LimitsToGrowth
Archive
July 2006
Inquiry into 'beggar amputations' [7/31/06]
From India, where street beggary has a long and ugly history, there is a scandal about doctors offering to remove limbs for a fee. That way the beggars can make more money.
A radio report on this story (The World) said that it was historically not unusual for India mothers to cripple a child so the kid could bring home more money. Also, that the Indian public was scandalized only because the doctors involved weren't everyday dirtbags, but came from a reputable hospital.
The Indian Medical Association has launched a probe after three doctors were shown on television offering to amputate beggars' limbs for money.
The secret filming apparently shows one senior doctor offering to perform the operation for the equivalent of $200.
There have long been rumours that criminal gangs pay for the amputation as beggars are able to generate more sympathy and make more money.
Nice culture! Some India boosters believe that the 21st century will belong to India, but LTG remains unconvinced.
Refugees taught how to eat American food [7/31/06]
What happens to tribal refugees brought from Africa to America? Many get fat, obese even. Therefore they get taxpayer-funded programs about how to eat properly with their food stamps.
In a classroom on Chicago's north side, nutritionist Bindi Desai points at a sign of an obese man holding a hamburger with a pained expression on his face.
"This guy is overweight," she says, explaining that this is because he eats too much fast food and drinks cola.
"And guess what happens?" she asks. "Inside his body there are lots of problems."
At a table, a dozen or so refugees - most of them from Africa - sit and nod. Some smile and chat among themselves. They appear to get the picture.
This workshop on how to eat American food responsibly is part of an Illinois state-funded programme to improve the nutrition of refugees who are being re-settled in the land of plenty.
Failed Ideology Behind Another American Death [7/31/06]
Pam Waechter was murdered on Friday in Seattle by an angry American-born Muslim.
Pamela Waechter is the latest victim of multiculturalism, the failed ideology which believes that all cultures are equal and can get along in one country, kumbaya fashion. She was the woman who was shot and killed Friday by the Muslim shooter in Seattle.
Naveed Afzal Haq forced his way into the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by holding a gun on a 13-year old girl and proceeded to shoot five other women in addition to Pam. Born in America, Haq declared "I am a Muslim American, angry at Israel" as he gunned down the unarmed Jewish women.
Haq had a degree in engineering, was 30 years old, yet had a string of loser jobs. He had been getting psychological treatment for 10 years, but you have to wonder how much his real problem was the near-impossible cultural adjustment for a Muslim growing up in the United States with immigrant parents. Adult immigrants have their cultural and personal identity figured out, so any difficulties are of the exterior navigational variety.
But children growing up in America within immigrant cultures having anti-western values must sort out very conflicted identities, and in so doing necessarily deny a substantial part of who they are. Muslims in particular have a tough task, since they learn in some (many?) mosques that Jews and Christians are enemies, period.
Report predicts immigration chaos [7/31/06]
Being in the EU is creating huge immigration problems for Britain.
A huge rise in immigration from eastern Europe next year could cause chaos in schools, hospitals and welfare services, according to a leaked report. [...]
The arrival of hundreds of thousands of new arrivals is already pushing down wages for workers, with potentially "serious implications" for social discord, the document says.
It reveals that government departments have been ordered to draw up emergency plans to deal with pressure on public services from an expected "step change" in immigration levels when Romania and Bulgaria join the EU next year.
Meanwhile, towns and cities where large numbers of new immigrants have settled are already demanding millions of pounds of extra money to cope. [...]
The number of immigrants to Britain since Poland and seven other east European countries joined the EU two years ago is now estimated at 600,000, compared with the Government's original prediction of between 5,000 and 13,000 a year. Ministers expect this number to rise by up to another 140,000 next year.
Courts cater to Spanish speakers [7/31/06]
In the court systems of Virginia and Maryland, the costs of supplying translators for foreign lawbreakers is mounting.
Maryland and Virginia court officials say their budgets for Spanish-language interpreters have increased about 10 percent annually over the past decade as more immigrants and illegal aliens have settled in the area.
Virginia officials added nine freelance, Spanish-language interpreters in fiscal 2005, which brought its total to 113 and cost $3.42 million -- a 12.3 percent budget increase over fiscal 2004.
The state's fiscal 2005 budget for the entire courts system was $269.9 million, which covered 2,568 employees but did not include substitute judges, circuit court clerks or wage employees.
Maryland contracted the services of 350 interpreters, about 45 percent of them Spanish speaking, at a cost of $1.75 million in fiscal 2005 and has budgeted more than $2 million for interpreters in fiscal 2006. The state court system in fiscal 2005 had a $311.2 million budget and employed about 4,700 judges, contractors and full- and part-time employees. [...]
Xiomara Iglesias -- a certified Spanish interpreter working on the high-profile retrial of Adan Canela and Policarpio Espinoza Perez, two Mexican illegal aliens accused of nearly beheading three young relatives two years ago in Baltimore -- said she has seen a marked increase in the demand for Spanish interpreters in the region over the past two years.
Mrs. Iglesias, who was born in Central America, said the demand may be attributed in part to the diminished need to learn English.
"Nowadays you have Spanish radio, Spanish TV, newspapers ...," said Mrs. Iglesias, 37, of Silver Spring.
Hezballah Dating Service [7/30/06]
Check out this YouTube riff on a match-up video from an AFM ("Angry Fundamentalist Male") looking for wives #14 -19. One minute of fun.
Blair to join galaxy of stars at Pebble Beach [7/30/06]
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is swinging through California in the next few days, and events are getting pretty darn bizarre.
But after that address, Blair and Clinton have added an event: They're expected to be at UCLA when London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sign a city-to-city agreement on reducing greenhouse gases, sources said.
FYI, London's Mayor is known as Red Ken for his Marxist beliefs. In addition, he is also notable for his fondness for radical Islam.
Mayor Vile is an ardent Mexican reconquista, a political movement that has caused the population of southern California to explode with millions of uninvited Mexican citizens.
So it is mind boggling, at the least, that Mayor Vile says he wants to reduce greenhouse gases, when overpopulation in industrial states is a major cause of excessive hydrocarbons being flung into the atmosphere. And Los Angeles practically invented smog with all those millions of cars!
Furthermore, the idea that two Marxist mayors care doodly squat about the planet is to laugh.
6 + 4 = 1 Tenuous Existence [7/29/06]
This is an article that should not be missed. It is filled with many of the aspects of social pathology introduced into America by the importation of millions of Mexican peasants. The couple featured now has 10 children, whose upkeep has been largely financed by the American taxpayer. Mr. Magdaleno wanted a son after having several girls, so he convinced his wife to have her tubal ligation reversed and to take fertility pills.
The Magdalenos are illegal aliens, have both lived here more than 20 years and don't speak English. The husband makes $400/week installing carpets.
One set each of triplets and quadruplets later, the family is overrun with children they cannot afford. So we taxpayers are stuck with the bills for raising this dysfunctional peasant family.
Yet all of Magdaleno's 10 children are U.S. citizens. The triplets receive subsidized school lunches. All the youngsters have had their healthcare bills covered by Medi-Cal, the state and federal healthcare program for the poor.
Alfredo Jr. had been hospitalized all his life until recently. He's had three state-funded brain operations and will require several more, the family said. The couple receive $700 in monthly Social Security payments to help with his medical needs.
"I thank this country that they gave me Medi-Cal," Magdaleno said. "There's nothing like that in Mexico."
ABOVE: Your tax dollars at work; the latest Magdaleno progeny on the dole (anchor baby quads).
Magdaleno's existence contrasts sharply with that of her younger siblings, who followed her to Los Angeles but then left. They have settled in Lexington, Ky., had no more than two children each and built better lives than they had known before. Four bought houses. Their children speak English fluently.
Magdaleno's sisters struggle in vain to understand her. "She still thinks like people in Mexico that's what I think," said her 38-year-old sister, Justina. "You have to think first of your living children instead of thinking of having more." [...]
What's also remarkable is the behavior of Senora Magdaleno's sensible sisters, who voice opinions that Americans get in big trouble for saying.
In Lexington, she said, "at the school there are just people who speak English. It's helped my children a lot."
Justina, who came to the U.S. with Magdaleno, applied for legal residency under the 1986 amnesty law and is now a U.S. citizen. Magdaleno never applied.
The sisters say they have urged Angela to come out to Kentucky at least to visit. She said she hasn't because her son has been hospitalized so much.
Last year, however, she sent her daughter, Kelly, 17, to Kentucky for several months. Though American born and raised, Kelly hadn't been outside South Los Angeles.
In Lexington, school was hard because few people spoke Spanish, and the city "barely had one Spanish radio station," Kelly said.
Her cousins, she said in English, "use more educational words than here. My cousin is 7 years old, and he has a better reading level than me. He don't see picture books or drawings or anything like that. He just likes books with pure letters."
Girls from Mexican-immigrant families in Kentucky, she saw, were in their mid-20s and still didn't have children.
"I said, 'Damn, that's weird,' " Kelly said. "The girls right here in Los Angeles are like in Mexico. There are girls that are 14, they got kids."
The family in Kentucky "is more in the United States than" her mother, Kelly concluded. "They want a better education for the kids. With less kids there's better possibility of you having something."
Forum airs concerns about arrests, crime [7/28/06]
Phil Valentine is a Tennessee radio talk-show host who held the second of a series of town-hall meetings Thursday about the effect of open borders on America and their local community. He is quite knowledgeable on the crime topic.
FRANKLIN - At a town-hall meeting billed as "The Criminal Face of Illegal Immigration" Thursday, host Phil Valentine said, "People are saying that all immigrants are hardworking and come here to do jobs that Americans won't do .... And a lot of them are." Then he cited statistics showing illegal immigrants make up a disproportionate portion of the federal prison population.
