Mexifornia – A State of Becoming, A Book Report

Victor Hansen’s book on this subject is one we should all pay attention to as a harbinger for our country’s future. Hanson is in a unique position to provide an authoritative opinion on this subject because he went to school with mostly children of Mexican descent, many perhaps with parents who were illegal aliens. Part of his credentials for writing on this subject comes from his intimate contact with Mexicans and Mexican Americans throughout his life. Another part comes from his academic work teaching and observing Mexicans and Mexican Americans at the college level. He also points out that his two daughters are dating Mexican-Americans. A revealing quote from his book is, “The people who jumped me as an eight-year-old from the blind side were often Mexican. Those who threatened to knife me at fourteen for no reason other than because I was white were Mexican. The three youths who tried to break into my home and assault my family when I was forty were all Mexicans. But then so were all the friends who helped me fight back in grade school; who have lived on our farm for forty years; and who as sheriffs and police come out to protect us today when there is a problem.”

Hansen makes little distinction between Mexicans and Mexican Americans because there is no way to do so and because they are part of the same community, sharing a common cultural heritage. Some folks take umbrage at the lumping together of Mexican nationals and U.S. citizens of Mexican extraction. And indeed many of the latter are indistinguishable in behavior from other mainstream Americans. Others, of course, have not made that transition and, if Hansen is correct, may never do so.

Hansen makes no attempt to make his book a scholarly thesis with extensive footnotes, bibliography and other documentation. In some sense, his work relies on his first hand experience in the context of today’s California and its burgeoning population of Mexican illegal aliens, their children, as well some of the older generations who may be somewhat ambivalent about the whole situation. He neither believes that California must become a de facto colony of Mexico nor that the future course of events in California is inevitable. Instead, his main argument is that the future of the state and the nation, as regards the immigration conundrum, is in the hands of its current residents. Hansen believes that both the business community and the “…academic elite whose capital remains largely separatist identities and self-interest have escaped accountability for the harm they have already done.” In the end, Hansen is hopeful that our traditions of assimilation, integration and intermarriage may yet remedy a predicament that politicians and ideologues have allowed to get out of hand. This will not be easy. We will have to do almost everything right from this point on to succeed and to preserve the America that has served us so well for more than 200 years through all forms of internal strife and international wars.

Foreign Governments & Illegal Aliens

The quarrel about immigration has always been with the irresponsible governments, of both legal immigrants and illegal aliens, that are not doing enough to improve conditions in their own countries so that their people will want to remain in their homelands. We can demonstrate friendship with the foreign-born if they make some effort to understand and comply with our immigration laws and larger concerns about illegal aliens and unfettered population growth.

Hopefully, we will have an opportunity to prove our friendship in our daily attitude and actions toward those among the millions of men and women of foreign-birth and legal entry, who live among us and share our life, and we shall be proud to prove that to all who are in fact loyal to: this country, their fellow citizens, and this government in this period when our loyalties are being tested. They are, most of them, as true and loyal Americans as if they have never known any other allegiance. We expect they will be prompt to stand with us in rebuking and restraining those who may be of a different mind and purpose. If there should be disloyalty, it must be dealt with a firm hand; but if it lifts its ugly head, we all hope that it will be lifted only here and there, not in any organized way or in any organization with racist or separatist agendas or tendencies to illustrate in stark detail their disloyalty and perfidy.

---paraphrased, modified and supplemented from a speech by Prsident Woodrow Wilson

Deeply Divided America -- De-ja Vu

In 1918, our country was deeply divided along ethnic lines because of the large population of German-Americans and German immigrants at a time when we were engaged in a war with their relatives in the Fatherland. Once again we find ourselves in an America that is deeply divided, often along ethnic lines, due to massive legal immigration in excess of a million annually and illegal aliens who flood across the borders in numbers ranging up to 600,000 per year. The latter number has resulted in as many as 12 - 20 million illegals currently present in the United States.

In 1918, President Wilson campaigned on a platform that was sympathetic to those who viewed the number of immigrants flowing into the country as dangerous. He often lectured Americans about old-country allegiances. This a natural phenomenon given the number of German -Americans and our involvement in a war with Germany. Racial profiling and persecution was not uncommon and most German-Americans and immigrants went out of their way to demonstrate their loyalty and patriotism. Incredibly, Governor William Harding of Iowa issued what was known as the Babel Proclamation, which banned the use of any language but English in any public gathering of two or more people. The ban even covered telephone conversations, as several grandmothers discovered when they were jailed for speaking German on the phone. A Swedish minister also ran afoul of the law for conducting a funeral for two soldiers in Swedish so that the fallen men's grandmothers could understand.

