Illegal Immigration, Stolen Birthright

It's time to end birthright citizenship

In Texas, between 60,000 to 65,000 babies achieve U.S. citizenship annually by being born in the state's hospitals, according to a tally released by the state's Health and Human Services Commission. Last year, such births represented almost 16 percent of the total births statewide. (Dallas Morning News)

It all revolves around the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution

The 14th Amendment was adopted in 1868 as a way to block state laws that prevented former slaves from becoming citizens. It also effectively overruled the Dred Scott decision of 1857 in which the U.S. Supreme Court declared that slaves were mere property and could not become citizens.

The amendment offered a broad definition of citizenship in one simple sentence: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."  (Dallas Morning News)

We don't need to amend the constitution

Republicans are talking up legislation to end this backdoor citizenship, and liberals are screaming hysterically about Dred Scott being restored. Worse than the Democratic demagoguery, the press can't keep the facts straight. I keep reading about a constitutional amendment being required, but George Will isn't so sure:

... this irrationality is rooted in a misunderstanding of the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof." What was this intended or understood to mean by those who wrote it in 1866 and ratified it in 1868?

The authors and ratifiers could not have intended birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants because in 1868 there were and never had been any illegal immigrants because no law ever had restricted immigration.

This has been tested in a court of law

Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent."

... this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States."

So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."

All it takes is some legislation enacting what the Supreme Court has already affirmed

Gralia (Lino Graglia of the University of Texas law school) seems to establish that there is no constitutional impediment to Congress ending the granting of birthright citizenship to persons whose presence here is "not only without the government's consent but in violation of its law."

http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/08/09/illegal-immigration-anchor-babies-and-the-14th-amendment-when-cbs-news-actually-did-its-job/

The Arizona Experiment

Immigrants are self-deporting from Arizona, showing that if we enforce the law immigrants will go peacefully.

It also provides a rare opportunity to test ideas. Anti-illegal immigration people are tired of hearing “...jobs Americans won’t do,” while others insist we need to import cheap labor. Will Arizona collapse without its cheap labor? Or will previously unemployed Arizonans pick up the slack?

Drastically reducing the illegal immigrant population by allowing them free passage home would put this nation to the test. Could we do our own dirty work? We have 10% unemployment in this country and college students who need money; I think we could. Unfortunately, we will probably never be able to test this question at the national level.

Americans Won’t do the Jobs because the Pay is Crappy!
Supply and demand works in the labor market as well. Employers compete for employees by offering pay and incentives. Bring in illegals who can be intimidated and abused into accepting poor working conditions and shabby pay, and the native born American workers are cut out of the market. Back in the old days, labor unions would have called these illegal workers scabs.

The Root of the Illegal Immigration Problem

Pure libertarianism is against immigration impediments. People, jobs and businesses should be free to flow where they will with no border controls. Sounds good, but the thinking person intuits that this will not work.

Milton Friedman explained why:

“You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state.”

The difference in conditions between the developed and under developed world is just too great. Add in the enormous pay differential and lax law enforcement, and the US is a giant illegal immigrant magnet.

Immigration: Is The West Waking Up?

 

For the doctrines of anti-racism and multiculturalism have not ended intolerance, prejudice or discrimination. They have instead institutionalised reverse discrimination and up-ended truth, morality and justice. -- Melanie Phillips 


Australian Liberals Rethink Immigration

Melanie Phillips writes about Australia’s new Labor Party Prime Minister.

Here is a politician with a solid pedigree on the ‘anti-racist’ Left rejecting former prime minister Kevin Rudd’s call for a ‘Big Australia’ formed by continuing large-scale immigration.

Instead, Gillard has said she understands the anxieties of folk in western Sydney, western Melbourne or the Gold Coast growth corridor in Queensland.

As for the boats of asylum-seekers, Gillard has made clear she wants to be even more effective in stopping them in order to protect ‘our sanctuary’ and ‘the Australian way’.

Great Britain is also opening its eyes...

A similar political convulsion is occurring in Britain. The Conservative Home Secretary, Theresa May, has promised to put a cap on immigration, a pledge that was in the Conservative manifesto but rarely mentioned during the election campaign.

Now that our Western cousins have broken the global taboo, can we open up a few topics of conversation here in the US as well?

