LimitsToGrowth Archive
November 2007
"English fluency rises sharply in 2nd generation" [11/30/07]
Talk about spin. It's big news and cause for celebration in the liberal press when the Pew Hispanic Center cranks out more open borders swill.
Three-quarters of Hispanic immigrants do not speak English well, but the overwhelming majority of their children and grandchildren speak the language fluently, according to a new study from the Pew Hispanic Center.
"The second generation has a foot in each world, and the third has made the transition to English," said D'Vera Cohn, co-author of the study. "By the third generation and beyond, English is dominant, and Spanish has faded into the background."
Oh, we Americans are so relieved that hispanics get around to learning English in three generations. However, even less positive facts about Mexicans turn up several paragraphs down.
The study found that Mexicans are the slowest Hispanic group to learn English. Rakesh Kochhar, Pew's associate director for research, said he suspects that the heavy reliance on Spanish among Mexican immigrants reflects large numbers of recent arrivals and an education level that, on average, is the lowest among U.S. Hispanics. The study showed a correlation between education and the ability to speak English.
Even the LA Times permitted some tough stats recently, in The Language Gap...
More than 1.5 million students in California K-12 school system are classified as English learners. Yet according to the Migration Policy Institute, only about 637,000 children in California between the ages of 5 and 17 are foreign-born. That means that more than half of the students enrolled in English-learning programs were born and raised in the U.S. This isn't about whether we can educate new immigrants to higher levels; this is about whether we can educate all students, new immigrants included, to higher levels.
Even when English learners are in our schools for a long time, we don't teach them what they need to know. Indeed, in L.A. Unified's graduating class of 2006, two-thirds of English learners who didn't pass the California High School Exit Exam had been languishing in English-learning programs for more than 10 years.
Immigrants in the United States, 2007 [11/30/07]
There's a lot of information to digest in CIS's big new study of US Census data, and the news is all bad. More immigrants, uneducated legal and illegal. We are being overwhelmed by the world's poverty and corruption.

The nationÕs immigrant population (legal and illegal) reached a record of 37.9 million in 2007.
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Immigrants account for one in eight U.S. residents, the highest level in 80 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13.
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Overall, nearly one in three immigrants is an illegal alien. Half of Mexican and Central American immigrants and one-third of South American immigrants are illegal.
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Since 2000, 10.3 million immigrants have arrived Ñ the highest seven-year period of immigration in U.S. history. More than half of post-2000 arrivals (5.6 million) are estimated to be illegal aliens.
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See also IBD's Wave Of Illegals Turns Into Tsunami.
The study by the Center for Immigration Studies notes that the estimated 10.3 million people who've come here since 2000 represent the greatest-ever migration to the U.S. over a seven-year period. Over the next decade, at current rates, another 15 million will arrive - the largest immigrant wave in our history.
Not bad for a country that supposedly is one of the most unpopular on Earth. That said, the study also notes that more than half the newcomers so far this decade - 5.6 million - have come illegally.
Of America's 39 million immigrants, representing 12.6% of our total population, at least 12 million are illegal. Most, but not all, come from Mexico and Central America.
What exactly do the numbers mean? Well, for one thing, they mean we're importing a lot of poverty - and it's skewing the debate over key public policy issues.
Romney Supports Letting All Cubans Migrate To U.S. [11/30/07]
It's truly amazing that there is so little consciousness about the dangers of unremitting population growth that a major candidate can babble such nonsense. We are facing severe droughts in the South and Southwest, a natural occurrance which is exacerbated greatly by domestic overpopulation. Yet a would-be President says welcoming over 10 million Spanish-speaking Communists to an already overburdened Florida is a swell idea.
Like other Republican presidential contenders, Mitt Romney favors a get-tough policy on illegal immigrants. But Romney's desire for tougher immigration enforcement doesn't apply to Cubans, who he says should be welcomed with open arms.
"I can tell you my inclination would be to say as many Cubans as want to come here should come in," Romney said in an interview Tuesday with The Tampa Tribune editorial board. [...]
Romney replied that Cuban Americans are exemplary citizens who have brought "great vitality, skills and energy to the American experience."
"In my opinion, the more the merrier," he said.
According to the CIA Factbook, the population of Cuba was 11,394,043 as of July 2007.
See VDARE version Innumeracy Surfaces, in Spades.
Woman Injured in Wrong-Way Wreck Angry, Thankful [11/29/07]
Bettie Coates is lucky to be alive after her car was struck head-on by a drunk-driving illegal alien headed the wrong way on the interstate. Even so, she suffered serious injuries that have severely altered her life. Watch the video included in the above link to get an idea of the pain and cost to one American family caused by Washington's open borders policy.
Coates, who had recently moved back to North Carolina from Pittsburgh, was trapped inside her Ford Mustang, which was crushed in the collision.
"I just remember a lot of blood just running down my face," she said.
The wreck shattered her thigh and ankle bones, and she underwent three surgeries during 29 days in WakeMed. She has moved in with her grandparents in Northampton County for the next few months while she recuperates.
Her lack of mobility makes it difficult to keep up with her 2-year-old son, Donovan, she said.
"He wants me to play with him. He doesn't understand why Mommy can't do certain things," she said.
Coates said she has thought about writing a letter to Cruz to let him know how hard it is for her not to play with Donovan, not to go check on the construction of her house and not to return to work.
"He's taken a lot from me," she said. "For him to have sneaked into the country (and) then for him to just think he can do whatever he can do and get away with it is very frustrating."
The accused, Eblin Fabiel Ocampo-Cruz, has a long rap sheet and should not have been in this country at all. Why wasn't this dangerous man deported after his first conviction? His record shows that he is a poster boy for the need to incarcerate and deport.
At the time of the wreck, Cruz was on probation for several offenses, according to court records.
In February 2006, he was convicted in Durham of DWI. A month later, he was convicted of misdemeanor unauthorized use of a vehicle and misdemeanor breaking and entering. In May 2006, he pleaded pleaded guilty to reckless driving and passing an emergency vehicle. Last October, he was charged with resisting an officer, and he was charged with possession of stolen goods in December.
Man Charged in Wrong-Way Wreck in U.S. Illegally
VDARE.com version, Bettie Coates Is Lucky to Be Alive.
Congressional Paul Revere Warns Nation About Islamofascist Threat [11/29/07]
Rep. Sue Myrick is one of the most knowlegeable members of Congress on the threat of Islam. Investors Business Daily interviewed her recently about her actions against the danger.
IBD: What persuaded you to start the Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus, and what do you hope to accomplish?
Myrick: I decided to start the caucus out of a deep frustration, because President Bush does not talk to the American people about the long-term threat of radical Islamofascism infiltration in America. Since 9/11, I've tried to get the president and several members of his administration to talk to the American people about the dangerous enemy that we're facing. I took them all the materials I could find about what we did during World War II that were used to unite the American people. Everyone I spoke to said, "We do not want to frighten the American people."
I waited for someone else to start to educate the people, however, it did not seem to be happening. At that point, I sought to become educated on the matter. What I have learned is quite disturbing. I decided that if members of Congress were informed, they would have an opportunity to educate people in their districts. So I started the caucus and brought in three other co-chairs Ñ Bud Cramer (D-Ala.), Kay Granger (R-Texas) and Jane Harman (D-Calif.).
We hope to start a dialogue with America. Until, and unless, we understand what we are fighting, we have no chance. We must inform the people, since it is evident they will have to protect their national sovereignty, because the government is not doing it.
IBD: How many members are in the caucus?
Myrick: We have 118 members Ñ both Democrats and Republicans. The threat we face from radical Islamofascists is not a partisan issue. This is a matter that affects all Americans, regardless of political, social, economic or any other affiliations.
IBD: Should Americans be concerned about recently declassified documents detailing a secret plot by Islamist groups in this country, tied to the dangerous Muslim Brotherhood, to take over America from within, to Islamize our society?
Myrick: Americans must be concerned Ñ alarmed. That is what I am referring to when I say that the administration has not explained who we are fighting and (where we are fighting them). "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" is not the whole story. It is amazing that we actually have the enemy's playbook, yet for some reason we don't want to seriously confront the threat we are facing.
The radical Islamofascists have told us how they intend to infiltrate all areas of our society and use the freedoms that are guaranteed under our Constitution to eventually Islamize our country, eliminate our Constitution and enact Shariah law. I know that it sounds a bit fanatical, but it's true.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden declared war on the U.S. What did we do? Nothing. Then he attacked again and again around the world before finally striking inside the U.S. Yet, rather than confront the threat head on and declare war on radical Islamofascists, we seek to placate the threat at home by saying radicals have hijacked Islam.
Read the whole thing, as they say.
Rep. Myrick has also done yeoman's service by legislating against the scourge of drunk-driving illegal aliens with her bill named for a victim, the Scott Gardner Act.
Convicted shopping mall terrorist turned down plea deal [11/28/07]
Here are more details about the Nuradin Abdi sentencing, with one real shocker -- the government offered a convicted terrorist a green card.
Abdi, who is to be deported after serving his sentence, was offered five years in prison minus his time already served and an immigration green card, Abucar and Smith said Wednesday.
Day laborers clean up downtown to improve Hayward's image [11/28/07]
Leave it to a reporter to compare illegal alien job thieves with Santa's helpers...
