LimitsToGrowth Archive

 

March 2006
 

Ideas on slowing illegal immigrants   [3/31/06]
Mexico expert Prof. George Grayson is interviewed. (See his 2002 CIS paper.)

    What about illegals?
        At the same time, we should put pressure on local, state and federal officials to enforce laws against illegal immigration. After all, the Statue of Liberty has a torch of freedom in one hand and a book of laws in the other.
        What are your ideas to solve this?
    • Complement increased security measures at the border with serious workplace enforcement.
    • Increase penalties on employers who hire illegal aliens and smugglers who facilitate their entry.
    • Crack down on foreigners who overstay their visas and seek to melt into the population.
    • Decrease the number of legal immigrants until the stock of recent newcomers assimilates. The current flow of immigration has been continuous since 1965. Past waves of immigrants were interrupted by wars and depressions, which encouraged assimilation.
    • Deny federal highway funds to states that grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
    • Follow the example of most industrialized countries and issue national ID to expedite entry into airports and other public buildings, while protecting legal residents from harassment.
    • Demand that our representatives in Congress vote against both amnesty for law breakers and guest-worker programs, which constitutes a latter-day version of indentured servitude. [...]
        Should we be alarmed?
        Should Mexico elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the current frontrunner, as its president on July 2, his quirky economic policies will eventually turn the current flood of illegal aliens into a tidal wave. There is also the danger of Balkanization based on ethnicity as France has suffered recently. In addition, rewarding law-breakers constitutes a slap in the face to prospective immigrants who have followed the rules.

•   •   •  

Mexico North?   [3/31/06]
Diana West reflects upon the rapid demographic changes of her home town, Los Angeles.

    Or, to put it another way, citing the online encyclopedia Encarta: "In 1960, non-Hispanic whites made up 82 percent of the population of Los Angeles County." Forty years later, the 2000 census showed that the white population had dwindled to 31 percent, while Hispanics — 79 percent of whom hail from Mexico — accounted for 44.6 percent of population. This colossal surge has made the Mexican population of Los Angeles second only to that of Mexico City. Little wonder LA voters in 2005 elected Antonio Villaraigosa, the city's first Hispanic mayor since 1872 when, Encarta notes, L.A. was "a small frontier town of about 6,000 people."
        "Reconquista" plans to "return" the American Southwest to Mexico aside, Mexicans by the millions are a relatively new demographic phenomenon in the USA. So, how did Los Angeles become a Mexican metropolis? Encarta harkens back to the 1965 Immigration Act, which, it explains, officially ended "bias in favor of Northern European immigrants ...opening the doors to massive immigration from Latin America and Asia."
        I found this explanation almost refreshing in that this landmark bill is often overlooked in considering American demographic shifts. As Peter Brimelow brilliantly argued in his book "Alien Nation," the 1965 Act remains central to the immigration debate that American political elites have so assiduously and irresponsibly avoided for decades. Still, while mentioning the 1965 Act, Encarta also not-so-subtly implies that European "bias" was bad, while "opening the doors" to the Third World was good. This adheres to the infantilizing orthodoxy of good (nice) and bad (mean) that has stunted debate on immigration, forcing it into a political fetal position moved by the odd emotional spasm. (Courageous Rep. Tom Tancredo, Colorado Republican, is the leading grownup exception to this rule.)
    West's comments are reflected in this animation of the Hispanic population growth in LA County.

•   •   •  

Fjordman's Dismal Forecast   [3/31/06]
Read some comments about immigration as asymmetrical warfare.

•   •   •  

Most Americans back clampdown on illegals   [3/30/06]
While the rowdy demonstrations of many thousands of illegal Mexicans got a lot of media attention, the majority of Americans -- the voting public -- consistently want immigration anarchy brought under control. Americans want a fence and tough enforcement, not touchy-feely amnesty programs (now called "earned legalization" etc.).

    Experts cite surveys such as a poll this month by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal that found 56 percent of respondents opposed granting temporary worker status to illegal immigrants.
        Another national survey, by Connecticut¹s Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, had similar findings, with 62 percent of those polled last month opposed to easing the path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, against 32 percent who supported the idea.
        And in immigrant-rich California, 73 percent of respondents earlier this year said they are concerned about illegal immigration, with 43 percent saying they are "extremely concerned."
        The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that the number of illegal immigrants in the United States has grown by nearly 50 percent in the last six years, to nearly 12 million now from 8.4 million in 2000, with more than half the unauthorized residents coming from Mexico.

•   •   •  

Myths vs. facts   [3/30/06]
Rep. Tom Tancredo analyzed some of the misinformation flying around these days about the House immigration bill (HR 4437).

    It has been said that if you tell a lie 1,000 times in politics, it becomes truth. Before we reach that threshold, there are two myths that must be dispelled about the House's bipartisan immigration reform bill:
        • The first myth is that the House bill would make criminals out of priests who run homeless shelters and soup kitchens.
        The bill would not substantially change decades of law with respect to religious organizations. From 1986 until this year, no organization was allowed to conceal, harbor or shield an alien from law enforcement "in reckless disregard of the fact" that the alien is in this country illegally. During those two decades, no church was shut down for providing basic social services to illegal aliens. Regardless, I think congressional leaders would be open to language that reaffirms current practice and clarifies the bill's intent. [...]
        • A second myth is that House Republicans want to make illegal presence in the USA a felony.
        The truth is Democrats voted for the felony provision, and a majority of Republicans (including me) voted against it.
        Right now, illegal presence in the USA is not a crime; it is a civil infraction. The House Judiciary Committee voted to make it a felony but then was counseled that millions of new felons could clog our courts.
        Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., wrote an amendment to his own bill asking that the penalty be reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor; 191 Democrats and a few Republicans voted to keep the felony penalty in the hope that it would be a poison pill to defeat the measure. After his amendment lost, Sensenbrenner promised, "When this bill gets to (House-Senate) conference, those penalties will be made workable. You can count on that."

•   •   •  

Lou Dobbs Transcript   [3/30/06]
Lou Dobbs again discussed the globalist policy underpinning open borders and lax immigration enforcement, namely the planned shotgun marriage between the United States and Mexico, as well as Canada through trade agreements.
    See the Council for Foreign Relations document Building a North American Community for the general proposal.

    LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): March 2005, the heads of state from the United States, Mexico and Canada gathered in Waco, Texas. They launched what is known as the Security and Prosperity Partnership, an agreement to create a security perimeter and ease trade barriers in North America.
        Behind this partnership is a vision of a free flow of goods and people stretching from Mexico all way to Canada.
        BUSH: The three of us need to be interconnected and work closely together for the good of our respective peoples.
        SYLVESTER: American University professor Robert Pastor has written books advocating a North American community.
        ROBERT PASTOR, "TOWARD A NORTH AMERICAN COMMUNITY: It's much more than a partnership. To think about a community is to think that if one of the members of the community is harmed, it harms the other two. And if they benefit, all three benefit.
        SYLVESTER: Pastor wants the United States to invest in Mexico's infrastructure and bring jobs to the country, raising the Mexican quality of life. But that is precisely what has critics worried about integrating economies.
        The United States, a first-world country, having to absorb Mexico, a developing country, with U.S. taxpayers shouldering the social costs. Mexico and the United States are worlds apart when it comes to labor rules, environment regulations, even legal systems.

        The annual per capital GDP of the United states is $43,800. In Mexico, it's just under $7,000. The minimum wage in the United States is $5.15 an hour. In Mexico, it's $4.56 a day.
        JOHN BAILEY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY: We find this tremendous disparity in terms of wages and living standards and benefits that are hard to overcome in the short term and that can really distort a kind of an integration of the economies.
        SYLVESTER: Evidence so far has shown that trade liberalization, rather than raising standards in Mexico, has had the opposite effect, pushing down wages and benefits in the United States.
        (END VIDEOTAPE) SYLVESTER: And it's one thing to have an economic ally, another thing altogether to have an economic dependent, which is what Mexico is quickly becoming. And of course that erodes the very idea of the sovereignty of nations, the sovereignty of the United States.
    Vdare version here.

•   •   •  

McCain/Kennedy leads to 30 million new illegal immigrants   [3/29/06]
From my understanding, this headline from Townhall is mistaken. The Senate bill would instead allow enormous numbers of "legal" immigrants, thereby relieving the annoying "illegal" designation. Redefinition is so handy that way.
    But the Sessions quote (which I heard on television) is the important thing and should wake up people with environmental concerns.

    According to Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, passing the McCain/Kennedy immigration plan will result in 30 million new illegal immigrants entering the U.S. over the next ten years. Today on the floor of the U.S. Senate, Sessions said McCain/Kennedy "would immediately legalize the 12 million who are here... it would give them green cards in a short period of time... it would put them on a path to citizenship."
        "This bill would add 30 million people to our nation in the next ten years. We ought to be spending some time talking about that. It's a big, big deal."
        Sessions pointed out that this bill is also in opposition to what the President has said he wanted: a bill that did not put illegal immigrants on a path to citizenship. "This bill puts the people who came here illegally on an automatic path to citizenship," said Sessions. "If that is not amnesty I don't know what is!"
        Sessions pleaded with his colleagues to consider only a border enforcement approach at this time. Sessions thinks the enormous question of what to do about the 12 million illegal immigrants who are already here is too big to handle quickly.
    Environmentalists? Hello?

•   •   •  

The American Flag Comes Second   [3/29/06]
Don't miss the photos at Michelle Malkin's blog showing high school students raising the Mexican flag above the American one as they express their displeasure at the idea of U.S. border enforcement. Note the flagpole in the upper left corner below.
Students

    Check out the slide show of Dallas students showing their devotion to Mexico and several pages of pictures of the southern California school walkout at FreeRepublic. See also a lot of photos from the people at Mexica.

•   •   •  

Women go 'missing' by the millions   [3/29/06]
The Somali-born Dutch legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes about the shocking state of women's rights and safety worldwide.

    One United Nations estimate says from 113 million to 200 million women around the world are demographically "missing." Every year, from 1.5 million to 3 million women and girls lose their lives as a result of gender-based violence or neglect.
        How could this possibly be true? Here are some of the factors:
        In countries where the birth of a boy is considered a gift and the birth of a girl a curse from the gods, selective abortion and infanticide eliminate female babies.
        Young girls die disproportionately from neglect because food and medical attention is given first to brothers, fathers, husbands and sons.
        In countries where women are considered the property of men, their fathers and brothers can murder them for choosing their own sexual partners. These are called "honor" killings, though honor has nothing to do with it.

•   •   •  

Swedish Welfare State Collapses as Immigrants Wage War   [3/29/06]
This recent reporting from Fjordman is somehow very timely in discussing hostile immigration as a form of asymmetrical warfare.

    Last year I wrote an article about how Swedish society is disintegrating and is in danger of collapsing, at least in certain areas and regions. The country that gave us Bergman, ABBA and Volvo could become known as the Bosnia of northern Europe. The "Swedish model" would no longer refer to a stable and peaceful state with an advanced economy, but to a Eurabian horror story of utopian multiculturalism, socialist mismanagement and runaway immigration. Some thought I was exaggerating, and that talk of the possibility of a future civil war in Sweden was pure paranoia. Was it?
        In a new sociological survey (pdf in Swedish, with brief English introduction) entitled "Vi krigar mot svenskarna" ("We're waging a war against the Swedes"), young immigrants in the troubled city of Malmö have been interviewed about why they are involved in crime. Although it is not stated, most of the immigrant perpetrators are Muslims. In one of the rare instances where the Swedish media actually revealed the truth, the newspaper Aftonbladet reported several years ago that 9 out of 10 of the most criminal ethnic groups in Sweden came from Muslim countries. [...]
        It is interesting to note that these Muslim immigrants state quite openly that they are involved in a ³war,² and see participation in crime and harassment of the native population as such. This is completely in line with what I have posited before. The number of rape charges in Sweden has quadrupled in just above twenty years. Rape cases involving children under the age of 15 are six times as common today as they were a generation ago. Most other kinds of violent crime have rapidly increased, too. Instability is spreading to most urban and suburban areas. Resident aliens from Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia dominate the group of rape suspects. Lawyer Ann Christine Hjelm found that 85 per cent of the convicted rapists were born on foreign soil or from foreign parents. The phenomenon is not restricted to Sweden. The number of rapes committed by Muslim immigrants in Western nations is so extremely high that it is difficult to view these rapes as merely random acts of individuals. It resembles warfare. This is happening in most Western European countries, as well as in other non muslim countries such as India. European jails are filling up with Muslims imprisoned for robberies and all kinds of violent crimes, and Muslims bomb European civilians. One can see the mainstream media are struggling to make sense of all of this. That is because they cannot, or do not want to, see the obvious: this is exactly how an invading army would behave: rape, pillage and bombing. If many of the Muslim immigrants see themselves as conquerors in a war, it all makes perfect sense. [...]
        This is urgent. When enough people feel that the system is no longer working and that the social contract has been breached, the entire fabric of democratic society could unravel.