Can we point out that fundamentalist Islam and its Sharia law is incompatible with our Constitution and our God-given freedoms?  And that it is diametrically opposed to the fundamental values our country was founded upon?

Can we ask why Muslim “refugees” must take refuge in a Western country? Why can’t they instead go to a country hospitable to their beliefs, like another Muslim country? Saudi Arabia, home of Mecca, would be a great destination.

Of course, refugees who repudiate the 7th Centrury obscurantism and misogyny of fundamentalist Islam and embrace our values, like Aayan Hirsi Ali, are always welcome.

Can we now proudly stand for our culture and our values without being called racist? Muslims do it, why can’t we?

Can we also say that we have nothing against Mexicans and other Latin Americans, but that we just want them to enter our country legally and learn English so they can participate fully in the American dream?

Borders, Language, Culture
Progressives don’t want to hear it because it comes from Doc Savage, but it really is about “Borders, Language and Culture.” That is what defines a people. Break them down and you destroy a nation.

Sharia in The West is like urine in a water hole; any amount is too much.
-- Pat Condell

Mile High Miscarriage of Justice

If this don’t make your blood boil, I don’t know what will...

WHEAT RIDGE, Colo. - Admitted thieves are going free, while an elderly Wheat Ridge man is facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life behind bars, all, he says, for trying to defend his property and his life. (Fox 31 - Denver)

Two illegal immigrants (who had been arrested and released various times in Denver) tried to steal an 82 year-old man’s flatbed trailer and he shot one of the slimeballs as they were getting away. What did the Jefferson County DA do? He let the immigrants go and charged the armed citizen with four counts of attempted murder. 

This is no surprise to Coloradans. We are a fairly libertarian state suffering a liberal red rash running from Denver, through the People’s Republic of Boulder and up to Fort Collins.

** LATE BREAKING UPDATE! ** 
ICE agents arrested both illegal scumbags and are holding them on a $100,000 bond!  Kudos to local morning talk jock Peter Boyles.  Rumor has it Bill O'Reilly may pick up the story.  All that's left is for Jefferson County DA Scott Storey to climb down and admit what a gross injustice his office has inflicted on the 82 year old Robert Wallace.  

"Even if we want to, we can't just go shoot someone in our front yard"

That's what the nattering nanny says on the 9 News video.  I say Bull!  Notice the progressive use of "we can't just..."  Who says?  Defending one's property is a natural right of free people.  If more scumbag robbers were shot, there would be less robberies.     

Denver has been a de facto sanctuary city for years

When Governor Bill Ritter was DA, he routinely caught and released illegal immigrant criminals, freeing them up to drive drunk, rape and kill. When confronted with the death and destruction he had caused, he reached for the liberal playbook and blamed “the system.”

Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, “The Looper,” denies the sanctuary city charge, but ask anyone who lives there, where East Colfax now looks like Little Jalisco. The Looper wants to be our next governor, but the little Howdy Doody got caught gushing over Van Jones like a lovesick teen...

Earth to Little Looper!  Colorado is an energy industry state!

“Silent” Immigration Raids

The Obama Administration is cracking down on illegal immigration by punishing those who hire them


The New York Times is boo hooing big bleeding heart tears over the now-unemployed illegal aliens, but I congratulate the Obama administration for having the courage to do this, and for doing it in the right way:

BREWSTER, Wash. — The Obama administration has replaced immigration raids at factories and farms with a quieter enforcement strategy: sending federal agents to scour companies’ records for illegal immigrant workers.   

These  “silent raids” have resulted in...

... audits of employee files at more than 2,900 companies. The agency has levied a record $3 million in civil fines so far this year on businesses that hired unauthorized immigrants, according to official figures. Thousands of those workers have been fired, immigrant groups estimate.

Obama does something right for a change
This is the right approach befitting a humane, freedom loving nation.  It rightly places the punishment on unscrupulous employers while short-circuiting the hooting lefties who love shouting "NAZI!" every time an immigration enforcement officer does his job.       

“Instead of hundreds of agents going after one company, now one agent can go after hundreds of companies,” said Mark K. Reed, president of Border Management Strategies, a consulting firm in Tucson that advises companies across the country on immigration law. “And there is no drama, no trauma, no families being torn apart, no handcuffs.”       

