Who Needs "Comprehensive Reform"?

One of the strawmen that the amnesty supporters (like Bennion Spencer) have thrown out in response to the demands that America enforce it's immigration law is that you simply can not deport the millions of illegal immigrants that are in this country. Well as this story points out, you don't need to deport them....if the conditions are right.

DALLAS — Illegal immigrants are returning home to Mexico in numbers not seen for decades — and the Mexican government may have to deal with a crush on its social services and lower wages once the immigrants arrive.

The Mexican Consulate's office in Dallas is seeing increasing numbers of Mexican nationals requesting paperwork to go home for good, especially parents who want to know what documentation they'll need to enroll their children in Mexican schools.

"Those numbers have increased percentage-wise tremendously," said Enrique Hubbard, the Mexican consul general in Dallas. "In fact, it's almost 100 percent more this year than it was the previous two years."

The illegal immigrant population in the U.S. has dropped 11 percent since August of last year, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Its research shows 1.3 million illegal immigrants have returned to their home countries.

I have no doubts that the weakening economy has a lot to do with it, but let's not discount the effect of the ICE raids that took place in states like Minnesota and Iowa in recent months. No one arrested in these raids were for illegal entry into the United States....they were all arrested for identity theft! Another contributing factor to the mass exodus has to do with strengthened immigration legislation being introduced in states like Oklahoma and Arizona.

The fact that 1.3 million illegal immigrants have left of their own volition tells you that there is no need for the type of mass deportations that people like Lindsay Graham, John McCain and Bennion Spencer (see - I can be tough on the Republicans too) say will be necessary to curb the problems we are currently seeing as a result of illegal immigration. All we need to do is enforce the existing laws and the problem will take care of itself.

Then once we have control of our borders, we can talk about a real comprehensive reform that will allow more people to come into the US quickly and legally.

Selective Enforcement?

I received the following press release in my email this morning.

(St. Paul) For Immediate Release

Seifert Amendment on Illegal Immigration Fails by One Vote

Representative Marty Seifert (R-Marshall) came up one vote short on an amendment to a bill that would have taken local aid away to cities that prohibit their law enforcement officers from inquiring about the legal status of people detained by police.
Currently, Minneapolis and St. Paul disallow their police officers from inquiring about the status of people detained for violations of the law. Reports of illegal aliens using the two cities as "safe harbors" have come to light since the cities adopted the ordinances some years ago.
"Something needs to be done to bring sanity to this insane system," Seifert said.
Seifert's amendment failed 66-67, with DFLers keeping the voting board open and urging their members to vote against the measure. All of Seifert's fellow Republicans voted for the amendment, while all votes in opposition were DFLers. Seifert was able to persuade 18 DFLers to vote with him, but it wasn't enough.
Seifert said he would try to attach measures to restrict illegal immigration to any bills that would relate to the topic.
Roll Call vote failed 66-67.

Now before you start with the hate mail (I can hear the talking points warming up now) realize one thing. This is not about race - I am an American of Mexican decent...one whose family did what they had to in order to immigrate here legally. It is not about immigration - hundreds of thousands of people immigrate to the US legally every year. This is not about people who come here legally, build businesses and relationship and, due to the snail like pace of our government bureaucracy, over stays their Visa. This is about the rule of law. This is about fairness for the hundreds of thousands of people who are waiting (and waiting and waiting and waiting) to enter our country legally. This is about people of all nationalities whose very first act in coming to the US is to break our laws and the cities in our state that encourage them to continue breaking our laws. It is about 66 members of the Legislature who care more about buying votes than they are about enforcing the laws of this country.

I wonder if they would be as understanding and forgiving of people who broke other laws....like maybe the smoking ban....

The Cost of Doing Nothing

Drew Emmer brought us the nuts and bolts of Governor Pawlenty's announcement last night and since then the usual suspects have railed against the move. However here are a few facts that our friends on Portland Avenue refuse to tell you.

Illegal Immigrants cost more money than they bring in.

A study by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday backs up the view that undocumented immigrants sap more tax dollars than they provide, especially in education, health care and law enforcement...The report estimates there are 12 million undocumented immigrants nationwide. Of those, 60 percent are uninsured and 50 percent of the children are uninsured. Again using 2004 statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center the average income of undocumented immigrants was $27,400 while Americans earned $47,800. The difference puts undocumented immigrants in a lower tax bracket, thus reducing the amount of federal and state income taxes generated.
The study also showed that while undocumented workers represented just 5 percent of state and federal service costs, their tax revenue did not offset the amount spent by government. The authors of the study stated that, "the general consensus is that unauthorized immigrants impose a net cost on state and local budgets. However, no agreement exists as to the size of, or even the best way of measuring, that cost at a national level."

The report goes on to state (with documentation) that the cost of educating the influx of children who do not speak English is 20-40% higher than the cost educating the average American child. Given the numbers that I saw this last year out of my school district (where we do not have a huge ESL population) I can believe that. Our ESL instruction costs have gone through the roof!