Valentine, a popular radio talk-show host, also offered examples of illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes in the U.S., speaking of "the devastation caused by illegal immigrants who come here to rape, murder, and run into folks and kill them."
About 250 attended the standing-room-only gathering.
The topic of crime by illegal immigrants was highlighted in Middle Tennessee this year by the revelation that Gustavo Reyes Garcia, an illegal immigrant accused of killing a Mt. Juliet couple while driving drunk, had been jailed at least 14 times previously, four times for driving under the influence. [...]
Valentine introduced one person attending as Billy Ray Latham, a former banjo player on "The Andy Griffith Show" who had been hit head-on by an illegal immigrant as he was driving. He was permanently disabled by the incident and can no longer play banjo.
Chertoff pledges early control of border [7/28/06]
Incredible that nearly five years after 9/11, the government still doesn't have control of the borders, and furthermore, Washington doesn't expect to have "operational control" until 2008! Maybe.
WASHINGTON - The federal government will gain operational control of the Southwest border in 2008, two years ahead of schedule, thanks to $1.9 billion in extra money for enforcement and the deployment of National Guard troops to the region, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff pledged Thursday.
"Obviously there are, of course, unpredictable elements in this," Chertoff told the House subcommittee that controls his department's purse strings. "But I think the supplemental (funding) and the use of the National Guard in the intervening period of time really does give us a jumpstart in getting this done."
While Chertoff sketched a rosy view of immigration enforcement developments at the border and inside the country, House appropriators were far more skeptical.
During the two-hour hearing, they grumbled about a lack of strategic planning, inadequate contractor oversight and delays in completing the US-VISIT program to track foreigners' entry and departure from the country.
Immigration Hearings Hit the Road [7/27/06]
Here is a list of the House immigration hearings for the month of August from Rep. Gingrey's blog:
Coming soon... immigration hearings across America. The House leadership today announced the upcoming immigration field hearings and topics:
HOUSE ADMINISTRATION COMMITTEE
Las Cruces, NM on August 3rd - How can Congress best protect the integrity of the federal voting process by combating election fraud and eliminating non-citizen voting?
Phoenix, AZ on August 3rd - How effective are state policies like Arizona's Proposition 200, which requires voters to provide evidence of citizenship, at combating election fraud?
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
San Diego, CA on August 2nd - How do illegal immigrants impact the costs of healthcare, local education, and other social services, and would these costs increase under Reid-Kennedy immigration bill?
El Paso, TX on August 17th - What is the financial impact of illegal immigration on communities along the U. S. border, and could these costs rise under the Reid-Kennedy bill? What is the impact on efforts to extend a border security fence under the Reid-Kennedy bill's requirements regarding consultation with the Mexican Government? Will efforts to limit illegal immigration be inhibited by the Reid-Kennedy bill's provisions relating to local law enforcement?
Concord, NH on August 24th - How do illegal immigrants impact the costs of healthcare, local education, and other social services, and would these costs increase under Reid-Kennedy immigration bill? What is the societal impact of the Reid-Kennedy bill's grant of amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants?
Upstate New York on August 25th - What are the current risks of terrorists, narcotics smugglers, and human traffickers infiltrating the United States, and what role do secure identification documents play in limiting those risks? Does the Reid-Kennedy bill undermine efforts to limit those risks?
Evansville, IN on August 29th - How are U. S. workers impacted, and potentially displaced, by the Reid-Kennedy bill?
Dubuque, IA on September 1st - Do the Reid-Kennedy bill's amnesty provisions repeat the mistakes of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?
ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE
Selfridge Air National Guard Base, MI on August 1st - What are the unique challenges for the Department of Defense in supporting border enforcement along the Northern Border?
Yuma Marine Corps Air Station, AZ on August 2nd - What are the operational and training impacts of a porous border on military bases along the border?
HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE
Bellingham, WA on August 8th - What are the border infrastructure successes since passage of the REAL ID Act and the 9/11 Commission Implementation Act, and what challenges still exist?
Austin, TX on August 17th - What are the criminal consequences of illegal immigration along the Southern Border?
SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE
Sierra Vista, AZ on August 17th - What is the state of technical surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities for monitoring the efforts of terrorists and drug cartels to infiltrate American soil through the Southern Border?
Grand Rapids, MI on August 23rd - What is the threat to the United States from Islamic extremists who abuse the legal immigration system?
EDUCATION & THE WORKFORCE COMMITTEE
Plano, TX on July 31st - Does the Reid-Kennedy bill weaken employment verification systems, making it easier for illegal immigrants to find work inside American borders?
Gainesville, GA on August 14th - What is the impact on American workers and businesses of the Reid-Kennedy bill's provisions mandating Davis-Bacon wage rates for guest-workers?
ENERGY AND COMMERCE COMMITTEE
Nashville, TN on August 10th - What is the impact of the Reid-Kennedy bill's amnesty provisions on the healthcare delivery system and for individual American taxpayers?
Dalton, GA on August 15th - What is the impact of the Reid-Kennedy bill's amnesty provisions on the healthcare delivery system and for individual American taxpayers?
GOVERNMENT REFORM COMMITTEE
San Diego, CA on August 14th - What is the impact on state and local governments, in terms of both societal costs such as policing and direct government costs such as health care and welfare benefits, of illegal immigration? Would the Reid-Kennedy bill impose huge unfunded mandates on state and local governments?
RESOURCES COMMITTEE
Santee, CA on August 5th - What efforts need to be undertaken to prevent federal public lands from being harmed as they are used as a pathway for illegal immigration? Does the Reid-Kennedy bill compromise our federal lands?
Hamilton, MT on August 28th - What efforts need to be undertaken to secure the federal lands along the Northern Border to prevent drug trafficking and other illegal activities? Could the Reid-Kennedy bill make these efforts more difficult?
Lamm's words draw fire [7/27/06]
Telling the truth about cultural differences still remains a big no-no among the politically correct! But the former governor of Colorado Dick Lamm already knew that when he spoke to the Vail Symposium.
"Racism and discrimination clearly still exist, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that the problem of minority underperformance is much broader and more nuanced than can be explained by the impact of racism alone," [Lamm] wrote.
"When two-thirds of black births are out-of-wedlock births, it is hard to write a happy or prosperous future for black America. When close to 50 percent of Hispanic students don't graduate from high school, it is hard to see Hispanics following the typical American route to prosperity."
Local Hispanic and black leaders say Lamm's viewpoints fuel stereotypes and extremism instead of helpful dialogue.
The Hispanicization of America, as Seen by a European Immigrant [7/27/06]
From View from the Right, here is a very sobering first-person observation from southern Mexifornia...
In my mixed residential neighborhood in Central Los Angeles, there could be no doubt as to which house was occupied by Mexicans. Goats tied to fence posts were being fattened for slaughter. My next-door neighbor had one. Dogs were sicced on each other. The decibel level of Mexican social interaction did not attenuate even in one degree to reflect the acceptable norms of the host country. Nor did the residential density-per-abode, or the number of children per household, or the number of automotive wrecks propped on bricks in the front yards. In general, it was obvious that these people did not think of their houses as their homes, and of their country as a locus of any tender feelings. It was in striking contrast to other immigrant groups.
We were not a gang activity area, but a drive two miles East or North would take one into truly foreign territory, as dangerous and ugly as many a Third World cesspool. Crime reports in the L.A. Times in 1971 differed only in quantity, but not in quality, from those you will find now. What has changed is that in 1971 the L.A. Times still knew its compass points. By 2006 it had lost its North and has become, among others, a prime enabler of Mexican reconquista. And, by now, Mexican gangs in the greater Los Angeles area number probably close to 200,000, i.e. a fifth column of 20 armed divisions, many of them with professional military training; and that's not counting the Central American crime organizations.
The burden has been growing daily, for at least 35 years now. I witness it now from a higher socio-economic perch, and, as a California taxpayer and homeowner, a driver on California's highways, and a visitor in what used to be California's groves and estuaries, from a different perspective. Our home was robbed by itinerant Mexicans. I know a mana 12th generation Americanwho was fired from his job as a public school janitor because he did not speak Spanish. His job went to an illegal immigrant. His small town has been overrun by Mexicans: legal and illegal but across the board loud, arrogant, and disrespectful of the laws and customs of their country. His Anglo daughters are ridiculed in school, and local law enforcement, minding who the voters are, fails to enforce the law not only with respect to immigration but relative to most areas that make life in a civil society possible.
Ground Zero Face-Off [7/27/06]
Minutemen were roughed up in New York City by anti-borders anarchists on Wednesday and had to be rescued by police.
Reuters reported the Minutemen as being at fault, a characterization which Jim Gilchrist vehemently denied (sound file).
"Racist go home," the women shouted back. They were quickly backed up by supporters who yelled at the man, "Welcome to New York: now learn Spanish," followed by, "Columbus was illegal!"
Real Crime, Fake Justice [7/27/06]
The British approach to crime is a true jaw-dropper, combining as it does the worst of liberal and pacifist thinking.
For the last 40 years, government policy in Britain, de facto if not always de jure, has been to render the British population virtually defenseless against criminals and criminality. Almost alone of British government policies, this one has been supremely effective: no Briton nowadays goes many hours without wondering how to avoid being victimized by a criminal intent on theft, burglary, or violence.
An unholy alliance between politicians and bureaucrats who want to keep prison costs to a minimum, and liberal intellectuals who pretend to see in crime a natural and understandable response to social injustice, which it would be a further injustice to punish, has engendered a prolonged and so far unfinished experiment in leniency that has debased the quality of life of millions of people, especially the poor. Every day in our newspapers we read of the absurd and dangerous leniency of the criminal-justice system. On April 21, for example, even the Observer (one of the bastions of British liberalism responsible for the present situation) gave prominence to the official report into the case of Anthony Rice, who strangled and then stabbed Naomi Bryant to death.