•   •   •  

A Hard GOP Line Could Erode Latino Vote   [3/28/06]
Here's a nice Tancredo quote toward the end of a tired retread of a theme the press loves, that of the desire of both parties to capture the growing Hispanic voting bloc — ignoring that the actual number of Latino voters is small. Furthermore, this argument diminishes the real threat to the nation by mischaracterizing the invasion as a political debate.

    The surprising backdrop for the Senate debate was set over the weekend, when an estimated 500,000 marchers jammed downtown Los Angeles to protest the House-passed enforcement-only bill. Other protests were held in Denver, Chicago and elsewhere. Protests continued Monday in Southern California, where almost 40,000 students staged noisy walkouts from their schools to protest proposed immigration legislation.
        Such demonstrations, Tancredo said, may incite more opposition to illegal immigration.
        "The immigration rallies over this weekend and today show how disordered our immigration system has become," he said Monday. "For years, the government has turned a blind eye to illegal aliens who break into this country. It isn't any wonder that illegal aliens now act as if they are entitled to the rights and privileges of citizenship."

•   •   •  

Coast-to-coast 'movement' rages on   [3/28/06]
What's happening here is that the far left is trying to establish immigration as a right, not a privilege, where the wants of the would-be "immigrant" have primacy over the sovereignty of the receiving nation. Of course, that's just another definition of anarchy.

    The Roman Catholic Church, dozens of grass-roots coalitions and Spanish-language radio disc jockeys have helped fuel protests nationwide against congressional efforts to tackle illegal immigration.
        One protest organizer described the effort as "the beginning of an immigration civil rights movement."
        "This is the tip of the iceberg," said Marissa Graciosa, a political organizer at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, one of several groups that rallied about 300,000 people into the streets of Chicago on March 10.

•   •   •  

Lou Dobbs Transcript   [3/28/06]
On Monday the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a bill that is one of the worst imaginable, which will now go to the full Senate on Tuesday.
    Rep.Jim Sensenbrenner, who guided the more sensible House bill through to passage in December appeared on Lou Dobbs and commented on the Senate bill.

    REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER (R), JUDICIARY COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: It's appalling because the Senate Judiciary Committee is repeating the mistake that Congress made 20 years ago when it passed the Simpson- Mazzoli bill. The Simpson-Mazzoli bill granted amnesty to illegal aliens who were in the country at the time and also set up a system of employer sanctions to try to prevent employers from hiring any more illegal aliens.
        Well, the employer sanctions were never enforced. The amnesty was a big flop because people were afraid of losing their job. And instead of having two million illegal aliens, we have 10 to 12 million now.
        DOBBS: Ten to 12 million. And as you know, Mr. Chairman, some estimates put it as high as 20 million in this country.
        Let's turn to the demonstrations you're watching all across the country here. The reaction from the services industry, the union calling this evil legislation, others saying that -- the mayor of Los Angeles saying that your legislation is illegal. The 11 million, the number he put it at of illegal aliens not illegal, or at least the number there protesting and demonstrating as we look at live pictures of some of the stragglers of the protests here today in Los Angeles.
        What's your reaction to that kind of vilification?
        SENSENBRENNER: Well that shows how hard it is to do anything about illegal aliens and border security. But if we don't do something effective and workable, we're going to have 20 million more illegal aliens in the next 10 years, according to a demographic study I've seen.
        They'll flood our schools. Our health care system will collapse. And our social services system will end up being overtaxed. And we've got to get control of our borders because if we don't, we're going to see our economy collapse.

        DOBBS: Well, that economy, we know the estimates by the most authoritative and recent study put the suppressed wages at $200 billion a year as a result of immigration, both legal and illegal. We know that the costs, the estimated costs run about $50 billion for services. And I can't tell you, Mr. Chairman, how many people have said to me, typically open border activists, activists in support of illegal aliens, saying, but we provide $7 billion in Social Security taxes every year, as if that is some sort of reasonable offset. [...]
        DOBBS: Any hope that we're going to see real border security implemented by this Congress this year? We're four and a half years since September 11. Is there any possibility that we're going to see this president, this Congress take seriously the issue of border security?
        SENSENBRENNER: Well, the House of Representatives did when it passed the bill in December that all of the people are demonstrating against. And let me say, this is the most difficult thing I have done in 27 years in Congress, because the rhetoric is so emotional on both sides of the issue.
        We've got to get something done. And I'm not going to have my name on a bill that ends up being counterproductive like the Simpson- Mazzoli bill was in 1986.

•   •   •  

Public concerned about illegal immigration, polls say   [3/27/06]
Recent surveys show the same results as ever — a majority of the American public, across the political spectrum, want immigration to be legal, controlled and reduced. What a pity the United States Senate is too arrogant to pay attention to the clear will of the citizenry.

    • Some 59 percent say they oppose allowing illegal immigrants to apply for legal, temporary-worker status, an NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll found.
    • More than six in 10, 62 percent, say they oppose making it easier for illegal immigrants to become citizens, according to a Quinnipiac University poll. Nine in 10 in that poll say they consider immigration to be a serious problem — with 57 percent of those polled saying very serious.
    • Three-fourths say the United States is not doing enough along its borders to keep illegal immigrants out, a Time Magazine poll found.

•   •   •  

Arab News: Why Is There So Much Hate inside Us?   [3/27/06]
The facinating Saudi newspaper is sometimes very revealing about the Kingdom's social norms. An editorial writer here considers the everyday cruelty in Saudi life, behavior that most Americans would find very shocking indeed.

    I took his question to my students and started a discussion in class. The students agreed that they had harassed foreigners, particularly South Asians, in the street. One said that seeing a worker in the street was a perfect chance for them to beat him up and then run away. Some admitted searching for foreign workers to beat up, throw eggs at and generally abuse. I asked my students why they behaved in this way, what was the reason. Some said it was just fun, nothing more or less. Some said it was because those people were weak and unable to fight back. Some said that their favorite pastime was to catch cats, kill them and skin them. I was shocked and disturbed by all this violence and wondered what was causing it.

•   •   •  

Muslims are accused of killing 'unclean' dogs   [3/27/06]
As I've written in Vdare.com, American standards of kindness to animals are by no means universal. Unsurprisingly, Muslims are among the worst offenders, since they are instructed by the Koran that dogs are unclean.

    Pro-islamic municipalities in Turkey are killing stray dogs, animal rights groups claim.
        Municipal workers are hunting, torturing and killing the animals by the hundreds, the campaigners say.
        The allegations surfaced when Burcu Isikalp, a young veterinary surgeon, went searching for seven strays she had been caring for near her home in the capital, Ankara. Witnesses told her that municipal workers had taken them away.
        She went to Ankara's largest refuse dump, Mamak, where she found one of the strays with hundreds of other dogs. "They were all dead, stacked in large pits," she said. "We also found 10 dead puppies in a bound plastic bag. There is a myth among pious Muslims that dogs are unclean."
        Animal rights campaigners who accompanied Miss Isikalp last week said that at least two of the dogs had been sexually abused.

•   •   •  

City Hall banishes Easter Bunny   [3/26/06]
Political correctness goes off the cliff in this case where a simple Easter Bunny display was deemed not diverse. The situation is doubly bizarre because the name of the city in question is... (drum roll) St. Paul, the community in Minnesota named after the follower of Jesus' teachings who wrote 13 books of the Bible and spread the gospel throughout the Roman world. St. Paul, the guy who experienced conversion on the road to Damascus.
    But the City of St. Paul cannot allow any Easter Bunny references to appear in City Hall, even though no public funds were spent on the display.

    [City human rights director] Mr. Terrill told the Associated Press no one had complained about the recent display.
        He told the Star Tribune on Thursday, "My issue was not about the rabbit or the egg, it was the sign on the door that said, 'Happy Easter.' We talk about diversity, respect, inclusion. When you put that on the front door of a government office, it could be offensive to someone who's a Muslim, a Jew, an atheist, what have you. That's my job to bring it to someone's attention."
    What if a Muslim complained about the very Christian name of the city? Would a diversity sensitivity group be organized to pick a more secular name?
    Interestingly, the alcohol-infused celebration, St. Patrick's Day, honors the patron saint of Ireland and could conceivably go the same route as the bunny.

•   •   •  

Mohammed Taheri-Azar's letter to police   [3/26/06]
This is the Muslim fellow who attempted to mass murder college students on the University of North Carolina campus on March 3. Several people were injured and put into the hospital when he drove a large SUV into a popular outdoors meeting place. He said at the time that his action was to punish infidel Americans for harming Muslims around the world. Here is the man's chilling explanation in his own words.

    I am a servant of Allah. I am 22 years of age and I was born in Tehran, Iran. My father, mother and older sister immigrated to the United States in 1985 when I was two years of age and I've lived in the United States ever since.
        I attended elementary, middle and high school in North Carolina and I was accepted into the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I began my college career in August 2001 and graduated in December 2005 with a bachelor's degree in psychology and philosophy with Allah's help.
        I do not wish to pursue my career as a student any further because I have no desire to amass the impermanent and temporary fame and material wealth this world has to offer. However I made the decision to continue my studies and to graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill so that the world will know that Allah's servants are very intelligent.
        Due to the killing of believing men and women under the direction of the United States government, I have decided to take advantage of my presence on United States soil on Friday, March 3, 2006 to take the lives of as many Americans and American sympathizers as I can in order to punish the United States for their immoral actions around the world.
        In the Qur'an, Allah states that the believing men and women have permission to murder anyone responsible for the killing of other believing men and women. I know that the Qur'an is a legitimate and authoritative holy scripture since it is completely validated by modern science and also mathematically encoded with the number 19 beyond human ability. After extensive contemplation and reflection, I have made the decision to exercise the right of violent retaliation that Allah has given me to the fullest extent to which I am capable at present.
    Get that last little bit? He is citing the Koran as his excuse for killing infidels, as do most jihadis because the book is full of admonitions to kill non-Muslims. Islam yammers on incessantly about being a religion of peace because it isn't. What other religion has to continually insist upon its religious bona fides? None. Only Islam daily demonstrates its pathological underpinnings.
    From a broader view, the case is another reminder of how foolish it is for this country to continue Muslim immigration. The guy and his family came from Iran (!), a long-time enemy and stalwart on the State Department's list of terror-supporting nations, which is currently threatening to nuke infidels when it gets its bombs built. Why would a sane immigration policy welcome possible enemies, when there are literally billions of non-enemies who would love to live here?

•   •   •  

London March for Free Expression   [3/25/06]
Check out photos of today's rally for free speech and against dhimmitude toward demanding Islamofascists (who are bent on world domination, by the way). More at Nordish.

•   •   •  

Bomb plot suspect sold poisoned burgers   [3/25/06]
One of the advantages which immigration boosters always name is the variety of food and restaurants which immigrant diversity brings. Now it comes to light that British Muslims have sold poisoned chow to kill off us infidels.

    AN ISLAMIST terrorist sold poisoned burgers from a street-corner van and planned to contaminate beer at a football stadium, the Old Bailey was told yesterday.
        The alleged extremist, one of seven on trial for plotting to blow up British targets, was also said to have suggested poisoning takeaway food and sabotaging BT. [...]
        The court was told that other suggestions included taking a job as a beer-seller at a football stadium, smuggling in poison in a syringe. Babar said Mr Mahmood claimed that he had already sold toxic burgers from a mobile van. Another plan was to distribute leaflets for a fictional take-away restaurant, then deliver poisoned food to houses.
    It's not only jihad activities which should make westerners cautious about foreign food. Here in America, a lot of restaurant food in areas of high alien penetration is prepared by persons unfamiliar with modern standards of cleanliness. You know, washing hands after using the restroom and before touching food. One sees signs in Spanish in restaurant bathrooms, but many of those workers are illiterate in Spanish.
    A few years ago, the Denver health department recommended that people who ate frequently in restaurants should get a hepatitis injection because of the danger from "immigrant" food preparers [Hepatitis shot for frequent diners?].

•   •   •  

Prosecutor describes housewife's rape, killing in grisly detail   [3/24/06]
Daniel and Mary Nagle

Last April, suburban housewife and mom Mary Nagle (shown above with her husband Daniel in a happy moment) was brutally raped and killed in her own home by an illegal alien hired to powerwash the deck.