Then there is the cost to our health care system. In this CNN interview, medical attorney Madeleine Cosman talks about the damage that is being done to the health care system. A more in-depth article, complete with footnotes tells the tale in greater detail.

Horrendous diseases that long ago America had conquered are resurging. Horrific diseases common in Third World poverty and medical ignorance suddenly are appearing in American emergency rooms and medical offices. Along with the visible invasion of Illegal Aliens across our borders is an invisible invasion of deadly diseases.[4]
Many illegals who skulk across our borders have tuberculosis (TB). That disease had disappeared from America thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as Isoniazid and Rifampin.[5] ,[6] ,[7] ,[8] ,[9] ,[10] TB’s swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60% of those infected. The culprit is the new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB).[11] Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico.[12] ,[13]
The mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major TB drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs (that cost about $2000). MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs with toxic side effects (that cost around $250,000).[14] ,[15] Each Illegal Alien with MDR-TB coughs and infects numerous people who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later, like a time bomb.
TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002 it spiked a 17% increase, but Prince William County, not far from Washington, D.C., had a meteoric rise of 188%.
Public health officials blamed immigrants. Indiana School of Medicine in 2001 studied an outbreak of MDR-TB traced to illegal aliens from Mexico.

According to the group Federation for American Immigration Reform, illegal immigration costs the state of Minnesota $345 million today and that cost could jump to over half a billion dollars in 2 short years! UPDATE - SCSU Scholar King B. directs me to a more level headed report on the current costs of illegal immigration in Minnesota. The real cost (according to the State of Minnesota is closer to $148-$188 million. Thanks King!

Contrary to what our friend Nick Coleman says, there are real reasons to crack down on illegal immigration. We have roads and bridges that need repair. We have failing inner city schools that need help, we have other priorities that all need to be addressed. That $345 million could help a lot of legal immigrants assimilate and become productive members of society.
The bottom line is, enforcing our immigration laws will do more to make life better for every Minnesotan. We need to look at the big picture and the big picture is illegal immigration makes life worse for everyone.

Welcome PIM readers.

Why English is Important.

One of the mantras in the immigration debate is the English language question. It could be something as simple as a sign in a fast food window or as complex as legislation to make English the national language. What is lost in the discussion of diversity versus assimilation is WHY it is so very important for immigrants (legal or illegal) to learn how to speak the English language.

Police blamed bad information for sending a SWAT team into a north Minneapolis house early Sunday morning in a raid that ended with shots exchanged between police -- who were struck by bullets -- and the resident, who said he was just defending his family.
The homeowner, who does not speak English, told his brother that he thought the police were the "bad guys" after they broke through the back door of the house, where he lives with his wife and six children...In a statement released shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday, police said that officers found no one on the first floor of the house. When they made their way up to the second floor, they were confronted by an adult male. The officers identified themselves as police, and the man fired several rounds at them. Several officers returned fire, but no one in the house was injured.

Emphasis mine. The police identified themselves but because the homeowner did not speak English - he didn't know what they said! He assumed that they were bad guys and opened fire!

Back when the Logical Husband and I were newlyweds, we lived in Germany courtesy of the United States Army. Because we were living in Germany, we learned German so that we could communicate with shopkeepers, our landlady and of course the police. It's common sense! Yet two Democratic Presidential candidates (Senators Clinton and Obama) voted against an amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration reform bill that would have required official government business in the United States to be conducted in English! Instead they voted for an amendment that declared that English was the "common and unifying language" of the country. While that is a true and accurate statement, it certainly diminishes the importance of learning English in order to understand what others are saying to you!

When we lived in Germany, we did not "demand" that the German government provide us with English documents in order to do business with the government. We learned the language so that we could do what was necessary for us to live in their country. I think that maybe our guests living here need to do the same. It's common sense.

Manipulating the masses

I have not said much on the Elvira Arellano story, in large part because it is an all too familiar story for someone who grew up in a large Hispanic community. However, the Chicago Tribune (one of the last real newspapers in America) brings something to the story that I had not seen before. Cold hard reality...

"Elvira Arellano was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Los Angeles Sunday afternoon, but before being led away, she took a moment to comfort her tearful 8-year-old son.
According to immigration activist Emma Lozano, she told the boy: "Calm down. Don't have any fear. They can't hurt me."
Then the single mother was taken away from her son and promptly deported to her native Mexico.
The poignant image on the front page of the Tribune was of young Saul holding his head and looking inconsolable after the arrest. This is not the first, of course, that Americans knew of him. He often has been pushed under the klieg lights to recite lines about the injustice of his mother's treatment and his fear of losing her to deportation.
While his mother holed up at Chicago's Adalberto United Methodist Church for the last year defying authorities, Saul has been trotted out to march at the head of the Puerto Rican People's Parade, speak at rallies, visit lawmakers in the Mexican parliament and go on TV. Instead of trying to make his childhood as normal as possible under the circumstances, Arellano has assigned him the role of public advocate -- a heavy burden for a child." (emphasis mine)

It angers me when I see adults using children as political pawns. It is especially loathesome to see someone who supposedly "loves" the child doing so.

