Posted by
C-Hayes on Thursday, June 14, 2007 4:38:50 PM
Thankfully, the immigration bill didn't pass. But the Immigration War continues...and it doesn't look good for President Bush.
Lou Dobbs seems to be leading the charge:
"In what other country would citizens be treated to the spectacle of the president and the Senate focusing on the desires of 12 million to 20 million people who had crossed the nation's borders illegally, committed document fraud, and in many cases identity theft, overstayed their visas and demanded, not asked, full forgiveness for their trespasses?
"Illegal aliens and their advocates, both liberal and conservative, possess such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that they demand not only legal status, but also that the government leave the borders wide open so that other illegals could follow as well, while offering not so much as an 'I'm sorry' or a 'Thank you.'"
The obvious answer is that no other country would let this happen. France won't let it happen. And South Africa is also doing its best to curb the massive influx of refugees from Zimbabwe:
"The [South African] government is responding [to the influx] by quietly ramping up deportations. Buses, police vans and dusty trains ease through Musina, disgorging thousands of bedraggled Zimbabweans at the border bridges.
"The number of Zimbabweans expelled from South Africa has rocketed tenfold since 1994, to more than 127,000 last year. South Africa is also sending its law-enforcement agents to the U.S. for border security training. Others are getting U.S. Border Patrol training at an American-run law-enforcement academy in neighboring Botswana, officials said.
"For some South Africans, though, that still isn't enough."
Should it be enough for us, then? South Africa's democracy is a mere 13 years old, and the United States is the most successful country in the history of the world - and they can do a better job at curbing immigration than we can?
Back to Dobbs' excerpt - quite honestly, I'm not sure he goes far enough in describing the crimes of some illegal aliens here in this country. "Document fraud" and "identity theft" lead to much more serious crimes, which Michelle Malkin details in her latest syndicated column, using the example of recently "amnestied" illegal alien Leroy Blake:
"The lead winning plaintiff, