA regularly set up faxes for you to send, thanking them for something they’ve done or urging them to do something better. But do you know who represents you on the state level?

In the coming weeks, you’ll become a lot more familiar with their names with the introduction of our state level faxing. It’s something that Roy’s been wanting for a long time, and the system made its official launch on Wednesday night after Pres. Obama’s State of the Union Address. Thousands of you have already sent faxes to your state leaders, and we’re hoping this new feature helps them hear the support or feel the pressure on immigration issues.

If you haven’t sent the new state fax, check your Action Board now, and learn the name(s) of your state leaders (if you don’t know them already)! We hope this new system will help us motivate local lawmakers into protecting jobs and your communities by mandating E-Verify for all businesses, initiating or supporting a 287(g) program or by putting an end to sanctuary policies. Most state legislatures convene over the next few months, so this is our best chance to make something happen on the state level.

After you’ve sent the fax to your state leaders, be sure to check out Roy’s blog and video response to Pres. Obama’s State of the Union address. Pres. Obama mentioned immigration, but it was more of an afterthought thanks to your activism and message of high immigration’s negative impact on American workers.

Thanks,

Chris Chmielenski

Website Content Manager

A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer is seen from Mexico’s side of the San Ysidro port of entry guarding vehicles involved in a shooting in Tijuana, Mexico, Sept. 22, 2009. Four people were injured in a gun battle involving an attempt to smuggle illegal immigrants from Mexico at the busiest border crossing in the U.S., authorities said. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