The Trib then cuts through the hyperbole of Ms. Arellano's claims of having to stay here.

"It's truly sad to see Arellano and her son separated. But if you want to place blame for that painful spectacle, it belongs on her, not ICE. Saul is an American citizen because he was born in this country -- a couple of years after his mother was first deported after entering the country illegally. And if mother and child are separated again, it's not because the U.S. government insists on keeping them apart.
In fact, the boy is free to go to Mexico to be with her -- and to come back to the United States if and when he chooses. But that simple reality is not as powerful as the images that have been manipulated on her behalf." (emphasis mine)

The Trib is right - after all, who can resist a child who is being "terrorized" by the big bad government. The only problem is, the government is not the one "terrorizing the child....it is the adults who supposedly care about him that are doing it.

Simple reality does not fit the meme that the proponents of illegal immigration want us to see, so they use emotion and the best way to wring that emotion out of people is to manipulate a little 8 year old boy. Because after all, who can resist a little child...

Why did they have to die?

I was first "introduced" to Mark Steyn via the Hugh Hewitt program. I am a sucker for a British accent and their dry sense of humor, I admit, but I have become quite fond of the simple reason of his writings.

This week Mr. Steyn takes aim at press and their limp wristed coverage of the tragedy that happend in Newark NJ last week.

"At the funeral of Iofemi Hightower, her classmate Mecca Ali wore a T-shirt with the slogan: "Tell Me Why They Had To Die."
"They" are Miss Hightower, Dashon Harvey and Terrance Aeriel, three young citizens of Newark, New Jersey, lined up against a schoolyard wall, forced to kneel and then shot in the head.
Miss Ali poses an interesting question. No one can say why they "had" to die, but it ought to be possible to advance theories as to what factors make violent death in Newark a more-likely proposition than it should be. That's usually what happens when lurid cases make national headlines: When Matthew Shepard was beaten and hung on a fence in Wyoming, Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times that it was merely the latest stage in a "war" against homosexuals loosed by the forces of intolerance. Mr. Shepard's murder was dramatized in plays and movies and innumerable songs by Melissa Etheridge, Elton John, Peter, Paul and Mary, etc. The fact that this vile crucifixion was a grisly one-off and that American gays have never been less at risk from getting bashed did not deter pundits and politicians and lobby groups galore from arguing that this freak case demonstrated the need for special legislation.
By contrast, there's been a succession of prominent stories with one common feature that the very same pundits, politicians and lobby groups have a curious reluctance to go anywhere near. In a New York Times report headlined "Sorrow And Anger As Newark Buries Slain Youth," the limpidly tasteful Times prose prioritized "sorrow" over "anger," and offered only the following reference to the perpetrators: "The authorities have said robbery appeared to be the motive. Three suspects – two 15-year-olds and a 28-year-old construction worker from Peru – have been arrested."
So, this Peruvian guy was here on a green card? Or did he apply for a temporary construction-work visa from the U.S. Embassy in Lima?
Not exactly. Jose Carranza is an "undocumented" immigrant."

Now defenders of the immigration status quo will tell you that, as a percentage of the population, immigrants do not commit more crimes than the rest of the population. However what they steadfastly refuse to take into account that illegal immigrants do commit more crimes (as a percentage of society) because their very first act when they come into this country is to break the law! Nothing can change that simple fact!

Now I know (from my own personal experience) that there are many illegal immigrants who do not break any other laws once they come into the US. However, any time the (like the 9/11 hijackers did) have multiple drivers licenses with multiple social security numbers on then, they are breaking the law. Any time one has shown a willingness to break the law, the odds are pretty good that you will be willing to do so again and again.

State and local courts have got to start putting the safety of US citizens first and foremost. If that means inquiring about a defendants immigration status and turning them over to the federal government for deportation.

If you really are just here to better life for yourself, you can come over as my great-great-great grandparents did...legally. Yeah it's a little more work, but if you are a determined, hard-working individual that should not be a barrier....right?????

Crying wolf

I just don't get it.

"I don't agree with this," she said. "This wasn't right. I think it is just discrimination."

IT is a law in Waukegan Illinois that will turn illegal immigrants that have been arrested for breaking other laws to ICE for deportation. The law does not specify that it is going after Hispanics or Asians or any other nationality of people - it simply says that if you are an illegal immigrant and you break the laws in the city of Waukegan, you will be sent back to your home country.

The illegal immigration problem is not strictly a "Hispanic" problem. There are Irish and German illegals too - people who came on a visa and over stayed. Illegal immigrantes come from every nation, but I will admit that "Hispanics" have become the face of the problem because there are so many that come here from Central and South America.