Take away the jobs and the illegal aliens will eventually self-deport.  Meanwhile, raided businesses are now doing things the right way, filling out the forms and bringing in legal guest workers from Mexico and Jamaica.

I love this quote from one of the illegals who was bounced from her job:

“They are bringing people from outside,” Ms. Cervantes said, perplexed. “What will happen to those of us who are already here?”       

Thousands of American trades people and unskilled workers have been asking the same question for years, Ms. Cervantes.

Liberals are Naive

Some are still dreaming of immigration "reform" this year.  

You Thought BP Was Bad?
The Federal Government has failed to enforce existing laws and defend the border.  Greedy businesses still  hire illegal aliens for slave wages.

What would make a reasonable person believe our government could carry out this dreamed-of reform without completely screwing it up?  More likely, they will emulate BP and blast open a hole that cannot be plugged.

We can't even put the situation in proper perspective

"There (in the United States), they'll deport you," Hector Vázquez, an illegal immigrant from Honduras, said as he rested in a makeshift camp with other migrants under a highway bridge in Tultitlán. "In Mexico they'll probably let you go, but they'll beat you up and steal everything you've got first." (USA Today - Mexican Immigration Laws)

The naive and the stupid in this country who have no idea what life is like outside their insulated enclaves.  They also have a fetish for anyone non-American, especially those from benighted third-world countries who come bearing criticism of the United States. 

Yet Mexico's Arizona-style law requires local police to check IDs. And Mexican police freely engage in racial profiling and routinely harass Central American migrants, say immigration activists.

"The Mexican government should probably clean up its own house before looking at someone else's," said Melissa Vertíz, spokeswoman for the Fray Matías de Córdova Human Rights Center in Tapachula, Mexico.

People in Latin America are laughing at our naivete.  We are the preeminent human rights champion of the world, yet we flagellate ourselves and allow the president of a rotten, corrupt government to lecture us from our capitol about the treatment of immigrants. And the liberals stood on their hind legs cheering this grotesquerie.

We are stupid.  Correction, the liberal thirty-something percent who applaud this BS and egg it on are stupid.  The rest of the country is catching on to the scam and we're just not buying it anymore.

Meanwhile, Arizona shows us that if you enforce the law, illegal immigrants will self-deport. 

Fixing Immigration Step by Step

http://chicagoray.blogspot.com

We Can't Deport Them All
It pains me to say it, but we can't.  That's the realpolitik situation we find ourselves in.

We cannot round them all up and send them home.  There are not enough planes, trains and automobiles to haul 20 million people out of the country.  Even if we could, imagine the humanitarian nightmare it would cause.  It would make the Trail of Tears look like an Easter parade. 

In light of the hysteria the recent Arizona law has caused, imagine what it would do to our society (and our nation's image) to see footage of tearful families being dragged from their homes and forcibly expelled from The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.

So Here is My Solution

Step 1:  Secure the Damned Border!

The border is still leaking, and unscrupulous business owners are still hiring illegal immigrants and paying them slave-labor wages.  Controlling traffic in and out is a logical first step.

Step 2:  Stand and Be Counted!
To proceed to a solution, we must first know who is here, how many, and where.  We should offer illegal immigrants a deal:  Pop your head up and be counted.  In exchange we will give you documentation that allows you to work here, for say 5 years.  We may eventually ask you to leave or to go to the back of the line, but if you self-identify and have no criminal record, you've got a clean shot. 

Step 3:  Mandatory Worker Verification
Part and parcel of securing the border is putting an iron-clad worker verification law in place that harshly punishes the unscrupulous bastards who hire illegal immigrants.  Documented foreigners would be eligible to work, but no longer subject to employer abuse.  

Step 4:  End Birthright Citizenship
Some believe this would require a constitutional amendment, but George Will isn't so sure: 

Appropriately, in 1884 the Supreme Court held that children born to Indian parents were not born "subject to" U.S. jurisdiction because, among other reasons, the person so born could not change his status by his "own will without the action or assent of the United States." And "no one can become a citizen of a nation without its consent."

... this decision "seemed to establish" that U.S. citizenship is "a consensual relation, requiring the consent of the United States."

So: "This would clearly settle the question of birthright citizenship for children of illegal aliens. There cannot be a more total or forceful denial of consent to a person's citizenship than to make the source of that person's presence in the nation illegal."