The current concern about the English language has never included such Draconian measures. The proposal has always been limited to the concept of Official English. This merely means all activity and publications at all levels of government should be conducted or printed only in English. It would have no effect on foreign language instruction or on languages used in any public or private gatherings. One would hope, of course, that as a matter of common courtesy, that most public gatherings and public conversation would be conducted in English so that all could feel included. Obviously, there will be some, mostly private, meetings where the mother tongue could be spoken without fear of interference from language police or other restrictions. Some proposals provide for billable interpreter services at emergency locations such as fire departments, police stations, and hospitals. At the same time, public interpreters would be offered free of charge to those who could not afford one.

The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the emphasis on English and the resistance to the encroachment of foreign languages is not a new phenomenon. The concern about Germans in our midst has long since disappeared. They are no longer thought of as hyphenated Americans and the use of the German language is now just a footnote to history as is the persecution of Germans that occurred during two wars and the similar treatment meted out to Japanese internees.

Mexican Hypocrisy

The publisher of the Eastern Arizona Courier was moved enough about the immigration debate to write his own op/ed in the pages of his newspaper. The piece, titled "Mexico's hypocrisy cause of growing hostility", makes the following case:

Mexican bureaucrats criticize our efforts to restrict issuing driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants with no proof of citizenship, so why does Mexico require an American to have a valid visa in order to get a Mexican driver’s license? In Mexico you cannot receive free social services and an education unless you are a Mexican citizen. Why does Mexico feel illegals should get these benefits free in the United States?

Illegal immigrants caught on Mexico’s southern border are often beaten, robbed and thrown in hellhole prisons. Why is Mexico concerned with how illegals are treated in our country?

Mexico claims to be working to stem the flow of illegals into our country, but it issues maps showing them how to enter the United States illegally. Mexican air carriers are doing a booming business booking flight to get illegals near our border, and police officials ignore all the smugglers and businesses that have sprung up along the border that exist solely to help illegals sneak into our country.

Public Opinion in Action

A piece on the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research website by Michael Barone, a fellow at AEI, says that Bush and the Democrats are "out of line with public opinion" on immigration issues.

A key excerpt:

The reason is that the Democrats--and Bush--are out of line with public opinion on the issue. That became clear as the Senate debated a comprehensive immigration bill in May and June. Most Republicans and many Democrats, in the Senate and among the public, turned against the bill. Supporters of the bill tended to ascribe that to something like racism: they just do not like having so many Mexicans around.

But if you listened to the opponents, you heard something else. They want the current law to be enforced. It bothers them that we have something like twelve million illegal immigrants in our country. It bothers them that most of the southern border is unfenced and unpatrolled. It bothers them that illegal immigrants routinely use forged documents to get jobs--or are given jobs with no documents at all.

You do not have to be a racist to be bothered by such things. You just have to be a citizen who thinks that massive failure to enforce the law is corrosive to society.

Quoted from Daniella Perdomo's post on MATT

Obama's Mask

"Barack Obama's rise in the top tier of the Democrat presidential race has been fueled by the voter's belief that he is a candid, forthright politician. 'Hard truths could be the slogan for the restarted Obama campaign,' says the current New Yorker magazine, in a laudatory article. In The Washington Post's poll last week of Iowa caucus voters, Obama's biggest lead came when voters were rating candidates as honest and trustworthy.

And now comes Shelby Steele, the Hoover Institution scholar, with an essay arguing that Obama's public stance is essentially synthetic. In 'A Bound Man,' Steele makes the case that Obama has adopted a mask familiar to many other African-Americans, designed to appease white America's fear of being thought racist by offering them the opportunity to embrace a nonthreatening Black.

Steele writes that 'the Sixties stigmatized white Americans with the racial sins of the past -- with the bigotry and hypocrisy that countenanced slavery, segregation and white supremacy. Now, to win back moral authority, whites -- especially American institutions -- must prove the negative: that they are not racist. In other words, white America has become a keen market for racial innocence.'

Steele likens Obama's success to the fame and fortune won by Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods. But Obama is the first to carry the 'masking' technique of the 'Iconic Negro' into the realm of politics."

David Broder, The Washington Post.

Obama vs. Hillary

"Most of the time, Barack Obama seems like he's boxing in the wrong weight class. But last week in Fort Dodge, Iowa, he delivered an unscripted jab that was a beaut. The Illinois senator was asked about Hillary Clinton's attack on his qualifications. Making an economic speech in Knoxville, Iowa, earlier that day, the New York senator has touted her own know-how, saying that 'there is one job we can't afford on-the job-training for -- that's the job of our next president.' Her aides confirmed that she had been referring to Obama.

Pressed to respond, Obama offered a zinger feathered with amused disdain: 'My understanding was that she wasn't Treasury secretary in the Clinton administration, so I don't know exactly what experiences she 's claiming.'

It took him nine months, but he finally found a perfect pitch to make a trenchant point. She was not elected or appointed to a position that needed Senate confirmation. Neither did she show good judgment in her areas of influence -- the legal fiefdom, health care and running oppo-campaigns against Bill's galpals.