(CNSNews.com) – Even though the Border Patrol now reports that almost 1,300 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border is not under effective control, and the Department of Justice says that vast stretches of the border are “easily breached,” and the Government Accountability Office has revealed that three persons “linked to terrorism” and 530 aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints last year, the administration is nonetheless now planning to decrease the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Border Patrol Director of Media Relations Lloyd Easterling confirmed this week–as I first reported in my column yesterday–that his agency is planning for a net decrease of 384 agents on the U.S.-Mexico border in fiscal 2010, which begins on October 1.
A Department of Homeland Security annual performance review updated by the Obama administration on May 7 said the Border Patrol “plans to move several hundred Agents from the Southwest Border to the Northern Border to meet the FY 2010 staffing requirements, with only a small increase in new agents for the Southwest Border in the same year.”
Easterling said on Tuesday that in fiscal 2009, 17,399 Border Patrol agents have been deployed on the U.S.-Mexico border. In fiscal year 2010, the Border Patrol plans to decrease that by 384 agents, leaving 17,015 deployed along the Mexican frontier. At the same time, the number of Border Patrol agents deployed on the U.S.-Canada border will be increased by 414, from a fiscal 2009 total of 1,798 agents to a fiscal 2010 total of 2,212.
The Border Patrol is responsible for securing a total of 8,607 miles of border, including the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S.-Canada border from Washington state to Maine, and sectors of coastline in the Gulf of Mexico, Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Each year, the Border Patrol sets a goal for “border miles under effective control (including certain coastal sectors).” “Effective control,” as defined by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, means that when the Border Patrol detects an illegal border crosser in a particular area of the border the agency can be expected to succeed in apprehending that person.
In the May 7 update of its performance review, DHS said the Border Patrol’s goal for fiscal 2009 was to have 815 of the 8,607 miles of border for which the agency is responsible under “effective control.”  The review also said the Border Patrol’s goal for fiscal 2010 was to again have 815 miles of border under “effective control,” meaning DHS was not planning to secure a single additional mile of border in the coming year.
However, Acting Deputy Assistant Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Todd Owen told a House committee in July that the Border Patrol already had 894 miles of border under effective control as of May 31 of this year.  These 894 miles, Owen said, included 697 miles on the Mexican border, 32 miles on the Canadian border and 165 miles in the coastal sectors.
Easterling said this week that as of now the Border Patrol still has the same 894 miles of border under effective control that it had under effective control as of May 31. He also said the agency would not relinquish control of any of these miles in the coming year.  After the beginning of the new fiscal year, he said, the Border Patrol would reevaluate the situation and set a new goal for border miles under “effective control” for 2010 that would at least equal, and might exceed, the 894 miles currently under effective control.
“The intention is to take back the border incrementally, and make gains that we can keep,” Easterling said. “We do not intend, nor will we give back, miles that we have gained control over.”
Easterling said the Border Patrol would be able to maintain the current number of miles under effective control on the Mexico border with fewer agents deployed there thanks to “force multipliers,” including new fencing, roads and other infrastructure that has been built in recent years. He also cited the assistance the Border Patrol receives from local police and sheriffs departments and community watch groups.
But even if the Border Patrol is able to maintain or marginally improve on the current level of security on the U.S.-Mexico border, most of the border will remain effectively open to smuggling both contraband and persons.
The entire U.S.-Mexico border is 1,954 miles long, according to the International Boundary and Water Commission. While 697 of those miles are now under “effective control,” according to the Border Patrol, 1,257 miles are not under “effective control.”
Reports from other government agencies paint a vivid picture of the massive drug and alien smuggling that takes place in these uncontrolled expanses and the national security problem created by unsecured border lands.
Each year, the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center produces “drug market analyses” for each of 32 regions of the country that the NDIC describes as “high intensity drug trafficking areas.” Five of these areas sit along the U.S.-Mexico border. These include the California border region, Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas and South Texas. The latest reports, released in March and April of this year, use candid language in portraying the U.S.-Mexican frontier as wide open to drug smuggling and even vulnerable to penetration by potential terrorists.
The California-Mexico border, the NDIC said, was “easily breached” on both foot and in vehicles.
“The vast border area presents innumerable remote crossing points that traffickers exploit to smuggle illicit drugs, primarily marijuana, into the country from Mexico,” said NDIC. “These areas are easily breached by traffickers on foot, in private vehicles, or in all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) as they smuggle drugs between POEs [ports of entry], particularly the mountainous areas in eastern San Diego County and the desert and sand dune areas in Imperial County.”
Arizona’s border was judged to be open not only to drug smugglers but also aliens with “extensive criminal records” and from “special interest countries,” which are defined as “countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism.”
“Some criminal organizations smuggle aliens and gang members into the United States,” said NDIC’s report on Arizona. “These particular individuals typically have extensive criminal records and pose a threat, not only to the Arizona HIDTA [high intensity drug trafficking area] region but also to communities throughout the United States. Alien smuggling organizations reportedly also smuggle aliens from countries other than Mexico, including special-interest countries.”