Step 5:  Provide visas and citizenship opportunities based on the needs of the country
Yes, this would include "amnesty" for some with a stable history of work and home ownership.  But we should not indiscriminately hand out citizenship.  Some merely want to be able to legally come in and out of the country to work and visit family.  They should be issued visas, not given citizenship. 

Steps 1, 3 and 4 will guard against this happening again, since barriers are in place and the major magnets of illegal job opportunities and birthright citizenship have been removed. 

The Easy Way:  Self Deportation
For my friends who disagree and just want them gone, we could implement steps 1 and 3.  Seal the border and bar them from working, and most would self-deport.

Further Reading: RCP - Michael Barone

Amnesty: Letting the Genie out of the Bottle

Give Amnesty, and Muslims Will Want Their "Fair Share"

Bureaucratic sloth and an addiction to cheap labor have created a massive human rights violation right here in the United States of America.

We encourage foreigners to break our immigration laws by promising jobs, social programs unheard of in their own countries, and the jackpot of being able to create their very own US citizens, also known as anchor babies.

My anger is not directed at the illegal immigrant parents who have forcefully created millions of new impoverished citizens.  It is aimed at a negligent federal government and an unscrupulous business community that put the come hither on them.

It further galls me that some who broke into this country now loudly march through our major cities waving the flags of the failed countries they have chosen to abandon. 

WWCMD?  (What Would Cardinal Mahony Do?)
The final galling factor is the community agitation groups, from La Raza and Mecha, and lately the Catholic Church.  Plenty of good criticism has been unleashed from the right, so I won't bore you with more of the same. 

I will only say that there is no legal right to violate internationally-recognized borders, and demanding your government enforce the law does not violate Christian teachings.  It is possible to enforce immigration laws in a humane way that respects the human dignity of those here illegally.

Would Cardinal Mahony defend these illegal aliens if, instead of Catholic, they were noisy Muslims declaring his stained glass windows and crosses were an affront to the Prophet Mohammad?

The Problem With Created Rights
Create a right for all immigrants to come here and stay here, Amnesty, and it will not escape the militant Muslim agitation groups. 

Muslims will demand their fair share.  And trust me, they have the means to bring millions here, and they won't be the good, peaceful Muslims longing to escape the religious tyranny of their native lands.  They will be at best a poor, easily manipulable band of adherents, putty in the hands of the illiberal imams.  At worst, they will be angry in-you-face militants, having been primed on what cowering, politically-correct patsies we are. 

Culture Clash in Babylon
Progressives have bastardized the American dream.  Once it was merely a chance to roll up your sleeves and succeed or fail by the sweat of your brow.

Now, it's a chance to cash in.  Liberal statism has turned our nation into a declining, decadent Babylon; a sagging, multi-teated Astarte where competing interest groups jostle for position as the mother's life slowly dwindles away.

Meanwhile, our legal immigrants watch in horror as their beloved adopted country becomes the dysfunctional pit they came from, with the angry agitation, culture clashes, government favoritism, and social programs that break the state and encourage sloth and corruption.

Real Social Justice
Social justice is protecting the rights of all by refereeing an even playing field.  It is not rigging the game for preferred aggrieved groups and driving the nation deeper in debt playing Robin Hood.

A Modest Immigration Proposal

1. Federal, local, and municipal police must cooperate with federal immigration authorities in the arrest of illegal immigrants.

2. Illegal immigration is a felony punishable by up to two years in prison.

3. Immigrants who are deported and reenter the country may be imprisoned for up to ten years.

4. Visa violators may be imprisoned for up to six years.

5. Assisting illegal immigrants by citizens is a criminal act.

6. Foreigners deemed detrimental to economic or national interest may be deported without trial or legal recourse.

7. Foreigners who are not physically or mentally healthy may be deported without trial or legal recourse.

8. Foreigners who lack the necessary funds for their or their dependents sustenance may be deported without trial or legal recourse.

Unfortunately, these eight items are not the policy of the Department of Homeland Security Citizenship and Immigration Services... these eight items are currently law not in the United States of America, but in the United States of Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has the gall to address the Congress of the United States and say that the Arizona law "ignores a reality that can not be erased by decree".

Oh Really?