Obama's one-liner evoked something that rubs some people the wrong way about Hillary. 'She hasn't accomplished anything on her own since getting admitted to Yale Law,' wrote Joan Di Cola, a Boston Lawyer, in a letter to the Wall Street Journal. All Hillary is, is Mrs. Clinton."

----Maureen Dowd, The New York Times

The Melting Pot

In Washington Heights, a heavily Dominican neighborhood in Manhattan, political rallies are actually held for the presidency of the Dominican Republic, a country whose political parties treat this enclave as though it is a part of the homeland. They raise roughly half of their campaign funds from the hundreds of thousands of Dominicans living in New York City. This raises the question about whether these folks are really Americans or Dominicans living in America? It may well be a perfect example of why one must leave one's old allegiance and citizenship behind. This is a central theme in the growing tensions between the American Public and the current wave of legal immigrants and illegal aliens.

During the Great Wave immigration, more than one-third of all immigrants -- most of them Europeans -- went back to their home countries. Many of the returnees became involved in fighting for change in their homelands. What a novel idea!

Great Wave immigrants who stayed in America soon learned that they were indeed in the land of opportunity. After a feeling developed that the country was being overrun by foreigners, immigration was cut back dramatically and, as a result, the immigrants were able to assimilate faster and develop a greater attachment and loyalty to their new country. This also eased the demographic pressure because, although the immigrants were from many different countries, most were Europeans who blended in easily with the earlier arrivals. They also understood that a common language was not only an imperative to be able to communicate with each other and achieve success in business and in the professions, they knew intuitively that a common language would be the single most important unifying influence in a diverse America.

The adoption of a common language and the assimilation in the new land did not mean: the end of ethnic holidays and parades; the rejection of foreign words and phrases like "kindergarten"; the avoidance of ethnic foods; or the blending of foreign traditions with those of the dominant culture.

But poverty, joblessness and instability are hard to overcome if the solutions are made more difficult by excessive immigration and population growth, threatening demographic shifts, a failure of social integration, and an attachment to the old ways that had not served the immigrants well in their homelands.

Anti-immigration Bias

In the mid 1800s many German immigrants began to arrive in Texas as a result of the inducements offered to facilitate the settlement of a huge parcel of land that had been acquired for that purpose by a group of German noblemen. German immigration to Texas accelerated after the Civil War but in 1918 many German immigrants began to feel unwelcome. Germania Street in Dallas, Texas was renamed Liberty Street.

That same year, 1918, a German-born would-be miner came to a community in Illinois looking for work. "He had applied to become an American citizen, but because he had not received his naturalization papers, he dutifully registered with the government as an enemy alien." At a gathering in a nearby town he uttered some remarks that, although never accurately recorded, struck some of the locals as "disloyal utterances against the United States and President Wilson."

Later, in spite of his vehement written and oral protestations that he was loyal to the United States, alcoholic spirits mixed too liberally with patriotic spirits led to his lynching. In the ultimate act of irony, the man was buried wrapped in an American flag, as he requested. In spite of what amounted to a confession by the man who assumed leadership of the mob, all eleven defendants who were brought to trial were acquitted in only a matter of minutes.

Whatever the real reasons were for the German immigrant's death, it brought into sharp relief the peculiarities of the American character: a love of country and belief that this is a fair and tolerant nation, coupled with the ability to compartmentalize incidents that contradict those beliefs.

Crystallizing passions now surge around a new wave of legal and illegal immigrants and protestations of loyalty in the face of some evidence to the contrary. Social tensions have been created by economic changes combined with massive arrivals of poor immigrants, many of them illegal.

Strangely enough, many of the earlier immigrants had no plan to become Americans and came here for seasonal employment from as far away as Europe or Asia and then returned to their homelands when the job was done. An estimated 63% of Italians who came here from 1902 to 1923 returned to Italy after performing seasonal work. Likewise, 46.5% of Hungarians, 36.3% of the Croatians and Slovenians, 48% of the French and 46% of the Greeks went back.

The current concern about illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration is not a totally new phenomenon. The U.S. has always been ambivalent about newcomers. By the 1780s, when our nation was still in its infancy and relatively unsettled and unpopulated, Thomas Jefferson warned of the danger of indiscriminately promoting rapid immigration. A century later, Congress passed an Immigration Act establishing a head tax on immigrants and barring convicts, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges. In 1891, Congress created a bureaucracy to process the arrivals of new immigrants and authorized the deportation of illegal aliens.

Mirroring some of the concerns of today, a statement of certain labor unions in 1908 could be paraphrased as follows: "As long as California is white man's country, it will remain one of the grandest and best states in the union, but the moment the Golden State is subjected to an unlimited invasion of immigrants and illegals there will be no more California."

German Americans, passionate to show their loyalty and patriotism, actually sent leaflets to their Fatherland intended to help convince their former compatriots to surrender and bring an end to WW I. No similar sentiment is noted today among those of the same ethnicity as the legal immigrants and illegal aliens. What does that silence say about their loyalty and patriotism?