HAYWARD - Like Santa and his merry elves, a green-vested volunteer team of Guatemalan day laborers came out of the shadows Tuesday morning to spread some holiday cheer.
No toys. Just lots of gum-scraping, leaf-raking, graffiti-busting and deep-cleaning of downtown sidewalks.
Carlos Alinan, wearing a T-shirt depicting characters from "A Garfield Christmas Special," hoped that his scrubbing of a grimy Main Street also carried a subtle message.
"We're trying to make a good impression," he said in Spanish. "Some people like us and some people don't."
His time in Hayward is temporary, he said. Like all of the Guatemalan men who talked about their motivations Tuesday, he said he entered the United States illegally hoping to lift his distant family out of poverty and then return home to them.
Say, as a way of showing gratitude, why doesn't Hayward reward these helpful fellows with repatriation, er a free ride home?
VDARE version MSM Sights Spanish-Speaking Elves.
To Muslim Girls, Scouts Offer a Chance to Fit In [11/28/07]
It's sad to see another worthy American institution run into the ground by multiculturalism, as the Girl Scouts is turned into another celebration of kumbaya. Roasting a couple weenies is not going to make Muslim kiddies feel any less separate from the majority society when their parents are determined not to assimilate.
And this being the New York Times, a racist putdown of whites is no problem at all.
But a more common concern among parents is that the Girl Scouts will somehow dilute Islamic traditions.
"They are afraid you are going to become a blue-eyed, blond-haired Barbie doll," said Asma, the girl who at times makes her sash everyday attire. Asma noted that her mother had asked whether she was joining some Christian cabal. "She was afraid that if we hang out with Americans too much," the young immigrant said, Òit will change our culture or who we are.Ó
Troop leaders win over parents by explaining that various activities incorporate Muslim traditions. In Minneapolis, for instance, Ms. Hakeem helped develop the Khadija Club, named for the first wife of the Prophet Muhammad, which exposes older girls to the history of prominent Muslim women.
What if a group of white Girl Scouts were told by parents not to become "nappy-headed hoes"? The Times would have a cow. But when Muslim immigrants openly revile Americans in a racist manner, no one in the elite editorial offices bats an eyelash.
See VDARE version Girl Scouts in Hijabs.
UK population may double by 2081 [11/28/07]
The UK is facing a huge population explosion caused by immigration.
The previously unpublished figures suggest the British population could hit almost 110m in 2081, if immigration fertility and longevity rates are high.
The figures are higher than those released just a month ago by the Office for National Statistics.
In October, the ONS projected the population could go from around 60m today to as high as 77m in 2051.
The new projections are supplementary figures to help policy makers plan for spending on pensions and the welfare state.
Somali Gets 10 Years in Ohio Bomb Plot [11/27/07]
This sentence is the conclusion to a terrorist case that nobody in the mainstream media has cared about. An al Qaeda-connected guy, Nuradin Abdi, is convicted of conspiring to blow up a shopping mall in Ohio, but the case has been ignored by MSM throughout. It seems like a big deal to me that there is a growing list of terrorist arrests and convictions, but what do I know?
A Somali immigrant was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall with a man later convicted of being an al-Qaida terrorist.
Nuradin Abdi, a cell phone salesman before his arrest, pleaded guilty in July to conspiring to provide material support for terrorists. He will be deported to Somalia after serving the federal sentence.
In a 20-minute statement to the court, Abdi's attorney Mahir Sherif said his client apologized to the people of the United States, the people of Ohio and the Muslim community. He said Abdi regretted that his conviction might lead to problems for other Muslims.
See my earlier blog about this case, Somali Immigrant Pleads Guilty To Plotting Terrorism.
Somalis arrive in Emporia with tuberculosis [11/27/07]
In Emporia, Kansas, 400 Somalis have arrived in order to do the jobs that Mexican illegal aliens are no longer allowed to do. Four-hundred unassimmilated Somalis is a large number of a heartland town of 25,000.
The refugees are legal, but they are a tribal people whose are remarkably unsuitable for life in America. Their cultural norms include polygamy, wife beating and female genital mutilation at a near-universal rate (98%).
The idea that large numbers of TB-carrying Somalis are working in slaughterhouses is not reassuring, even though tuberculosis is passed through the air by those with active cases. You certainly wouldn't want your kid sitting in a classroom with a TB-infected person.
This article is more about quieting fears in Emporia rather than answering the question of why the town should be stuck with the Somalis in the first place.
Griffin said health officials in Emporia are particularly praiseworthy because they immediately recognized there was a surge in tuberculosis cases, determined it was linked to the refugees, and took quick steps to meet their needs instead of sitting back and waiting for the Somalis to figure out how to cope in their new environment.
Most of the Somalis are young men who have spent most or all of their lives in refugee camps. Most have little or no formal education, and many arrived malnourished or with other health problems.
Griffin said Torres had done an extraordinary job gaining the trust of the Somalis, whose culture is conservative, Muslim and patriarchal.
Below, Somali refugees learn how to boil water on a stove before being shipped to America from Africa. (See Cliff Notes Assimilation for Somalis.)

Furthermore, the Somalis don't much like Nebraska either.
Home is a shabby apartment building on the outskirts of town. Work is the late shift at a meat-packing plant.
This is Degmo Ali's life. And it seems to have been misplaced in this rural town: Dressed in ornate African garb, the graceful 24-year-old is hard to picture on a Nebraska slaughterhouse floor.
"I want to go back," she says, referring to her native Somalia.
[Africans bring new face to changing Nebraska towns]
Any refugee wants to go home permanently, we should send them yesterday.
"Colorado mayor's sympathy for immigrants costs him his job" [11/27/07]
Yoo hoo, LA Times, don't you mean "sympathy for illegal immigrants"?
Big difference, something the citizens understand, unlike elites in editorial offices.
Other than that important detail, it's a very cheerful story about a treasonous elected official getting his just desserts. However, it's tragic that Greeley has been severely Mexifornicated, like so many other American communities.
GREELEY, COLO. -- Tom Selders is still baffled at how quickly the city he served for years turned on him.
The two-term mayor of this conservative farm town had been a political fixture for nearly two decades. A businessman who prided himself on bringing efficiency to city government, Selders infuriated his constituents after jumping into the national debate over illegal immigration. In May he spoke at an open forum in Washington about the effects of last year's immigration raid on a meatpacking plant here, which led to the detention of 262 undocumented workers.
"Many families and children were devastated by parents being arrested and detained," Selders said. "Children -- citizens of the United States -- were left without parents."
The reaction in Greeley, whose Latino population has nearly tripled since 1980, was swift and furious. Selders, who was seeking a third term as mayor, was overwhelmed with angry calls. He became a regular target on local talk radio. A mailer linking him to illegal immigrant gang members flooded mailboxes.
You have to read deep into the article to learn about the fundamental demographic changes that have occurred in the town that have erased its American character.
As an agricultural hub, Greeley has long had Latino residents. But the Latino population soared in recent decades as the meatpacking industry shifted to an immigrant-heavy workforce. Latinos now make up about one-third of the city's 90,000 residents.
Now signs in City Hall are bilingual. One in 5 Greeley elementary school students needs help speaking or reading English. Critics blame illegal immigrants for part of the $36 million a year in uncollected bills at the local hospital, and a 73% rise in violent crime since 2000.
From Sewage, Added Water for Drinking [11/27/07]
Various communities in California and Arizona are planning "reuse" strategies of recycling toilet water for drinking purposes. Since this is a New York Times story, there is no mention of the increased demand caused by the immigration-fueled population explosion.
It used to be so final: Flush the toilet and waste be gone.
But this week, for millions of people here in Orange County, pulling the lever will be the start of a long, intense process to purify the sewage into drinking water - after a hard scrubbing with filters, screens, chemicals and ultraviolet light and the passage of time underground.
On Friday, the Orange County Water District will turn on what industry experts say is the world's largest plant devoted to purifying sewer water to increase drinking water supplies. They and others hope it serves as a model for authorities worldwide facing persistent drought, predicted water shortages and projected growth.
The process, called by proponents "indirect potable water reuse" and "toilet to tap" by the wary, is getting a close look in several cities. [...]
The Groundwater Replenishment System, as the $481 million plant here is known, is a labyrinth of tubing and tanks that sucks in treated sewer water the color of dark beer from a sanitation plant next door and runs it through microfilters to remove solids. The water then undergoes reverse osmosis, forcing it through thin, porous membranes at high pressure, before it is further cleansed with peroxide and ultraviolet light to break down any remaining pharmaceuticals and carcinogens.
The only nod toward the demand side was a little dissent about "growth" from a former elected official.
John Kromko, a former Arizona state legislator who advocated the prohibition, said he was skeptical about claims that the recycling process cleanses all contaminants from the water and he suggested that Tucson limit growth rather than find new ways to feed it.
"We really don't know how safe it is," he said. "And if we controlled growth, we would never have to worry about drinking it."
Illegal Immigrant Accused Of Driving Drunk, Causing Fatal Boone Crash [11/26/07]
If there's anything more heartbreaking than a holiday death at the hands of an illegal alien, I don't know what it is. Last Thanksgiving, we lost Marine Cpl Brian Mathews and his date to a drunk-driving illegal.
Of course, there is no good day for a family member to be struck down in a cruel and preventable crime. But for as long as they live, those related to the dead young man will remember Thanksgiving as the occasion of his untimely death.