Schwarzenegger: Support Of Prop 187 Was Mistake [7/26/06]
The Governor of California has been on a bus trip pitching his re-election to the voters, and has proceeded to dig himself into a deep hole in just one day. Not only did he repudiate his earlier endorsement of the widely supported Prop 187 (which would have denied taxpayer-supplied benefits to illegal aliens), but he also insulted the many millions of Americans who feel strongly about our borders and sovereignty.
LA MESA, Calif. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday he was wrong to have supported a 1994 initiative that sought to curb California's influx of illegal immigrants by denying them many government services.
Proposition 187 was passed handily by voters but tossed out by the courts.
"I could be criticized for flip-flopping, but better to say I was wrong than to hold onto something that isn't my view," Schwarzenegger told reporters on the first day of a campaign bus tour. [...]
Schwarzenegger made the statement during his "Protecting the California Dream" bus tour, which got off to a rocky start when the governor was heckled during his first appearance -- a town hall meeting in the San Diego County community of La Mesa.
The meeting was dominated by questions about illegal immigration.
"I voted for you. And right now I don't see much difference between you and Phil Angelides," said Sally Plata, a 66-year-old retiree from El Cajon and a Minuteman civilian patrol member who expressed frustration about the porous border.
Schwarzenegger smiled during the sometimes heated questioning.
"Never get mad at anyone who is trying to come to this country. Get mad at the federal government which is not securing our borders," Schwarzenegger told the crowd.
Afterward, Schwarzenegger told reporters he was troubled by some of the comments and surprised by their tone.
"It was pretty much the first time I saw the intensity of prejudice," Schwarzenegger, an immigrant himself, said. "This one woman came up to me and said, 'Stop the invasion.' It was that kind of dialogue, and not 'Hey, is there something we can do about immigration?' And I think that's going into a dangerous area."
He also took back his earlier support of the Minutemen.
21st Century Slave Trade: The 'Guest Worker' Amnesty [7/26/06]
Jim Gilchrist and Jerome R. Corsi have it exactly right -- the current pursuit of near-free labor has a long and ugly history of human exploitation.
The twenty-first-century slave trade involves an organized effort to bring into the United States an underclass of uneducated, impoverished illegal immigrants who will work for below-market wages for companies that plan to commit employment tax fraud and violations of labor and immigration laws. No slave trader may actually go to Mexico or other Hispanic countries to capture workers and force them in chains to come to America to work in sub-standard conditions. Yet, we have termed this "under-market" in illegal alien workers the "twenty-first-century slave trade" because the practice of brokering workers into these jobs involves a determination to exploit them.
Servitude sets in when the workers come to live in the United States and find no alternative but to accept these under-market jobs. Often living in extended family units, the economic opportunity here may still be better than in their home countries. Still, by U.S. standards, the illegal immigrant laborer is being exploited; otherwise their employment market probably would not exist in the first place.
A Long Flight of No Return [7/25/06]
Michelle Malkin noticed the gang-banger photos in the slide show with this sob-story article about a deportation flight.
But there is text which shouldn't be missed either...
The passengers -- 105 men shackled at the wrists and the ankles--grumbled their assent. Then they peered out the thick, blurry windows for a last glimpse of Virginia. Once, they had been hopeful newcomers to the United States. Now, they were about to leave for good on a deportation flight for illegal immigrants run by the Department of Homeland Security. [...]
Pressed into service when he was 14, Galea said he was taught to torture the unit's captives by pushing needles under their fingernails. He had buried innocent civilians alive, and he was haunted by guilty flashbacks of their screams. Now he was being deported back because of a drunken assault.
Galea maintained that his wife mistakenly thought an intruder was in the house. The commonwealth's attorney said that when police arrived, Galea's wife told them that Galea was drunk and that she was concerned because he was upstairs in bed with their son and might be molesting the boy.
Nice people they let into this country one is a torturer and murderer whose wife thinks he molests their son! But to the Washington Post, he was one of the "hopeful newcomers" whose luck ran out. Or something like that.
Big California Wildfire Likely from Illegal Immigrant Campfire [7/25/06]
This is not the first time that illegal alien squatters have started an expensive and dangerous fire.
ALPINE, Calif. A 7,000-acre wildfire that forced the evacuation of more than a hundred homes near the California-Mexico border may have been caused by an abandoned campfire set by illegal immigrants, authorities said Monday.
The fire had burned nearly 11 square miles of brush and chaparral in the Cleveland National Forest in southern San Diego County.
It prompted sheriff's deputies to order 125 homes evacuated in the town of Alpine starting Sunday. Residents throughout parts of Pine Valley and Lake Morena, where there are about 1,350 homes combined, were told to remain on standby, said sheriff's spokeswoman Susan Plese.
More than 1,500 homes and 100 commercial properties could be threatened by the fire, which was about 5 percent contained, but the threat was not immediate, officials said.
Minutemen Founder: 30 Million Illegals in U.S. [7/25/06]
This number sounds totally reasonable. The press latches on to a Census figure and repeats it for years, despite the fact that the illegal population is increasing by thousands every day.
Bear Stearns economists estimated in 2004 that there were 20 million illegals. Investigative reporters Barlett and Steele wrote in their famous Time report. Who Left the Door Open? that 3 million illegals enter annually that's 26 million right there.
The real number of illegal aliens in the U.S. is not 12 million, as the federal government claims, but closer to 30 million.
The IRS known for hounding citizens who make mistakes on their returns has paid out $10 billion in refunds and credits to illegal aliens who used fraudulent Social Security numbers, and it has no intention of going after those who've made fraudulent claims.
Over 3,000 illegal aliens suspected of murdering Americans have fled to Mexico, where they often live openly and without fear of arrest.
African-American groups join immigration debate [7/24/06]
This article is yet another example that the division of pro- and anti-borders thinking is between elites and normal people. The President of the NAACP still believes that joining with hispanics in coalition to favor vastly increased legal and illegal immigration is good for blacks. More realistic black Americans understand that hispanics will forget all about the rainbow coalition fantasy when latino population expands a few more tens of millions.
The nation's oldest civil-rights group is joining Hispanic groups in support of earned legalization for undocumented immigrants in the United States.
Bruce Gordon, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, made the announcement during the recent League of United Latin American Citizens convention.
The decision has split the African-American community.
"Mass illegal immigration has been a major impediment to black advancement in this country over the past 25 years," said Frank Morris, the chairman of Choose Black America. The group is a national coalition of business professionals who support enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.
"An illegal-alien amnesty program would not only reward tens of millions of lawbreakers, but would set black Americans back a hundred years," Morris said. "Mass illegal immigration is not a victimless crime. There are real people who lose their jobs or the chance to earn a better living."
Critics also contend that illegal immigrants accept jobs at substandard wages with few or no benefits, thus suppressing the wage base for all Americans.
See also the YouTube video of several prominent black Americans, including Frank Morris and Rev. Jesse Peterson, appearing at the National Press Club to represent the ideas of Choose Black America. Part two here. Great stuff!
In Praise of the First and Second Amendments [7/24/06]
Fjordman is back, explaining how Stalinist multiculturalism, particularly its threat to free speech by insisting on "sensitivity", is crushing freedom.
While Islamic groups in Britain openly brag about how they are going to subdue the country by violent means or call for beheading those insulting Islam, Bryan Cork, 49, of Carlisle, Cumbria, in the Lake District, was sentenced to six months in jail for standing outside a mosque shouting, "Proud to be British," and "Go back to where you came from." One British court ruled that even use of the word "immigrant" as an insult could amount to proof of racial hostility.
In Belgium, a Turkish-born Catholic priest, Pere Samuel, has been prosecuted for "incitement to racist hatred" by the Belgian Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR), because of a remark he made in a 2002 television interview when he said: "Every thoroughly islamized Muslim child that is born in Europe is a time bomb for Western children in the future. The latter will be persecuted when they have become a minority." He claims Muslims are invading Europe and warns for an impending civil war. [...]
George Orwell said: "If freedom of speech means anything at all, it is the freedom to say things that people do not want to hear," and he was right. Multiculturalists who claim that freedom of speech does not include the freedom to offend others are wrong. In the doctrine of John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, published in 1859, the right to freedom of expression and its conditions are stated clearly. The most fundamental principle of a freely operating liberal society is the right to the "freedom of opinion." The only exception in which Mill conceived such freedom to be limited was if it were to impose severe harm onto others and he declared this to be a rare thing. [...]
The reason why European authorities are becoming increasingly totalitarian in their censorship efforts is to conceal the fact that they are no longer willing or able to uphold even the most basic security of their citizenry. If their governments are no longer capable of protecting them and their freedom of speech, Europeans may have to arm themselves to do this on their own. Michael Moore's books, ridiculing American 'gun nuts," are bestsellers in Europe. Sadly, The Bill of Rights is less popular reading. Perhaps the time has come for Europeans to also take a second look at the Second Amendment The right for the people to keep and bear arms.
The nifty Commie EU symbol is from the excellent blog Gates of Vienna, which also publishes Fjordman essays, e.g. today's From Citizen to Subject The Rule of Experts and the Rise of Transnational Anti-Democrats .
Even in the USA, the most astonishing aspect of the immigration debate is that the elites "think they can override the clear and huge resistance of the American people." As columnist Tony Blankley wrote, the Senate was prepared to "legislate into the teeth of the will of the American public." Eight out of ten Americans wanted the borders closed to millions of illegal immigrants, yet nothing substantial has been done. There has to be a reason for this.