President Wilson, although endeavoring to keep hostility to citizens of German descent from getting out of hand, stated,"The gravest threats against our national peace and safety have been uttered within our own borders. There are citizens of the United States, I blush to admit, born under other flags [and even under our own flag] but welcomed by our generous naturalization laws to the full freedom and opportunity of America, who have poured the poison of disloyalty into the arteries of our national life."

(This post is based in part on excerpts, anecdotes, quotes, and ideas from Michele Wucker, "Lockout", Perseus Books Group, Cambridge, MA, 2006)

Li Liu's Story

Li Liu is or was a graduate student at MIT who got caught up in post- 9/11 frenzy and as a result, after she had returned to China for a visit, it took her a year before she was a able to return to MIT and her studies. Another part of the delay was also due to the labyrinth of America's immigration laws which is second in complexity only to the IRS code.

America is failing to train enough domestic talent to to provide the supply of skilled workers U.S. companies need. Immigration laws must be greatly simplified to make sure no innocent student or legal immigrant becomes a needless victim of the bureaucracy. Needless to say, we do need to be mindful of the renewed emphasis on industrial and other espionage so that foreign workers involvement in sensitive work and work vital to the security and technological leadership of the United States is not jeopardized. There are a few simple things that can be done: (1) limit visas to three basic types: tourist, student and work; (2) limit permanent residency to those in the last category who have entered the U.S. legally and to students who possess advanced skills not available domestically; (3) limit a pathway to citizenship to those who have never entered the U.S. illegally and who read, write and speak English; (4) get rid of all of the other immigration legislation that permits chain immigrations and creates other loopholes; (5) grant a full scholarship to American doctoral students who maintain their grades and whose professors agree have promise and talent.

There is a rising clamor to shut the borders, keep out foreign people and goods and ostensibly to "keep in" technology and jobs. These are all legitimate aims if they serve the national interest. One of the most powerful elements of America's identity is its immigrant past, where "past" is the operative word. Today our goal must be to admit legally only those who are demonstrably needed to serve our national interest and provide the skilled and unskilled labor needed by higher education and businesses. Here the operative word is "demonstrably".

America can no longer be ambivalent about immigration. Our policies must be tailored precisely to our needs rather than to the fact that we were once a nation of immigrants or that we have millions of illegal aliens already present. The Indians perhaps would like to turn back the pages of time when they inhabited and controlled this continent. That is not going to happen and there is little likelihood that the indigenous peoples could have ever withstood the flood of European immigrants once this vast and largely unsettled continent was discovered. This would be true even if the Indians had battled initially tooth and nail to slaughter every visitor from abroad or drive them back into the sea. The past is gone. We can't get it back and it has little bearing on our present circumstances and needs. It is useless to argue about it. The past does not constitute a rational argument for any immigration policy.

Should Have Thought of that Earlier !

We Are Thankful!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving: an American Holiday

Monica in 2008

Monica Can Do It !

Theme Song: I'm forever blowing bubbles!

Wake Up America!

The world will have to end growth of carbon emissions within seven years and become mostly free of carbon-emitting technologies in about four decades to avoid killing off as many as a quarter of planet's species, according to top United Nations scientists. The stark choice laid out by the agency's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) describe the daunting task if the world is to avoid the consequences of temperatures raised up by more than 3.6 degrees just since 2000.

"The scientists now have done their work. I call on political leaders to do theirs," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said upon formally receiving the report Saturday in Valencia, Spain.

That will require a drastic reworking of industrial processes, transportation, agricultural practices, the buildings people live in, and a reduction in the world population, especially in the United States, Russia, China and India where the production of greenhouse gases per capita is the highest.

If the world's spiraling growth in greenhouse- gas emissions does not end by 2015 and does not stabilize carbon dioxide emissions until 2030, the planet's temperature will increase by as much as 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit above 2000 temperatures. That level of warming would result in widespread extinctions of species, as slowing of the global ocean currents, decreased food production, a loss of 30% of global wetlands, flooding for millions of people and higher numbers of deaths from heat waves. It is virtually a matter of life or death for some communities on Earth.

So what can be done to save Planet Earth and what can be done to enable the U.S. to do its part in meeting our share of the needed reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. An earlier U.N. report drew the rather obvious conclusion that, with a high probability, people are the cause of global warming and greenhouse-gases. But it is not just the growth in the raw numbers of people but the things they demand: beef from flatulent cows, autos, refrigerators and air conditioning, power and all manner of manufactured items the processes for which produce these gases directly or indirectly. We can all begin by "going green". In the U.S., we can adopt stringent immigration controls and secure our borders to make sure we can stabilize our population. We need to adopt tax policies that encourage families to limit the number of children to the replacement level, a fertility rate of about 2.03 for all women during their child bearing years.