    NEW CITY, N.Y. -- A prosecutor described in nightmarish detail Thursday the rape, mutilation and killing of a suburban housewife, allegedly at the hands of a worker who was supposed to be power-washing her deck.
        The assault on 42-year-old Mary Nagle was so brutal that crime-scene investigators found a piece of her ear and hanks of her hair scattered around her bedroom, Rockland County District Attorney Michael Bongiorno said at the start of the defendant's trial. One of the victim's fingers was nearly amputated as she tried to fend off her attacker.
        The April 29 killing, in a quiet, manicured neighborhood of New City, exposed the danger of a common situation in the suburbs -- the husband at work, the kids at school, the housewife home alone and a contractor on the scene, often with access to the house.
    After killing Mary Nagle, Guatemalan citizen Douglas Herrera changed into clothes belonging to Daniel Nagle and used Mary's cell phone to call 51 people on the phone's internal list. Many family and friends learned of the horrendous crime from the killer himself, who also threatened them.
    As is common in many of these cases, the killer had a prior arrest that should have sent him home to Guatemala, but he was allowed to stay.
    News of the crime cooled the enthusiasm of many area homeowners for hiring total strangers from foreign countries. "The lady told me, 'Pablo, I don't want to see you today,' " said Mr. Sandoval.
    For more information about American crime victims and the illegal alien criminals streaming across our borders, see Immigrations Human Cost.

•   •   •  

State trails nation, sends fewer seniors to college   [3/24/06]
That state is California, once the top place in the nation for public schools. Now it is in the basement in many categories — except in spending for the children of illegal aliens, $7.7 billion as of 2004.

    California seniors are half as likely to go directly to a four-year school as students in states such as New York and Massachusetts, according to the California Educational Opportunity Report, which analyzed data from the state Education Department and the state's post-secondary education commission.
        To put it more bleakly, Mississippi is the only state in the nation to send a smaller percentage of students directly to a four-year college than California, the study said. [...]
        California has fewer counselors per student than schools in all other states, with the average high school counselor here expected to serve 790 students, according to the study.
        At the same time, the study ranked California 43rd among states in education spending per student after adjusting for regional costs differences. Ninety-four percent of the state's students attend schools in districts that spend less than the national average.

•   •   •  

Taliban Man at Yale   [3/23/06]
John Fund updates the story of the terrorist spokesman who somehow ended up at an Ivy League university. Fund's investigation into how this moral outrage came to happen is a fascinating look into the thinking on campus these days.

    Given his record as a Taliban apologist, Mr. Hashemi has told friends he is stunned Yale didn't look more closely into his curriculum vitae. "I could have ended up in Guantanamo Bay," he told the New York Times. So how did he end up in the Ivy League? Questions start at the State Department's door. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the Judiciary Committee's border security panel, has asked the State Department and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to explain exactly how Mr. Hashemi got an F-1 student visa. Yale's decision tree is clearer. Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions until he took the same post at Stanford last year, told the New York Times that Yale had another foreigner of Mr. Hashemi's caliber apply but "we lost him to Harvard" and "I didn't want that to happen again." Mr. Shaw won't return phone calls now, but emails he's exchanged with others offer insights into his thinking.
        The day after the New York Times profile appeared, Haym Benaroya, a professor at Rutgers, wrote to Mr. Shaw expressing disbelief that Mr. Hashemi, who has a fourth-grade education and a high school equivalency certificate, could be at Yale. Mr. Shaw replied that he indeed had "non-traditional roots [and] very little formal education but personal accomplishments that had significant impact." Mr. Benaroya was stupefied; did Mr. Shaw mean accomplishments that had a "positive impact, not terroristic and totalitarian impact"? Mr. Shaw responded: "Correct, and potential to make a positive difference in seeking ways towards peace and democracy. An education is a way toward understanding the complex nuances of world politics."
    See? A modern college education for former (and likely current) enemies is a path to world peace. Neville Chamberlain would have been proud.
    Have a look also the Nail Yale Blog.

•   •   •  

Sonia Nazario risked her life to write a story. It was nothing compared with what her subject went through.   [3/23/06]
Remember Enrique? It was the sob story spectacular presented as a Los Angeles Times feature, about a kid who train-hopped north to find his illegal alien mother in LA. Now it's back, as a book.

    [Author Sonia Nazario:] "I determined that 48,000 children enter the United States alone, without a parent, each year from Mexico and Central America," Nazario says. "Some of those are coming for jobs, but the majority are coming to find a parent. And in three of four cases it's a mother, usually a single mother, who left them behind."
        The story was overwhelming: Some of the children are as young as 7, many are robbed or raped during their journey, some fall off the train and get sucked under the wheels. Nazario knew from experience that the most powerful way to illustrate the story was through the specifics of one individual. After meeting Enrique in Nuevo Laredo, a town on the Texas-Mexico border, she retraced his steps, traveling 1,600 miles on seven freight trains.
    Sonia appeared on Lou Dobbs on Wednesday, promoting (what else?) American assistance to the sending countries so moms can stay home with the kiddies. (Incidentally, there's nothing that LTG wants more than for familes to remain together, in their home countries.)
    NAZARIO: That the United States really needs to formulate a foreign policy geared towards illegal immigration and trying to work with these countries to try to elevate their economies and create jobs for these women so they can stay at home by their children's side, which is the best solution.
    As has been noted here many times, Mexico Is Rich and could easily afford to invest in infrastructure, education and healthcare to better the lives of its people. It's just cheaper for them to push peasants out.
    Central American nations with less financial resources could benefit from microlending.
    The United States cannot afford (nor is it possible) to provide jobs and social services to every one of the five billion persons on earth who lives with less than a first-world standard of living.

•   •   •  

Dropping Out: Immigrant Entry and Native Exit From the Labor Market, 2000-2005   [3/22/06]
The Center for Immigration Studies just released an important paper on the severe effects of massive immigrations, legal and illegal, on the labor market.

    • Looking first at all workers shows that between March 2000 and March 2005 only 9 percent of the net increase in jobs for adults (18 to 64) went to natives. This is striking because natives accounted for 61 percent of the net increase in the overall size of the 18 to 64 year old population.
    • As for the less-educated, between March of 2000 and 2005 the number of adult immigrants (legal and illegal) with only a high school degree or less in the labor force increased by 1.6 million.
    • At the same time, unemployment among less-educated adult natives increased by nearly one million, and the number of natives who left the labor force altogether increased by 1.5 million. Persons not in the labor force are neither working nor looking for work.
    • In total, there are 11.6 million less-educated adult immigrants in the labor force, nearly half of whom are estimated to be illegal aliens.
    • Of perhaps greatest concern, the percentage of adult natives without a high school degree who are in the labor force fell from 59 to 56 percent between March 2000 and 2005, and for adult natives with only a high school degree participation in the labor force fell from 78 to 75 percent.
    Wage data show little evidence of a labor shortage. Wage growth for less-educated natives has generally lagged behind wage increases for more educated workers.
    Columnist Robert Samuelson makes a similar economic arguments in We Don't Need 'Guest Workers'.
    It's a myth that the U.S. economy "needs" more poor immigrants. The illegal immigrants already here represent only about 4.9 percent of the labor force, the Pew Hispanic Center reports. In no major occupation are they a majority. They're 36 percent of insulation workers, 28 percent of drywall installers and 20 percent of cooks. They're drawn here by wage differences, not labor "shortages." In 2004, the median hourly wage in Mexico was $1.86, compared with $9 for Mexicans working in the United States, said Rakesh Kochhar of Pew. With high labor turnover in the jobs they take, most new illegal immigrants can get work by accepting wages slightly below prevailing levels. [...]
        Business organizations understandably support guest worker programs. They like cheap labor and ignore the social consequences. What's more perplexing is why liberals, staunch opponents of poverty and inequality, support a program that worsens poverty and inequality. Poor immigrant workers hurt the wages of unskilled Americans. The only question is how much. Studies suggest a range "from negligible to an earnings reduction of almost 10 percent," according to the CBO.
        It's said that having guest workers is better than having poor illegal immigrants. With legal status, they'd have rights and protections. They'd have more peace of mind and face less exploitation by employers. This would be convincing if its premise were incontestable: that we can't control our southern border. But that's unproved. We've never tried a policy of real barriers and strict enforcement against companies that hire illegal immigrants. Until that's shown to be ineffective, we shouldn't adopt guest worker programs that don't solve serious social problems -- but add to them.

•   •   •  

After 3 years, Somalis struggle to adjust to U.S.   [3/22/06]
This article about the travails of Somali adjustment assures the reader that the primitive tribal people are not modern-day cavemen. However...

    Resettlement counselors who work with Bantus say many had never flushed a toilet, flicked a light switch, watched a TV, talked on a telephone, cooked on a stove, ridden in a car, held a pen, used a fork, seen a two-story building or written or read their own language. In Kenya, some Bantus had gotten stuck in a room at an orientation session because they didn't know how to turn the doorknob. Others asked whether they had to go with their luggage as it passed through the airport X-ray machine.
        Resettlement agencies were told not to give the refugees anything too complicated — like a toaster. Plans to cluster some Bantu families in Holyoke, Mass., were canceled when members of the City Council said the community lacked the resources to care for them.
        The last 600 Bantus are due to arrive by summer, according to the State Department — and two things are clear: Most are making it in America, and they have needed more help getting settled than any refugee group since the Hmong from Laos a quarter-century ago. [...]
        "We had no idea how hard it would be, even though we spent a year preparing for their arrival," says [Robert] Marmor, the Springfield agency director. "We didn't realize there would be people with no knowledge of Western civilization."
    Marmor, the man professing ignorance about the Somali is the director of Jewish Family Services of Western Massachusetts, whose business is resettlement. It's appalling that he might actually be that uninformed.

•   •   •  

Welcome to Maywood, Where Roads Open Up for Immigrants   [3/21/06]
Maywood California stats

Take a good look of what happens when Mexicans take over a town (map of Maywood), this one near Los Angeles. Forget about American core beliefs about equal justice under the law, a two-tiered system exists in Maywood, where citizens are required to obey the laws and pay the fines, but "immigrants" (i.e., illegal aliens) are cut unimaginable slack.
    Foreigners are not expected to have drivers licenses or car tags, nope, too oppressive. That annoying law stuff is for the suckers, er citizens.
    Welcome to the third world, here in America, thanks to open borders.

    In Maywood, where 96% of the residents are Latino, and more than half are foreign-born, the City Council has vowed to make the municipality a "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants, and over the last few months it has set out to prove it.
        First, the city eliminated the Police Department's traffic division after complaints that officers unfairly targeted illegal immigrants. Then it made it much more difficult for police to tow cars whose owners didn't have driver's licenses, a practice that affected mostly undocumented people who could not obtain licenses.
        In January, the City Council passed a resolution opposing a proposed federal law that would criminalize illegal immigration and make local police departments enforce immigration law. Now, some in the community are pushing to rename one of the city's elementary schools after former Mexican President Benito Juarez and debating measures to improve the lives of illegal immigrants.
    No traffic enforcement! That sounds attractive and safe. Let's all take a drive through Maywood!

•   •   •  

Mexico buys ads to weigh in on U.S. immigration debate   [3/21/06]
This news article doesn't broach the subject of a hostile foreign nation meddling in America's domestic affairs — no, it's all about Mexico trying to ameliorate the "harsh tone" of the current debate.
    What would the proper tone be when your country is being invaded?

    "We thought it was about time to have the American people looking firsthand at what's our position on these issues that are so sensitive and important for both countries," Mexican Ambassador Carlos de Icaza said in an interview Monday.
        "Our message to the American people is that we are your neighbors, we are your friends, this is a common challenge, and we are part of the solution, not only part of the problem," de Icaza said.
        The public relations effort comes as Congress is grappling with the question of how to treat the 11 million to 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States - more than half of them Mexican.
    Lou Dobbs reported on the ads less positively.
    DOBBS: [...] Next, the Mexican government acknowledges that if Mexicans can't find economic and social opportunities in their own countries -- their country, they will emigrate to the United States.
        The ad then goes on to offer Mexico's recommendations for reforming U.S. immigration policy. It says, America should adopt a guest worker plan admits the "largest public number of workers and their families."
        Also, "For a guest worker program to be viable, Mexico should participate in its design, management, supervision and evaluation."
        These ads, the words and policy of the Mexican government, they were placed by the Texas public relations firm Allyn & Company. And according to its Web site, past Allyn & Company clients include Mexican president Vicente Fox and one President George W. Bush when he was then governor of Texas.

•   •   •  

Zogby Poll: Americans, Mexicans Want Closer Ties, But Suspicion Abounds   [3/20/06]
There are some eye-opening stats in this poll, such as the number that 73 percent of Mexicans regard Americans as racist, while only 18 percent of Americans see Mexicans as skin-color obsessed (which they are). Furthermore, 42 percent of Americans consider Mexicans to be honest (!), while just 16 percent of Mexicans see Americans as law-abiding.
    What? Mexican culture is justly famous for bribes and general corruption in daily life.
    One might easily conclude from this survey that they hate us, they really hate us. And talk about sucker Americans, so stupidly good-natured in the face of undeniable hostility of centuries' duration. The poll is yet another reason to stop the shotgun marriage being plotted by the Council on Foreign Relations.