There is also in the USA a dangerous drive for granting full rights, even voting rights, to illegal immigrants. In the Nordic countries Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Finland and Denmark foreign citizens, though not illegals, are allowed to vote in local elections. As Roger Scruton points out, Western civilization depends on an idea of citizenship that is not global at all, but rooted in territorial jurisdiction and national loyalty. A nation that refuses to differentiate between citizens and non-citizens cannot survive.
A Tale of Two Cities [7/23/06]
Watch a nine-minute video segment from the public broadcasting show California Connected of a comparison between San Bernardino and the infamous Maywood. Citizens of one city, San Bernardino, are using local government to become illegal unfriendly, while the 97 percent hispanic Maywood has truly divorced itself from the American tradition of equality under law by ending any enforcement, particularly traffic, which might miff the illegal residents.
Two California cities find themselves on opposite sides of the heated immigration debate. Earlier this year, Maywood became the first municipality in the state to declare itself a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants. [Editor's note: on the contrary, there are many sanctuary cities in California: see the list from the National Immigration Law Center.]
Meanwhile, San Bernardino recently considered a tough measure that would ban the undocumented from renting property and punish those who hire them.
Perhaps this show reveals a trend in immigration "journalism." Rather than ignoring the growing anarchy, bad news is reported, but the reporters are unrelentingly cheerful throughout. Immigration and illegal entry are treated as equivalent, just like always of course. California Connected apparently believes the loss of American sovereignty is easily mitigated by journalists' perfect hair and teeth, plus a sunny disposition. Smile for the camera!
The show announced its use of materials from USC's Annenberg School for Communication, and links to its website Immigration Outpost. The blog entries are filled with self-absorbed impressions of moonbatty student journalists about the travails of "immigrants," so you can see the origin of all the sob stories about illegal aliens -- J-school! There is no mention that Mexico Is Rich and could easily take better care of its people, or that millions of Americans are substantially harmed by open borders, ranging from job loss to death.
In Taiwan, those who believe in ghosts (just about everyone) brace for long spirit month [7/23/06]
One aspect of immigration little mentioned is how many cultures are shockingly superstitious compared with westerners. Despite the reputation of Chinese as being part of the modern world of science and reason, many believe in ghosts.
In Taiwan, ghosts are rarely a laughing matter. On TV, in conversation, at temples and in the recesses of the unconscious, they maintain a grip on island society. Taiwanese are ghost-crazy or, rather, crazy to avoid them. A recent survey of Taipei college students found that 87 percent were believers, and some say that could be on the low side.
"I'd say the other 13 percent would probably hedge their bets if you questioned them closer," says Marc Moskowitz, an anthropologist at Lake Forest College in Illinois who has studied Taiwan's spirit beliefs. "Many Taiwanese feel it's best not to anger the ghosts, just in case they do exist."
Ghosts have been a part of Chinese culture from at least the Shang Dynasty, with 3,500-year-old oracle bones from the period depicting a big-headed, bent-kneed phantom. [...]
Chen Jun-jie, 18, a high school student, says he keeps his windows and doors shut tight year-round so the spirits can't peek in at him.
"I'm quite careful about ghosts," he says. "I once had one sleep on me and I couldn't move for a long time."
Su Jeou-jin, 33, a civil servant, avoids mountains at night, whereas homemaker Chan Ching-fen, 33, won't swim in the dark. As added insurance she buys a temple talisman, she says, pointing to a red, prayer-inscribed card pinned to her baby's blouse.
Diversity Visa Lottery 2007 Results [7/23/06]
Every year Washington welcomes thousands of immigrants from nations which are enemies of America. One popular program is the despicable Visa Lottery, under which 50,000 foreigners are put on the path to eventual citizenship, for no other reason than dumb luck.
Administered by the State Department, slots are determined by some strange algorithm aimed at increasing America's "diversity."
The slots for 2007 were recently posted. Being a terror-sponsoring state is no problema.
Here are a few pulled out to demonstrate how Washington is still asleep about Islamofascism and other threats...
ALGERIA - 912
BANGLADESH - 5,901
IRAN - 1,361
IRAQ - 80
NORTH KOREA - 6
LEBANON - 86
SAUDI ARABIA - 27
SYRIA - 40
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - 19
YEMEN - 43
Remember this -- we don't have diplomatic relations with Iran, but our reps in Washington can still hand out nearly 1400 prized immigration visas to the Great Satan.
For background information, see Time To Dump The Diversity Visa .
91% of seniors pass state exam: Exit test keeps estimated 5% from graduating [7/22/06]
The whining continues in California, where teens are expected to pass an easy exit exam to graduate from high school. Remember that the quiz tests at the 10th grade level for the English portion and at the 8th grade level for math.
Why not give everyone an attendance certificate and have done with it?
Non-English-speaking Iris Padilla has been complaining since last February. Despite the fact that she didn't know the English word for Spoon, she nevertheless believed that she "deserved" a diploma.
Iris Padilla, 17, who did not pass the exam despite having satisfied all other graduation requirements at Richmond High, studies English twice a week at Contra Costa Community College. She plans to take the English portion of the test on Tuesday and the math portion on Wednesday.
"I know I'm not going to pass," Iris said.
Like 41 percent of those who haven't passed, Iris speaks little English. She was born in Los Angeles but grew up in Mexico. Now, living with her Spanish-speaking mother in Richmond, she is torn between her need to learn English and her fear of speaking the unfamiliar words.
"It's embarrassing," she said. [...]
In San Francisco, 199 of the 4,400 seniors in county and district schools didn't graduate because they couldn't pass the test. About 30 took a summer school course, and a total of 80 students have signed up to take the July administration. As with the rest of the state, many who failed were English learners.
House Immigration Hearing Schedule [7/22/06]
Here is a listing from the blog of Rep Phil Gingrey (R-GA) for the month of July.
EDUCATION AND THE WORKFORCE COMMITTEE
July 19th - What is the impact of the Reid-Kennedy bill on American workers and their workplaces?
July 26th - What is the role of English in American education and society, and does the Reid-Kennedy bill undermine, rather that encourage, this role?
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
July 18th - Do the Reid-Kennedy bill's amnesty provisions repeat the mistakes of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?
July 27th - Will the Reid-Kennedy bill's amnesty provisions overwhelm the already overburdened U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services? Will 10-20 million new applicants for citizenship make it easier for criminals and terrorists to evade background checks?
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS COMMITTEE
July 27th - To what degree is illegal immigration an issue for countries in the Western Hemisphere, and does the Reid-Kennedy bill undercut American diplomatic efforts aimed at curbing illegal immigration?
C-SPAN has only shown a couple of the immigration hearings held thus far. Please contact the network and ask in a firm but polite way that they show ALL of the remaining immigration hearings. Email the scheduling department at events@c-span.org.
House speaker, delegation tour Arizona border over immigration [7/22/06]
Speaker Dennis Hastert has moved from being somewhat squishy on borders to a strong voice for sensible enforcement.
"I really believe you have to secure the border before a guest worker program works, or before any other program that you want," Hastert said at an airport news conference a few hours before their late-night tour.
"If a patient is wounded and bleeding, the first thing you do is stop the bleeding. And we have a border that is bleeding; we need to heal it."
Hastert, R-Ill., said he has been to the border about a dozen times as a congressman but the trip was his first as House speaker. "It's tough, tough country," he said.
All Americans in all parts of the country are concerned about the issue of illegal immigration, according to Hastert.
"Every town's a border town, every state's a border state, and the American people believe that we ought to stop it," he said.
Hastert said it was essential to get down to the border as he and Reps. Peter King, R-N.Y.; Candice Miller, R-Mich.; Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz.; Bobby Rush, D-Ill. and Charles Boustany, R-La., had done.
No Cliche Left Behind [7/21/06]
Today's speech in Santa Clara, California, by Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez was not exactly scintillating.
On Friday morning I wasted an hour listening to the Attorney General to see whether the administration had gained any respect for the majority opinion of Americans about immigration. Alberto Gonzalez spoke at the Commonwealth Club in Santa Clara, California, pitching the Bush plan for "reform."
The same old same old was evident from the first sentence. The AG was rhapsodic about his "immigrant" grandparents, and how their experience made immigration "close to my heart."
Rat tries to join our ship [7/20/06]
Brit tabloid "The Sun" does so much better than the more prestigious newspapers in dealing with Islamic low-lifes. While other media was handling jihadist and welfare fraudster Omar Bakri with politically correct gloves, The Sun gave him the treatment he deserved (e.g. "Treasons to Be Cheerful"). Now that Bakri finally exited from the UK to Lebanon, he finds he doesn't much care for actual jihad.
EVIL preacher Omar Bakri is desperate to flee war-torn Lebanon.
Bakri, a welfare scrounging mischief monger, scuttled off to Beirut to escape public fury over 7/7.
Now he wants the Royal Navy to ship him back.
Bakri helped create the vicious new mood of anti-Western violence among UK Muslims.
His spiteful sermons are in tune with Hezbollah terrorists who have destroyed Lebanon's dream of peace and prosperity.
Nobody should wish harm on another human being.
But in Bakri's case we make an exception.
Here's the backstory from The Sun on another welfare-grubbing jihadist who decamped from London to Lebanon -- where is he now? we wonder.
Lou Dobbs Tonight Transcript July 19 [7/20/06]
Certain groups are promoting the registration of immigrant voters that's fine if they are naturalized citizens. But there's very little to prevent illegal aliens from voting in massive numbers. As has been said many times before, you need more identification to rent a video than vote in an American election.
WIAN: But there's little to prevent millions of non-citizens and even illegal aliens from registering as well. Only two states, Arizona and New Hampshire require registered voters to prove they're citizens. The issue of illegal aliens voting has been simmering in Washington since 1996 when Loretta Sanchez ousted Orange County California Congressman Bob Dornan. Illegally cast ballots were responsible for 80 percent of her narrow margin of victory. In 2004 New Mexico uncovered more than 3,000 fraudulent voter registrations, many tied to immigrant rights groups. And this year unsuccessful Democratic Congressional candidate Francine Busby declared you don't need papers for voting.