Andrew Newell, 22, of Boone, North Carolina, was killed when the Lexus SUV in which he was a passenger was struck by a vehicle driven by Juan Manuel Juarez Reyes, a previously deported Mexican. Andrew's father Brian remains hospitalized with critical injuries, while his mother Sallie Ellis Newell and sister Jacqueline Elizabeth, 18, were treated and released.
The Lexus was so mangled by the force of the crash that it took rescuers 45 minutes to extricate the victims from the wreck.
Family members said the Newells were returning from a Thanksgiving trip to South Carolina and were only a quarter-mile from home.
Authorities said Monday that Juarez Reyes was caught in the country by Border Patrol agents in 2002 and was sent back to Mexico. They arenÕt sure when he re-entered the United States.
Police say he was speeding and drunk when the crash happened.
Juarez Reyes is charged with driving while impaired, driving without a license and three counts of felonious assault with a deadly weapon causing serious injury by vehicle.
How sad that the Newell family was only a few blocks from the safety of home.
VDARE.com version: Thanksgiving Tragedy in North Carolina.
Georgia boom county offers cautionary tale [11/26/07]
This is an interesting piece of journalism -- a Nashville newspaper is apparently warning against the dangers posed by excessive growth, and uses drought-strapped Atlanta as an example. That's the good news. The bad news is how you have to read quite a few paragraphs to get to the population angle. At least the first topic in the article is water, or the lack of it.
"Our very water is running out," he said. "What are you going to do when there's no water?"
For years Middle Tennessee residents, leaders and planners have looked both with envy and horror at the growth of Atlanta. The accompanying wealth, diversity and sophistication have motivated Nashville to pursue corporate headquarters, high-end retail, pro sports, and the arts.
But the traffic, pollution and sprawl of the Atlanta area also have sparked fear and suspicion here as Nashville experiences growth and change.
Parents force daughters to fly home to Pakistan for arranged marriages [11/25/07]
America is not free of the Muslim misogyny that has descended upon Europe with millions of Islamic immigrants. Pakistani parents routinely beat, drug and force marriage upon their daughters. From New York City and environs:
It's a well-keptÊsecret in Pakistani homes across the city: Young women violently forced to return to their homeland for arranged marriages. [...]
In homes throughout the metropolitan area, violence against thousands of young women who are forced to go back to Pakistan to wed is shamelessly hushed as a "family matter."
"Eighty percent of the community has this problem" in New York, said Bazah Roohi of the Asian American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights (ANAA). "Women don't have their own choice.
"They try to fight. They are unsuccessful. Parents are very strict. They just beat them and take them to Pakistan.
In other Muslim diversity news, Saudi Arabia Marks 136th Beheading of 2007, up from 38 people beheaded last year and 83 people in 2005.
VDARE.com version: Islamic Misogyny Making Headway in America
"Fish Balls Help Bring Chinese Family Together" [11/25/07]
A Chinese immigrant high school kid explained the state of immigration today, very briefly:
My family and I came over to America 11 years ago. Like so many Chinese immigrants before, my parents began a business that could earn the most money with the least amount of English required.
Under those conditions, my parents opened up our family restaurant.
There we have it: the most money made for the absolute minimum effort at assimilation. It's the new American Dream for immigrants, vintage 2007. Screw the American national community and take everything you can get.
Was Perot right? [11/25/07]
Ross Perot was right about a number of issues, as intervening events have shown since his flawed Presidential campaign. Too bad the messenger was so unappealing.
Perot warned against globalization, both illegal immigration and damaging trade deals. For his trouble, he was dismissed by economic and political elities for being a doofus populist.
Today, the dollar is at its lowest level ever against the Euro and America's trade deficit with China is "running well ahead of the $232 billion level of last year."
Anyway, Wolf Blitzer quizzed Hillary about NAFTA during a recent Dem debate, and she gave a garbled non-reply, because she is a confirmed globalist even though Americans have had enough harmful trade policies and sovereignty destruction.
In 1993, the Clinton White House and an army of corporate lobbyists were selling NAFTA as a way to aid Mexican and American workers. Perot, on the other hand, was predicting that because the deal included no basic labor standards, it would preserve a huge "wage differential between the United States and Mexico" that would result in "the giant sucking sound" of American jobs heading south of the border. Corporations, he said, would "close the factories in the U.S. [and] move the factories to Mexico [to] take advantage of the cheap labor."
The historical record is clear. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace reports, "Real wages for most Mexicans today are lower than when NAFTA took effect." Post-NAFTA, companies looking to exploit those low wages relocated factories to Mexico. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the net effect of NAFTA was the elimination of 1 million American jobs.
Score one for Perot.
What about immigration? In 1993, the Clinton administration pitched NAFTA as "the best hope for reducing illegal immigration." Perot, by contrast, said that after NAFTA depressed Mexican wages, many Mexicans "out of economic necessity" would "consider illegally immigrating into the U.S."
"In short," he wrote, "NAFTA has the potential to increase illegal immigration, not decrease it."
Again, the historical record tells the story. As NAFTA helped drive millions of Mexicans into poverty, the New York Times reports that "Mexican migration to the United States has risen to 500,000 a year from less than 400,000 in the early 1990s, before NAFTA," with a huge chunk of that increase coming from illegal immigration.
Rasmussen Poll: 77% Say Employers Can Require English-Only on the Job [11/24/07]
Heads-up to Speaker Pelosi (who believes employers should be prohibited from requiring English in the workplace). More than three-quarters of Americans across the political spectrum agree that it is perfectly permissable for businesses to require English on the job.
Seventy-seven percent (77%) of American voters say companies should be allowed to require employees to speak English while on the job. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that only 14% disagree while 9% are not sure (see crosstabs).
The view that employers should be allowed to require English-only speaking while on the job is held by 84% of Republicans, 70% of Democrats and 77% of voters not affiliated with either major party.
Eighty-two percent (82%) of White voters believe employers should be allowed to require English on the job. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of African-Americans agree. However, other Americans, primarily Hispanic, are evenly divided. Just 45% believe English-only requirements should be allowed while 47% disagree.
In another recent poll, nearly as large a majority thought traffic perps should be checked for immigration status:
73% Say Police Should Check to See If Traffic Violators are in the Country Legally.
Monkey Meat at Center of NYC Court Case [11/24/07]
Today's diversity drama is about how at least some Africans want to bring their custom of eating monkeys to America, even though the practice is illegal because of dangers to public health and species preservation. A recent case is playing out in New York concerning a LIberian woman, Mamie Manneh, who unlawfully smuggled bushmeat (aka dead monkeys) for eating purposes.
Although the Associated Press calls her a "modest woman," she is already doing two years in prison for running over a rival for sleeping with her husband, and is the mother of nine children (several of whom are pictured above, holding a photo of their incarcerated mom, a Liberian national who has been here for 25 years).
Federal prosecutors hit Manneh with smuggling charges that accused her of violating import procedures and suggested she was a menace to man and beast alike.
A criminal complaint cited evidence that the illegal importation of bushmeat encourages the slaughter of protected wild animals.
More ominously, the complaint warned of "the potential health risks to humans linking bushmeat to diseases like Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV, SARS and monkeypox."
Defense attorney Rostal has countered by accusing the government of picking on a poorly educated immigrant. [...]
Manneh testified last year that before arriving in the United States more than 25 years ago, monkey meat was critical to her religious upbringing.
At age 7, "I was baptized and they used that for the baptizing ceremony," she told a judge.
Baptisms, Easter, Christmas, weddings -- all are occasions for eating monkey, Manneh's supporters said in a sworn statement filed with the court.
See, it's all about "the Holidays" -- it would be cruel to deny any traditional observance to the "melting pot," according to multiculturalists.
Didn't anyone tell the Liberians that Americans regard Cheeta (Tarzan's chimp pal in the movies) as more suitable to be a sidekick than lunch? The Johnny Weismuller chimp turned 75 in April and got a birthday party reported by the press. Nobody at his cushy digs in Palm Springs was talking about barbecuing the critter.
There are some interesting responses to the Monkey Meat story as it appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle. Below are a couple items from the online remarks.
san_franciscan wrote:
In this day and age 'culture' is no excuse for decimating dwindling wild species of animals and destroying the ecosystem in the process. Behavior established in another time and market using creatures like whales, monkeys, tigers, etc are no more valid then being a cannibal is a cultural right - times have changed and people need to change with it because the alternative is horrible and not justifiable.
ixchel wrote:
I agree with san_franciscan and nezumi . . . to that I feel compelled to add, that when in Rome do as the Romans do . . . she is in the USA now and it is NOT our custom to consume monkey, bushmeat, or whatever the heck she wants to call it. If she wants to eat monkey let her go back to Africa when she wants to do that . . . tho' I'd much prefer she not be eating any threatened or endangered species!
VDARE blog version: Monkey-Eating Diversity on Trial
The Real Rudy [11/23/07]
Thanks to neocon columnist David Brooks for doing a great job of synthesizing what we need to know about Rudy Giuliani, from a speech he gave at the Kennedy School of Government in 1996.
"I'm pleased to be with you this evening to talk about the anti-immigrant movement in America,Ó he said, Òand why I believe this movement endangers the single most important reason for American greatness, namely, the renewal, reformation and reawakening thatÕs provided by the continuous flow of immigrants."