Come to think of it, there are people who are making this a race issue, but they are not the people who are trying to enforce the laws in Waukegan.....it is the people who are fighting this law.

The real health care crisis.

Today's New York Times has a heath care story on the front page of their dead tree edition that bears our interest.

"Cres has spent almost half his 32 years working in the United States, in the fields of California and Texas and the factories of Chicago and New York. His wife and three children were with him some of the time. But he was alone for long spells, and it was during one of those periods that he figures he contracted H.I.V.

“I don’t know how or where or when I got it,” said Cres, who spoke on condition that he would be identified only by his nickname."

Ummmmmm how do you contract HIV if you are "alone" - unless you are doing IV drugs which are illegal in this country???? And if you are doing the IV drugs, don't you think you would know the how???

"But AIDS is spreading quickly in rural Mexican states with the highest migration rates to the United States, researchers say. The greatest risk of contracting AIDS that rural Mexican women face is in having sex with their migrant husbands, a new study found, a problem that is compounded by their husbands’ refusal to use condoms.
Research has shown that migrants have more sexual partners than those who stay at home. For women, life on the road brings risks of rape and sexual abuse. For many migrants, being displaced from their homes and families is a lonely experience, one that prompts them to form new relationships in the United States."

While I totally agree that it is horrible that HIV is spreading in Mexico, let's also talk about the outbreaks of tuburculosis and other communicable diseases that are coming in to the US from legal and illegal immigrants.

"According to Dr. Laurence Nickey, director of the El Paso heath district “Contagious diseases that are generally considered to have been controlled in the United States are readily evident along the border ... The incidence of tuberculosis in El Paso County is twice that of the U.S. rate. Dr. Nickey also states that leprosy, which is considered by most Americans to be a disease of the Third World, is readily evident along the U.S.-Mexico border and that dysentery is several times the U.S. rate ... People have come to the border for economic opportunities, but the necessary sewage treatment facilities, public water systems, environmental enforcement, and medical care have not been made available to them, causing a severe risk to health and well being of people on both sides of the border.”1
The pork tapeworm, which thrives in Latin America and Mexico, is showing up along the U.S. border, threatening to ravage victims with symptoms ranging from seizures to death. ... The same [Mexican] underclass has migrated north to find jobs on the border, bringing the parasite and the sickness—cysticercosis—its eggs can cause[.] Cysts that form around the larvae usually lodge in the brain and destroy tissue, causing hallucinations, speech and vision problems, severe headaches, strokes, epileptic seizures, and in rare cases death.”2...
Typhoid struck Silver Spring, Maryland, in 1992 when an immigrant from the Third World (who had been working in food service in the United States for almost two years) transmitted the bacteria through food at the McDonald’s where she worked. River blindness, malaria, and guinea worm, have all been brought to Northern Virginia by immigration.3 " (emphasis mine)

Once upon a time, this country used to do health screenings of ALL legal immigrants. Now we are not doing that and someone needs to ask WHY that is no longer happening. Someone also needs to ask just how much these illnesses are going to cost their respective host countries. Now the NY Times article had some figures for the AIDS cost to Mexico, what are these other diseases costing US taxpayers?

I heard a very good common sense outlook on what needs to be done - make the walls high and the door wide! We need to know who (and what) is crossing back and forth across the borders. It is an issue of national security AND public health for both the Mexican and American governments. This way we can also quaranteen those folks like Andrew Speaker putting people at risk! It also is a way to help control health care costs for everyone! It really is a win/win for both sides of the Rio Grande...

What hath sanctuary cities wrought?

I heard Jason Lewis talking about this story and I could not believe my ears!

"A St. Paul man tells 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS he felt like a prisoner in his own home as he watched another man attack his property with a truck. But, he wasn't the only one watching. The unblinking eye of his security cameras caught the attack on tape.
Mark Daggy says Carlos Noe Rivera-Portillo threatened him, then took aim at his home with a truck. He says Rivera-Portillo, 18, attacked because Daggy told him to stay away from his 16-year-old daughter.
Video from Daggy's home security cameras shows a man throw a beer bottle at the home and then ram his fence repeatedly with a truck.
Daggy equipped his home with security cameras in an attempt to deter and prevent crime n his St. Paul neighborhood. In this case, the video led to Rivera-Portillo's arrest.
River-Portillo is in the Ramsey County Jail tonight, held on $2,000 bond. Daggy says repairing the fence will cost him $2500 dollars. And, he worries about his safety when Riveraportilla gets out.
Riveraportilla has a court date July 23." (emphasis mine)

KTLK-FM is reporting that Rivera-Portillo has had previous run-in's with St. Paul Police, but nothing was ever done with him because of St. Paul's "sanctuary city" law (a law that Senator Coleman tried to get outlawed during the Senate immigration debate last week). The latest report (and I will link to it as soon as KTLK posts it on their website) is that ICE has informed the St. Paul Police that they expect Rivera-Portillo released to THEIR CUSTODY to be deported back to his native Ecuador.