    Americans want their lawmakers to deal with the problem of illegal immigration, the poll shows, and are willing to put their money where their mouth is. Nearly two in three (62%) said they would prefer that their congressman support more restrictive immigration regulations. Asked if they would be willing to support a U.S. economic development plan to help build Mexico's economy, much like the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Europe after World War II, in exchange for an agreement for more controls on immigration, 57% said "yes," while 33% opposed the idea.
    Obviously more education of Americans is necessary if a majority support a Marshall plan for wealthy Mexico when this nation is $8 trillion in debt.

•   •   •  

Projecting the US Population to 2050   [3/20/06]
The little-discussed legislation about the upcoming immigration bill in the Senate has huge implications for the future population of the United States, according to a new report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

    Depending on what Congress decides to do about immigration — curtail it, expand it — the United States is facing a future population just 45 years away that could vary by more than 135 million residents. Our population is going to be growing in any case, largely because of immigrants who have arrived in the past few generations, but that growth could be limited to about 66 million persons (a 22% increase) if we effectively combat illegal immigration and pare back legal immigration to a moderate level. Alternatively, if current proposals to increase immigration, give legal status to those currently here illegally, and create a new guest worker program were adopted, we likely will be facing the prospect of a population in 2050 of half a billion people. That would be about 200 million more persons than today (a 67% increase). If our policy makers pursue the latter course, our projection is that the country will be on a course to reaching about one billion people by the end of the century.
    Here is some of Lou Dobbs remarks on the same subject:
    LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In 1950, there were 150 million people in the United States. Today, the number has doubled to 300 million.
        Newcomers account for the swelling of the population. Congress is debating a guest worker program that would drastically increase the U.S. population above and beyond where it is today. It's sparking a debate: how many people are too many people?
        ALAN KUPER, COMP. U.S. SUSTAINABLE POPULATION: This is not a hundred years ago when our population was about 70 million. We have to recognize that it's a really new ball game.
        SYLVESTER: The Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, estimates that by year 2050, the U.S. population will hit 500 million if the guest worker program passes. If the United States sticks with the status quo, the population will increase to an estimated 450 million.
        On the other hand, if the United States enforced its immigration laws and moderated legal immigration, the population would hit only 362 million. Depending on which policy the United States adopted, a difference in 138 million people.

        It's significant when you consider how that will impact traffic, infrastructure, school sizes, energy supplies, the environment, and the availability of jobs. And the more people, the more polarized the country becomes into haves and have-nots.
        JACK MARTIN, FAIR: The middle class in the United States is shrinking significantly. As the middle class shrinks, it no longer provides the same opportunity that it has historically for people or their children.

•   •   •  

Victory Over Terror?   [3/20/06]
Some of the sharper minds on the jihadist threat discussed the question of whether we are winning. The venue was the "Restoration Weekend" held in Phoenix in February.

    Robert Spencer: [...] The whole idea of a war on terror is a war on a tactic, not on an opponent. Terror is not something that was invented by Osama bin Laden on September 11, 2001. It has been used by various different armies and various different groups throughout history. It does nothing to indicate who exactly is using the terror and for what means. It was not until several years after 9/11 that the President actually explained this in greater detail and told us, a few months ago, that we are fighting against a unified global movement that wants to institute Shari' a law, Islamic law, over a unified Islamic state, stretching from Spain to Indonesia. Of course, he could have added the Americas, since the Islamists have made it abundantly clear that their goal is global. [...]
        Ibrahim Hooper, the spokesman for the Council on American/Islamic Relations, is on record saying that he would like to see the United States become an Islamic state sometime in the future, which is exactly the same goal as Osama bin Laden. But Hooper insists that he will pursue this goal, and he's doing so very well, very skillfully, by peaceful means. And because he has insisted that he is doing it by peaceful means and because that it is in fact the case, he has been classified as a "moderate" Muslim spokesman and given that kind of appellation in the major media and even in law enforcement. Of course, the Council on American/Islamic relations has even had access to the White House.
        Now this is the most ridiculous sign of mistaking of means for goals. Hooper is not planting any bombs anywhere or blowing up any buildings with airplanes, therefore, he's a moderate. When actually he himself has said that he wants to see exactly the same kind of world that Osama bin Laden wants to see. No one in official Washington, no one in any policymaking areas, has acknowledged this or has acknowledged the fact that it's not only Hooper and Osama bin Laden who have nurtured those same goals, same ideas, same hopes, but they are also held by a very large number of Muslims in the United States, Muslims in Europe, and Muslims around the world. Not a tiny minority of extremists, but, as Dr. Pipes points out, the fact that they win elections all the time, the fact that the Muslim world is so unified against us, is an indication that this is mainstream thought within the Islamic world today. It is mainstream in the United States. It is mainstream elsewhere.
    Interestingly, it wasn't until the fifth speaker that the word "immigration" was spoken.
    Steve Emerson: [...] I was in Australia for the last week and a half. Before I left on Monday, there was a front page story in the Australian and the headline was "Prime Minister Hits at 'Jihad Muslims.'" I just want to read you two paragraphs: "John Howard has strongly criticized aspects of Muslim culture, warning that they pose an unprecedented challenge for Australia's immigration program. 'I do think there is this particular complication, because there is a fragment which is utterly antagonistic to our kind of society. You cannot find any equivalent in Italian or Greek or Lebanese or Chinese or Baltic immigration to Australia. There is no equivalent of raving on about jihad. But that is the problem.'"
        What wonderful plain talking and recognition that we would love to see, but do not see, from our own elected officials in the United States.

•   •   •  

Afghan man faces death for Christian conversion   [3/20/06]
Isn't this all you need to know about the "religion of peace"? Submit or die.

    Afghanistan's constitution is based on Shariah, Islamic law that is interpreted by many Muslims to require that any Muslim who rejects Islam be sentenced to death, said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the state-sponsored Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
        Repeated attempts to interview Mr. Rahman in detention were barred.
        The prosecutor, Abdul Wasi, said he had offered to drop the charges if Mr. Rahman converted back to Islam, but he refused.
        "He would have been forgiven if he changed back. But he said he was a Christian and would always remain one," Mr. Wasi said. "We are Muslims, and becoming a Christian is against our laws. He must get the death penalty."

•   •   •  

Women at war with the mullahs   [3/19/06]
Syrian-born Los Angeles resident Wafa Sultan has stirred up a hornet's nest with her blunt criticisms of Islam and her belief that the religion is too twisted to be reformed.

    "The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions, or a clash of civilisations," the impassioned 47-year-old told Al-Jazeera's stunned audience across the Arab world. "It is a clash between civilisation and backwardness, between the civilised and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality. It is a clash between human rights on the one hand and the violation of these rights on the other, between those who treat women like beasts and those who treat them like human beings." [...]
        "The Jews have come from tragedy and forced the world to respect them," she said, "with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling.
        "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people. Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
    Listen to a 13-minute radio interview with Dr. Sultan here

•   •   •  

Mr. Gates comes to Washington with a plea for smart foreigners   [3/19/06]
Being the richest man on earth hasn't slowed Bill Gates in his energetic pursuit of job displacement for American computer workers by importing still more foreigners in the H-1B visa program. (The recent Forbes billionaires issue stated that Gates has a net worth of $50 billion, up $6 billion from last year.)

    WASHINGTON --When the Senate comes back to work next week, it is scheduled to take up the issue of immigration. And that is what brought Bill Gates to Washington for a rare visit last week.
        The Microsoft billionaire does not love this capital, but he decided to add his personal voice to his Washington office's lobbying effort to expand the number of foreign-born computer scientists allowed to work in this country under a special program known as H1B visas.
        In an interview sandwiched between his meetings on Capitol Hill, Gates told me that the "high-skills immigration issue is by far the No. 1 thing" on the Washington agenda for Microsoft and for the electronics industry generally. "This is gigantic for us."
        Since autumn 2003, Congress has limited the number of people admitted annually on H1B visas to 65,000. To qualify for such a visa, a person must have at least a bachelor's degree and specialized knowledge and a job offer from an American employer. The visa is generally good for six years, with the possibility of applying for extensions.
        So great is the demand for such skills in the burgeoning high-tech world that in August 2005, the last of the visas available for fiscal 2006 were issued. That means a 14-month shutdown of the program, until October of this year.
    Meanwhile, the number of computer science majors is "falling fast" in America. Students are merely responding to the reality of the marketplace, and don't want to pursue an expensive degree for several years which will quickly become worthless. Then industry brazenly complains that there aren't enough American IT workers and it must have immigrants, even though it created the situation.
    See this link for a film clip of "South Park - Bigger, Longer, and Uncut" where Bill Gates gets blasted for his crappy software. (This being South Park, there is foul language.)

•   •   •  

Rift on Immigration Widens for Conservatives and Cardinals   [3/19/06]
The Catholic Church's active promotion of an illegal activity comes up for some notice at the New York Times.

    In December, after the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a tough border security bill that, among other things, would make it a crime to assist illegal immigrants, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops assailed it as extremely punitive and called on its flock to oppose it. Church officials have sent lobbyists to Congress and this month parishes sent members to rallies in Chicago and Washington to push for legislation that would legalize undocumented immigrants and put them on the path to citizenship. [...]
        In February, Representative Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who opposes illegal immigration, took issue with Catholic bishops, among other religious leaders, "for invoking God when arguing for a blanket amnesty" for illegal immigrants. This month, two powerful Republican representatives, Peter King of New York and F. James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, the co-sponsors of the border security bill, criticized the church leadership on "The O'Reilly Factor" on Fox News Channel, particularly Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, who has said he would instruct his priests and parishioners to defy the legislation if it ever became law.
        Meanwhile, cable news commentators Tucker Carlson and Lou Dobbs have questioned whether the church should maintain its tax-exempt status, given its political activism on immigration. And in an interview, Mr. King accused church leaders of "committing the sin of hypocrisy" in their campaign to sway Congress and Catholic voters.
    Funny how these stories about the Catholic Church policy on open borders never mention how American Vaticrats profit substantially from illegal immigration: according to its own figures, Catholic Migrant and Refugee Services receive $40 million annually in taxpayer funds for its ministrations.

•   •   •  

'We're here to stay' Nation's largest immigrant rights rally rocks Windy City   [3/18/06]
The People's Weekly World (a mouthpiece of the Communist Party) gleefully notes the mass rally in Chicago where 100,000 illegal alien lawbreakers showed up to demand nonexistent "rights." As usual, Democratic politicians were hispandering up a storm.

    Gov. Rod Blagojevich addressed the massive crowd in Spanish, telling them that he is the son of immigrant parents and understands the issues that are important to them. "Ustedes no son criminales. Ustedes son trabajadores" ("You are not criminals. You are workers"), the governor said.
        Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) said this is a new phase and a new struggle for the immigrant community. He called on the crowd to shut the Senate down if a Sensenbrenner-like bill is passed.
        "This is a movement of immigrants; we have brought the Irish, the Polish, the Chinese and the Central and South Americans here today. Raise those American flags, because this is our country and we're here to stay," Gutierrez said.
        Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush fired up the crowd chanting, "Power to the people," while Sen. Dick Durbin also roused the audience. Durbin has introduced S.2075, the Development, Relief and Education For Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, which offers legal residence to children of undocumented parents so they can go to college and get a job. Durbin sent a special message "to the children," saying, "I will fight to pass the DREAM Act as long as I live."

•   •   •  

Ireland asks Bush for alien amnesty   [3/18/06]
Irish PM Bertie Ahern celebrated St. Patrick's Day yesterday by meddling in American domestic affairs and asking that U.S. sovereignty be put aside for the benefit of illegal alien Irish living in this country.

    When the Irish prime minister urged President Bush yesterday to grant amnesty to illegal Irish aliens in the United States, he was just the latest in a line of foreign leaders to beg the president to relax immigration rules.
        Before handing over a bowl of shamrocks in the traditional St. Patrick's Day ceremony involving U.S. and Irish leaders, Prime Minister Bertie Ahern asked Mr. Bush to push for a way for "current Irish immigrants to legalize their status in the United States on a permanent basis."
        That sort of lobbying, which comes as Congress is debating what to do about illegal aliens and new temporary workers, has become a standard plea from foreign leaders meeting with Mr. Bush.
        While some nations, such as Ireland and Mexico, want citizenship for their illegal alien nationals, others want the United States to lift the caps for temporary student or worker visas.
        That was the request Mr. Bush heard earlier this week from the Slovak Republic's prime minister -- a message Mr. Bush told reporters was made "very clear" to him. And two weeks ago, in his joint press conference with the Indian prime minister during a trip to New Delhi, Mr. Bush called for an expansion of skilled worker temporary visas.
        Speaking with Pakistani reporters before his trip to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said he is working to loosen visa restrictions.
    Contact info, including phone numbers and emails, for Irish embassies can be found at this link.

•   •   •  

Illegals change the homebuilding industry   [3/18/06]
The diversity-loving Atlanta Journal Constitution demonstrates the rapid fall of wages within the home-building industry by telling the story of David Shafer, an American who went from the middle class to rock bottom in just a few years. Half of construction workers in Atlanta are thought to be illegal aliens, who work off the books as independent contractors.