Giuliani continued: "I believe the anti-immigrant movement in America is one of our most serious public problems." It can "be seen in legislation passed by Congress and the president." (Republicans had just passed a welfare reform law that restricted benefits to legal immigrants.) "It can be seen in the negative attitudes being expressed by many of the politicians."
Get that? According to Rudy, America is great, not because of anything we citizens do or believe, but because of the foreigners who come here.
America is nothing but an immigrant receptacle, in the mind of Giuliani. We born-and-bred-here citizens are supposed to be a happy welcoming committee only.
Columnist David Brooks finishes up his piece by remarking, "Someday Rudy Giuliani will look back on this moment and wonder why he didnÕt run as himself."
We agree with that sentiment: Please, Rudy, run as yourself. The last thing America needs is another fake conservative in the White House.
And thanks to the wonders of the internet, here is the speech under consideration: Archives of Rudolph W. Giuliani, Kennedy School of Government, 10/19/96. It makes clear that Rudy sees no real difference between legal and illegal immigrants, and that he believes illegals are entitled to free medical care and education. He bragged about New York City's own sanctuary policy, Executive Order 124.
So illegal and undocumented immigrants are going to remain, and even increase. And nothing that is now being proposed in washington would realistically change that very much.
In New York City, we recognize this reality. New York City's policy toward undocumented immigrants is called "Executive Order 124."
This order was issued seven years ago by Mayor Ed Koch and reissued by my predecessor, Mayor Dinkins, and by me. "Executive Order 124" protects undocumented immigrants in New York City from being reported to the I.N.S. While they are using City services that are critical for their health and safety, and for the health and safety of the entire city.
Importantly, Rudy has not disavowed New York's city sanctuary policy even six years aftr 9/11. Keep in mind, he filed suit against federal immigration enforcement in 1997. He is an open-borders extremist, every bit as bad as Sen McCain.
And here's David Brooks once again, on PBS' Newshour (11/21):
And on the Republican side, I mean, I happen to think there's incredible hypocrisy on the subject of immigration. I think Rudy Giuliani is the most pro-immigration candidate probably running in the past 20 years, and now he's pretending to be something entirely different, to his discredit.
That's saying a lot, considering the current resident of the White House.
Latino influx shakes up Iowa's political picture [11/23/07]
I suppose we should feel grateful that Iowa -- a top Presidential primary state -- has been hard hit by the Mexican influx in the last few years. A lot of demographic change has happened quite rapidly, including somewhere between 55,000 and 85,000 of illegal aliens. Local folks are seeing the problem,
MARSHALLTOWN, IOWA Ñ Colorful pinatas hang from the ceiling, and Spanish-labeled goods fill the shelves of Angel Regalado's grocery in this rural town with a bulging immigrant community.
Many of his customers lived in Mexico a decade ago. But the influx of Latinos to Marshalltown, with its large meatpacking plant, and elsewhere across Iowa has changed the political dynamics in what was one of the most homogeneous states in America.
Now more than 115,000 Hispanics live in Iowa, comprising almost 4 percent of the state's population of 3 million. Though their community is tiny by Texas standards, their numbers increased 37 percent between 2000 and 2005, according to the Iowa Division of Latino Affairs.
The rapid growth of Iowa's Hispanic population, particularly the estimated 55,000 to 85,000 here illegally, has fueled a fierce debate in the state that will hold the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses on Jan. 3.
As we have learned in Caifornia, a paradise can turn into a third-world ghetto practically overnight. To get a sense of immigration as invasion, see the animated map of Los Angeles County showing the percentage of hispanic residents.
City may soon be no place for chickens [11/22/07]
Just in time for Thanksgiving, poultry diversity in Chicago is being thwarted.
And it's a good thing too, considering the threat to public health and other assaults on the community as a whole.
"They were doing this ritual where they would take the chicken and cut the head off. The chicken was running around without a head in their home, and they would smear the blood." [...]
Chicken-keeping "is more common than you would think," said Ald. George Cardenas (12th). In parts of his ward, immigrants from rural areas of Mexico keep the birds, he said.
Maria Rolon used to keep two chickens and two roosters in her Little Village back yard because they reminded her of Puerto Rico. "The chickens sang," Rolon said through a translator. "It made you feel like you were in the countryside."
Ramos will have plenty of time to discover his absent remorse [11/22/07]
Convicted drunk driver Alfredo Ramos got his prison sentence a few days ago for the manslaughter deaths of two teenaged girls, and columnist Kerry Dougherty was there to report the scene.
When Alison's stepfather, John Warner, lamented that all he has left are memories, photographs "and an empty chair," Ramos seemed unmoved.
Ramos didn't flinch when Warner stared at him and said, "I'll never forgive you. Ever."
When Alison's sister told the court how much she missed her sibling, Ramos sat perfectly still.
"They're dead and he's fine," Ashley Kunhardt wailed helplessly.
See my VDARE blog, Judgement Day in Virginia Beach for a longer version.
Mexican TV network adding English classes to its lineup [11/21/07]
Mexico is striking a new pose with its invasion: in light of American insistence that "immigrants" learn English, it is now broadcasting English classes at a time when many can watch. Mexico is fine wih obliging, as long as they can continue to dump their excess peasants on American taxpayers.
Mexicans would rather just keep speaking Spanish because it is easier, but if learning English is required for reconquista, then they will do what it takes.
About 83 percent of Americans support making English the official language, according to a survey conducted in May for U.S. English Inc., an organization that lobbies Congress on the issue. The survey, conducted by the Zogby International polling firm, also found that 75 percent of Latinos living in the United States favor making English the official language.
Roughly 34 million people age 5 and older speak Spanish at home, according to a 2006 U.S. Census Bureau survey. Of those, many said they speak English "not well" or "not at all." [...]
[Mark] Krikorian said he believes TV Azteca should exhort its viewers to learn English once they arrive in the United States, "but you're not going to see that, especially from a Mexican TV network."
"It would be different if the message was, 'You're now in America, paisanos, and you need to learn English because that's the language of your new country.' That's a different message than, 'Here's how to get promoted from bus boy to waiter,' which is really the message of this kind of program."
San Francisco to give illegal aliens ID cards [11/21/07]
The City by the Bay is famously smug, and loves to poke red-state America in the eye -- a strange behavior for a place that relies on tourism to pay its extensive bills.
San Francisco will give resident identification cards to illegal immigrants under a plan approved on Tuesday amid a fierce nationwide debate on granting privileges to undocumented aliens.
In a 10-1 vote, the city's board of supervisors -- the equivalent of a city council -- approved giving identification cards to all residents, including illegal immigrants. The move makes San Francisco the largest U.S. city to back such a plan.
Residents will be able to obtain the resident cards by presenting photo identification and proof they live in the city, such as a utility bill. It was unclear if the new cards, which will be accepted at libraries and health clinics, will carry photos.
Such a move had been expected from San Francisco, which is famously liberal. Earlier this year, Mayor Gavin Newsom said he would not allow city officials and employees to assist immigration raids by federal authorities seeking up people who had committed crimes or disregarded deportation orders.
McCainÕs Rocky Relationship With the Hawkeye State [11/20/07]
Justice is sweet. McCain is an open-borders puke and deserves to lose on that basis alone.
Mr. McCain blames his problems in Iowa on illegal immigration. "It wasnÕt our financial problems that caused our drop in the polls," he said aboard his bus two weeks ago, in what could well turn out to be one of his final trips as a presidential candidate to Iowa. "It was immigration. At our town hall last night, there were elderly women who were literally shaking when they talked about it."
There certainly is some merit to Mr. McCainÕs contention. There is no issue of greater concern to Iowa Republicans than illegal immigration, the Times/CBS News poll found, and Mr. McCain was identified with the effort in Washington to pass legislation that would have, among other things, provided a road for some illegal immigrants to citizenship.
Alfredo Ramos gets 24 years in Virginia Beach teens' deaths [11/19/07]
This sentence is a sad outcome to a terrible crime. Twenty-four years in prison (or far less, considering how prisons like parole) is simply not adequate for snuffing out the lives of two teenaged girls who had everything ahead of them.
Alfredo Ramos was sentenced today to 24 years in prison for the drunken-driving-related crash that killed two teenage girls in March.
Circuit Court Judge Thomas Shadrick reduced the sentence.
Ramos, a 22-year-old illegal immigrant, faced up to 40 years in prison and possible deportation after he pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated involuntary manslaughter.
Prosecutors said Ramos was drunk March 30 when he plowed into a car at Virginia Beach Boulevard and Kings Grant Road. Alison Kunhardt, 17, and Tessa Tranchant, 16, were killed in the crash.
Below, the victims Tessa Tranchant, 16, left, and Allison Kunhardt, 17, in a happy moment before they were killed by a drunk-driving illegal alien who had prior convictions for drunk driving.

See also the interview with father Ray Tranchant on the O'Reilly Factor on the occasion of the sentencing.
Pressure mounts to pardon Border agents [11/19/07]
The arrest of career drug-smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila has turned up the volume on the insistence that Bush's political prisoners Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean be freed.
Top conservatives have joined ranking House leaders in their bid to pressure the president to pardon two jailed El Paso Border Patrol agents for the nonfatal shooting of a Mexican drug smuggler in 2005.