THIS is the crisis of illegal immigration. We need to get the gang bangers and those who have no interest in contributing to a civilized society out now and THEN, once the borders have been sufficiently closed, we can deal with the remaining illegals who are working hard and trying to make a better life for themselves. It should be a real no-brainer!

I'm a racist?

Here is a very logical lady on the subject of illegal immigration.

I'm a racist?
By Billie Louden
Article Last Updated: 07/05/2007 11:26:53 PM MDT

I am a black woman who grew up in rural Oklahoma, where train tracks separated cultures, and I was one of only two blacks in my senior class. I have been a soldier in the anti-American Middle East, and I have felt the isolation of being a conservative Republican instead of the liberal Democrat I am expected to be. Currently, I sport a badge of authority.
Because of these life experiences, I thought I had been called every name in the book except the one my parents gave me. But when a co-worker called me a racist, I was absolutely unprepared.
The accusation was made largely because of a sticker on the back of my truck. The simple statement "Stop illegal immigration" has earned me angry looks and obscene gestures in traffic. I have watched as cars rush to pull up beside the "redneck." Their scowls often turn to bewilderment when they spot me behind the wheel.
My Hispanic co-worker played the ace-in-the-hole race card by insisting only Latinos are being targeted for immigration reform. When I pointed out my sticker mentioned no race in particular, he stated, "It doesn't matter because everyone knows who you are referring to."
At that moment, I realized just how much irrational emotional feelings and personal agendas have alarmingly snuffed out common sense in this country. From top lawmakers in Washington to so-called sanctuary cities, everyone has succumbed to massive pressure from illegal factions.
Let us define common sense. It is the natural instinct that compels us to the logical thing when faced with an issue shrouded in smoke screens.
Let us ignore tear-jerker tales of individual tragedies that are designed to pull our heartstrings, and realize they are smoke and mirrors hiding the truth, while instilling guilt about feelings of unease with the sieve our borders have become.
Illegal immigrants in this country, like any other criminal, have an excuse for why they committed a crime. But if the tale is sad enough, should we forgive them for their original criminal act because they decide to behave? Should we allow them to take jobs away from law-abiding Americans and call them noble for doing so? How about we offer to pay their medical bills and send their children to college? If, in the course of providing these things, we find ourselves going broke, and we say to them, "Enough is enough, we cannot ignore your crimes any longer because it only encourages more criminals," should we be surprised when these violators take to the streets demanding they be allowed to continue the way of life they have become accustomed to?
When illegals squawk about how we can't survive without their presence, do we dare remind them there are plenty legal folks - and others who are waiting in line to be legal - who are eager to help us out?
When anyone points out these observations, they are lambasted, shouted down, and slapped with the feared moniker "racist," a word that has ruined lives, ended careers and been the gas-filled card thrown on blazing fires of conflicts between majority and minority.
Racism today can never measure up to the raw beginnings and bloody history of the word as it pertains to our country. It began with slavery, evolved into lynchings, oppression and separate but never equal laws. It culminated with marches and dissent demanding the equality all citizens were promised in the Constitution. But the key word here is "citizen."
The righteous marches led by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. during the bloody turmoil of the civil rights era, should never be compared to the audacious, foreign-flag-waving parades of illegals and their sympathizers being carried out in American streets.
Politicians pandering for future votes, and much of the media, overwhelmingly sympathize with the flaunting of our laws, and assure the "undocumented" protesters their demands are reasonable.
I am a fighter and I refuse to be bullied. I have earned, the hard way, the right to display my opinion. If my "Stop illegal immigration" sticker offends you, maybe you should focus on the one next to it that states, "My son is a United States Marine." Then hopefully you will understand that sacrifice and fighting for country runs deep in my family.
Billie Louden (loudenview@aol.com) is a deputy sheriff and an Army veteran.

A picture worth 1000 words

Oh what a pain those pesky citizens are.....

Another reason

Here is another reason to stop the illegal border crossings.

"After three years of cleanups, the federal government has achieved no better than a 1 percent solution for the problem of trash left in Southern Arizona by illegal border-crossers.
Cleanup crews from various agencies, volunteer groups and the Tohono O'odham Nation hauled about 250,000 pounds of trash from thousands of acres of federal, state and private land across Southern Arizona in 2002 to 2005, says the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.
But that's only a fraction of the nearly 25 million pounds of trash thought to be out there.
Authorities estimate the 3.2 million-plus entrants caught by the Border Patrol dropped that much garbage in the Southern Arizona desert from July 1999 through June 2005. The figure assumes that each illegal entrant discards 8 pounds of trash, the weight of some abandoned backpacks found in the desert."

This also does not count for all the damages to vegetation from foot traffic and off road vehicles or the oil and fuel leaks from those poorly maintained off road vehicles.