“Special-interest countries are those designated by the intelligence community as countries that could export individuals who could bring harm to the United States through terrorism,” said the NDIC report.
The NDIC described the Arizona-Mexico border as “largely underprotected” in the areas between official ports of entry.
“Large amounts of illicit drugs are smuggled into the area from Mexico, and bulk cash is transported from the area into Mexico,” said NDIC. “These trafficking activities are facilitated by several factors unique to the region, including the continuing economic and population growth in Arizona’s two primary drug markets (Phoenix and Tucson), the highways that connect major metropolitan areas in Arizona with major illicit drug source areas in Mexico, and a remote, largely underprotected border area between Arizona’s ports of entry (POEs).
“Vast stretches of remote, sparsely populated border areas are located within the HIDTA region; these areas are especially conducive to large-scale drug smuggling,” said NDIC. “By the end of January 2009, 108 miles of the 262-mile shared border between Arizona and Mexico will have some type of fencing. However, few physical barriers exist in border areas between POEs, particularly in the West Desert area of the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) Tucson Sector, to impede drug traffickers, chiefly Mexican DTOs, from smuggling illicit drug shipments into the United States from Mexico.”
Part of the New Mexico border was described as “an ideal smuggling corridor.”
“Southwestern New Mexico—specifically Hidalgo, Luna, and Dona Ana Counties—shares a 180-mile border with Mexico,” said NDIC. “More than half the length of this border is desolate public land that contains innumerable footpaths, roads, and trails. Additionally, many ranches are located along the border. These factors and minimal law enforcement coverage make the area an ideal smuggling corridor for drugs and other illicit goods and services— primarily alien smuggling into the United States and weapons and bulk cash smuggling into Mexico. Mexican DTOs smuggle multihundred-kilogram quantities of illicit drugs through this portion of the HIDTA region annually.”
Like the California border, the South Texas border is also “easily breached,” according to the NDIC.
“The combination of vast stretches of remote, sparsely populated land and extensive crossborder economic activity at designated ports of entry (POEs) creates an environment conducive to large-scale drug smuggling,” said NDIC. “Few physical barriers exist between POEs to impede drug traffickers, particularly Mexican DTOs, from smuggling illicit drug shipments into the United States from Mexico. Along many areas of the U.S.-Mexico border in South Texas, the Rio Grande River can be easily breached by smugglers on foot or in vehicles, enabling Mexican DTOs to smuggle multikilogram quantities of illicit drugs, primarily marijuana and cocaine, into the United States.”
In the West Texas sector, the NDIC again raised the possibility that terrorists could exploit the border to enter the country.
“Moreover, the region’s location along the U.S.-Mexico border poses national security and law enforcement issues for the region, such as alien smuggling, weapons transportation, and terrorist entry into the United States through and between ports of entry,” said NDIC.
While the U.S. government may be failing to exert effective control over most of the border, identical language in the NDIC reports for Arizona and West Texas said that drug trafficking organizations have set up “gatekeeper” operations that control smuggling into the U.S. and levy taxes on the smugglers they let through.
“Gatekeepers regulate the drug flow from Mexico across the U.S.-Mexico border into the United States by controlling drug smugglers’ access to areas along the border,” said the Arizona and West Texas NDIC reports. “Gatekeepers collect ‘taxes’ from smugglers on all illicit shipments that are moved through these areas, including drugs and illegal aliens. The taxes are generally paid to the DTO that controls the area; the DTO then launders the tax proceeds. Gatekeepers sometimes resort to extortion, intimidation, and acts of violence to collect taxes from smugglers. Gatekeepers also reportedly bribe corrupt Mexican police and military personnel in order to ensure that smuggling activities occur without interruption.”
“Gatekeepers generally operate at the behest of a Mexican drug trafficking organization (DTO) and enforce the will of the organization through bribery, intimidation, extortion, beatings, and murder,” said the reports.
A Government Accountability Office report released on August 31 pointed out that the Border Patrol’s top priority is to stop terrorists and weapons of mass destruction from entering the United States and revealed that three person’s “linked to terrorism” and hundreds of aliens from “special interest countries” were intercepted at Border Patrol checkpoints in fiscal 2008. These checkpoints, which act as a final line of defense for the U.S. border, are typically set up on highways 25 to 100 miles north of the Mexican border.
“CBP reported that in fiscal year 2008, there were three individuals encountered by the Border Patrol at southwest border checkpoints who were identified as persons linked to terrorism,” said GAO.
“In addition, the Border Patrol reported that in fiscal year 2008 checkpoints encountered 530 aliens from special interest countries, which are countries the Department of State has determined to represent a potential terrorist threat to the United States,” said GAO. “While people from these countries may not have any ties to illegal or terrorist activities, Border Patrol agents detain aliens from special interest countries if they are in the United States illegally and Border Patrol agents report these encounters to the local Sector Intelligence Agent, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Investigations, and the CBP National Targeting Center.”
The GAO also said one illegal alien detained in West Texas had come from Iran.
“For example,” said GAO, “according to a Border Patrol official in the El Paso sector, a checkpoint stopped a vehicle and questioned its three Iranian occupants, determining that one of those occupants was in the United States illegally. The individual was detained and turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further questioning.”
There has been much discussion in the past week about whether President Barack Obama will heed the advice of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, to increase the U.S. troop deployment there.  The administration, however, has already decided to decrease by 384 the Border Patrol agents deployed on our own southern frontier.