In a letter to be delivered tomorrow to the White House, 31 major conservative petitioners joined a campaign being led by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican and presidential candidate, to ask President Bush to pardon Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean before Thanksgiving.
The letter comes on the heels of the arrest of admitted drug smuggler Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila on charges of trafficking marijuana while he was profiting from the federal-immunity deal as the star witness in the shooting case against the agents.
"History has proven that the mere words and deeds of a president can change the course of history and profoundly affect both the tone and direction of the nation"s moral character for generations to come," said the letter signed by 31 petitioners, mostly from Christian conservative groups and national security organizations.
For more, listen to reporter Sara Carter on the John and Ken Show last week.
Below, Osvaldo Aldrete Davila was taken to federal court 11/16.

GOP's Tancredo Defends New Ad [11/18/07]
Tom Tancredo, Presidential candidate, created a strong advertisement (see it here) that emphasizes the terrorist threat increased by open borders.
An unrepentant Tom Tancredo justified his presidential campaign's TV ad tying illegal immigration to terrorism, saying U.S. deaths due to lax border security are as real as deaths from drunk driving.
"If my advertisement is 'fear-mongering' then Mothers Against Drunk Drivers should apologize for suggesting that drunken driving kills innocent people. So do open borders," the Republican candidate and Colorado congressman said in a column published in Friday's Denver Post.
For more on Tancredo's honesty and courage, see Tancredo wants one tongue, in which we see him not taking any guff from an America-hating Islamist.
"I speak the same language as the people that flew into the towers; I speak the same language as all the Iraqis we are killing; I speak many languages, and I'm proud of it," said Siham Elhamoumi, 22, who recently graduated from St. Michael's College in Vermont and traveled to the event with a group from the college. "Am I the enemy?" Elhamoumi then pulled her shawl over her head, so it covered her hair. "Am I the enemy if I do this?"
"Do you take us for idiots, for people who have no appreciation of our history?" she asked. "Perhaps you don't have an understanding of your country right now, of its composition."
Tancredo repeatedly broke in, asking Elhamoumi to pose a question. He finally asked her a question of his own: "Do you believe that we should replace the Constitution with Sharia law?"
"That is below me," Elhamoumi replied. "Do not belittle people's opinions and people's beliefs and people's religions. Do not put one religion above the other."
The correct response from the heckler should have been, "Of course not." But she outed herself with her non-reply as a pro-jihad snake.
Further, when she said "our" history, she was obviously referring to Islam, not America. She is here to conquer and colonize as part of the Islamist movement for a worldwide authoritarian caliphate, not assimilate to American values.
Robert Spencer agrees with me: Tancredo asks a question, gets no answer.
Illegal immigrant charged in fatal DWI gets minimal sentence [11/17/07]
Plea deals are another way that victims and the public get screwed by the justice system. Prosecuters like avoiding the bother of organizing evidence for a trial. But citizens miss out by not learning all the details of hideous crimes (see the murder of Mary Nagle), which would viscerally educate them how illegal immigration is not a victimless crime.
Certainly trials can be very hard on victim family members, but there can be a meaningful payoff in more severe prison terms, e.g. Mary Nagle's killer Douglas Herrera who got life without parole. That sentence spared the Nagle familiy the agony of appearing at parole hearings for years into the future to beg that a monster not be freed. (For example, the families of Manson murder victims must testify every few years against the paroles of Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia Krenwinkle.)
Anyway, back to today's tragic tale of another unnecessary death due to open borders...
Sadly, the killer of George Smith will only receive 2-3 years in jail due to the confluence of the plea deal plus North Carolina state sentencing guidelines.
"I will never forget the feeling of dread I experienced when I saw that big black Tahoe swerving across the median racing towards my car.," Hageman said. "I was powerless to get out of the way and knew it was going to crash into me. I will never forget what it sounded like when I was hit, the metal crushing or the horrid smell of the airbag when it deployed."
"What really impacted me most after I found out about his death is how many people considered him their best friend," Chris said.
Some of those people sat in the courtroom holding up pictures of George.
Another remembered George as a great friend: "He's probably the best friend several thousand people had," said Tommy Carraway of Goldsboro.
The death of George Smith was another preventable crime that need not have happened if the government had done its job of securing the borders (as promised in Article 4 Section 4 of the Constitution).
Not legal? No Mexican driver's license for you [11/16/07]
Here's one way in which the United States should be more like Mexico, if that can be imagined. Yep, for all its jabbering to us about awarding DLs to illegal aliens (particularly Mexicans), Mexico offers no such easy identification to foreigners within its borders.
Ever the King of the Hipocrites, Mexico's Presidente Calderon called migrants "thematic hastages" -- whatever that means.
MEXICO CITY - The question of whether to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants has ignited a national debate in the United States.
Yet in Mexico, the biggest source of immigrants to the USA, there's no debate: If you're not in the country legally, you can't get a driver's license.
All of Mexico's 31 states, along with the federal district of Mexico City, require foreigners to present a valid visa if they want a driver's license, according to a survey of states by USA TODAY.
"When it comes to foreigners, we're a little more strict here," said Alejandro Ru’z, director of education at the Mexican Automobile Association.
Keep in mind that according to the Christian Science Monitor, "Of the Mexicans who live here, an estimated 85 percent are here illegally."
Liberal Christians Call for End to Immigration Hate Speech [11/16/07]
Haven't these nutty Christians ever read the Bible? Jesus was clear that followers should "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" meaning to obey civil law, and that includes borders and sovereignty.
Liberal Christians are reading more Marx than scripture. Jesus certainly advocated generosity toward the poor, but not redistribution.
At least the writer quoted Roy Beck and Jim Edwards deep into the article to balance things out.
As Thanksgiving approaches, a coalition of religious activists is asking Christians and "people of good will" in America to reject hate speech aimed at immigrants and to remember the needs of "the least of these" in our nation, many of whom are undocumented immigrants. [...]
But on Thursday, Roy Beck, founder and president of the anti-illegal immigration group NumbersUSA, said that he considers CCIR's proposals an example of "Christian utopianism."
"They seem to be saying that immigration laws are unchristian," Beck told Cybercast News Service. "It's unchristian to draw the line, to set limits, to say that some people can come in and some can't. We should have a world without borders."
"There's no question that the gospel is pretty radical, but that's just not the way the world works," he said. "Whenever we've had peaks of high immigration, the most vulnerable in our society have been the ones to suffer."
Jim Edwards, an adjunct fellow with the Hudson Institute, agreed, calling any comparison of illegal immigration with Jim Crow and the civil rights movement "strained" and "out of sync with American history."
"A more appropriate comparison would be between illegal immigration and an invasion," Edwards told Cybercast News Service.
NAFTA question draws 'I don't know' [11/16/07]
A query from WorldNet Daily reporter Les Kinsolving at a recent White House news briefing got a typical non-reply about the elite scheme for a NAFTA mega-highway as part of the North American Union. Business would like to refashion much of America's economy to suit globalist fantasies, which means cutting the American worker out entirely. Oklahoma state Sen. Randy Brogdon intends to stop that disastrous project at the state border. Not only that, he has distilled the problem into a near-bumper sticker.
"We don't need a new superhighway four-football-fields-wide coming through the heart of our state just so Mexican trucks can carry Chinese containers from Mexican ports to Kansas City," he said.
If you appreciate the efforts of Sen. Brogdon to protect American sovereignty, you can email him your thoughts at brogdon@oksenate.gov

Don't miss the outstanding online powerpoint presentation from which the above graphic is taken: The North American Union - Part I.
Catholic bishops say voters' souls at stake [11/15/07]
One might imagine that the Catholic church would realize its moral authority was diminished after two decades of pedophile priest trials, which showed that church hierarchy had knowingly protected perverts who sexually abused children. Last summer, Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony (a big friend of mass amnesty) was forced to pay $600 million to settle abuse cases.
But no. If anything, the arrogant leaders have become more insistent that the little people in the pews must obey their elite dictates or face dire consequences.
And apparently, congregants who vote for America's lawful sovereignty against amnesty can expect to spend eternity in the Hot Zone, according to the Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Proclaiming a sense of new energy and empowerment, the nation's Roman Catholic bishops on Wednesday issued instructions to Catholic voters that their eternal salvation could be at stake when they cast ballots. [...]
Voters are implored not to support abortion-rights political candidates but also advised that views on abortion should not be the sole factor. Catholics should also weigh church teaching on such moral issues as immigration, just war and poverty, bishops said.
I downloaded the full report (pdf here) to see whether the reporter might have gotten a little carried away with the verbiage about eternal damnation for incorrect voting. But page 16 says:
It is important to be clear that the political choices faced by citizens not only have an impact on general peace and prosperity but also may affect the individual's salvation.
A snip from page 31-32 further states...
The Gospel mandate to "welcome the stranger" requires Catholics to care for and stand with immigrants, both documented and undocumented, including immigrant children. Comprehensive reform is urgently necessary to fix a broken immigration system and should include a temporary work program with worker protections and a path to permanent residency; family reunification policies' a broad and fair legalization program; access to legal protections, including due process and essential public programs; refuge for those fleeing persecution and exploitation; and policies to address the root causes of migration. The right and responsibility of nations to control their borders and to maintain the rule of law should be recognized.