"Here are examples of what the immigration invasion has wrought in publicly owned resources like the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, the Coronado National Forest and the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area. Jesse Juen, the BLM (Bureau of Land Management) Field Representative in Tuscon told the Senate Subcommittee that, over the past two years wildfires caused by immigrants smoking cigarettes or building fires to warm themselves at night have destroyed about 20% of the riparian vegetation along the San Pedro River in Cochise County. Plastic water bottles, food wrappers, toilet paper and human feces cover large areas where fences have been cut for the passage of human coyotes. Mr. Juen said the off-road vehicles of alien smugglers often go down steep embankments and motor oil and fuel leaks into streams and endangered species habitat. " (emphasis mine)

Yet for all of this damage, nary a peep has been heard from environmental groups such as the Sierra Club. If they DO complain....it's about the border patrol agents!

If ever there was a compelling reason for serious border enforcement (including a real fence) protecting our fragile natural resources is one of the best. It's a no brainer for true conservationists and yet we only seem to be hearing silence out of the ones who are ideologically married to the Democratic Party. I wonder why that is...

Stupid and SILENT...

That seems to be the state that our "rulers" in DC prefer the voting public to be...stupid and silent. They (apparently) do not like to be bothered by what "we the people" have to say on the important issues of the day!

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

Cry me a river Senator Lott! We have a Representative Republic here (in case you have forgotten) and WE THE PEOPLE do get to have our say in our governance...and "we the people" are speaking out decisively against S.1348.

"Just 20% of American voters want Congress to try and pass the immigration reform bill that failed in the Senate last week. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 51% would like their legislators to “take smaller steps towards reform” while 16% believe they should wait until next year. "

The public's disapproval of this bill crosses party lines. While 84% of professed Republicans say that they are against this bill (which is to be expected) however 55% of ALL DEMOCRATS and 69% of Independents are also against this bill! If "talk radio" were indeed pushing this sentiment, there would be a lot less Democrats and Independents against this bill.

If talk radio really were "running" this country, we wouldn't be discussing this issue now. The Bush tax cuts would also have been made permanent a long, long time ago.

Here's an idea Senator....if this bill is really as "good" as you say it is, why don't you try to tell us WHY we are wrong in our opposition, rather than insulting us. However, given that you stooped to the insults, rather than the education and edification of the electorate, it seems crystal clear to me that this bill is NOT all that you and the President claim it will be.

Moving Forward

Captain Ed is a rarity. He is an amazingly good, kind man with a delightful sense of humor and a political insight that is borderline prescent. Some days I disagree with him but most days (like today) I not only agree with him, but I want to forward his post on to every single elected official in Washington DC and St. Paul. Today he has the seminal post on what the Republican Party needs to do, both Nationally and in Minnesota, in order to move forward for the 2008 Elections. He starts in a critique of Peggy Noonan's entry in todays Wall Street Journal.

"Peggy Noonan, one of my favorite columnists and always a great read, today turns her substantial rhetorical guns on what she sees as the biggest threat to the Republican Party -- George Bush. Accusing him of following his father in squandering a great political inheritance, Noonan calls for a Republican repudiation of Bush and his family:
What political conservatives and on-the-ground Republicans must understand at this point is that they are not breaking with the White House on immigration. They are not resisting, fighting and thereby setting down a historical marker--"At this point the break became final." That's not what's happening. What conservatives and Republicans must recognize is that the White House has broken with them. What President Bush is doing, and has been doing for some time, is sundering a great political coalition. This is sad, and it holds implications not only for one political party but for the American future.
The White House doesn't need its traditional supporters anymore, because its problems are way beyond being solved by the base. And the people in the administration don't even much like the base. Desperate straits have left them liberated, and they are acting out their disdain. Leading Democrats often think their base is slightly mad but at least their heart is in the right place. This White House thinks its base is stupid and that its heart is in the wrong place.
For almost three years, arguably longer, conservative Bush supporters have felt like sufferers of battered wife syndrome. You don't like endless gushing spending, the kind that assumes a high and unstoppable affluence will always exist, and the tax receipts will always flow in? Too bad! You don't like expanding governmental authority and power? Too bad. You think the war was wrong or is wrong? Too bad.
But on immigration it has changed from "Too bad" to "You're bad."
I'm a little surprised by Noonan with this piece. I see nothing all that unusual with the way the Bush administration has attacked its critics over immigration. If she was to honestly look at the last six years, she will see that this is the normal mode of operation for the White House -- to always stay on the attack. In fact, they've followed the James Carville model from their first days in the White House. "

Ed is right of course. When the Bush White House does stand up for itself, it does so with a vengence. However, Ed does take the opportunity to lay out how the GOP can regain their core voters, the ones who have refused to donate to the RNC because of the Bush Legacy.

"Republicans used to stand for smaller government, federalism, and strong national defense. Not all of that conflicts with the Bush legacy, but enough of it does that we need to start publicly demanding a return to those core concepts. Rather than repudiating Bush over his insulting attacks on the base, the better path is to generate a positive agenda that demonstrates our dissatisfaction with the previous six years -- and give Republicans something to vote for, rather than something to vote against."