    By the time Shafer graduated from Berkmar High in 1973, he and his three brothers were framing ranch homes for his father, a former mayor pro tem of Lilburn. Shafer soon went out on his own, hiring his own crew. He eventually specialized in framing mansions in exclusive neighborhoods such as Country Club of the South. He worked on homes for comedian Jeff Foxworthy, Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones and ex-Brave Ron Gant.
        Shafer earned more than $100,000 in 1999, a personal best. His family vacationed in Cancun, Mexico. Life was good. Shafer thought that as long as people in metro Atlanta wanted homes, he'd be building them.[...]
        The change was subtle. At first, Shafer figured he'd just hit a rough patch.
        But as Shafer searched for framing work, it was as if he was competing in a new market. Builders told him his bids weren't even close. And his U.S.-born carpenters, who were now out of work, too, said the going hourly rate had dropped well below the $15 to $20 Shafer had traditionally paid.
    But this story has a politically correct ending. According to the AJC, Shafer survived a breakdown by getting back on antidepressants (Zoloft) and embracing diversity by learning Spanish.
    Is that the media's prescription for coping with invasion? Drugs and capitulation?
    It's a good thing for Britain that antidepressants didn't exist during Winston Churchill's time.

•   •   •  

When Danes Pay Danegeld -- Dealing with Islam in Scandinavia   [3/17/06]
Retired blogger Fjordman is now writing occasionally for Brussels Journal.

    One thousand years ago Scandinavians were the barbarians of Europe, spreading fear and extracting "Danegeld" from their more civilized neighbors. In the 21st century Scandinavians are peaceful and soft-spoken, and the roles seem to have been reversed with certain newly arrived immigrants. There are claims that immigration costs Sweden 40 to 50 billion Swedish kroner every year, perhaps even several hundred billions, and has greatly contributed to bringing the Swedish welfare state to the brink of bankruptcy.
        In Denmark right-wing politicians are already debating the threat of immigrant "welfare tourists," should the Swedish system collapse. In Norway almost half of all children with a non-Western background claim social security benefits. This is ten times the rate of the native population. A Danish commission concluded that Denmark could save 50 billion kroner every year by 2040 if it shut the door to third world immigration. At the same time, statistics indicate that Scandinavians will become a minority in their own countries within a couple of generations, if the current trends continue. While their political elites insist that immigration is "good for the economy," Scandinavians are in reality funding their own colonization.
        Although the cost of welfare is significant, it pales in comparison to the price paid through rapidly declining social harmony and increasing insecurity caused by Muslim immigration. Some of the increase in insecurity is due to the rise of mafia groups and organized crime, but most is mainly due to terror threats and intimidation of critics of Islam and Muslim immigration.

•   •   •  

Oriana Fallaci asks: Is Muslim immigration to Europe a conspiracy?   [3/16/06]
The LA Weekly reviews Fallaci's latest book, "The Force of Reason" and reflects upon her history as a writer. She regrets missing the cultural transformation of Europe caused by Muslim immigration until 9/11 woke her up to the demographic changes in Europe.

    In The Force of Reason, the controversial Italian journalist and novelist Oriana Fallaci illuminates one of the central enigmas of our time. How did Europe become home to an estimated 20 million Muslims in a mere three decades?
        How did Islam go from being a virtual non-factor to a religion that threatens the preeminence of Christianity on the Continent? How could the most popular name for a baby boy in Brussels possibly be Mohammed? Can it really be true that Muslims plan to build a mosque in London that will hold 40,000 people? That Dutch cities like Amsterdam and Rotterdam are close to having Muslim majorities? How was Europe, which was saved by the U.S. in world wars I and II, and whose Muslim Bosnians were rescued by the U.S. as recently as 1999, transformed into a place in which, as Fallaci puts it, "if I hate Americans I go to Heaven and if I hate Muslims I go to Hell?"
        In attempting to answer these questions, the author, who is stricken with cancer and has been hounded by death threats and charges of "Islamophobia" (she is due to go on trial in France this June), has combined history with snatches of riveting firsthand reportage into a form that reads like a real-life conspiracy thriller. [...]
        Perhaps [novelist Paul] Bowles would have been interested in this passage from Fallaci's book: "In 1974 [Algerian President] Boumedienne, the man who ousted Ben Bella three years after Algerian independence, spoke before the General Assembly of the United Nations. And without circumlocutions he said: 'One day millions of men will leave the southern hemisphere of this planet to burst into the northern one. But not as friends. Because they will burst in to conquer, and they will conquer by populating it with their children. Victory will come to us from the wombs of our women.'"
    That sounds like the Mexican strategy. But the Muslims may have tipped their hand too soon with their violent jihadist activity in Europe. Perhaps the Islamists figured Europeans would continue their peace-at-any-cost appeasement.

•   •   •  

"Legalize Me, I'm Irish"   [3/16/06]
My latest blog at Vdare.com notes the attitude of entitlement which is common to Irish illegal aliens — and all the others.

•   •   •  

Lou Dobbs Transcript, March 14, 2006   [3/15/06]
With the big immigration showdown coming in the Senate, the Reconquistas are working 24/7 to institute open borders and socialism in America. Fortunately, the Dobbs news crew is following the Mexican fifth column as it openly supports the interests of a foreign, hostile government.

    CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Professor Armando Navarro heads the National Alliance for Human Rights. His group helped organize Friday's protest in Chicago by tens of thousands of people supporting expanded rights for illegal aliens. Now his supporters are going to Mexico City to lobby Vicente Fox's government, as well as the embassies of Cuba and Bolivia. Their immediate goal is to defeat tough border security legislation now pending in Congress.
        ARMANDO NAVARRO, PROFESSOR, U.C. RIVERSIDE: Essentially, we have to do everything possible to make sure that the process is such that we can maximize the influence of Mexico, the influence of Latin American in terms of making sure that that pressure, that power, diplomatically speaking, can be directed at the administration, as well as Congress.
        WIAN: They admit they're going against the current in Washington and say they would be willing to accept, for now, legislation that would allow true amnesty for illegal aliens. Longer term, however, they're pushing for unlimited job for foreign workers in the United States, and nothing short of a radical shift in this nation's government, a shift to socialism.
        MARIA ANNA GONZALES, NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS: It's a system that's being used in other countries where everybody's eating, where everyone has a place to live, where everyone has the right to go to school. Well, maybe we need to look inside ourselves as a nation and maybe we need to start adopting another system.
        Call it whatever you want. But the current system of capitalism ain't working for all.
        WIAN: The group also says its discussions will also include what actions it will take if laws pass that would toughen penalties for illegal aliens and the companies that hire them and improve security along the border. They also say they will implore the Mexican government to do its part to improve the lot of Mexico's people.
        (END VIDEOTAPE)
        WIAN: That's an idea that even border security activists could embrace. However, the open borders group is not toning down its rhetoric. When we arrived at their press conference today, they handed us this bumper sticker, which repeated their charge that you, Lou, are a racist.
        DOBBS: Well, I'm glad that you held that up bumper sticker. It's always nice to be noticed, I suppose.
        I would prefer a somewhat more flattering notice, but the fact is, socialism, open borders, absolute free immigration, no constraint. Why, then, are they so interested in our free enterprise democracy?
        WIAN: It's hard to say. They talk about some very real issues -- the lack of good living wages in this country and in Latin American. They talk about problems at the border. But their solutions don't seem to make a lot of sense.
        I will bring one other point on the issue of racism. It seems like maybe they're figuring out that that dog is not going to hunt in some sectors of the American public. During the English portion of their press conference, they never mentioned the word "racism" once. When they switched to Spanish, they brought it up.

•   •   •  

Get Rich by Paying Taxes   [3/15/06]
Mexico is giving away big prizes on a televised game show, which has the political agenda of encouraging them to pay their taxes. Contestants become eligible by using credit cards, since those purchases can be tracked, unlike much of Mexico's economy which is cash based.

    Faced with rampant tax evasion fueled by off-the-books cash transactions, the Mexican government is sponsoring the fiscal equivalent of "Let's Make a Deal." It's offering consumers the chance to come on down and win fabulous prizes in exchange for using their bank cards to make routine purchases. [...]
        Experts attribute Mexico's weak tax collection to a host of factors, including entrenched government corruption that has sapped the public's willingness to pay and a devilishly complex tax code that has long burdened the small middle class and favored the rich.
        But one of the most alarming trends for tax authorities is the nation's exploding underground economy.
        About half of Mexico's workforce is estimated to be toiling off the books for cash, including millions of street vendors who hawk such diverse products as apparel and pirated Viagra.
        The Mexican government collects little in employment, business, income, sales or other taxes from this sector. While economic rivals such as China are investing billions in ports, superhighways and higher education, Mexico is struggling to provide some basic services.
    Among Mexicans, avoiding taxes is practically the national sport, an attitude which continues the country's malaise and lack of progress. Unpleasant as taxes may be, they are a civic responsibility.
    The corrupt, misogynist, crime-addicted, anti-education Mexican culture is not the sort which should be welcomed into our country and given special treatment beyond other illegal aliens, yet President Bush pushes exactly that policy.

•   •   •  

Mexican Number 3!   [3/14/06]
The new third-richest man on earth is a Mexican.

    The new number three on the Forbes Billionaires list is not some oil-pumping sheik, but a Mexican, the telecom magnate Carlos Slim Helu, with an impressive net worth of $30 billion. He is one of 10 Mexican billionaires, compared with oil-rich Saudi Arabia's 11 billionaires.

•   •   •  

Churches resist tougher immigration laws   [3/14/06]
The Catholic Church in particular has been leading the revolt against American sovereignty and law enforcement. (See my article "America's Vaticrats" for more details.) The church drones on about the "rights" of "immigrants" (illegal aliens), but neglects to mention that Catholic Charities Migrant and Refugee Services receive more than $40 million annually in taxpayer funds, so their concerns are not as selfless they would have us believe.
    Furthermore, the Catholics' complaint that under the provisions of HR 4437 they will be arrested for aiding illegals is a mischaracterization, to be kind.

    The measure's supporters, meanwhile, say the faith groups are engaging in some hysteria of their own and are deliberately mischaracterizing the House bill.
        The House legislation "does not target churches and aid providers as some have claimed," says Jeff Lungren, spokesman for Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R) of Wisconsin, the bill's sponsor. "The opposition to this is a real stretch and based on such a misapprehension of our motivation that we can barely comprehend it. We wish all this energy would be exerted toward fighting alien smuggling."
    As Peter Gadiel (of Families for a Secure America") has remarked, "I think it doesn't exaggerate the situation to say that the Catholic Church is becoming one of the main enemies of American sovereignty. They simply do not support any measure that would secure our borders."

•   •   •  

Sudden Jihad Syndrome   [3/14/06]
Daniel Pipes notes the danger of individual Islamists living in the United States who show no sign of homocidal tendencies until they go off, like Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, the Iranian immigrant who tried to kill students at the University of North Carolina.

    In brief, Taheri-azar represents the ultimate Islamist nightmare: a seemingly well-adjusted Muslim whose religion inspires him, out of the blue, to murder non-Muslims. Taheri-azar acknowledged planning his jihad for over two years, or during his university sojourn. It's not hard to imagine how his ideas developed, given the coherence of Islamist ideology, its immense reach (including a Muslim Student Association at UNC), and its resonance among many Muslims.
        Were Taheri-azar unique in his surreptitious adoption of radical Islam, one could ignore his case, but he fits into a widespread pattern of Muslims who lead quiet lives before turning to terrorism. Their number includes the 9/11 hijackers, the London transport bombers, and Maher Hawash, the Intel engineer arrested before he could join the Taliban in Afghanistan.
        Mohammed Ali Alayed, the Saudi living in Houston fits, the pattern because he stabbed and murdered Ariel Sellouk, a Jewish man who was his one-time friend. So do some converts to Islam; who suspected Muriel Degauque, a 38-year-old Belgian woman, would turn up in Iraq as a suicide bomber throwing herself against an American military base?

•   •   •  

Stealing Babies for Adoption   [3/13/06]
Leave it to China to turn the society's deep-rooted misogyny into a money-making venture, as female babies are being kidnapped to be sold to unwitting westerners.

    For generations, girls in rural China have been left to die in the cold or abandoned on doorsteps while families devote their scant resources to nourishing boys. But over the past decade, a wave of foreigners, mostly Americans, has poured into China with dollars in hand to adopt Chinese babies, 95 percent of them girls.
        Last year, the United States issued nearly 8,000 visas to Chinese-born children adopted by American parents. More than 50,000 children have left China for the United States since 1992. And more than 10,000 children have landed in other countries, according to Chinese reports.
        The foreign adoption program has matched Chinese babies with foreign families eager for them, while delivering crucial funding to orphanages in this country. But it has also spawned a tragic irony, transforming once-unwanted Chinese girls into valuable commodities worth stealing.
    As a result of the increased gendercide of females in China, there will likely be 40 million bachelors by 2020, a dangerous situation for social stability. But instead of females becoming more valued in Chinese society, women are now kidnapped to be sold as brides.