We need all citizens of whatever ethnic origin or political leanings to get on the band wagon and insist that Congress take this threat to our planet seriously. We can no longer listen to Republican propaganda. We can no longer allow illegal aliens to enter or remain in our country with impunity. W e must reduce legal immigration below 200,000 per year. Every loyal American needs to support these goals before it is too late. It is a matter of humanity at its most fundamental level.

(See Doug Struck, The Washington Post for the basic report on this subject)

A Sleeping Giant Awakens

Public Opinion in Action

Mexico Norte: A Country Becoming

Border Fence Funding Hoax of 2006 and 2007

How Congress And The President Are Working Behind-The-Scenes To Un-Do The Secure Fence Act

Despite grandiose claims, our government has built just 5 miles of the the 854 miles of double-layer border fence mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006. While this fact is outrageous in and of itself, it begs a question: Why?

If the law mandated a double layer fence covering 854 miles of fencing, then how come such little progress has been made?

The truth is Congress and the President are playing games with the American people -- pretending to support a real border fence but then working behind the scenes to ensure that the Secure Fence Act is never really implemented.

Secure Fence Act Hoax of 2006
In the fall of 2006 when Congress passed and the President signed into law the Secure Fence Act, most Americans thought they understood what they were getting. The plain text of the law states that "the Secretary of Homeland Security shall provide for [at] least 2 layers of reinforced fencing, the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors" along a specified range of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Act then stipulated the precise regions of the border, covering a total of 854 miles. Before the Senate passed the Secure Fence Act, Senate leaders had already hatched a plan to, in essence, un-do the Act. More precisely stated, Congress passed another law giving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) discretion over how and where the fence would actually be built. That night, after the Secure Fence Act was passed, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison rose to the floor of the Senate and expressed her concern that the Act was too restrictive and would impose too much of a burden on Texas' border communities. of fencing and other physical infrastructure along the southwest border of the United States."

A deal had already been struck to basically un-do the Secure Fence Act before the vote was even taken. The whole event was carefully staged to create the impression that Congress was clamping down on illegal immigration. Interestingly, as the Senate was voting on the Secure Fence Act vote, it became clear that Congress had decided that saving their seats is more important than securing the borders."

It gets worse. The funding bill passed by Congress required that DHS report to Congress on how it would spend the funds prior to most of the funds being release. It is in DHS's report that it becomes clear that neither Congress nor the Administration really ever intended on adhering to the Secure Fence Act. First, DHS's plan -- called SBInet (Secure Borders Initiative) -- does not reference the goals of the Secure Fence Act. Second, DHS's report back to Congress in December 2006 openly questioned whether the border fence was necessary.

Instead, DHS arbitrarily decided there should be 570 miles of total border barriers, of which 370 miles would be actual pedestrian fencing (not double layer). Thus, instead of 854 miles of double-layer fencing, DHS set a goal of 370 miles of "pedestrian" fencing (i.e. not double-layer fencing). It is clear that DHS felt no obligation to fulfill the specific requirements of the Secure Fence Act.

But that's just the beginning....

Border Fence Funding Scam of 2007
Skip ahead to this fall as Congress has been considering a $3 billion funding bill for border security and allegedly the fence. As you may know, that amendment was stripped out of the Department of Defense appropriations bill last week. But even if they had passed the $3 billion funding amendment, DHS will not be required to use any of that money for the border fence! Not ONE DIME!

That's because of another amendment put forward by Sen. Hutchison that said DHS would not have to build the fence. This Amendment (SA 3176) seems, at first glance, to support building a fence. It is entitled "Improvement of Barrier At Border" and states in Subparagraph A:

"(A) REINFORCED FENCING.--In carrying out subsection (a), the Secretary of Homeland Security shall construct reinforced fencing along not less than 700 miles of the southwest border where fencing would be most practical and effective and provide for the installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors to gain operational control of the southwest border."

Note the phrase "where fencing would be most practical and effective." Basically, DHS has an opt-out clause built in. But it gets worse. Page Two of the Hutchison amendment then states:

"(D) LIMITATION ON REQUIREMENTS.--Notwithstanding subparagraph (A), nothing in this paragraph shall require the Secretary of Homeland Security to install fencing, physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors in a particular location along an international border of the United States, if the Secretary determines that the use or placement of such resources is not the most appropriate means to achieve and maintain operational control over the international border at such location"

Just in case Subparagraph A was not clear enough, Hutchison added Subparagraph D to leave no room for doubt that this amendment is intended to make sure DHS is under no legal obligation to ever build any fence, never mind the 854 miles of double-layer fencing mandated by the Secure Fence Act of 2006. "Notwithstanding" means "in spite of." Thus, Subparagraph D says that in spite of anything stated in Subparagraph A, DHS is under no mandate to build the fence.

The Hillary Rodman States of America

Incentives Fuel Illegal Aliens

When Hillary Rodham Clinton fumbled a recent debate question about New York's plan to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, she helped clarify at least one issue that keeps getting muddied: Illegal immigrants are illegal.