"the Executive Branch of Federal Government shall have the power to expel from the national territory, without a trial and in an immediate way any foreigner whose presence is considered to be inconvenient."
-Mexican Constitution, Article 33

He called Arizona's law "discriminatory" and warned Mexico would "reject any effort to criminalize migration".

"Every person has a right to enter and leave the Republic... The enforcement of such a right shall be restrained by judicial resolutions on both civil and criminal trials or by administrative authorities managing under the law the immigration procedures and general public health services or dealing with harmful foreign individuals living in the country."
-Mexican Constitution, Article 11.

Calderon also urged Congress to restore the ban on assault weapons, saying easy access to high-powered weapons is contributing to drug related violence along the border.

-Mexican Constitution, Article 33: Foreigners shall not participate in the country's political affairs."

I would venture so far as to say that it is not those dang American firearms but your inept and corrupt government that is contributing to drug related violence along the border. Those weapons are much more readily available to those on this side of the border, and if your reasoning were correct, the problem would be much worse here than south of the Rio Grande.

All I can say to Felipe Calderon is:

¡Vete a la mierda y tambien el burro que te llevó, Pendejo corrupto!

~Finntann~

America's HisPanic Attack

We are conflicted about illegal immigration

Americans back Arizona's Immigration Law

But, 

Americans who want secure borders also express sympathy for illegal immigrants

Two-thirds of Americans want the government to do a better job of securing the borders, but they are sympathetic to illegal immigrants who have been working hard and staying out of trouble, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

Eight in 10 Americans are concerned that illegal immigrants burden schools, hospitals and other government services, and 77% worry that they drive down wages, the poll finds.

Yet 77% are concerned that stricter laws would mean illegal immigrants and their families who have lived productively in the USA for years would be forced to leave.

I cite these recent articles because I am just as conflicted as everyone else.  I hate the lawlessness of illegal immigration, but I also sympathize with people who come here to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Latinos are Like Us

Some may feel threatened by the Latino invasion, but I'm telling you that we have nothing to fear.  I have spent years living in Latin America, as well as down on the border.  Latinos are wonderful people, and the 10-20 million illegal ones that are here are not an existential threat to this nation or even our culture.

Our differences are slight (we share Christianity, democracy and entrepreneurial capitalism), especially when compared to the Islamic nightmare Europe is going through.  God has thankfully saved us from that.

Texans know it.  The entire state, and San Antonio in particular, is a testament to how Hispanics not living in the shadows contribute greatly to our nation and our culture.  That great state has produced many of our nation's heroes, Medal of Honor recipient Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez being one of the most decorated   

Criminal Cooks and Carpenters
Yes, they broke in, but the burglary analogy is inapt.  How may burglars cook your food, do your laundry and take care of your kids?  We must not overlook the lawbreaking aspect of all of this, but also need to keep it all in context.  Official US policy and our collective greed are also contributing factors.

Reason.tv provides a characteristically balanced view of May Day demonstrations in LA.  Note that the most reasoned and nuanced comments are from Latinos...



We're going to have to solve this problem, and it's too important to be left to the bullhorn shouters and the politicians who got us here in the first place.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is My New Hero

Smart-Ass in Chief
Barack Obama is the rudest, most sarcastic president in this country's history.  He routinely calls out fellow Americans for ridicule and opprobrium, all for narrow partisan purposes.  They used to criticize George Bush for that, but at least he was calling out foreigners...

Governor Jan Brewer is jamming it right back in his smirking, smart-ass punk face.  Good for her.  This is how you fight the Progressive Chicago Syndicate, America.





This is How to Defeat the Progressive Scourge

Regardless of what you think of the Arizona law, at least Governor Brewer and the state legislature took action, while this and previous administrations sat on their hands.

We keep hearing talk of a superhighway from Mexico to the US.  Well, we have one and it's called Arizona.  Only it's a conduit for drug smuggling and human trafficking, not cheap lawn chairs headed for Wal Mart.

All this callow metrosexual can think to do is to marginalize Arizonans by ridicule.  All he's really done is demean the office of the presidency.

Your Papers, Please!

The demagogic criticism that the Arizona law requires all Hispanics to produce their "papers" is ridiculous.  Of course, the Demagogocrats use the term "Papers" because it conjures visions of nazi Germany.  How clever.