PATRICK ROGERS, AMERICAN CENTER FOR VOTING RIGHTS: Many states are looking at photo I.D. They're looking at safeguards to make sure that citizens only are voting. One of the problems of low voter turnout is concerns and lack of confidence in the outcome. If you don't have safeguards going in, you certainly are not going to give the voter any confidence in what comes out.
WIAN: Illinois Congressman Henry Hyde has introduced a bill that would require all states to demand proof of citizenship for voter registration. And a photo I.D. to vote. Illegal alien advocates are mobilizing a letter writing campaign to fight those proposed requirements.
(on camera): They claim that demanding proof of citizenship would disenfranchise many poor and elderly voters. However polls show that 80 percent of the American voting public actually approves proof of citizenship or photo I.D. requirements for voting, Lou.
Dearborn AntiWar Protest: 10,000 unite for Lebanon [7/19/06]
For an update on the Islamic fifth column in the United States, checking in on Dearborn, Michigan, is always worthwhile. Dearborn has one of the highest concentrations of Muslims in the nation, including many friends of the famous enemy of America, the late Ayatollah Khomeini.
Apparently patriotic assimilation to America remains in short supply within the "Religion of Peace."
At one point, a speaker held a portrait of Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah's secretary-general. The crowd burst into applause.
Rana Abbas-Chami, deputy director of the Michigan Chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, called Israel's violence "appalling, unfathomable and unforgivable."
"The sad reality is that the United States and Israel have decided that they are at liberty to determine the value of human life based on what side of the border you fall. The U.S. is just as guilty as Israel is. History will not forgive, nor will it ever forget, these crimes."
These are the new, "diverse" immigrants we are supposed to celebrate.
Furthermore, the mythical "moderate Muslim" has a lot of popularity among the political pundit class, but few actually exist. They do not appear at rallies in support of America, and polling of Muslims living in America is similarly sobering [ Misunderstanding the Enemy, by Srdja Trifkovic, Chronicles Magazine, September 22, 2004].
In a survey of newly naturalized citizens, 90 percent of Muslim immigrants said that if there were a conflict between the United States and their country of origin, they would be inclined to support their country of origin. In Detroit 81 percent of Muslims "strongly agree" or "somewhat agree" that Shari'a should be the law of the land.
Remember that hundreds of illegal alien Lebanese were smuggled over the Mexican border ("some with connection to Hezbollah") a couple years back by an industrious Tijuana restauranteur. That crime plus generally open borders makes it no surprise that the FBI is looking for sleeper cell fundies awakened by the recent conflict in the Mideast.
See also this list of Hizballah Activity in North America.
Incidentally, there are lots of terrorist trials going on around the country. Like illegal alien crimes, most are only reported locally. Here's a partial list, written last year: Jihadi Terrorist Box Score.
Hezbollah is already here [7/19/06]
Michelle Malkin warns that our idiotic immigration permissiveness has allowed some of the world's most viscious terrorists into our country.
In May, the New York Post reported on Hezbollah's plans to activate sleeper cells in New York, Los Angeles , Boston and Detroit as the nuclear showdown with Iran heats up. One focal point: "the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, where there have already been three episodes in the last four years in which diplomats and security guards have been expelled for casing and photographing New York City subways and other potential targets." Heightened alert comes in the wake of reports that Iranian crackpot president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad met with Hezbollah leaders in Syria earlier this year.
Four years ago, I reported on how information-sharing walls between federal immigration and law enforcement agencies created a path to citizenship for at least one known Hezbollah member. He walked through our figurative front door. The then-assistant district director for INS investigations in New York City and two FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) officials were placed on administrative leave when the bungle was discovered.
Sources informed me the unidentified Middle Eastern male now a fellow American appeared on terrorist watch lists and is a member of the Hezbollah terrorist organization. Despite numerous calls from adjudicators in Newark, N.J., handling the alleged terrorist's naturalization case, the FBI and INS reportedly did not respond to requests to turn over the individual's "alien file." The A-file includes biographical and status information and investigative data. It is unclear why INS and the JTTF did not turn over the file, or why the New York office neglected to order the adjudications branch in Newark to put the naturalization process on hold.
Why did INS adjudicators in Newark proceed without viewing the alleged terrorist's file? Adjudicators to this day remain under intense pressure to meet naturalization "quotas." Job-performance ratings and cash bonuses are based on the number of naturalization approvals processed. It's standard operating procedure.
See also On our soil: Interview with Steven Emerson
"We fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," is a common refrain echoed by the Bush administration when referring to the so-called "Global War on Terror." But what if they are already here? According to Emerson, organizational meetings are prevalent in cities such as Chicago, New York, Tampa and Oklahoma City and radical Islamic fundamentalists have had a foothold in this country for decades. He says there is an American Jihad stirring just below the radar that is masquerading as different forms of Muslim brotherhoods.
Minnesota sees surprise increase of Ethiopian immigrants [7/19/06]
Why, pray tell, do we have "surprise" immigrants? Isn't the government supposed to regulate entrants, including FGM-practicing Africans?
MINNEAPOLIS - State demographers are trying to determine why the number of Ethiopian refugees who arrived in Minnesota in 2005 increased 63 percent from the previous year, and whether it portends bigger influxes in coming years.
According to figures released this week by the state Administration Department, 1,303 Ethiopians came to Minnesota last year. In 2004, there were 798 Ethiopian refugees, and the year before that, 627.
Nobody knows for sure, but the refugees are probably coming for two main reasons: continued civil strife back home and the chance to work and join families already established here.
"We scratched our heads about this," Tom Gillaspy, the state demographer, said Friday. "It was a number that sort of stood out to us. There has been a steady, noticeable immigration from Ethiopia to Minnesota, but it's larger this year."
Ethiopians began coming to the United States a few decades ago to escape famine and civil war in their Horn of Africa nation. But their population in Minnesota has remained relatively small compared with groups such as the Hmong and Somalis.
The state says an estimated 7,500 Ethiopians were living in Minnesota in 2003 -- the last year with complete figures -- though immigrant leaders believe there are far more, perhaps as many as 20,000.
"Should We Embrace the Senate's Grant of Amnesty to Millions of Illegal Aliens? [7/18/06]
... and Repeat the Mistakes of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986?" is the longish title of James R. Edwards' testimony today before the House Immigration Subcommittee.
Comparing the experience of 1986s supposed "one-time only" legalization with the Senate-passed amnesty and its likely consequences should lead dispassionate observers to conclude that S. 2611 would repeat past errors only now, we should have learned better. The Senate amnesty would condemn the United States to the same harmful consequences that IRCA caused. Only now, its effects would be far, far worse. [...]
NumbersUSA's Rosemary Jenks has calculated that S. 2611 contains at least five amnesties.
One, illegal aliens in the U.S. for at least five years get an instant Green Card.
Two, illegal aliens present for two to five years get amnesty on the installment plan three steps (plus a two-year tax amnesty).
Three, there is an AGJOBS-type, two-step amnesty for those who purport to be part-time farm workers (alleging 21.6 weeks of work over two years).
Four, a DREAM Act-type amnesty legalizes those claiming to have been here five years and to have entered illegally while under age 16.
Five, those claiming to be a persecuted religious minority with an asylum claim pending on May 1, 2003, get immediate amnesty.
And then there is mass amnesty for the illegitimate employers who hired these illegal aliens, privatized the benefits, and socialized their costs.
California Report: Fearing Kidnappings, Families Flee Tijuana [7/18/06]
Listen to the audio report about the rise of kidnapping on the Mexican side of the border. At least 50 Tijuana residents have been kidnapped so far this year.
So fearful Mexicans just "move" to the United States to escape the violence, including 490 murders in the city last year. An estimated 350-400 families have recently moved from Tijuana to San Diego. Local real estate agent John Fleming estimates that 60-70 percent of his clients are from Tijuana.
People have long been lured from Mexico to the United States by the promise of better wages. Now the prospect of safety has many Tijuana families fleeing north to San Diego. Mexican citizens groups say a record number of people have been kidnapped in Tijuana this year. The problem has caused an exodus to Southern Califonia.
Some San Diegans are concerned that the crime wave will follow the Mexican influx to their community -- imagine that.
Tunnel under US Border [7/18/06]
Check out the YouTube video of author Jerome Corsi and Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist pointing out a drainage pipe between the US and Mexico, another place where Mexicans have easily entered this country at will. Here is another view with the two showing another section of the wide-open California border.
While Tubing, you should definitely watch Ted Hayes and the Minutemen march against the Mexican invasion. The "Civil Rights in Mexico" banner is sweet, doubly so because it is carried by black Americans. More from the same May 21 event here and here where Calvin Bonner speaks about how the invasion has harmed blacks. Plus more strong words from the Crispus Attucks Brigade.
VDARE.com Letter: Why Are Illegal Aliens Living In Government Subsidized Housing? [7/18/06]
This letter is from an American woman with a child living in a taxpayer-subsidized apartment complex in southern California. Her story is similar to many others, where citizens are mistreated by Mexicans when there are enough invaders to make bullying easy.
The majority of the people living here are Hispanics and many of them cannot understand or speak English. Most, I'm sure, are illegal aliens.
Since day one, I have received non-stop harassment and hostility from my new neighbors, starting when I caught two teenagers kicking and bouncing on my car. I've had obscenities yelled directly at me ("white whore") in Spanish. Pornography has been thrown into my back patio where my son plays. They throw their trash in my yard and leave their beer bottles and caps in front of my apartment. [...]