Why, then, are we granting them driver's licenses?

Thus far, eight states allow illegal immigrants to receive licenses or permits (and 10 states offer in-state tuition) -- all in the spirit of making America a better place.

We don't want to encourage immigrants to come here illegally.

Gotcha.

The illegal immigrant problem is huge, obviously, and there's no single solution. But there is one word that would get the ball rolling in the right direction and win a lot of voters' hearts: disincentivize. Stop making it so attractive to slip through, over and under the border.

We should remove the incentives like birthright citizenship, jobs, medical treatment, driver's licenses and in-state tuition for those who come here illegally, why would any right-thinking, would-be immigrant take a number and wait his or her turn? Why not just throw in the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders and free tequila while we're at it?

We must also create disincentives for border violations by assuring that those who are apprehended are expeditiously repatriated with the admonition that if they return and are apprehended again they will be jailed for not less than two years. All deportations must be treated as involuntary so that the jail time penalty is automatic. The social security number/name mismatch and multiple SSN use notifications would be another significant set of disincentives, especially if the perpetrators of ssn fraud were to be quickly deported at their own expense. Birth and death registries, tracking of visa overstays, and the reform of the 14th amendment would provide added disincentives.

Arguments favoring services and privileges for illegal immigrants always point to the broader benefits to society. Healthy immigrants mean a healthier America; an educated populace means fewer jobless dependents; legal drivers are more responsible because, allegedly, they'll also buy insurance and stick around when they have an accident.

The latter seems unconvincing given that illegal immigrants, by definition, tend not to think legally. In any case, by the same logic, we might also say that amnesty is good for the country because then everyone would be legal. Rather than fix something, we simply accommodate circumstances. As in: Kids are having sex anyway, so we'll just give them condoms.

Advocates for licensing also argue that illegal immigrants can't get jobs without a driver's license. Do I hear bingo? Isn't that the point?

On the one hand, we argue that employers should be penalized for hiring illegal immigrants; on the other, we insist that the immigrants need driver's licenses because employers demand them. I'm beginning to see how Clinton got so tangled up. You cannot argue rationally in defense of the irrational.

The Monday morning quarterback is, of course, a brilliant seer and the stands are filled with hindsight prophets this week. Here's one more shoulda for the pile-on. When NBC's Tim Russert asked why she thought New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses made sense, Clinton should have simply said:

"It makes sense for states to seek solutions given the federal government's failure to reform immigration, but I'm not 100 percent satisfied with the licensing plan. Unfortunately, Tim, I'll need more than 30 seconds to outline my concerns."

Or something to that effect. Instead, Clinton called for immigration reform. It's easy to say we need reform. Everybody agrees with that. It's much harder to say we need to stop rewarding "illegals."

Clinton even refused to use the term "illegal immigrant," preferring the blander "undocumented worker," as though people who cross our border illegally are just like the rest of us except for those darned documents. They may be nice, hardworking people, but they're not like other immigrants who, having come here legally, have demonstrated a commitment to the rule of law and fairness.

Surely, we can love our neighbors and be a pro-immigrant nation without granting de facto citizenship to illegal immigrants through a menu of rights and privileges. As is, all that's missing is the oath -- and any meaning attached to it.

Beyond principle, there are practical reasons for denying licenses to illegal immigrants. As some reformers have pointed out, the driver's license is more than a permit to drive. It's a nationally recognized ID that implies citizenship, and is the most coveted "breeder document" of terrorists because it allows them access to all the other things they need to blend in -- jobs, housing, bank accounts -- as well as access to commercial airplanes and rental cars.

Many states still don't verify applicants' identities. In May 2001, when Tennessee dropped its requirement that applicants supply a Social Security number, tens of thousands of illegal immigrants applied for licenses, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

It would be refreshing if we began to take seriously what it means to be a citizen and stop making it so attractive to be a lawbreaker.

That would make sense.

----------
The above is excerpted, paraphrased and modified from an OpEd by
Kathleen Parker is a syndicated columnist based in Washington.

At Last an Immigration Reform Bill We All Can Support.

H.R. 4088, known as the SAVE bill, was recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.[1] In contrast to earlier bills which attempted to be all things to all people, this bill focuses on securing the borders first by buttressing physical improvements at the border with more agents and more internal enforcement.

Under the provisions of this bill, 8,000 more border patrol agents will be added over the next five years with 80% to be deployed on the southern border and 20% on the northern border. This is generally consistent with the perceived volume of illegal aliens violating the borders. Additional positions will also be added to the smuggling and tunneling task forces.

The act provides financial relief to sheriffs’ and local police offices if any part of their jurisdictions lies within 25 miles of the border. It requires the mandatory use of an electronic system for verifying the immigration status of all employees within four years but imposes no penalties if the employment of such illegals is immediately terminated. Mandatory notification of employers who have employees with social security number/ name mismatches or if there have been multiple uses of a social security number and an electronic birth and death registration system are also features of this forward-looking bill. Employers will be denied the authority to deduct from gross income any wages paid to illegal aliens.