Which looks more like fascism to you?
I also find it rich how this party accuses others of old world fascism while dictating everyone's health care by taking over one-sixth of the economy, appropriating automobile manufacturing firms, and forming a government-corporate mutual-benefit society with Wall Street investment bankers. 


Have any of these hysterical people ever tried to rent an XBox game at Blockbuster?
They demand papers!  Including drivers license and a credit card, which they immediately tag as a warning to you to remember to return the game.  Granted, it lacks the gravity of being stopped by the Gestapo at the Swiss border with fake identity, but this is the state of things in America today.

It starts when you are born
... and your parents submit your hospital birth papers to the county so they can generate your official birth papers called a birth certificate.

You then take that and go get your New World Order card and 666 stamp, also known as a Social Security Card with your unique Social Security Number printed on it.

If you want to travel outside of the country, you've got to use those previously mentioned papers to get "Travel Papers," also known as a passport...

When you get hired you must present a birth certificate or passport so they know who you are, and so Uncle Sam can immediately stick the withholding siphon in.

Johah Goldberg puts it all in perspective: 

I agree that there's something ugly about the police, even local police, asking citizens for their "papers" (there's nothing particularly ugly about asking illegal immigrants for their papers, though).

There's also something ugly about American citizens being physically searched at airports. There's something ugly about IRS agents prying into nearly all of your personal financial transactions or, thanks to the passage of ObamaCare, serving as health insurance enforcers.

Worried about government collecting your personal data?  Ever heard of the IRS or the Social Security Administration?  And by the way, Google and corporate America make the federal government's efforts look amateurish in comparison.

Render unto Caesar...

IRC 501 (c) (3): In general, no organization, including a church, may qualify for IRC section 501 (c) (3) status if a substantial part of its activities is attempting to influence legislation (commonly known as lobbying).

Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, will be a leader of Saturday's (5/1/10)march in downtown Los Angeles, where tens of thousands of people are expected to protest Arizona's new immigration law.

Legislation includes action by Congress, any state legislature, any local council, or similar governing body, with respect to acts, bills, resolutions, or similar items (such as legislative confirmation or appointive offices), or by the public in a referendum, ballot initiative, constitutional amendment, or similar procedure.


On Thursday, the archdiocese started a website, Faces of Immigrants, based on a concept by Cardinal Mahony that "personal stories from immigrants will give a face, or faces, to immigration and show people the effect our broken immigration system has on their lives."


A Church or religious organization will be regarded as attempting to influence legislation if it contacts, or urges the public to contact, members or employees of a legislative body for the purpose of proposing, supporting, or opposing legislation, or if the organization advocates the adoption or rejection of legislation.

Displayed prominently on the Faces of Immigrants website is the link to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Justice for Immigrants website urging us to send a JFI postcard to Congress accompanied by the quote "every man and woman may be regarded as brothers and sisters, children of the same Father" - Pope Benedict XVI.

Under the substantial part test, a church or religious organization that conducts excessive lobbying activity in any taxable year may lose its tax-exempt status resulting in all of its income being subject to tax. In addition, a religious organization is subject to an excise tax equal to five percent of its lobbying expenditures for the year in which it ceases to qualify for exemption. Further a tax equal to five percent of the lobbying expenditures for the year may be imposed against organization managers, jointly and severally, who agree to the making of such expenditures knowing that the expenditures would likely result in the loss of tax-exempt status.

Previously Cardinal Roger Mahony electrified the US immigration reform debate by announcing on March 1, 2006 (Ash Wednesday), that he would instruct archdiocesan priests and lay Catholics to ignore provisions in a House-passed "enforcement only" bill (H.R. 4437) - were they to pass - that would make it a crime to assist unauthorized immigrants.

In an April 18th post on his blog, Cardinal Mahony describes the bill passed by the Arizona Legislature as "the countries most retrogressive, mean-spirited, and useless anti-immigrant law born of the assumption that immigrants come to our country to rob, plunder, and consume public resources." "I can't imagine," the cardinal wrote, "Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques whereby people are required to turn one another in to the authorities on any suspicion of documentation."

Bishop John C. Wester, Bishop of Salt Lake City, Chairman, US Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Migration: "Specifically, we have emphasised the need for a pathway to citizenship (read amnesty - Finntann) for the 11-12 million undocumented in the country.