As a consequence of this aggressive behavior, my son cannot play outside of our home. I have never lived in government controlled housing, or as a minority among Hispanics, or alongside so many illegal aliens. [...]
But I no longer feel like I belong here. Why should I feel like I have to leave the town that I grew up in? Could someone please help me understand why anyone would want to move to a country so badly and then behave so rudely once they got there?
Seeing Today's Immigrants Straight [7/17/06]
Heather MacDonald is back with more of her famous jaw-drop crime stories and statistics.
Open-borders conservatives point to the relatively low crime rate among immigrants to deny any connection between high immigration and crime. But unless we can prevent immigrants from having children, a high level of immigration translates to increased levels of crime. Between the foreign-born generation and their American children, the incarceration rate of Mexican-Americans jumps more than eightfold, resulting in an incarceration rate that is 3.45 times higher than that of whites, according to an analysis of 2000 census data by the pro-immigrant Migration Policy Institute.
California, with one-quarter of the nation's immigrants and its greatest concentration of Mexicans and Central Americans, is the bellwether state for all things relating to unbridled Hispanic immigration, including crime. The Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, conducted by sociologists Alejandro Portes of Princeton and Ruben G. Rumbaut of the University of California, Irvine, followed the children of immigrants in San Diego and Miami from 1992 to 2003. A whopping 28 percent of Mexican-American males between the ages of 18 and 24 reported having been arrested since 1995, and 20 percent reported having been incarcerateda rate twice that of other immigrant groups. Anyone who speaks to Hispanic students in immigrant-saturated schools in Southern California will invariably hear the estimate that 50 percent of a student's peers have ended up in gangs or other criminal activities.
Stupidity Without Borders The Alliance of Utopias [7/16/06]
Fjordman reflects on the idiocy of the belief among elites and leftists that borders are an anachronism.
Unrestricted immigration from failed states will eventually destroy global centres of excellence, the same way Communism did. This is definitely bad for the people who will lose what were once functioning countries, but in the long run bad for everybody else, too. It will deprive the inhabitants of Third World countries of the incentives needed to change their own nations if they can simply move somewhere else and refrain from confronting the reasons for their failures.
Hispanic group boycotts Disney 'white supremacists' [7/15/06]
The Mexica radical fifth columnists have a new enemy in their sights, namely the Disney company, and is calling for a boycott because of the so-called racism on the part of some employees.
A radical Hispanic group is promoting a boycott of the Walt Disney Company because, contends the Mexica Movement, the entertainment giant "has made a habit of hiring talk show hosts who spread the Minutemen white supremacist racist agenda."
The boycott announcement specifically cites radio legend and Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Paul Harvey, as well as popular talker Doug McIntyre. Both Harvey and McIntyre are nationally syndicated by ABC, which is owned by Disney. [...]
The Mexica Movement calls Harvey and McIntyre "the top racist Nazis in this campaign against our people" who, they say, "are promoting racist hate against our people and they are promoting an atmosphere of fear in our communities."
Saying McIntyre has "incited bomb threats" against the MeCHA-supported school in Los Angeles, and that Harvey -- "the other monster" -- is "proud of the racist genocide that Europeans committed against the Indigenous people of this continent," Mexica calls the almost universally loved elder statesman of talk radio "the KKK of the radio airwaves."
"Yes, we are radical," says the Mexica Movement on its website. "More radical than you can imagine."
The fascist Mickey Mouse image is taken from the Mexica website.
Immigration reform mythology [7/15/06]
If only more editorial pages were as sensible as the Washington Times on the subject of immigration...
So bad is the Senate's version of immigration reform that it has given birth to a whole cottage industry of analysts and journalists dedicated to exposing the bill's more objectionable proposals. Their good work has shattered the premise of open-borders advocates that all they are attempting to do is to achieve a "comprehensive" immigration reform bill.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page, for instance, cited a poll that found that 75 percent of Republican voters support immigration reform "that combines increased border and workplace enforcement with a guest-worker system for newcomers and a multiyear path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here." Of course, that's not all the Senate bill does. What the Journal conveniently excludes from its analysis are proposals that have nothing to do with "comprehensive" reform as advocated by its supporters.
For example, as reporter Charles Hurt wrote Tuesday in this newspaper, the bill would prohibit state and local police from detaining illegal aliens for being in the country illegally. How does that devilish detail square with the oft-repeated bromides of the "comprehensive" reformers?
Next, Mr. Hurt reported how the Senate bill "would guarantee wages to some foreign workers that could be higher than those paid to American workers at the same work site," according to the Senate Republican Policy Committee, which is highly critical of the bill. Add that to the Social Security benefits the bill grants to illegal workers and we have a foreign workforce with greater protections and more rights than the native one. Again, why haven't any of the "comprehensive" reformers mentioned this?
In fact, it wasn't until Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation concluded that the bill would bring in as many as 100 million new immigrants over the next 20 years that anyone on the "comprehensive" side even bothered to worry about numbers. A new report from Steven Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies finds that the amnesty provisions alone in the bill would allow 14.4 million currently illegal aliens to gain legal status. By comparison, the total number of aliens thought to be residing in the United States is between 11 million and 12 million.
At best, the "comprehensive" reformers have simply ignored these details; at worst, they have actively sought to hide them. Yet for bringing these problems to the public's attention, critics of the bill are accused of "xenophobia" and "racism" -- two words Sen. Arlen Specter recently used. To which we substitute two of our own: honesty and sanity.
For more on what's wrong with the Senate bill, see:
22 Problems With The Senate's Illegal Immigration Bill
Senate Sellout Contained Another AtrocityBrownback's "Widows And Orphans" Madness
Senate Immigration Law Would Disarm Local Law Enforcement
Dirty Dozen Defects in Senate Amnesty for Illegal Aliens Bill by Congressional candidate Vernon Robinson
Senate denies funds for new border fence [7/14/06]
The US Senate is continuing its program to convince the American public that it is deeply evil. Yep, it voted FOR a border fence (kind of a short one compare with the House bill), but voted down the MONEY TO BUILD IT.
Less than two months after voting overwhelmingly to build 370 miles of new fencing along the border with Mexico, the Senate yesterday voted against providing funds to build it.
"We do a lot of talking. We do a lot of legislating," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Alabama Republican whose amendment to fund the fence was killed on a 71-29 vote. "The things we do often sound very good, but we never quite get there."
Mr. Sessions offered his amendment to authorize $1.8 billion to pay for the fencing that the Senate voted 83-16 to build along high-traffic areas of the border with Mexico. In the same vote on May 17, the Senate also directed 500 miles of vehicle barriers to be built along the border.
Language and Wealth [7/14/06]
Here are some interesting facts about the English-speaking world, in particular that while English is the primary language for just five percent of the world's people, a great deal of the world's wealth is held by English-speakers.
When trying to determine why some countries are wealthier than others, economists rarely, if at all, consider language. However, if you look at the list of wealthiest countries on a per capita income basis, you will notice almost all the top 20 are English-speaking, or use some other Germanic language, with the exception of France, Japan, and Finland (however, most Finns know German and English as well as Swedish, and many Frenchmen know German and/or English).
English is only the primary language for about 5 percent (340 million) of the world's people. Another 200 million, or 3 percent, are reasonably fluent in English, and perhaps up to another 500 million (8 percent) know some English.
The number of French and German speakers are each probably less than 3 percent of the world's population. Yet, those who speak English or other Germanic languages account for more than 40 percent of the world GDP, while comprising only about 8 percent of the world's population.
The rankings of the other major languages are as follows (both primary and secondary speakers): Mandarin Chinese 1.1 billion; Hindi 490 million; Spanish 420 million; Arabic 255 million, and Russian also with 255 million.
Now, back to the basic question: Is there something about the English language itself that helps make one wealthier, and is there something about the Arabic language itself that inhibits economic development?
Several years ago, before his death, the distinguished musician, historian, philosopher and columnist Balint Vazsonyi told me he did not think it was possible for people who did not understand the English language to fully understand the English and American concepts of liberty, freedom and rule of law (and this from a Hungarian who did not learn English until he was in his 20s).
Small Pa. City Passes Law Against Illegals [7/14/06]
Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazelton, PA, has been a fearless proponent of facing up to the inevitable social problems of illegal immigration. His leadership has helped moved his town to deal with that crisis in spite of Washington's failure to do its job.
Barletta proposed the Illegal Immigration Relief Act last month as a response to what he said were Hazleton's problems with violent crime, crowded schools, hospital costs and the demand for services.
The ordinance would deny licenses to businesses that employ illegal immigrants, fine landlords $1,000 for each illegal immigrant discovered renting their properties, and require city documents to be in English only.
"The illegal citizens, I would recommend they leave," Barletta said after the meeting.
"What you see here tonight, really, is a city that wants to take back what America has given it," said the mayor, who said he wore a bulletproof vest to the meeting. He said he had not been threatened but took precautions because the issue was so emotionally charged.
On the other side, the Mexicans insist on their right to invade America [After passionate debate, Hazleton passes illegal immigration law].
"Since we came here, we have been fixing up houses Hazleton looks much better now," Lopez said. He added immigrants needed "instructions in our language."
But when Nilles asked him how immigrants would assimilate if they couldn't understand or be understood, Lopez said immigrants would not "convert to Anglos."
"We will acculturate, we will adapt to your rules, we will follow your laws, but we will never assimilate," Lopez said.
Here's more, from the LA Times: City Vents Anger at Illegal Immigrants
But the mood in City Hall was upbeat Thursday; white residents exploded into applause when Barletta strode into the chamber, wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit jacket. They yelled "Yes!" when a local Latino leader asked whether they would deport U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, and cheered again when City Council President Joe Yannuzzi compared illegal immigrants to burglars.
"If I come home and find someone in my home, is he just an unwanted guest? Must I keep him there and take care of him?" he asked. "I say he has committed a crime, and should be treated like a criminal."