Nice little concession to national sovereignty the bishops tacked on at the end, after offering a stunning array of goodies for illegal foreigners, paid for by citizens. The bishops are indeed generous with public funds, which include a government grant of more than $40 million in 2006 to operate "Migration and Refugee Services."
Fewer illegal residents apply for home loans [11/15/07]
How shameful, but typical, that the Chicago Tribune treats mortgages for illegl aliens as just another business transaction. The article mentions in passing that certain people object to ITIN mortgages, but goes on to note what a good investment they are for banks.
By the same reasoning, laundering drug money would be a swell idea also.
Chicago banks were among the first in the nation to offer the controversial mortgages earlier this decade, allowing applicants to use a taxpayer identification number provided by the IRS when they were unable to get a Social Security number. The loans proved popular.
And as the credit crunch put many borrowers in jeopardy in recent months, the so-called "ITIN" mortgages proved uncommonly stable -- immigrants with such loans had far lower delinquency rates than sub-prime borrowers, and even had a better history of timely payments than borrowers in conventional mortgages.
Hillary's Consistent Non-Answers (Updated) [11/15/07]
This collection/timeline of Sen Clinton's various responses to the issue of drivers licenses for illegal aliens is a helpful reminder that she is no friend of borders and sovereignty. Talk about a flipflop... at heart, she is a typical open-borders Democrat. (Her recent voting grade is D -, down from a straight D in career votes.)
Clinton campaigning in Clinton, IA on November 4
"I wasn't as clear as I should have been the other night. I have had a number of occasions where I have spoken to it and I believe clarified it, but I'd be happy to do it again. I believe in comprehensive immigration reform [Editor: AMNESTY] and I have been in favor of that for years. I have signed onto bills. I have voted for provisions and I think it is the only answer for our country."
"Unfortunately, because the Bush administration has failed and as has the Congress, the federal government as a whole to bring about comprehensive immigration reform, governors are left holding the bag. They're the ones having to deal with the security issues, the safety of their roads and so much else. Therefore, I broadly support what governors like Eliot Spitzer are trying to do. I don't pretend to know the details. That's up to the governor and the legislature to try to work out. But I think that it's understandable that states are trying to fill a vacuum left by the failures of the federal government."
November 14 statement
I support Governor Spitzer's decision today to withdraw his proposal. His difficult job is made that much harder by the failure of the Congress and the White House to pass comprehensive immigration reform. As President, I will not support drivers' licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system.
See my VDARE blog about the recent reversal in New York, How the Worm Turns (Spitzer Then and Now)
.
'Drought busters' may be calling soon on water wasters [11/14/07]
The California water watch continues here... the very drought-effected south is implementing more enforcement against obvious water wasters. But this puny attempt at reducing water use is a flyswatter against the relentlessly increasing demand -- LA County has added 429,000 residents since the 2000 Census.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced Monday that he would reactivate a program of "drought busters" to preach the message of water conservation.
Department of Water and Power employees will roam the nation's second-largest city and issue friendly advice to residents they see wasting water.
Excessive lawn watering and sidewalk spraying are expected to be top targets.
Earlier this year, the mayor asked residents to voluntarily cut water use by 10%. By putting drought busters on the street, Villaraigosa hopes to avoid restrictions on water use.
See also, Water Supply: Where the Overpopulation Rubber Hits the Road.
Street crime sends Latins to S. Florida [11/13/07]
Several Latin countries are failing states, pushed over the edge by a level of gang crime that makes life untenable for ordinary people. Too many of them are coming here, especially to Miami.
This country is our home, not an international flophouse.
There is an undeclared civil war raging in Latin America, which is pitting common criminals against the general population. It has turned the region into the world's most violent.
According to the Geneva-based World Health Organization, Latin America has a homicide rate of 27.5 victims for every 100,000 residents, compared with 22 in Africa, 15 in Eastern Europe and 1 in industrialized nations. Other studies show that Latin America, with only 8 percent of the global population, accounts for 75 percent of the world's kidnappings.
It has become a running joke at international conferences to say that one is more likely to be attacked while walking in downtown Mexico City dressed in a business suit than in Baghdad dressed in a U.S. military uniform. [...]
While the conventional wisdom in the media was that Miami-Dade was a community of political and economic exiles, a sizable part of them had moved because of security concerns.
"I decided to leave my country the day when two 14-year-olds pointed their guns at my car as I was leaving work," said Daniel Karpman, a Miami physician who left Argentina in 2002 and revalidated his title here. "I still don't know whether they wanted to rob me, kidnap me or kill me. I slammed the breaks, made a sharp U-turn, and fled as fast as I could. Then, I said, this is it.... I'm leaving."
See also my article, Gangocracy -- The Downside Of Abolishing The Nation-State which focuses on how Latin America is coming unglued and coming here. Of course the Latins are bringing their culture of crime with them, particularly kidnapping for ransom.
Another item worth your consideration is Mexico crime continues to surge.
U.S. prosecutors: Illegal immigrant worked for FBI, CIA, stole info [11/13/07]
This case answers the question "How stupid is the FBI" (considering all its ridiculous "outreach" to hostile Muslims), and again focuses on the threat from enemy immigrants worming their way into everywhere, from airports to the White House.
A former FBI special agent and CIA analyst pleaded guilty Tuesday to using her database access privileges to search for information on relatives suspected of having ties to a reputed terrorist group, and fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship.
In federal court in Detroit Tuesday, Lebanese national Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, pled guilty to secretly obtaining information about ongoing FBI national security investigations. She is suspected of passing it on to relatives suspected of having ties to Hezbollah, a group that the U.S. government has classified as a foreign terrorist organization.
"Right now, CIA and FBI are both trying to find out what more might she have known, what more might she have passed on to Hezbollah, and was she in fact sent here by Hezbollah in the first place to penetrate the United States intelligence services," former government counter-intelligence official and ABC News consultant Richard Clarke said.
"As a Special Agent," court documents say, Prouty "was granted a security clearance" and assigned to a unit investigating crimes against U.S. citizens overseas.
See also Michael Cutler's article Prouty Case Shows Citizenship the "Keys to the Kingdom".
I do not know how many times I have made the point that United States citizenship represents the "Keys to the Kingdom." United States citizenship opens all sorts of doors to those who do not wish to share the "American Dream" but rather create a nightmare for our nation and our citizens. United States citizenship enables the alien who acquires United States citizenship to be able to work at any job he or she is qualified to do. It enables the person in question to be given security clearances that provide access to highly sensitive intelligence and enables such individuals to embed themselves in our nation and hide in plain sight among us.
And Robert Spencer's remarks, Illegal immigrant, Muslim from Lebanon, worked for FBI, CIA, stole info, passed it to Hizballah.
"Ha Jin Captures Immigrant Life" [11/13/07]
Multiculti publishers love to pump out sensitive propaganda, er books about the "immigrant experience" so Americans will feel lucky to have lots of foreigners around. Naturally the adjustment of immigrants isn't all strawberries and cream, and their cultural maladaption to the freedoms we regard as normal shows through. And the fact that not all immigrants even like America is also evident.
The book reviewed here is a novel, but certainly takes real details from the author's own life.
In one part of the book, Nan points out that the promise of a better life in America isn't that simple: "Freedom is meaningless if you don't know how to use it. We've been oppressed and confined so long that it's hard for us to change our mind-set and achieve real freedom. We're used to the existence defined by evasions and negations," he says. "Most of our individual tastes and natural appetites have been bridled by caution and fear. It's more difficult to break the self-imposed tyranny than the external constraints."
Nan and Pingping also grapple with how to survive in a new setting without a network of family and friends on which to rely, as well as how to interact with fellow Chinese immigrants, some of whom - to the couple's disgust - blindly defend their homeland.
Public want less immigration - poll [11/12/07]
That would be the British public, a group that has been pummeled by terrible immigrant crimes, the loss of whole regions (Londonistan is an accepted term) and actual terrorism, in particulur the attack on July 7 2005 that killed dozens.
More than four-fifths of the public believe immigration in Britain should be cut substantially, according to a poll.
A majority also dispute the Government's assertion that those coming into the country have helped the economy.
New Visa May Aid Boy in Teacher Sex Case [11/12/07]
In my recent article, Victim Visas -- How America Stupidly Rewards Misfortune and Fraud, I noted the upgrade of the U Visa to make it more available to illegal aliens who claimed to be crime victims. Not only does the U Visa allow alleged victims back into the US to testify at trial (sensible), but it also allows them to apply for an eventual green card. Dumb!
A 13-year-old illegal immigrant who fled to his native Mexico amid a sex scandal with his schoolteacher could be eligible to return to the United States under a new visa the government started granting the week before he disappeared.
The visa helps illegal immigrants who are victims of sex crimes. If the boy, who spent most of his life in Lexington, Neb., qualifies, he could stay legally in the United States for four years and eventually apply for permanent residency. It also would extend temporary residency to his parents and his unmarried siblings under 18, if they applied for it.
"It's a win-win," U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Marilu Cabrera said of the so-called "U" visa. "It helps us and law enforcement be able to solve a crime, and it certainly helps the individual who is a victim of a crime."
This policy is not a win for the American people, or for justice either. Handing out green cards to persons who make accusations of crime is a gilt-edged invitation for fraud.