When I was a member of the US military, I was free to exercise my constitutional rights in regards to participation in the US political process. There was one caveat however, I could not participate in the process in uniform or utilize my rank. Identifying myself as a member of the United States Air Force was forbidden, lest the public perceive my political activities as an official endorsement of a particular candidate, issue, or party.


In my opinion... these activities constitute participation in the US political process in an attempt to influence legislation , not by Roger Mahony, or John Wester, but by the Catholic Church.

~Finntann~

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1828.pdf
http://www.usccb.org/jfi/index.html
http://www.facesofimmigrants.org/share.html
http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=395

Mexican Abuse of Migrants: The Pot Calling the Kettle Black

Note to Mexico:  Shut you stupid gob until you clean up your gross human rights abuses!

Richest Irony of the Year:  A guy who calls himself "Felipe Calderon" and claims to be "President" of a country called "Mexico" criticized US immigration policies, saying the new Arizona law "opens the door to intolerance, hate, and discrimination."

Now The Irony Part
Next comes Amnesty International, with a damning report on the cruel human rights depredations inflicted upon immigrants passing through Mexico.

Yahoo News plays it straight up:

The group's report comes at a sensitive time for Mexico, which is protesting the passage of a law in Arizona that criminalizes undocumented migrants.

That's an understatement.  Here are some excerpts from the Amnesty report:

The Mexican authorities must act to halt the continuing abuse of migrants who are preyed on by criminal gangs while public officials turn a blind eye or even play an active part in kidnappings, rapes and murders

Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses


Kidnappings of migrants, mainly for ransom, reached new heights in 2009 ...  almost half of interviewed victims saying that public officials were involved in their kidnapping.

An estimated six out of 10 migrant women and girls experience sexual violence, allegedly prompting some people smugglers to demand that women receive contraceptive injections ahead of the journey, to avoid them falling pregnant as a result of rape.

I love it when reality pierces the screaming leftys' fantasy bubble.  Mexico is a horrible, dysfunctional failed state, and we are robbing their best and brightest--the ones who have the brains and the courage to leave it all behind for a better life in the US.

Lefties in the US:  STFU! You want to fight human rights abuses?  Go to Mexico, a 24/7 horror show of human rights abuses!

What does this say of Mexico?  Is it still racist if you're robbing, raping and killing your brown brothers and sisters?  Is it better that these victims suffer and die at the hands of their fellow Latinos?

What does this say of the goodness of the United States?

A little perspective is always a good thing.

Arizona Hysteria: "Reductio ad Hitlerum"

Cardinal Roger Mahony wrote in a blog post, "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques."

The president of the Hispanic Federation said the law "reminded me of Nazi Germany."

Cooler heads merely compared it to apartheid or 1960s-era civil-rights abuses. (Rich Lowry - RCP)

Well, Arizona passed a law that said its state agencies could not ignore federal immigration law, the way the federal government does.

Attack of the Demagogicrats

The screamers on the left are predicting a brown roundup at The OK Corral, and Al Sharpton is promising to bring his brand of bullhorn buffoonery to the southwest.  A hitler behind every tree!

I recommend people actually read the law and find some trusted commentary on it before shooting off their mouths.  Rich Lowry attempts to apply a cold compress of common sense to the inflamed area: 

The Arizona law makes it a state crime for aliens not to have immigration documents on their person. This sounds draconian, except it's been a federal crime for more than half a century - U.S.C. 1304(e). Has the open-borders crowd forgotten that it calls illegal aliens "undocumented" for a reason? (Rich Lowry - RCP)

 Here's one part I haven't heard the hysterical hyenas huff about: 

A law enforcement official or agency of this state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision of this state may not solely consider race, color or national origin in implementing the requirements of this subsection except to the extent permitted by the United States or Arizona Constitution.


A person is presumed to not be an alien who is unlawfully present in the United States if the person provides to the law enforcement officer or agency any of the following:

1. A valid Arizona driver license.
2. A valid Arizona nonoperating identification license.
3. A valid tribal enrollment card or other form of tribal identification.
4. If the entity requires proof of legal presence in the United States before issuance, any valid United States federal, state or local government issued identification. 