•   •   •  

Meet the Nativists   [3/13/06]
The liberal chat-space Alternet posted the Southern Poverty Law Center's latest screed about Americans working to close the borders to illegal immigration (see "The Nativists"). The SPLC argues that only racist xenophobic nativists would want to end the illegal alien tsunami.
    However the presumably liberal responders to Alternet did not all follow the approved script. Poster zooeyhall wrote the following message.

    I live in Nebraska in a rural area. In the 60's and 70's, work at the local packing plants paid a VERY good middle-class wage---almost $22/hour in today's money---and they had a strong Union. Sure, it was hard dirty work, but that didn't bother farm kids used to such work and who were anxious for a job over the summer to earn some money. It also provided a good full time job for those who wanted to work hard and move up. I had many farmer/neighbors who got a good income working there.
        Well---in the 1980's companies like Tyson cut the wages by 50%, boosted the line from 60 to 200 animals/hour--and then started bringing in Mexican workers (even setting up employment recruiting offices along the border). They busted the local union when it went on strike, and then claimed they "couldn't find enough local workers" to justify their importing of illegals.
        So now little towns around here that used to be local farming centers are 60% Mexican. Local Andy Griffith sheriffs have to deal with Mexican drug gangs that make the Bloods and the Crips look like Boy Scouts. We had a bank robbery last year in Norfolk Nebraska (pop. 25000) where a Mexican bank robber killed 5 people in cold blood.
    Alternet itself provides reaction to the postings of various quality (and sanity).

•   •   •  

Wasteful Mexico City Hosts Water Summit   [3/13/06]
Along with all its other symptoms of failing statehood, Mexico cannot manage the water needs of its major city.

    Huge pumps work day and night to suck sewage-laced water out of the rapidly sinking, mountain-ringed bowl in which the city lies. Some areas suffer floods of sewage. Around seven in every eight toilet flushes goes untreated.
        Mexico City has paved over its rivers and made them into underground sewers or expressways _ often both at the same time _ while pumping so much water from underground aquifers that some neighborhoods sink by up to a foot a year.
        The city would probably flunk in all the five topics to be discussed at the 4th World Water Forum starting Thursday: how water can be harnessed for growth, be provided more efficiently, better benefit the poor, be used environmentally, and be prevented from causing natural disasters. [...]
        Where is it all heading? The director of the city's water system, German Martinez, doesn't expect the city's aquifers to last longer than about 50 years. Urban planner Jorge Legoretta says the city has been hit by big floods 25 times in its 700-year history, most recently in the 1950s, and expects "catastrophe no. 26" within 15 years.
    When the "catastrophe" happens, where do you think many of Mexico City's 20 million residents will go?
    Remember that President Bush is dedicated to a shotgun marriage between the United States and Mexico.

•   •   •  

CBS Manipulates Images of Immigration Protest   [3/12/06]
Chicago Amnesty Rally Mexican Flags

Free Republic points out the choice of images used to portray the disturbing rally of 100,000 illegal aliens in Chicago was designed to include many American flags and leave out the Mexican ones. The Mexicans learned during the Prop. 187 campaign that Americans become alarmed when faced with a sea of hostile flags in their own streets.
    Furthermore, the sight of so many illegal foreigners demanding the benefits of citizenship should inspire every citizen to phone Washington immediately and insist on immigration enforcement, with no amnesty, "guest" worker program or any such thing. This truly is an invasion, and increasingly a successful one.
Chicago Amnesty Rally Birdseye View

•   •   •  

Media shockingly ignorant of Muslims among us   [3/12/06]
Mark Steyn berates the press for its hopeless politically correct attitude in reporting Islam. As an example, he points out the refusal of the media to take seriously the Tarheel Jihadi's admitted motive for trying to mass-murder Americans.

    "According to statements taken by the police, Mr. Taheri-azar, 22, an Iranian-born graduate of the university, felt that the United States government had been 'killing his people across the sea' and that his actions reflected 'an eye for an eye.'"
        "His people"? And who exactly would that be? Taheri-azar is admirably upfront about his actions. As he told police, he wanted to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world."
        And yet the M-word appears nowhere in the Times report. Whether intentionally or not, they seem to be channeling the great Sufi theologian and jurist al-Ghazali, who died a millennium ago but whose first rule on the conduct of dhimmis -- non-Muslims in Muslim society -- seem to have been taken on board by the Western media:

•   •   •  

San Francisco Rally for Free Speech and Danish Solidarity   [3/11/06]
San Francisco Rally

Clink on the link to see my photo essay of the March 10 pro-free-speech demonstration at Denmark's embassy in San Francisco in response to the Cartoon Jihad and the other threats which radical Islam presents to western civilization.

•   •   •  

For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats   [3/11/06]
Even the diversity-obsessed New York Times couldn't avoid noticing the common Muslim brainlock, where a critic who says Islam is anything but peaceful gets the death threat treatment.
    "You say my religion is violent — I kill you!"
    Does this reaction not prove the assertion?! It was the same situation with the Cartoon Jihad. Duh.

    Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.
        Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
        In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
        She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
        Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.

        In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.

•   •   •  

A question of loyalty   [3/10/06]
This article is from Canada, but describes a problem we have in the United States, that of "a new type of immigrant whose goal is not to fit in." Why would anyone want millions of immigrants with that attitude? Why import more problems than we already have?

    Until recent times, the West has been spoiled by the loyalty of immigrants, even from hostile regions or cultures. During the First World War, with negligible exceptions, immigrants from enemy countries as well as their children remained loyal to Canada and the U.S. throughout the hostilities. During the Second World War, although we treated German, Italian or Japanese immigrants and their descendants shabbily, as a rule they responded with unfailing patriotism. For every Tokyo Rose (the American GI's nickname for Ikuko Toguri, a Japanese-American woman, born in Los Angeles, who broadcast Japanese propaganda during the war) there were thousands of Japanese-American soldiers who gave their lives to fight fascism.
        The pattern continued during the Cold War, when former nationals of hostile communist countries often found refuge in North America. These newcomers of various ethnicity and religion, from Eastern Europe to Vietnam, were as supportive of the values and interests of their adopted countries as native-born citizens of Western descent. Few Americans opposed the anti-American antics of Fidel Castro more resolutely than Florida's ex-Cuban community.
        This started changing. In the last 30 years, a new type of immigrant emerged: the immigrant of dubious loyalty. Then, even more alarmingly, came a third phenomenon: the disloyal native-born, sometimes of immigrant ancestry, sometimes of Islamic conversion.
        The new immigrant seemed ready to share the West's wealth but not its values. In many ways, he resembled an invader more than a settler or a refugee. Instead of making efforts to assimilate, the invader demanded changes in the host country's culture. He called on society to accommodate his linguistic or religious requirements. Some were innocuous: In 1985, a Sikh CNR railway worker refused to exchange his turban for a regulation hard hat. In 1991, less innocuously, a newly appointed Toronto police board commissioner of Asian extraction declined to take the traditional oath to the Queen.
        The host societies' usual response was accommodation. Turbans were substituted for hard hats; the language of the police oath was changed. Recently, ceremonial daggers were allowed in schools. But accommodation only escalated demands. Requests for cultural exemption were soon followed by openly voiced sentiments of disloyalty. By the late 1990s, a Muslim group in Britain saw fit to express the view that no British Muslim has any obligation to British law when it conflicts with the law of Allah.

•   •   •  

Negative Perception Of Islam Increasing   [3/9/06]
The Washington Post appears surprised at poll results showing that Americans have decreasing respect for Islam.

    As the war in Iraq grinds into its fourth year, a growing proportion of Americans are expressing unfavorable views of Islam, and a majority now say that Muslims are disproportionately prone to violence, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
        The poll found that nearly half of Americans -- 46 percent -- have a negative view of Islam, seven percentage points higher than in the tense months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, when Muslims were often targeted for violence.
        The survey comes at a time of increasing tension; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq show little sign of ending, and members of Congress are seeking to block the Bush administration's attempt to hire an Arab company to manage operations at six of the nation's ports. Also, Americans are reading news of deadly protests by Muslims over Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad.
        Conservative and liberal experts said Americans' attitudes about Islam are fueled in part by political statements and media reports that focus almost solely on the actions of Muslim extremists.
        According to the poll, the proportion of Americans who believe that Islam helps to stoke violence against non-Muslims has more than doubled since the attacks, from 14 percent in January 2002 to 33 percent today.
    Rather than being "insensitive" or "racist," as the Post suggests, Americans are simply paying attention to the behavior of Muslims, who show in actions that their faith is NOT the "religion of peace".

•   •   •  

Sex dolls fight Mexican machismo   [3/9/06]
Mexico sex doll anti-harassment campaign The famous sexism of the Mexican male has been met with disapproval by the big brains in Mexico City, who decided that something must be done to lessen the everyday harassment that women suffer.

    President Vicente Fox acknowledged on Wednesday that Mexico has to do more to overcome widespread machismo.
        "Our society still has a long way to go in overcoming hangovers from the past, eradicating prejudice and changing habits," he said.
        However, Mr Fox has himself caused offence recently by joking that women were just "washing machines with two legs".

    But you have to wonder about the message being sent when the primary image is that of sex dolls. The bizarre ad campaign shows inflatable sex dolls in workplace situations, with the warning that "Sexual harassment is a crime." (Really? In Mexico?!)
    Doesn't dressing a sex doll as an office worker convey the idea that the local secretary is a whore? (Link includes image.)
    Perhaps something is lost in cultural translation, but the ad campaign appears to have all the psychological insight of Mexico's racist stamps of last year.

•   •   •  

Border Counties: Crime Skyrockets   [3/9/06]
Forget Bush's line about "Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande," Mexican illegal immigration is characterized by crime.

    The counties bordering Mexico would rank No. 1 in federal crime if they were a state, according to a new study.
        The crimes are mostly related to immigration and drugs, but the future looks bleak for the borderlands if something isn't done soon, according to the 246-page report. [...]
        "These border counties are subsidizing the costs for incarcerating and prosecuting illegal immigrants," Cox said. "The estimate is that it costs about $50 million a year, but we are reimbursed about $2 million."
        Funding from the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program helps reimburse states along the border for federal crime issues, but Cox said it was not enough.
        "The money we are spending on these issues is money that could be going toward libraries or parks," Cox said.
        The border counties ranked second in the nation in the incidence of tuberculosis, third in deaths from hepatitis, and last in insurance coverage for adults and children.
    See the Borders Counties report.

•   •   •  

Time running out for 50 homeless Hmong families   [3/9/06]
The abysmal planning regarding Hmong refugees in Minnesota is becoming hard to ignore. Minneapolis officials (like the now-deposed Mayor Randy Kelly of St. Paul) disregarded the "eminently predictable" housing shortage because they wanted to cater to Hmong already living in the United States ["Homeless in Hminneapolis].

    But Yee Vang once again finds herself homeless. Her family is among more than 50 newly arrived Hmong families, including nearly 250 children, who have been living in a Minneapolis shelter since resettlement efforts broke down for them.
        They can't stay for much longer at Mary's Place. The privately funded cluster of transitional apartments takes people for only four to six months. But it's not clear where else they can go.
        It's also unclear where the system broke down. Blame has been directed at state agencies, social service groups, public officials and the families' Hmong sponsors who arrived here earlier.
        But it is clear that the language barrier and the lack of job skills is preventing these families from affording housing in the Twin Cities, particularly for the larger families, which can have 10 or more members including grandparents.

•   •   •  

Nuevo Laredo shootout kills 4   [3/8/06]
The Mexican community continues to bleed, since el Presidente Fox's government cannot bring the law to bear on the drug cartels which essentially rule certain areas.

    A 30-minute shootout Tuesday morning in the border city of Nuevo Laredo left two state police officers and two assailants dead, authorities said.
        So far this year, more than 40 people have been killed in the city, where rival drug cartels are locked in a battle for control of the Interstate 35 corridor, a key smuggling route into the U.S. Last year, Nuevo Laredo recorded 179 slayings.
        Among those killed Tuesday were Victor Berrones Lara, state police commander for the city, and Norberto Vásquez, a 24-year-old state police agent. Two other agents were seriously injured and taken to a hospital. [...]
        The situation in Nuevo Laredo and across the country, where the death toll from drug-related violence is nearly 350 this year, led National Human Rights Commission Chairman José Luis Soberanes to issue a warning to the federal government.
        "We are a society under threat," he said last month. "We feel intimidated in the streets, in the parks, in our houses."
    More details here.

•   •   •  

European Muslims rise up in defense of democratic values   [3/8/06]
The press is ever hopeful that the rare and highly prized creature, the Moderate Muslim, actually exists. Denmark resident Omar Marzouk recently outed himself as such, and that was news. The Egyptian-born comedian had regarded last year's London bombings (in which 56 people died) and terrorism generally as fine material for his stand-up routine, but came to see the Cartoon Jihad as unfunny.