This case of teacher sex abuse would not be one of those. However, what is this kid's qualification for being an American beyond his sex appeal to a pervert educator? The fact that the whole family would benefit from this mess is even more disgusting.
VDARE.com version: Victim Visa Strikes!
"Veterans Day is a time for forgotten Latinos to be recognized" [11/11/07]
Yes, it is Veterans' Day, and the San Francisco Chronicle uses the occasion to dump on Ken Burns' WWII documentary for not giving special attention to hispanics. Mind you, Italian-descended vets, Polish and all the others have not complained that their ethnic group was not individually honored. These other groups who still have some attachment to their ancestral nation nevertheless consider themselves to be Americans first, and understand that any salute to American veterans applies to them.
Of course, the hispanic complaints have more to do with contemporary politics than historical accuracy. Mexicans are attempting to rewrite history with them in it, so the Reconquista agenda of using immigration as invasion of America does not seem as radical as it is.
"If people think Latinos do not have a role in the history of this country, then they can be easily dismissed as deserving of respect or rights," said East Bay resident Armando Rend—n, who joined Rivas-Rodr’guez and others last spring in starting a "Defend the Honor" campaign to push Burns for Latino inclusion. "In World War II, we as a people responded to the responsibility of being Americans. ... (But) people see us as the eternal immigrant or bracero, rather than being seen as contributors deserving of recognition."
I'm not the only one who doesn't appreciate the Chronicle treatment of this issue. Here's guillermo in the comments section about the article.
How in the world the SF Chronicle in general, and Tyche Hendricks, in particular, can take a national day of respect for American veterans, and turn it into a lecture to the readers about racism in America, turns my stomach beyond description. You people at the Chronicle should hang your heads in shame. It's disgusting. You are not even capable of keeping your agenda in your pocket for the sake of the ALL veterans on a National Holiday established to honor them? Regrettably, that speaks miles about your newspaper.
See also my VDARE blogs on this subject: Hispanic Dishonor of America's WWII Veterans Continues Unabated and Hispanic Historic Revision: WWII.
In addition, my Veterans Day blog from 2005, Honoring Veterans Means Maintaining Borders and Sovereignty.
On this day, eternal gratitude to all Americans who are serving in the armed forces now or have in the past...

See also Urban Infidel's great pictures of the New York City parade and Dave Gorak's urging that veterans keep on fighting for America, Message To Vets On Veterans Day: Get Off Meeting Hall Bar Stools -- Enlist In Immigration Wars!
A fine line for Democrats on border issues [11/11/07]
How times do change: the Los Angeles Times notes in print that the Democrats are the open-borders party and (gasp) that could be a political liability for them. Can the Dems change?
Top Democratic elected officials and strategists are engaged in an internal debate over toughening the party's image on illegal immigration, with some worried that Democrats' relatively welcoming stance makes them vulnerable to GOP attacks in the 2008 election.
Advocates of such a change cite local and state election results last week in Virginia and New York, where Democrats used sharper language and get-tough proposals to stave off Republican efforts to paint the party as weak on the issue.
In Virginia, for instance, where Democrats took control of the state Senate, one high- profile victory came in the Washington suburbs, where the winner distributed mailings in the campaign's closing days proclaiming his opposition to in-state college tuition for illegal immigrants.
The party's calibration could also be seen in New York, where a number of Democrats won local elections in part by opposing a plan by Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, and in the presidential campaign, in which party front-runner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has struggled to explain whether she supports the Spitzer plan or not.
In Congress, a group of conservative Democrats, led by freshman Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina, introduced legislation last week calling for more Border Patrol agents, heightened surveillance and additional requirements that employers verify the legal status of workers.
Meanwhile, Gov. Spitzer (D-NY) looks like he is pulling back from his dangerous plan to issue DLs to illegals (Spitzer Showing Signs of Shift on License Plan
). It only took daily thrashings by Lou Dobbs for a couple months to enlighten "Prince Elliot" (as Dobbs calls the gov) about the national security threat posed by the license scheme.
Discord roils L.A. Unified parent panel [11/11/07]
News from Mexifornia. Los Angeles, to be precise. Mexicans residing in California believe that Americans should speak their language rather than the other, normal way.
The reason is revealed in the little graph, which is old, from 2003, and shows how invasion demographics have convinced Mexicans that they should run the place.
For months, parents on a Los Angeles Unified School District advisory council have disagreed over whether their meetings should be conducted in Spanish or English. Such arguments became so abusive that district officials canceled meetings for two months and brought in dispute-resolution specialists and mental-health counselors.
But Friday morning's gathering of the District Advisory Council proved dysfunctional in any language.
By one vote, parents censured their own chairman for alleged bad behavior, leading to a walkout of most Spanish-speakers. The rebuked chairman, Roberto Fonseca, followed them out of the room. Most voting for the censure were African American, adding racial overtones to the back-and-forth hectoring.
The Immigration Solution? [11/11/07]
Mark Krikorian hosted a panel a couple weeks back consisting of the authors of The Immigration Solution: A Better Plan Than Today's. That would be Heather MacDonald, Victor Davis Hanson and Steven Malanga.
HEATHER MACDONALD:
IÕd like to start by asking if anyone here has ever noticed the following phenomenon: Let there be the most modest effort to enforce immigration laws Ð an arrest of a factory owner with a history of knowingly hiring illegal aliens, say, or the deportation of a dozen illegal gang-bangers Ð and a cry will go out across the nation: government acting unfairly towards immigrants. Disapproving headlines will blare from newspapers, quote, ÒFear Spreads among Immigrants,Ó unquote. Mexican consul generals will complain bitterly that we are psychologically harassing their fellow countrymen by causing them to worry about their status.
Now, note the details of these charges. The problem, according to illegal alien advocates, is not just the enforcement of the law against a handful of violators. The real problem is that by enforcing the law, the government is causing millions more violators to worry that they may face an infinitesimal risk of being apprehended themselves. The breakdown of our immigration laws has come to this: Not only do illegal aliens have a de facto right to live here without penalty, but they also have the right, it seems, to live here without having their piece of mind disturbed by the possibility that they face any chance of being deported.
This sense of entitlement does a great injustice to the thousands of law-abiding foreigners who are patiently waiting to enter the country legally, and it makes a mockery of our laws. It is now people living outside our borders who determine our immigration policy, rather than Americans. To be sure, on paper, our elected representatives continue to make our immigration rules. In reality, however, with a net half-a-million illegal aliens taking up residence each year, the power to decide who comes into the country and on what conditions, the most basic attribute of sovereignty, has passed from Congress to the world at large.
Exasperated Italy targets foreigners [11/10/07]
Liberal hand-wringers are worried about the anger shown by Itaiians against a crime wave resulting from the influx of Romanians.
A wave of violent crime blamed largely on foreigners, including the especially brutal killing of a naval commander's wife, has pushed the center-left Italian government into deportations that human rights activists say are unprecedented in European Union history.
The Italian government Nov. 2 enacted an emergency decree that allows local authorities to swiftly expel foreign nationals from EU countries if they are deemed a threat to public health or security. So far, about 30 people have been rounded up and ordered deported, all of them thought to be Romanians and many of Roma, or Gypsy, background.
Untold numbers have left on their own, afraid of the backlash. And right-wing opposition leaders are demanding up to 20,000 expulsions.
The story in the Daily Mail had more comppelling statistics, Brutal sex attack forces Italy to make laws for kicking out EU migrants
Romanians have been blamed for 76 murders in the last 18 months, half of all rapes and a surge in people trafficking and prostitution.
At the same time, crime in Romania has fallen by 26 per cent.
For a comparison of the Italian reaction to immigrant crime versus the American one, see my article, America's Awareness Increasing - But Not As Fast As Italy's.
Glenn Beck: True Stories from the Border [11/10/07]
On Thursday, Glenn Beck used his whole hour-long show to focus on the anarchy on the border, ranging from kidnapping dozens of American citizens to actual incursions by the Mexican military several miles into United States territory.
In one segment, Beck interviewed Sheriff Arvin West of Hudspeth County about instances where the Mexican military assisted cartel members dump drugs well within the territorial boundaries of the US.
BECK: Tell me how this happened. You caught them bringing the drugs in, and then they turned around and went back. And how did the military play a role?
WEST: Well, as the vehicles were heading back to Mexico because the officers were chasing them, just as they got on the river levee on the American side, they come around a bend in the levee, they were met by the Mexican military with .50-cal rifles, and of course these guys were in pursuit with .45 handguns. And the military held the officers off so the drug runners could get back into Mexico. [...]
BECK: OK. Wait a minute. Hang on just a second. That is across our border?
WEST: Oh, yes, sir. About 12 miles in.
On Friday, the whole show consisted of a conversation with Presidential candidate Duncan Hunter: Transcript
Peak Water [11/9/07]
I was clicking around the tv the other day and came across the Wired Science program on PBS. There was a segment about water that was good, as far as it went (meaning its focus was local as well as global), which was not far enough. Click on the ink above and scroll down for a video clip that mentions population growth, but not the possibility that we can control our national increease of residents by limiting immigration.
You might be familiar with the phrase "peak oil" - the idea that oil, a finite resource, is running out. But another impending crisis can't be stemmed by even a world full of Prius drivers: "peak water." Fresh water is in short supply, and nowhere more so than in the American Southwest. Wired Science visits Arizona and Nevada to see how the driest regions in the country are managing a desert population explosion in the face of dwindling water sources.