California: Greenery sucking up more of state's water [7/13/06]
Leave it to the Chronicle to portray evil plants as the cause of future water shortages!
Like lawns water themselves. At least there is a tiny hint about the real source, the continuing population explosion, though no mention of what is fueling that...
Thirsty home landscaping, particularly lawns, will suck up an increasingly burdensome amount of water in California over the next 25 years unless big changes are made, according to a new report by the Public Policy Institute of California.
The state is expected to add 11 million new residents by 2030, and at least half are expected to locate in hotter, inland areas where single-family homes with lush lawns are popular, according to the report.
Illegal Irish Out Themselves [7/13/06]
Illegal Irish have a particular arrogance of entitlement that America is their spare country.
Apparently illegal Irish don't care that the majority of Americans across the political spectrum want immigration to be legal, controlled and reduced, starting with the House approach of enforcement first. Otherwise, the Irish wouldn't be insulting a core belief of the people whose country they say they wish to join.
Love Your Burqa [7/13/06]
For today's multimedia Vent at HotAir, Michelle Malkin shows some clips of life under the extreme veil, including a rap video, a few seconds from Theo van Gogh's "Submission" and a street scene of two burqa-imprisoned women eating spaghetti through the eye holes.
Oh, did Islam forget a mouth hole? A little hint to shut up and starve, perhaps?
Senate bill seeks more pay for aliens [7/13/06]
The elitist Senate continues to represent the interests of foreigners rather than Americans, who are becoming second-class citizens in their own country.
The Senate immigration bill would require that foreign construction laborers here under the guest-worker program be paid well above the minimum wage, even as American workers at the same work site could earn less.
The bill "would guarantee wages to some foreign workers that could be higher than those paid to American workers at the same work site," says a policy paper released this week by the Senate's Republican Policy Committee. "This is unfair to U.S. workers, inappropriate, and unnecessary."
The 11-page, harshly critical analysis of the Senate immigration bill on this one point reveals how torn Senate Republicans are over the larger issue of immigration.
You can download the report, Davis Bacon Expanded to Private Projects in Senate Immigration Bill in PDF.
DEA Report: Minutemen reduced drug trafficking [7/13/06]
The Minutemen have gotten all sorts of abuse and accusations from the open-borders crowd. Now a government source says that their large-scale neighborhood watch has been quite effective.
The Minuteman Project formed for one purpose: to protect the border, and it has, according to an internal Drug Enforcement Agency report.
The report credits the border watch group with helping to cut down on drug trafficking.
This intelligence report obtained by News 4 says that the Minuteman Project had an impact on drug trafficking in Cochise County in 2005.
DEA officials say bulk loads of marijuana crossing the border dropped siginificantly.
Beheading Nations - The Islamization of Europe's Cities [7/13/06]
Fjordman's latest essay points out how Europe's misery from Islamic immigration has only just begun.
In the Netherlands, Muslims will soon make up the majority in all major cities. "Today, we have 1 million Muslims out of 16 million Dutch," according to Frits Bolkestein, Dutch politician. "Within 10 years, they will have an absolute majority in both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. We are staring into the face of a shortly to be divided community. Muslims have the right to their own schools, so there is no teaching of evolution, gay teachers are not tolerated but anti-Semitism is." A researcher for the Netherlands Ministry for Immigration and Integration found that 40% of young Moroccan Muslims in the Netherlands rejected Western values and democracy. Six to seven percent were prepared to use force to "defend" Islam, and the majority were opposed to freedom of speech for offensive statements, particularly criticism of Islam.
We are witnessing a dramatic change in Europe, which men like Bolkestein see as underlined by a drop in national confidence in European countries over the entirety of the last century. The immigration problem, he said, "has to do with the loss of confidence in one's own civilization. It started with World War II, which was really a mass European suicide. Then, the rise of fascism, the Holocaust and the 1968 student cultural revolutions across Europe. There is no clear European identity today. This has a real impact on foreign policy." [...]
This is a government [Sweden] that knows perfectly well that their people will become a minority in their own country, and yet, is doing nothing to stop this. On the contrary, they are actively working to achieve this result. Has this ever happened before in human history, that the leaders of a nation are working to erase their own people and their history, and present this as an act of tolerance? No wonder some Swedes say that there is a war against Swedes going on: A physical war waged by Muslim immigrants, and a cultural and legal war waged by their own political elites.
It is possible that Multiculturalism never was about tolerance to begin with. For some, it was about vanity. "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's most open-minded of them all?" It's a beauty contest for bored, Western intellectuals who use immigrants as a mirror to reflect their own inflated egos, a sport where they can nurse their vanity in the mistaken belief that denigrating your own cultural heritage is a sign of goodness and lack of prejudice.
Farmingville illegal migrant camps closed [7/12/06]
We are used to seeing the border area trashed by invader garbage, and not much changes when the squatters of the world relocate themselves in the interior. Farmingville, New York, has been the site of years of struggle against a very stubborn illegal alien problem.
Brookhaven Town officials said Tuesday they have shut down two illegal camps set up in the woods of Farmingville, apparently by migrant day laborers.
Town Supervisor Brian Foley and other officials said the sites, located close to each other north of the Long Island Expressway and east of North Ocean Avenue, were full of litter and human feces, and that the men appeared to have created campfires and erected tents.
"This was a dangerous situation that had to be addressed immediately; dangerous to both the quality of life in the community of Farmingville and to the very lives of the people living in the woods," Foley said.
Probe finds churches' visa program riddled with fraud [7/12/06]
The fact of religious visa fraud is not exactly news to people who follow how Washington organizes immigration, but it's nice to know that the Department of Homeland Security has noticed.
WASHINGTON -- A special visa program that allows churches to bring thousands of foreign religious workers into the country each year is riddled with fraud, an investigation by the Department of Homeland Security investigation has found.
The probe found numerous instances in which groups in the United States falsely claimed to be churches, and visa applicants lied about their religious vocations in order to get into the country . More than a third of the visas examined by investigators were based on fraudulent information.
A report on the investigation, obtained by the Globe, said that instances of fraud were particularly high among applicants from predominantly Muslim countries, and the report raised concerns about potential terrorism risks.
Homeland Security auditors who reviewed an application for a 33-year-old Pakistani man, for example, could not locate the alleged religious group listed on the petition as his sponsor, and when investigators went to the group's address they found an apartment complex.
Protesting the New York Times [7/11/06]
On Monday, about 150 Americans demonstrated in front of the New York Times office to show their anger about the extreme anti-American bias normally exhibited by the Times, particular how it has engaged in national security leaks that endanger the lives of all citizens. Atlas Shrugs has pics and videos, as does Fighting the Left. Still more photos are available for viewing at FreeRepublic.
The fellow in the Normandy t-shirt was one of many demonstrators who were sick and tired of the anti-America, pro-globalist agenda of the paper.
Frankly, it could just as easily have been a pro-sovereignty group raising hell about biased Times coverage of this vital issue. (Although there was at least one sign recommending immigration enforcement.) For example, today's New York Times article 'Pit Bull' of the House Latches On to Immigration about House Judiciary Chairman Sensenbrenner is a total hatchet job.
Mr. Sensenbrenner is so loath to risk dealing with illegal immigrants that when his Cadillacs need cleaning, he prefers do-it-yourself car washes that require tokens. "They don't have Montezuma's picture on the front of them," Mr. Sensenbrenner says of the tokens.
He is sitting in his Capitol Hill office dominated by two life-size portraits of himself. He looms heavily here, as he does in the thick of the national debate over immigration in which he has defied President Bush's plans for reform and arguably holds more sway than anyone else in Congress. A bipartisan irritant from a state nowhere near the Mexican border, he has outsize influence on the fate of the countryıs estimated 11 million illegal immigrants.
In each portrait in his office, Mr. Sensenbrenner appears regal and contented in contrast to the rumpled and fed-up image he conveys in real life. He is commonly described as "prickly," "cantankerous" and "unpleasant." And this is by his friends.
As far as LTG is concerned, Rep. Sensenbrenner and the handful of patriots in the House stopping the treasonous Senate amnesty bill are the modern equivalent of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans standing at Thermopylae against the barbarian invasion.
Trashing the border [7/11/06]
How tragic that the Sierra Club, the nation's premier environmental organization, has become so poisoned by loony leftism that it cannot even repond in a sane manner to the monstrous devastation on the border caused by millions of illegal aliens tromping through.
Last year, 500 tons of trash was strewn across the Buenos Aires refuge, as well as human waste and about 100 abandoned vehicles. Wild animals are choking on plastic or getting tangled in trash, and crossers' campfires have sparked wildfires. Aerial photos, Ellis says, reveal a shocking web of 1,300 miles of illegal trails cut through the refuge.
How much trash do crossers leave in their wake? A report by a presidential advisory committee, the Good Neighbor Environmental Board, says more than six tons of solid waste about 8 pounds per border crosser is dumped daily on the Tohono O'odham Nation, a reservation that spans 75 miles along the Arizona border. [...]
"The unintended consequences of a restrictive border policy with Mexico have resulted in many park, wildlife and natural areas being trampled and trashed by migrants, but also invaded by enforcement activities such as new or upgraded roads, Border Patrol outposts and vehicle damage involved in pursuit and rescue operations," says Rob Smith, the Southwest representative for the Sierra Club.
The piece doesn't mention that the Sierra Club received $100 million from investor David Gelbaum on the condition that it not mention extreme immigration as damaging to the environment [The Man behind the Land, LA Times, 10/27/04].
But [Gelbaum] said Pope long had known where he stood on the contentious issue. "I did tell [Sierra Club Executive Director ] Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me."