Ed is not the only person saying this. This is something that a lot of Minnesota grass roots activists have been telling the State Party. "We need a compelling story....to give voters are reason to vot FOR us". During the 2006 campaign all we got out of party leadership was "well you don't want to see Governor Hatch do you?" or "we can't give the Democrats leadership in the House - they'll try to raise your taxes!" While those statements are basically true, they don't inspire voters or volunteers at all. Give us something to work FOR! It is that basic.

The Republican Base is upset at the leftward tilt the Republicans in DC has taken and they have begun to fight back. This immigration bill is just the latest front. A smart Republican leader (or candidate) will see this anger for what it is and learn from it. It remains to be seen if the Republican leadership is as smart as Captain Ed.

Common Sense Immigration

I think I have mentioned, once or twice in the past, that I am quite fond of Peggy Noonan. As a writer she is an excellent role model - articulate, never overbearing.....a lady of full of common sense. Her column in today's Wall Street Journal tackles the issue of immigration in her usual rational style.

"I asked myself a question this week and realized the answer is "Only one." The question is: Have I ever known an immigrant to America who's lazy? I have lived on the East Coast all my life, mostly in New York, and immigrants both legal and illegal have been and are part of my daily life, from my childhood when they surrounded me to an adulthood in which they, well, surround me. And the only lazy one I knew was a young woman, 20, European, not mature enough to be fully herself, who actually wanted to be a good worker but found nightlife too alluring and hangovers too debilitating... Everyone else who comes here works hard, grindingly hard, and I admire them. But it's more than that, I love them and I'm rooting for them. When I see them in church (it is Filipino women who taught me the right posture for prayer; Central Americans helped teach me the Bible) I want to kiss their hands. I want to say, "Thank you." They have enriched my life, and our country's."

I'm in the same boat. As the great-great-great grand-daughter of a Mexican immigrant (who was here before todays border was drawn) I too have worked with immigrants from many nations and they too were hard working people who, like my father and his father before him, wanted to make life better for their children - make it so they would never "want". So with that said, you would think that we would be all for the Comprehensive Immigration Bill in front of the Senate today.

"Naturally I hope the new immigration bill fails. It is less a bill than a big dirty ball of mischief, malfeasance and mendacity, with a touch of class malice, and it's being pushed by a White House that is at once cynical and inept. The bill's Capitol Hill supporters have a great vain popinjay's pride in their own higher compassion. They are inclusive and you're not, you cur, you gun-totin' truckdriver's-hat-wearin' yahoo. It's all so complex, and you'd understand this if you weren't sort of dumb.
But it's not so complex. The past quarter-century an unprecedented wave of illegal immigrants has crossed our borders. The flood is so great that no one--no one--can see or fully imagine all the many implications, all the country-changing facts of it. No one knows exactly what uncontrolled immigration is doing and will do to our country. "

The arrogance coming out of the supporters of this bill, including President Bush, is astonishing. However, if they really believed that this was a matter of not understanding the bill then why don't you try to explain it to us - rather than just jamming it down our throats.

"So what should we do?
We should stop, slow down and absorb. We should sit and settle. We should do what you do after eating an eight-course meal. We should digest what we've eaten.
We should close our borders. We should do whatever it takes to close them tight and solid. Will that take the Army? Then send the Army. Does it mean building a wall? Then build a wall, but the wall must have doors, which can be opened a little or a lot down the road once we know where we are. Should all legal immigration stop? No. We should make a list of what our nation needs, such as engineers and nurses, and then admit a lot of engineers and nurses. We should take in what we need to survive and flourish. " (emphasis mine)

OK - so far so good, but what about the illegals.

"As we end illegal immigration, we should set ourselves to the Americanization of the immigrants we have. They haven't only joined a place of riches, it's a place of meaning. We must teach them what it is they've joined and why it is good and what is expected of them and what is owed. We stopped Americanizing ourselves 40 years ago. We've got to start telling the story of our country again. "

It is also a place of responsibilities and one of the responsibilities that these immigrants need to be reminded of is the responsibility to integrate INTO our culture and not supplant our culture with the one you left behind. I am quite proud of my Latino heritage - something I still can't get my grandfather (who spent most of his life hiding his heritage due to racism) to understand. However, my Latino heritage does not mean that I am not also an American and as an American citizen, I am obliged to mingle my Latino heritage into the common American heritage, just as millions of immigrants from Ireland and Italy and France and Germany and Russia and on and on have done before me! It is my responsibility to adapt to the culture - just as I adapted to the German culture when I lived in Germany (more years ago than I care to admit). I spoke the language, I lived by their laws. I never demanded that they speak English to me...I learned to speak Swabbisch German!

Now here is the hard word for everyone who thinks we should just "deport them all".