This is a very positive bill with 90 bi-partisan co-sponsors. If it passes both Houses of Congress, it will prove that so-called comprehensive reform was both misguided and unnecessary. Securing the borders, always should have been our first priority. Unless or until that happens no one should be talking about regularizing the illegal aliens already present in this country. A stepwise, systematic approach to reform has always been the best approach.

If this bill passes, we can the move on to other urgently needed measures such as the Official English and 14^th Amendment reforms.[2]^,[3] The passage of these measures would facilitate the solution of most of the remaining immigration reform problems including the illegals already present in our country.

Detractors, much to their discredit, like to label “Official English” measures as “English Only”. Official English only means that all official government business must be conducted in English and all government materials such as ballots must be printed only in English.

The 14^th Amendment has long been abused by those who seek birthright citizenship for their offspring by whatever means it takes. One way to stop this abuse is to declare that a child is not “under the jurisdiction” of the United States unless at least one parent is a citizen.

Passage of these additional measures would remove two of the remaining impediments to the solution to the larger immigration issues.

---

[1] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c110:./temp/~c110JmmlXL

[2] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:h.r.01940:

[3] http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c110:1:./temp/~c110bJxkPr::

The Two Faces of Eve?

Tancredo wowed 'em in the Debates

Will Return to Mexico with Money in their Pockets

21st Century Border Patrol

Shades of Lupita Lipinski

We're in deep financial trouble, warns the nation's top number-cruncher. If we stay the course, we'll likely create a debt burden that cannot be repaid. The federal budget is crumbling says David M. Walker, U.S. Comptroller General. The nation continues to borrow at an alarming rate. The country can't afford the Medicare and Social Security benefits it has promised. America's current long-term financial liability (what we're on the hook to pay if nothing changes) is $50.5 trillion. That amounts to $400,000 for each full-time worker in the U.S.. The average annual disposable income per person in 2006 was only $31,519.

Yet, congress has done nothing to reduce the influx of immigrants and illegals who make claims on our diminishing resources and services like SCHIP, Medicaid and Aid to Dependent Children. What are they thinking?

denverpost.com/perspective

Hillary on the Stump

Hard Ball with Ultima

ULTIMA: This is a continuation of our discussion of the illegal alien and excessive immigration problems with Senator Martinez. Senator, if we turned the job of apprehending, detaining and deporting illegals over to private enterprise, how would the cost plus a profit be recovered?

MARTINEZ: I visualize five potential sources: First of all is the illegals themselves. If they could afford to pay a coyote or pay for the other costs involved in entering this country illegally then they certainly can afford the return fare. Second, the employers of illegals must bear at least a portion of the burden. Third, the State Department should be required to negotiate bilateral treaties with the homeland governments of the illegals to enable the recovery of a fair share of the costs of apprehension, detention, and repatriation. Fourth, if this effort fails, we should reduce the foreign aid extended to these governments by the amount necessary to recover a prorata share of our costs. Fifth, if the above fail to cover all of our costs, we must apply a tax on all remittances to foreign countries.

ULTIMA: We often hear the “family-separation” argument against roundup and deportation of illegals. What is your take on this?

MARTINEZ: This argument is obviously a red herring. There need be no family separations. Parents who are deported must take their minor children with them. To do otherwise would make them guilty of gross child neglect or abuse.

There may be some legal issues involved where the children have birthright citizenship. That is one of the problems of the 14^th amendment. This problem can be resolved by delaying the award of birthright citizenship until the child reaches his majority. I also favor an interpretation of the 14^th amendment that considers the child to be “…under the jurisdiction of the United States” only if at least one of the parents is a citizen.

ULTIMA: Some believe that citizens who favor open borders, amnesty or legalization of illegal aliens, a relinquishment of our national sovereignty, language and culture are being disloyal to this country. Do you agree?

MARTINEZ: No one likes to be considered disloyal so it is useful to see how that term is defined. A common definition of disloyalty is “being false to one’s allegiance or obligations.” To me, allegiance or obligations means giving precedence to the laws, flag, culture, and language of one’s country. It specifically denies any allegiance to foreigners or foreign interests. Good examples of this can be found in the various wars of our country in which relatives have ended up on opposite sides. Many Americans had relatives in England, the Confederacy, Germany and Japan who fought for the enemy. Any citizen who sympathized with our enemies, because of that or for other reasons, was considered traitorous or disloyal. “Hanoi Jane” is one example. Although never prosecuted she was certainly ostracized in certain quarters and apologized belatedly for her actions.

Today we have the immigration wars. Those who favor the interests of illegal aliens and/or their countries of origin are certainly skirting with disloyalty and treason. Citizens, regardless of ethnicity, have an obligation to seek solutions from the point of view of their country, not that of interlopers, illegal aliens, or their fellow travelers.