Mohammed Radwan Obeid Sentenced [7/11/06]
Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report describes how he helped in the arrest of a would-be terrorist, Mohammed Radwan Obeid, recently sentenced to a year in prison for terror-related activities. The young jihadist's story is worth a read to understand how easy it is for America's enemies to enter and work as a fifth column.
Obeid had fraudulently immigrated to the United States by marrying an American woman, and then having the marriage annuled. Obeid was working as a cashier in Dayton, Ohio last year and living with his girlfriend in a nearby town. It was from the Troy branch of the Miami (Ohio) County public library that he began to seek out fellow jihadis.
Obeid's posts at jihadi forums was noticed by more than those anti-terrorist crusaders who monitor them. Obeid's posts about nuclear weapons and gun silencers was somehow noticed by reference librarian Laura Girolamo. Ms. Girolamo contacted the FBI who, using their newly found powers under the Patriot Act, were able to confirm the librarians suspicions.
At about the same time a Jawa Report reader from Virginia, David Vazquez, began e-mailing Obeid after we posted his address. Obeid was under the false impression that Vazquez was a fellow jihad supporter. Obeid, Vasquez says, was now trying to recruit him for a terrorist cause.
Senate immigration bill is bait-and-switch [7/10/06]
Robert Rector compares today's Senate bill with the failed 1986 amnesty and finds them virtually identical. He further warns that Senate talk of a compromise more like the House bill is a sham.
Today, the U.S. Senate is proposing a similar deceptive immigration deal dubbed "enforcement first." Allegedly, the border will first be sealed. This will be then followed by another mass amnesty and, inevitably, a huge flood of new immigrants.
How can we know if "enforcement first" is real or cosmetic? There are many concrete ways to measure real enforcement against illegal immigration. For example, the government could require that the millions of illegal immigrants currently employed using false Social Security numbers are discharged. It could demand widespread enforcement of strict penalties against employers who hire illegal workers off the books. As opportunities for unlawful employment dry up, the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. would drop precipitously.
But the Senate will accept no such tough measures. Therefore, talk of "enforcement first" is hollow.
That is only one of many profound problems with the Senate plan. Giving some 10 million illegal aliens currently in the U.S. a path to citizenship is manifestly unfair to those who have waited to enter the country legally. Standards for this amnesty - and, yes, some won't call it amnesty, but that's what I believe it is - are porous and will result in millions of false amnesty applications.
Medi-Cal spending goes up for illegal immigrants [7/10/06]
Your tax dollars at work in Sacramento...
The recent state budget debate over whether California should provide health insurance for children who are undocumented immigrants largely overlooked one key fact: The government already spends almost $1 billion a year for some health care services for the undocumented through Medi-Cal.
But almost no one was talking about the programs that Proposition 187 was intended to cut before it was blocked in court in the late 1990s: prenatal care, nursing home care and other services funded by Medi-Cal for undocumented immigrants.
Over the past decade, those services have grown by 50 percent into a $1 billion annual program serving hundreds of thousands of people each year. Spending growth has been slower than in the Medi-Cal program overall, which went up more than 100 percent in the past decade, to about $35 billion annually.
Both the number of people receiving services and the cost of those services have risen: The number of undocumented women giving birth covered by Medi-Cal rose almost 25 percent from 85,000 in 1995 to 105,000 in 2004. Meanwhile, the overall costs of those births rose by about 135 percent during that time.
Remember that this year's California budget will spend $3.4 billion more than it takes in.
In more Sacto spending news, $287.1 million has been tacked on the the $55 billion education budget for programs to help high school kiddies pass the required exit test
[ Money to help students pass exit exam OK'd]. Say, isn't that what the schools themselves are for, namely to teach the basics of math and literacy?
Actually, this is quite a good article, with a bulleted list of individual items and their cost, e.g...
$5.5 million for districts to buy study materials tailored to each student's weaknesses.
$15 million for teachers to visit students' homes and talk with parents about their children's education. Half of the funds will be used for visits to students who failed the exit exam; the rest will be for home visits to other students.
"Let Them Eat Kebab" The New Marie Antoinettes [7/10/06]
From Fjordman, an essay about the mindset of the bureaucrats running the European Union. It's certainly hopeful that liberal icon Gore Vidal appears to have grasped the implications of the six-billion-person planet, that everyone cannot just go to where they want to live.
Is it "xenophobia" if Norwegians, who make up less than a tenth of a percentage point of the world's population, worry about being overwhelmed by immigration? As American writer Gore Vidal said in a lecture: "Liberal tradition requires that borders must always be open to those in search of safety or even the pursuit of happiness. But now with so many millions of people on the move, even the great-hearted are becoming edgy. Norway is large enough and empty enough to take in 40 to 50 million homeless Bengalis. If the Norwegians say that, all in all, they would rather not take them in, is this to be considered racism? I think not. It is simply self-preservation, the first law of species."
Update July 28: Another citing of this Vidal quote at Majority Rights with various comments.
Immigrants in military are focus of hearing [7/9/06]
On Monday, the Band of Traitors from the US Senate will present a hearing of how "immigrants" (aka illegal alien foreigners) are an important part of our military forces. (Does Sen. Spector have a general of the Mayor Bloomberg mold, who will say that America's armed forces will "collapse" without foreign recruits?)
"Especially in the Army, there are a high percentage of Hispanic Americans, and people from different countries. They do it without asking for anything, because they want to serve their country," said Castro, 24, a Honduran immigrant who volunteered in 2000 and is now a U.S. citizen. [...]
Military personnel like Castro, who left the Army in 2004, will be the focus of an unusual U.S. Senate field hearing Monday, when legislators bring their immigration road show to Miami. Seeking to garner public support for a bill that would overhaul the immigration system, senators plan to highlight the contributions of foreign-born soldiers in the war on terror.
There is a word for this kind of soldier: "mercenary." The financial benefits are considerable for an illegal alien when he receives expedited naturalization in return for a couple years of military service.
Furthermore, it's not true that non-citizen soldiers aren't "asking for anything." Some are miffed that their entire families aren't given amnesty [Veterans Drawn Into Immigration Debate, Washington Post, 4/24/06].
Marcial Rodriguez, a U.S. Marine who grew up in a Mexican farming village, is offended that the country he went to war for might deport his relatives who are living here illegally. [...]
It is unclear how many soldiers find their loyalties similarly divided, but at a time when Pentagon has stepped up recruiting of Hispanics to fill recruiting quotas, experts say a crackdown on illegal immigration would undoubtedly cause resentment in the ranks.
Another reason why permitting foreign soldiers can be unwise is shown by the case of convicted terrorist Ali Mohamed. A naturalized citizen from Egypt, he used US Army background to train Osama's bodyguards as well as plan the 1998 African embassy bombings, which killed 12 Americans and a couple hundred Africans.
Immigrants get chilly treatment in Milford [7/9/06]
The "immigrants" in the title are of course illegal aliens. The San Francisco Chronicle prefers to blur the considerable difference.
But the substance of the article shows that even ultralib Massachusetts is fed up with open borders. A little town like Milford can totally change in just five years from an American community to a foreign enclave.
Perhaps no place represents the changing face of immigration and its divisive effect in the mostly liberal state of Massachusetts better than Milford, a town of 25,000 people whose economy used to depend almost solely on its granite quarry. Now, nearly every business flanking the 19th century Town Hall on Main Street has a sign in Portuguese or Spanish, catering to the mostly Ecuadoran and Brazilian immigrants who have come to Massachusetts in the past five years.
Many Milford residents, mostly the children and grandchildren of Italian and Irish immigrants, do not appreciate the changes that the latest wave has brought. Town officials have taken steps to deter illegal immigrants from moving to Milford. The latest measure, which came into effect July 1, bans stores from cashing any checks. The move is designed to prevent immigrants who do not have the documents to open a bank account from cashing their earnings.
"It's time to get tough -- they'll get the message," said state Rep. Marie Parente, a Democrat who promotes a firm stance against unchecked immigration.
"It's time to put political correctness second to common sense," added Paul Mazzuchelli, a Milford health official who has pushed for some of the measures.
Such sentiments reflect the unease felt in many small Massachusetts towns in response to the wave of immigrants looking for jobs and homes in less-expensive communities like Milford. While their own Sen. Edward Kennedy is pushing for an immigration reform package that includes a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for many of the nation's estimated 12 million undocumented workers, a majority of his constituents seem to favor a much tougher stance.
"Kennedy?" bristled Parente, who said her constituents feel threatened by the influx of immigrants into their hospitals, schools and workplaces. "He's never gonna face what we have here."
According to a recent Rasmussen Reports poll, 58 percent of Massachusetts residents believe that the United States should enforce border controls before considering the provisions Kennedy favors.
Turkey not ready to join the EU, says cardinal [7/8/06]
Life is becoming more dangerous for easily identified Christians in Turkey, as Islam there is increasingly radicalized. Three priests have been violently attacked since February, one of whom was killed.
The apostolic nuncio in Turkey, Archbishop Luigi Padovese, added he felt Turkey was no longer safe for catholics.
"I live in Iskenderun [on the border with Syria], but what I say is valid for the whole country: I do not feel safe anymore, and catholic religious personnel living in other towns don't either," he told Italian daily La Repubblica.
The archbishop added that Pierre Brunissen had received threats over the telephone not long before he was attacked and that others had also been threatened directly or through phone calls.
In February catholic priest Andrea Santoro was shot dead in Trabzon, another Black Sea port city.
A 16-year-old Turk went on trial in May on charges of killing Mr Santoro with the prosecution demanding a life sentence.
Michelle Malkin noted the reports that the motive for the Santoro murder was the Danish cartoons, thought by many Muslims to be insulting to Islam.
The current Pope is far more realistic about the Islamic threat to western civilization than his Koran-kissing predecessor. For that, we are grateful.
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