Solution:  Repeal the Federal Immigration Statutes 

There's an easy way out of this, and the solution is well within the grasp of President Obama and his Democratic dominated house and senate:

Repeal the federal immigration law the Arizona laws was written to enforce.  Repeal it. And the whole issue goes away. 

If America is so damned up in arms in righteous anger over this law, the Democrats will win in a landslide this November, so do it, Demagogicrats!  Repeal it!

That would also remove the absurd situation of a government making a mockery of itself by refusing to enforce its own laws, with millions of ignorant citizens and undocumented protesters egging on this lunacy.

"What is a father to do if, in 90 days, they can be stopped by any police officer and questioned ... when their family is at home and their kids in school?" said Elias Bermudez, the founder of Phoenix nonprofit Immigrants Without Borders.  (Reuters)

How about gather up your family and go home, where you don't have to look over your shoulder for those white, angry, rightwing racists?  While you're there, you can fill out a paper at the US Consulate like my grandparents did and come in the front door as a law abiding citizen.

Social Justice and Immigration - A Thought Experiment

Cardinal Roger Mahony wrote in a blog post, "I can't imagine Arizonans now reverting to German Nazi and Russian Communist techniques."

The president of the Hispanic Federation said the law "reminded me of Nazi Germany."

Cooler heads merely compared it to apartheid or 1960s-era civil-rights abuses. (Rich Lowry - RCP)

Imagine we were spilling over not with Christian Latinos who fill the Cardinal's pews (and coffers), but intolerant atheists who were breaking his church windows and noisily shouting down all religious expression.

Imagine, instead of benign, hard-working Mexicans, we had angry Muslims throwing battery acid in the faces of girls wearing skimpy clothes, attacking gay couples for holding hands in public, firebombing night clubs and liquor store and demanding special treatment... 

If our immigrants were just a big, intolerant pain in the ass, instead of doing our laundry and cleaning up after us, would liberals still be defending their rights?

There are thousands of poor African immigrants suffering in Italy.  Why does the Vatican bar their entry into its confines?  Better yet, why doesn't it sell everything it has and give it to the poor?

There are literally billions of poor, starving souls upon this earth, why not bring them all here to the US?  What makes Mexico and Guatamala's poor more important than those from the continent of Africa?

How many liberal advocates have opened up their homes to the poor and the homeless, or is their conscience sufficiently assuaged by picking fellow citizens' pockets to throw some meager, state-sponsored alms at them?  Why won't good Methodist Churches all over this country throw open their doors to the huddled masses?  They enjoy sanctuary, after all.

Could it be that liberals love the outrage, the poop-throwing agitprop, stirring up the base?  Could it be they talk a good, sanctimonious game, but when it comes down to brass tacks, Conservatives are more generous than these supposed good-hearted liberals.

Where is the social justice for the poor and the working class who were born here?  Where is the social justice for the construction workers and restaurant staff displaced illegal immigrants who underbid them?  Why are immoral, un-American business owners not rotting in jail for the human rights violation they are perpetrating?

Misplaced compassion kills...  people and societies...

Europe's Slow, Painful Suicide

Watching Europe's decline at the hands of modern-day Vandals and Visigoths is sickening.  The worst part is that Europeans have done it to themselves.  It's like watching a dear friend slowly kill himself with drugs...

MILAN (Reuters) - Dozens of immigrants from North Africa rioted during the night in a multi-ethnic district of Milan, smashing shop windows and overturning cars to protest at the knifing death of an Egyptian...

The rioting began on Saturday evening after a 19-year-old Egyptian man, identified by police as Hamed Mamoud El Fayed Adou, was killed, apparently by a group of immigrants from South America.

Diversity is Perversity...

... When guilty liberals use it to promote cultural dysfunction.  Is a culture that circumcises little girls and kills young women for looking at a boy really equivalent to Italy's rich cultural tradition?

Is allowing newcomers to form criminal gangs and snuff the natives' traditional way of life a form of cultural outreach?

Europe is Dying
This saddens me, because I love Europe.  I have lived there and traveled to many countries on the continent.  This is what happens when a morally flaccid people can't sustain themselves by having enough children.  They have to import troublemakers in the hopes that the noisome newcomers will sustain the social programs that the aging nation depends upon.

I hate to say it, but a country that becomes ashamed of its culture and unable to sustain itself has earned its decline...

Arrivederci, auf wiedersehen, cheerio...