Incidentally, we should be very aware of the water crises aroud the world in countries that have severe overpopulation, like those described in Worldwide Water Worries:
In fast-growing China's densely-populated north, home to about 500 million people, the underground aquifers that supply most the region's water are rapidly becoming tapped out. The water table beneath Beijing has dropped by nearly 200 feet in the last two decades. India is in similarly dire straits. The giant country has 20 percent of the earth's population, but only four per cent of its water.Ê Water tables are dropping fast in some of India's main agricultural areas, and in those of nearby Iran and Pakistan. The mighty Indus and Ganges rivers are tapped so heavily that, except in rare wet years, they no longer reach the sea. The same is true of Egypt's Nile and China's Yellow River.
Every time I see another drought horror story, I remember that just last year the Senate (which calls itself the "world's greatest deliberative body") was geared up to pass an amnesty plus a radical increase in legal immigration of more than 100 million additional residents over the next 20 years. The esteemed legislators couldn't be bothered to investigate what the bill's actual effect would be, and we are all fortunate that Heritage Foundation scholar Robert Rector crunched the numbers.
While on the subject of traditional environmental concerns (namely conserving natural resources), the granddaddy of overpopulation Paul Ehrlich was recently interviewed on the NPR program Living On Earth, and he let out a tiny burble of non-globalist sentiment...
If we want, for example, the United States to go on for thousands and thousands of years, the way to do it isn't to see how many people we can cram in in the next 20.
Ehrlich, you may remember, wrote and spoke widely in the 1960s and 70s on the looming danger of worldwide overpopulation, and authored the book The Population Bomb in 1968.
But when genuine environmentalists within the Sierra Club worked, starting in the mid-1990s, to reinstate the 1970 policy that the Club should strive to achieve "stabilization of the population first of the United States and then of the world," Ehrlich was AWOL, even though his wife Anne was a Board member. He did not support those efforts, nor join the many eminent environmentalists who did (see list of supporters for the 1998 initiative). Oh, well!
Jerry Brown On Gangs: 'We're In A Domestic Insurrection' [11/9/07]
It's good to see the state's top enforcement officer take gangs seriously, sort of. But if Jerry was really serious about gang policing, he could insist that Los Angeles get rid of Special Order 40, which allows foreign lawbreakers great latitude in avoiding arrest and prosecution.
California Attorney General Jerry Brown, speaking Monday in Riverside, described street gangs as "something deep and cancerous" that can only be stopped through greater investments in law enforcement, crime- fighting technology and education.
"If we don't get at it, it's going to get us," Brown told about 600 police investigators, criminalists and prosecutors gathered for the weeklong California Gang Summit at the Riverside Convention Center.
Meanwhile, Miami hispanic writer Andres Oppenheimer warns that the Angry migrant underclass might erupt in U.S. in a hispanic intifada.
The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria -- fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls -- is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future.
Remember the Palestinian intifada of the early 1990s, when thousands of frustrated young Palestinians took to the streets and threw stones at Israeli troops? Remember the French intifada of the summer of 2005, in which disenfranchised Muslim youths burned cars and stores in the suburbs of Paris?
If we are not careful, we may see something similar coming from the estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanic, who are increasingly vilified in the media, forced further into the underground by spineless politicians and not given any chance to legalize their status by a pusillanimous U.S. Congress.
Oppenheimer is delusional to imagine that cable tv "hotheads" are leading, rather than following, the popular rage about open borders. He is also loony to think that threatening Americans with violence because they want to assert their sovereignty is a good strategy.
Mickey Kaus thinks that sporadic uprisings among the Aztlan types are a real possibility.
23 Charged in O'Hare Immigration Bust [11/8/07]
How screwed up is this? Six-plus years after 9/11 and the government still can't keep illegal aliens from working in sensitive areas.
Nearly two dozen illegal immigrants were arrested Wednesday, accused of using fake security badges to work in critical areas of O'Hare International Airport, including the tarmac, authorities said.
The 23 illegal workers were employed by Ideal Staffing Solutions Inc., whose corporate secretary and office manager also were arrested after an eight-month investigation that involved federal, state and Chicago authorities.
The company contracted work for carriers including United Airlines, KLM and Qantas, said Elissa A. Brown, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
It doesn't matter that a lot of these illegals are probably Mexicans. They are likely targets for blackmail, where a Qaeda guy says put this package on the airplane or I'll tell the authorities about your immigration status.
Foreigners have already shown they are willing to sacrifice American lives to stay in this country; for examples, see hit-run driver Yesenia Angulo-Gastelum and stone-cold murderer Diego Pillco.
Prosecutor: Illegals Big in Crime Rate [11/8/07]
Incredibly, some on the far left actually insist that illegal aliens commit fewer violent crimes than citizens. Frontline prosecuters, like the one in Maricopa County, Arizona, know better.
Illegal immigrants play a big part in the nation's growing crime rate, Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas insisted Tuesday, while Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon challenged Sheriff Joe Arpaio's claim that he's largely responsible for a rise in the number of illegal immigrants arrested nationwide. [...]
Thomas said Sheriff Department's statistics show that 23 percent of people in the county jails are illegal immigrants, and law enforcement officials who think illegal immigration isn't contributing to the nation's crime rate need to get their heads out of the sand. [...]
Thomas said one-third of those serving time for identity theft and one-fourth of those convicted of aggravated DUI in Arizona are illegal immigrants.
"Notwithstanding the fact that it's politically incorrect to say so, we do see a relationship between our crime rates and our illegal immigration problem," Thomas said. "And that's just a fact and I, for one, intend to continue to talk about it."
Illegal immigration debate extends to voting booth [11/7/07]
It's remarkable that the idea of non-citizen voting can be discussed positively in a major (albeit liberal) newspaper.
Hayduk said that non-citizens are paying taxes, working, and in some cases, revitalizing entire neighborhoods and, therefore, should have a say in the future of their communities.
"These people are stake holders," he said. "They have vested interests. They are non-citizen citizens."
This view naively assumes America has no enemies who would love to exert more control over the political process, ranging from La Raza Mexicans to caliphate-minded jihadists, both of whom have expressed their intention to take over America through non-violent means.
Water managers warn of dry winter, potential shortages ahead [11/7/07]
California's water supply is looking dire. But like many articles, this one discusses only supply and does not mention the rapidly increasing demand arising from immigration-driven population growth.
The amount of rain and snowfall California received during the 2007 water year Ñ measured between September 2006 and Oct. 1 of this year Ñ was the lowest since 1988. Southern California is experiencing a record dry spell, leading officials in Los Angeles to warn about mandatory rationing for the first time since 1991.
The dry conditions have left state and federal reservoirs below normal levels. Additionally, state water managers over the summer had to draw down reservoirs to make up for the court decision that halted pumping from the delta for several weeks.
That wiped out most of the reserve water that had accumulated during the 2006 season, which was wetter than normal and produced above-average snowfall.
Shuler, Bilbray join forces on border security measure [11/6/07]
Rep. Heath Shuler of North Carolina is a Democrat who won his seat last year as someone who promised to be tough on illegal immigration. He is a member of the House Immigration Reform Caucus and has joined with Brian Bilbray to roll out a bipartisan immigration enforcement bill.
The Secure America with Verification and Enforcement (SAVE) Act focuses on three areas: employment enforcement, interior enforcement and increased border security. [...]
The Shuler-Bilbray bill would also close existing loopholes that allow illegal immigrants to use the same Social Security number and will require information-sharing between the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and the IRS.
In order to increase border security, the bill seeks to provide an 8,000-agent increase for the U.S. Border Patrol and an expansion of the investigative abilities of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"It really reflects what polls show across the board É this needs to be a bipartisan effort," Bilbray said.
The California legislator said Shuler initially approached him with the idea and he immediately decided to sign on.
Shuler, a centrist freshman who defeated then-Rep. Charles Taylor (R) last year, did not return calls for comment.
At press time, 42 Democrats and 36 Republicans had signed on to the bill, including several freshman Democrats who are in Republican-leaning congressional districts.
See also Numbers' page about the SAVE (Secure America through Verification and Enforcement) Act which includes a list of the legislators who have signed on.
Higher-Than-Expected Turnout Seen at Some Va. Polling Places [11/6/07]
All immigration is local, as we notice from Virginia voters...
Samir Ghosh, a retired tax consultant, agreed that immigration was one the most important local issues.
"I am an immigrant myself, and I think that only those that have earned their citizenship should be able to get a driver's license. I don't like the thought of anyone being pulled over to check their immigration status, but if they are caught doing something wrong the police should be able to check."
Fence's presence felt [11/6/07]
Near Columbus, New Mexico, the new border fence is doing the job. No wonder the Mexicans didn't want it built.
"You hear it all the time: Fences don't work. Fences don't work," said Mark Winder, a transplanted New Englander and part-time deputy sheriff who lives on a small ranch outside Columbus, N.M., where a 3-mile stretch of wall was completed in August. "I live 2 1/2 miles from the border, and the fence is working."
Many merchants agree in Palomas, once a sleepy farm town, now a booming haven for smugglers.
"The fence has destroyed the economy here," said Fabiola Cuellar, a hardware-store clerk on the main street of Palomas who used to sell supplies to the throngs heading north from here. "Things are going back to the way they were before."
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