"As to the eight or 10 or 12 or 14 million illegals who are here--how interesting that our government doesn't know the number--we should do nothing dramatic or fraught or unlike us. We should debate what to do, at length. Debate isn't bad. There's a lot to say. We can all join in. We should do nothing extreme, only things that are commonsensical.
Here is the truth: America has never deported millions of people, and America will never deport millions of people. It's not what we do. It's not who we are. It's not who we want to be. The American people would never accept evening news pictures of sobbing immigrants being torn from their homes and put on a bus. We wouldn't accept it because we have hearts, and as much as we try to see history in the abstract, we know history comes down to the particular, to the sobbing child in the bus. We don't round up and remove. Nor should we, tomorrow, on one of our whims, grant full legal status and a Cadillac car. We take it a day at a time. We wait and see what's happening. We do the small discrete things a nation can do to make the overall situation better. For instance: "You commit a violent crime? You are so out of here." And, "Here, let me help you learn English." (emphasis mine)

In the comment section over at Residual Forces, Nordeaster asked a question that we all need to ask of ourselves and of our government. "Is there a realistic option between amnesty and deportation? To put it another way, is there any solution that doesn’t involve the deportation of 12 million people that wouldn’t be considered amnesty?" Until we answer that question, I fear that there will be no compromise bill.

Oh and to those of you who say that these immigrants are only "doing the jobs that Americans won't do" Ms. Noonan has something for you to ponder.

"Let's find out if it's true that Americans won't stoop to any of the jobs illegals do. I don't think it is. Years ago I worked in a florist shop removing the thorns from roses. It was painful work and I was happy to do it, and I am very American. I was a badly paid waitress in the Holiday Inn on Route 3 in New Jersey.
The young will do a great deal, and not only the young. The dislike for Americans evinced by the Americans-won't-do-hard-work crowd is, simply, astonishing, and shameful. It says more about the soft and ignorant lives they lived in Kennebunkport and Greenwich than it does about the American people." (emphasis mine)

Not much more I can add to that.

Who gets sanctuary here?

OK - this post has been percolating for a couple of days now. I wrote about human trafficking in Minnesota last year. I asked at the time where the feminist organizations were then and I say it again now.

"The women came mostly from Mexico and Central America.
When they arrived in Minnesota, the women had their passports and other identifying documents taken away and they were forced into a world of prostitution. In one night, two women serviced more than 80 men in a south Minneapolis house." (emphasis mine)

80 men in one night.....the sound you hear is my heart breaking into a hundred pieces! The truly sickening part, as John at Powerline reports, is that the Minneapolis police refused to participate in the raid because the perps in this raid were illegal immigrants and Minneapolis is a "sanctuary city".

"The investigation and arrests were the product of a collaboration involving federal agencies, Minnesota's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and the St. Paul Police Department. Notably absent was the Minneapolis Police Department, notwithstanding the fact that most of the brothels were in Minneapolis. The city sent out emails to reporters explaining why it was AWOL: as a matter of policy, Minneapolis does not participate in investigations of illegal aliens. If the perpetrators of these crimes had been Americans, the Minneapolis Police Department would have been all over them. But apparently, the fact that they are illegal immigrants immunizes them in the eyes of Minneapolis's authorities." (emphasis mine)

Thankfully our Senior Senator, Norm Coleman, is trying to do something about it.

"In an effort to strengthen national security, Senator Norm Coleman yesterday introduced an amendment to the Immigration bill to make sure local law enforcement officials are able to communicate with federal law enforcement agencies regarding suspected immigration violations. Currently, a number of cities throughout the nation are using a loophole to get around Sec. 642 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 by instituting ordinances forbidding local law enforcement to even ask the question as to whether a person is in the U.S. lawfully, thereby evading their legal responsibility to report their suspicions to the federal government.
“In a post 9-11 world, it is simply unacceptable for communities to ignore federal laws requiring them to share this type of information with federal authorities. This is not a matter of making state and local governments enforce federal immigration laws, it is simply a matter of closing this loophole that certain cities have created,” said Coleman. “This defies common sense, as the rule of law must apply to both legal and illegal residents. Moreover, we know how crucial it is to connect the dots in order to avert another terrorist attack in this country. The consequences of prohibiting information sharing are too great. To close this loophole, I have introduced an amendment that will ensure the lines of communication are open between local and federal law enforcement officials.”

This "sanctuary city" loophole is atrocious! What about the women that were abused by these perps? Where is their sanctuary Mayor Ryback?

It is stories like this that sour me on the Democratic Party in this country. Oh they say that they are for human rights and safety and security for everyone, but the bottom line is, their actions betray those words. Whether it is in the nations captial, the state capital, or big city USA, the Democrats actions show that they are only for the "rights" and safety and security of the people that are useful to them and when you are no longer useful to them, you are invisible to them.

I do hope that the Civil Society is helping the real victims of this crime. God knows they need all the help they can get.