    But when Muslim mobs began torching embassies last month, protesting a Danish newspaper's cartoons about Islam's prophet Muhammad, Marzouk, 32, stopped laughing. He decided, he said, it was "time to stand up."
        "Some of my friends say 'why should we? Do people in the West really think that we are all terrorists?' But myself, I can't just sit there and watch anymore."
    Good for Omar. The problem is that Islamic programming is profoundly effective and even extensive exposure to western values does not eradicate fundie Muslim thought.
    Indeed the self-styled moderates and progressives may have a steep hill to climb. According to a Sunday Telegraph poll taken in Britain last month, 40 percent of Muslims surveyed said they favored the application of Shariah law in heavily Muslim-populated areas of the country. Although 99 percent condemned the July bombings, one-fifth of those surveyed said they sympathized with the feelings and motives of the bombers.
    The Telegraph article ["Poll reveals 40pc of Muslims want sharia law in UK"] mentioned further noted the survey generally showed the "Muslim community becoming more radical and feeling more alienated from mainstream society."
    Elsewhere, the New York Times pursues extraordinary dhimmitude, with a valentine to Muslims living in America ["Tending to Muslim Hearts and Islam's Future"] which dwells on their "family values" in terms of the strange customs of Islamic courtship. This story, plus adoring photo, were above the fold on page one yesterday.

•   •   •  

A Failure of the Press   [3/7/06]
Conservative Bill Bennett and liberal Alan Dershowitz rip the press apart for its cowardice in reporting radical Islam, particularly regarding the Cartoon Jihad.

    The Boston Globe, speaking for many other outlets, editorialized: "[N]ewspapers ought to refrain from publishing offensive caricatures of Mohammed in the name of the ultimate Enlightenment value: tolerance."
        But as for caricatures depicting Jews in the most medievally horrific stereotypes, or Christians as fanatics on any given issue, the mainstream press seems to hold no such value. And in the matter of disclosing classified information in wartime, the press competes for the scoop when it believes the public interest warrants it.
        What has happened? To put it simply, radical Islamists have won a war of intimidation. They have cowed the major news media from showing these cartoons. The mainstream press has capitulated to the Islamists -- their threats more than their sensibilities. One did not see Catholics claiming the right to mayhem in the wake of the republished depiction of the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, any more than one saw a rejuvenated Jewish Defense League take to the street or blow up an office when Ariel Sharon was depicted as Hitler or when the Israeli army was depicted as murdering the baby Jesus. [...]
        When we were attacked on Sept. 11, we knew the main reason for the attack was that Islamists hated our way of life, our virtues, our freedoms. What we never imagined was that the free press -- an institution at the heart of those virtues and freedoms -- would be among the first to surrender.

•   •   •  

Minority populations leaving large cities   [3/7/06]
Rapid demographic changes are noted in the new Brookings report, "Diversity Spreads Out." Chart of growth here.

    Minorities contributed the majority of population growth in the nation's 11 fastest-growing metropolitan areas from 2000 to 2004. In the past, nonwhites did not necessarily follow the population shifts of whites, preferring to stay near friends and family and cultural institutions in large cities. [...]
        The Latino population in Central California has been growing for decades, but between 2000 and 2004 the pace increased. Latinos accounted for 65 percent of the growth in Riverside from 2000 to 2004, 57 percent in Stockton, 31 percent in the Sacramento area and 78 percent in Bakersfield.
Here's the AP take on the report.

•   •   •  

Illegal Immigration Summit held today in Washington, D.C.   [3/6/06]
There is a new group of bipartisan local officials, Mayors and County Executives For Immigration Reform, dedicated to dealing with the open-borders issue. Nearly one-hundred mayors and county officials met today in Washington at the Illegal Immigration Summit.

    Mayor Mark Boughton said, "Our first meeting included representatives from twenty-six states across the country. This tells us we've struck a chord with local elected officials -- they want the Federal government to fix our broken immigration system."
        County Executive Steve Levy added, "Local governments and taxpayers can no longer shoulder the burden of hosting so many undocumented people. We are calling on Congress to pass legislation that will reimburse communities for these runaway expenses if they fail to secure our borders."

•   •   •  

That Good Education Might Not Be Enough   [3/6/06]
Globalization is on the march, and many an American's job will get stomped in the process of outsourcing. And being a college graduate is no longer a protection against getting job-whacked.

    Most studies suggest that beyond the manufacturing sector, the "offshoring" of jobs has been comparatively modest. But some analysts say the ground has been laid for a substantial pickup. In a recent paper, Blinder offered a rough estimate that suggested that as many as 42 million jobs, or nearly one-third of the nation's total, were susceptible to offshoring.

•   •   •  

Students' housing designs made with cultures in mind   [3/6/06]
Today's interior design students are taught how to be culturally sensitive when they produce home plans.
    And why not? Medical professionals have been propagandized into bending their procedures to the often primitive beliefs of uneducated people.

    Hadjiyanni cited the example of Hmong families, which typically cook with a lot of spices. Because of the open layout of American-style houses, the smells permeate the entire home.
        Because of this, some Hmong families cook outside or in their basement, which can be dangerous, Hadjiyanni said.
        Interior design junior Sarah Josephson said religion played a major role in designing the spaces, especially for the Somali culture. Because of Muslim faith, genders often are kept separate, which had to be considered.
    No mention of whether Hmong and Somali polygamy is considered in home design, say with separate apartments for each wife. (Both these groups have been welcomed as immigrants even though their multi-wifing is illegal, often with a wink and nudge.)

•   •   •  

What Are We to Do about Islam?   [3/6/06]
This is a speech made by author Douglas Murray at the Pim Fortuyn Memorial Conference which took place in Amsterdam in February.

    The conflict which we are now in -- which we have been most visibly engaged in for five years, but which had in truth opened far earlier -- is not a conflict which looks familiar to the people of Europe. It barely resembles conflicts of their past. And just as this war does not much look like earlier wars, so victory in this war will not look like earlier victories. This poses a problem: what will victory in the war on terror -- the war against Islamic extremism -- look like? How will we know when it is over? How will we know when we've won? The only, and deeply imperfect, guide may be time -- the length of time in which we are not hit, seriously threatened or cowed. If we are to have victory then it will emerge as an almost imperceptible victory: it will be a diminuendo towards victory. Only historians will then be capable of determining which battles were vital, which significant, and which illusory triumphs of their time.
        The flip-side of this is that defeat in the war on terror -- the war on Islamic extremism -- will not happen in a familiar manner either. Defeat will not look as defeat would have looked last time. It will rather, I suggest, consist of a gradual accretion of hurts on our society, a wearying accumulation of often minor humiliations: death by a thousand cuts. Rather than waking up one day and finding troops rolling into our cities, we will simply become aware, with a growing sense of numbness, that what we had has slipped away, that what we relied on for support and succour has eroded and washed beyond our reach. If we end in darkness this time, it will be because we shuffled, rather than fell, into it.

•   •   •  

'We never thought it could happen in NY'   [3/6/06]
The "it" is sectarian Muslim hostility, intramural conflict between the subgroups of Islam which has filled the religion's history since shortly after the beginning.

    Istafa Naqvi of Dix Hills was stunned to see the small knot of angry young men waving placards as he and several thousand fellow Shia Muslims walked along Park Avenue in midtown last month in their annual religious procession.
        "Enemies of Islam!" one man shouted at the group. "Kaffir," yelled another, using the Arabic word for infidel.
        Many of the Shia flinched as they got close enough to read the signs carried by members of a fringe Sunni group called The Islamic Thinkers Society. "Shia are NOT Muslims!" said one. "Shia is made of superstitious elements of Judaism," declared another. Police moved in to break up a shoving match.
        "We never thought it could happen in New York," said Naqvi, president of a Shah E Najaf Islamic Center in Brentwood. "In other countries, yes. But not here. We've had this procession for 20 years without any problems. It is very worrying."
    What's next? Sunni-Shiite gun battles in Central Park?
    Wherever Muslims go, violence and death follow, which should be no surprise since the Koran is laced with admonitions to destroy anyone who doesn't submit to the "peace" of Islam. How much respect can you give to a religion which demands followers "Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them."
    Give a listen to It's in the Koran for a musical explanation.

•   •   •  

Most Mexicans Satisfied with President Fox   [3/6/06]
El Presidente Fox is winding down his 6-year term (no second terms in Mexico) and he has accomplished none of the things he promised during his campaign — in particular expand the economy significantly and reform the tax system which "collects just 12 percent of its gross domestic product in taxes, less than half the percentage that other large Latin American countries."
    But he has been an Energizer Bunny in demanding America open its borders to unlimited Mexicans, so that makes him a good Presidente in the minds of most of his people.

    Fox, of the National Action Party (PAN), ended 71 years of uninterrupted rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the 2000 election, winning a six-year term with 42.5 per cent of the vote. The president has been affected by setbacks in getting a series of reform proposals through Congress.
        The next presidential election is scheduled for Jul. 2. Former Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), former energy secretary Felipe Calderon of the PAN, and former Tabasco governor Roberto Madrazo of the PRI are the main contenders in the race.
        Earlier this month in an interview with the BBC, Fox discussed immigration policies in the United States, and declared, "I daresay that in 10 years, the U.S. will be begging, will be pleading with Mexico to send it workers, and Mexico won't do it because it will have its people employed (in Mexico)."
    Right. When pigs fly.
    It helps Mexican pols that the country remains uneducated and credulous ["Education in Mexico"].
    In 1992, the compulsory education level was increased to nine years. But this law is rarely enforced in rural areas. According to the U.S. Library of Congress, in 1989 the Mexican government reported that 300,000 first graders did not attend school. More than 800,000 students drop out before the completion of primary school. Only 10 percent of the rural population completed their primary education, which is grades 1-6.
        According to UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in 2000 the average Mexican adult had completed seven years of school.

•   •   •  

Bill would require lessons on Hmong   [3/5/06]
Here is what multiculturalism is promoting, an educational curriculum filled with the insignificant histories of minor tribes who have immigrated here, who then demand that they be recognized as special. The situation is exactly what Teddy Roosevelt warned against when he said he wanted no hyphenated Americans, which would lead to a "tangle of squabbling nationalities."

    Members of the Sheboygan Hmong community are hoping to draw attention to a state Assembly bill that would require lessons in Hmong history in social studies classes in Wisconsin public schools, though the bill's co-author says there is little chance it will be passed this session.
        "We have circulated information about (the bill) and encouraged people to write letters to state senators and the state Assembly representatives," said ChaSong Yang, executive director of the Hmong Mutual Assistance Association of Sheboygan.
        The bill, authored by state Reps. Donna Seidel, D-Wausau, and Frederick Kessler, D-Milwaukee, would amend the state's requirement on students' knowledge of state, national and world history to include information about the Hmong fighting for the United States in the Vietnam War, the persecution of the Hmong by the Laotian government after the war and the reasons for the emigration of many Hmong to the United States.
        "We are from communities with large Hmong populations, so we are aware of the struggles that this community has had as they've resettled in our country and tried to establish themselves," Seidel said. "I think it would be a real benefit for the rest of Wisconsin to appreciate what the Hmong experience was. Understanding leads to much less resentment and prejudices, and a more welcoming understanding in the community."

•   •   •  

The India Bush didn't see   [3/5/06]
When foreign leaders come to call, India shows them its shiny new computer companies or orderly call centers (where many thousands of American jobs have been outsourced). Many India boosters believe their country is "forward looking" rather than a brutally sexist society and superstitious backwater.
    Away from the modern development is the same poverty-stricken India, only larger than before, given its skyrocketing population. The progress in other areas of the economy has not reached there.

    Such is the burden of poverty for more than a quarter of India's 1.1 billion people. It's the nation with the largest number of poor people in the world. Although their ragged slums cram the roadsides and river banks of capital New Delhi, they almost certainly did not cross the gaze of President Bush, who arrived here Wednesday for a two-day visit during his first trip to India.
        India has sought to portray a very different image to the outside world, one of a global leader. In conjunction with Bush's trip, the United States gave a nod of approval to that aim, inking a nuclear energy agreement that effectively normalizes India's furtive nuclear status. Many feel that a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council is inevitable.
        India's rise to prominence began with domestic market reforms in 1991 that broke the dam of globalization and sent the country's economy soaring -- growing at an average of 6.8 percent since 1994. In just a decade, the land of lepers and snake charmers was supplanted by one of tech tycoons and MTV veejays.
        Contrary to government claims however, the liberated economy -- commonly portrayed as an antidote to poverty among global financial institutions -- has done little for India's poor, say several leading economists, including Jean Dreze, Martin Ravallion and Raghbendra Jha. The most notable outcome of reforms, they say, has been to make inequality and even wider chasm.

•   •   •  

The Search for Illegal Immigrants Stops at the Workplace   [3/5/06]
Amazingly, this sensible article is from the New York Times.