ULTIMA: That is a very strong statement. How do you think it will be received in the illegal and immigrant communities?

MARTINEZ: Of course, that depends on where their loyalties lie. If they take the long view and want to preserve whatever standard of living or quality of life they currently enjoy, then they will see the truth in what I have said. If, on the other hand, they believe that America can accommodate the downtrodden masses from all of the impoverished, disease-ridden, crime-infested neighborhoods of the world, they undoubtedly will disagree with me. They then must be prepared to accept the consequences of their myopia in terms of a standard of living at equilibrium with that of their homelands. This will be an equilibrium no American citizen will like.

ULTIMA: A final question for this session: some folks believe that it is inevitable that a flood of illegal aliens and immigration’s unarmed invasion will re-create the very conditions they fled their homelands to escape such as poverty, crime, and joblessness. Do you agree?

MARTINEZ: It does not necessarily follow that aliens and immigrants will re-create the poor conditions of their homelands. It depends on the numbers and on their social integration and linguistic and cultural assimilation. Nevertheless, this is a serious issue and a serious threat that warrants some careful thought by those who support: the illegals, the present level of legal immigration, and the present interpretation of the 14th amendment. The outcome will depend on actions we take now to resolve the immigration problem once and for all with the objective of preserving everything we know and love about America.

McCain Sees the Light

Senator John McCain spent months this year arguing that the United States must combine border security efforts with a temporary worker program and an eventual path to citizenship for many illegal aliens. Now, the Republican presidential candidate has seen the light. He now emphasizes securing the border first. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."

Perhaps his message by extension is that all citizens should recognize this fact and push for border security before any other immigration reforms are entertained.

HARD BALL WITH ULTIMA

ULTIMA: As a Hispanic American citizen, do you support the idea of issuing drivers licenses to illegal aliens? What purpose would these licenses serve?

MARTINEZ: Yes, I do. It would enable these workers to come out of the shadows, drive an auto, buy insurance, open a bank account, and do a number of other things not otherwise prohibited by law.

ULTIMA: Should these licenses show any visa expiration date or in the absence of such a date serve as prima facie evidence that the person is present in this country illegally and therefore should be detained for Immigration and Customs Enforcement?

MARTINEZ: Anyone whose visa has expired or is about to expire would be unlikely to apply for a driver’s license under those conditions. Likewise, if the license itself is prima facie evidence of illegality, no one would be interested unless they knew the state and local police had been ordered not to detain illegal aliens.

ULTIMA: What does it mean to come out of the shadows? If the illegals are already working and living in the U.S. and driving to work without a license, aren’t they already out of the shadows? If an illegal is apprehended for traffic or other violations and does not have the required insurance, what should be done?

MARTINEZ: Admittedly, most of the illegals already live out in the open and so the term “out of the shadows” has little meaning. Some people think of it as giving the illegal aliens some sort of legal status so that they would no longer be faced with the threat of deportation. In my opinion, this term is just an attempt to garner sympathy for illegals who are skulking around our country and who shouldn’t be here. Those apprehended for traffic violations and do not have the required insurance should be detained for involuntary deportation. They must also pay any applicable fines.

ULTIMA: Do you believe state and local law enforcement should cooperate with the feds to help apprehend illegals and detain them until ICE can take custody? I'm not speaking of any sort of roundups by local authorities, just the determination of immigration status for anyone who is apprehended for other reasons.

MARTINEZ: Of course. State and local officials make all kinds of excuses for doing this but I believe this is part of their job of enforcing the law. The federal government should recognize the costs involved and make sure they have all the detention facilities needed to quickly remove illegals from local custody. If there is some impediment to local enforcement of the immigration laws, it should be removed as part of any immigration reform bill.

ULTIMA: Changing the subject, some believe that all illegal aliens should be legalized and granted a pathway to citizenship. Do you subscribe to this point of view or do you think this would create a huge incentive for more aliens to penetrate our borders?

MARTINEZ: It is obvious that many these folks have put down roots here to some extent and have children in American schools. It is also apparent that if all 12-20 million were to be deported, it would be a huge undertaking best handled by private enterprise rather than the government. Nevertheless, one has to admit that the systematic deportation of all of those who are apprehended in roundups at high profile employers or elsewhere is feasible. It is not something that can be or has to be done overnight. No one would want that because of the potential damage to our economy. Although I am sympathetic to the plight of some of the illegal aliens, it is obvious to me as an American citizen that if we want secure borders we must create disincentives to additional border violations. The involuntary and expeditious deportation of a significant number of illegals is one such disincentive. Physical barriers is another. A third is employer sanctions for those who hire illegals. I also like the idea of requiring employers to provide family health care coverage for all of their foreign employees. If I were an employer, that would certainly be a significant disincentive for hiring foreign workers.

---

Spitzer starts his campaign for President early!

Myopia