    IT may seem that the United States government has declared all-out war against illegal immigration. During the last decade, the budget dedicated to enforcement of immigration laws has grown by leaps and bounds. The Border Patrol has about three times as many agents as it did in the early 1990's, and the southern border has been laced with high-tech surveillance gadgetry.
        Yet a closer look reveals a very different portrait of immigration policy. It seems designed for failure. Most experts agree that a vast majority of illegal immigrants who make it across the border every year are seeking work. But the workplace is the one spot that is virtually unpoliced.
        "What we've done is put a lot of people on the line of scrimmage, but when you do that the other side can just lob a little pass and score a touchdown," said Richard M. Stana, director of homeland security and justice issues at the Government Accountability Office. "Trying to get a better balance between border enforcement and interior enforcement would go a long way."
        In a strategy document in 1999, the Immigration and Naturalization Service put monitoring the workplace last among its five enforcement priorities. Today, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has replaced the I.N.S. and is a branch of the Department of Homeland Security, devotes about 4 percent of its personnel to enforcement in the workplace, down from 9 percent in 1999.
        Demographers estimate that six million to seven million illegal immigrants are working in the United States; that is some 5 percent of the nation's work force. Yet in 2004, the latest year for which there is data, the immigration authorities issued penalty notices to only three companies.

•   •   •  

Religious Terrorism Strikes Chapel Hill   [3/4/06]
It was only a matter of time until the Cartoon Jihad violence came to this country. Unsurprisingly, it occurred on a college campus, where Muslim students are still welcomed as if nothing has happened since 9/11. The man accused of attempting to kill dozens of Americans is a native of Iran.

    CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- With backpacks as physical shields, University of North Carolina students are now called to defend themselves against religious terrorism while they walk the halls of their school.
        Earlier today, just before high noon, Mohammed Reza Taheriazar, 22, bulldozed the center of UNC's main campus with a silver Jeep Grand Cherokee -- the biggest SUV he could find -- in order to retaliate against treatment of Muslims around the world, he said. Taheriazar, a recent graduate, sent six to the hospital with injuries and hit three others in what is not only a tragedy for the Chapel Hill community but an sad example of an ideological difference digressing into violent conflict.
    The Daily Tar Heel student newspaper has more detailed coverage.
    Why do we continue to welcome enemies when we can see what is happening to Europe as a result of Muslim immigration? Roosevelt didn't promote Nazi student outreach in WWII, because he understood that in war, you kill your enemies rather than invite them into your house.

•   •   •  

Nelson wants to fence off Mexico   [3/4/06]
Nice to see that Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) is awakening from Democratic somnambulance. However, he has a ways to go to raise his D+ grade from BetterImmigration. (Democrats often say they oppose illegal immigration but vote otherwise. Hilary Clinton, for example, has criticized the President for being weak on border issues, but her lifetime and recent voting grades are D-.)

    There's a growing consensus in Washington that before Congress can address comprehensive immigration reform, it must first crack down at the nation's borders, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson said Friday.
        Nelson this week introduced a new border security bill, one that would go even further than the proposal he first outlined in September.
        Among the provisions added since September is the construction of a $5 billion, two-layer reinforced fence that would stretch from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico along the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border.
        The latest bill also includes a requirement that all employers verify that their workers are in the country legally and adds 10,000 new detention beds to hold those found in violation of federal immigration laws.
        "It's a border-security-first bill," Nelson, a Democrat, said at an Omaha press conference.
        "If we don't do something about the border, the problem is going to get worse."

•   •   •  

Poll finds voters tough on illegal immigration   [3/4/06]
Polls consistently show Americans across the political spectrum want immigration to be legal, controlled and reduced.

    With debate over immigration heating up in Washington, a Quinnipiac University poll released Friday found that 83 percent of immigrants or their children and grandchildren believe illegal immigration is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem.
        The poll also found that 88 percent of all poll respondents share the same opinion. And it said that by 72 percent to 25 percent, U.S. voters oppose giving undocumented immigrants driver's licenses.
        "This poll reflects local concerns about immigrants gathering on street corners, waiting for jobs, or packed into illegal housing and the like," said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Red state, blue state and purple state voters agree: Illegal immigration is a serious problem."

•   •   •  

Support Denmark Rally New York City   [3/3/06]
Check out the cheering photos from Atlas Shrugged at today's noon-time demonstration. More at Ibloga.
    For more smile makers, see the collection of graphic responses to the Cartoon Jihad.

•   •   •  

Let's have immigration reform - but let's preserve our dignity and values   [3/3/06]
The Catholic hierarchy is pushing hard with sweet-sounding talking points in order to thwart the will of the American people on immigration. Catholic Charities in particular reaps a huge financial benefit from "servicing" immigrants (usually illegal aliens), and receives over $40 million annually in taxpayer funds. (For more, see my article "America's Vaticrats")
    But religious hypocrites normally disguise their selfish agenda to make it sound virtuous, even though the open borders they advocate bring immeasurable misery and crime to American citizens.

    Catholic social teaching instructs us to recognize the natural rights of every human being, including the right to migrate. And our experience reminds us of our nation's history as a welcoming home for people in search of a better life.
    The San Francisco Chronicle has a column by pedophile-priest protecting Cardinal Mahony ["How open is our door?"].
    Is there room enough in our hearts and our homes for those in need? We face a unique challenge in this call to make room for God. In recent months and in different parts of the world, we have seen the escalation of strong sentiments against immigrants. These sentiments appear to be mounting in our own country as well. How might our various Lenten practices such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving, our effort to empty ourselves so as to make room for God, relate to the complex reality of immigration, especially in the face of increasing hostility toward immigrants?
    Unsurprisingly, it's the Catholic elites who are working to undermine American sovereignty, not average Catholic church-goers, many of whom dislike their church's support for law-breaking activities.

•   •   •  

In Border Battle, Land and Wildlife Are Casualties   [3/3/06]
The border areas where the Mexican invasion is most intense are devastated by the millions tromping through and throwing their trash all around.

    Mountains of trash, recurring fires, despoiled natural springs, vandalized historic sites and disappearing wildlife are part of the devastating toll that the government's running battle with smugglers and migrants is taking on national parks and wildlife refuges along the U.S. border with Mexico.
        In southern Arizona, the damage extends to Indian and private land, jeopardizing a broad expanse of the Sonoran Desert, which boasts a greater diversity of plant and animal life than any other of the four North American deserts.
        At Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, 2 1/2 million pounds of garbage are scattered through broad valleys and desert arroyos every year, according to Roger DiRosa, the refuge manager. [...]
        In some cases, federal land managers must weigh damage from border protection projects against the future destruction they forestall. At Organ Pipe, installation of an $18-million vehicle barrier scraped away a 30-mile swath of the park's southern border, but has successfully reduced illegal vehicle traffic by 95%.
        "The reason Organ Pipe was created was to preserve the Sonoran Desert," Supt. Billings said. "If we lose Organ Pipe and it becomes a moonscape as a result of these impacts, we lose our heritage."
    Interestingly, the environmental organizations are not concerned with the destruction of this particular bit of the natural world. The Sierra Club is silent because it accepted over $100 million from a Wall Street investor on the condition that it not speak ill of immigration, as reported in the Los Angeles Times, "The Man Behind the Land".
    But [investor David Gelbaum] said [Sierra Club Executive Director Carl] Pope long had known where he stood on the contentious issue. "I did tell Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me."

•   •   •  

Debate begins over tighter immigration   [3/2/06]
The legislative rubber is about to meet the road, as the Senate begins formulating its version of an immigration bill. Code words abound, particularly "comprehensive" which means "including a guest-worker amnesty" in Senate-speak. The House bill focused on enforcement, rightly judging that the anarchy has to stop before millions more foreigners are let in.

    On Dec. 16, the House cleared a tough border-security bill that did not take up the status of immigrants already in the country illegally. The bill, which drew the support of 49 Democrats, includes a 700-mile fence along the southern border, first-ever criminal penalties for those in the US illegally, and a requirement that businesses check the immigration status of new workers via a new federal electronic database.
        The Senate version of the bill, which borrows from the House bill as well as from proposals by senators, tackles immigration issues besides border security. It also proposes a new visa program to allow employers to hire foreign workers "when no willing US workers are available." [...]
        Meeting in Washington on the eve of the Senate debate, some 300 immigrant hotel workers cheered a pep speech from Senator Kennedy before fanning out to lobby Senate offices.
        "They're meeting tomorrow on amnesty," said Unite-Here president John Wilhelm, who corrected himself quickly: "I mean immigration."

•   •   •  

Violence on border at record high   [3/2/06]
Border-area sheriffs testified before a Senate committee yesterday (and before the House Immigration Subcommittee today) and described how the anarchy of the region is only becoming worse.

    Violence on the U.S.-Mexico border is at an all-time high because illegal aliens are more willing to attack U.S. authorities, and an increasing number also are convicted criminals, border sheriffs said yesterday.
        Whereas 10 years ago they would flee back to Mexico if anyone challenged them, now aliens make it clear they will fight, the sheriffs told a Senate Judiciary Committee panel.
        "They make it known to the deputies: 'We're going through, you're not going to stop us,' " said Sheriff A. D'Wayne Jernigan of Val Verde County in Texas.
        And Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County in Arizona said when smugglers are involved, law enforcement now expects the worst.
        "We anticipate that we will be in a fight, a very violent confrontation, in every interdiction effort, with running gunbattles down public roadways," he said.
        The sheriffs described a border in chaos and a federal government that hasn't put the resources into its own efforts, nor been as receptive as possible to local law-enforcement efforts to help out.
        They said the trend toward violent confrontations has happened in the past decade as the trade in drugs and people has become a big business for smugglers and with the increase in OTMs, or "other than Mexican" aliens, attempting to cross.
        "It sounds like, if nothing else, there's at least an attitude of entitlement," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican.
    Read Sheriff Larry Dever's statement here.
    The people smuggling culture is one marked by little if any value of life or respect for persons or property. This is reflected in their response to authority and their treatment of their human cargo. One study estimates that over 80% of people being smuggled into this country become the victims of criminal activity before they ever cross the border. And in many cases the atrocities continue even after they successfully enter. Smuggling routes are often marked with "rape trees"—women's under garments hung on tree limbs where a raped occurred, warning everyone of the failure to cooperate with the coyotes who prey on them.
        Running gun battles with fleeing felons occur much too frequently placing law-enforcement officers and the public alike at great risk of serious consequences. Gang activity and its associated violence are on the rise as these groups become more competitive in the lucrative people smuggling trade. Just last week one of my deputies, the supervisor of the narcotics task force, was the victim of a drive-by shooting at his home. Thankfully, no one was injured.
    T.J. Bonner's testmony included recommendations for what should be done. Texas rancher Lavogyer Durham described how life has become much more dangerous for him.
    "My neighbors and I are facing circumstances that can best be described as deplorable," said rancher Lavogyer Durham. He's a longtime Falfurrias rancher and described to the immigration subcommittee how dangerous life has become for people living in the border region.
        "I can provide accounts or ranchers being fired upon, security guards being beaten at gunpoint and women being threatened in their own homes by aliens," he said. The added the stories are endless and only going to get worse. "We now must live with the constant possibility that we could be attacked or killed on our own properties."
    See also Sections of Mexican border called virtual war zone.

•   •   •  

Showing of cartoons of Muhammad riles UC Irvine campus   [3/1/06]
Those riled are the oh-so-sensitive Muslims, naturally, who are deeply miffed that Americans want to engage in free speech in our own country — oh my! Fortunately the friend-of-borders Jesse Peterson was there (among other stalwarts like Ted Hayes) to lay down the facts in no uncertain terms...

    IRVINE — A student panel discussion on Islamic extremism that included the "unveiling" of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, including one of him wearing a bomb-laden turban, repeatedly descended into name-calling chaos Tuesday night.
        The panel, which included one Muslim speaker, was repeatedly interrupted by hecklers from the audience who challenged assertions by panelist Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson that Islam was an "evil religion" and that all Muslims hate America. Outside, hundreds of Muslims and their supporters noisily protested the event amid a heavy police presence.
    No surprise also, that the Mexican fascists were in attendance to support their Muslim pals [Cartoons bring debate to UCI].
    Protesters included members of UCI student groups like MEChA and the African Student Union, as well as individuals from the community who stood in solidarity with UCI's Muslim students.
        Some protesters car-pooled from as far away as UC Davis, said Osman Umarji, a spokesman for the 150-member Muslim Student Union at UCI.
        Besides the UCI group, the event was co-sponsored by the United American Committee, founded a year ago by Jesse Petrilla, 22, a business and computer sciences major at Glendale Community College.
        Padilla's group considers rioting over the cartoons to be "censorship by terrorism."
    Some blog reporting with pictures and impressions of the event at Rayra.net. More photos and description at Mere Rhetoric, which notes the gender segregation of the rally.

•   •   •  

 

© 2006 Brenda Walker All rights reserved.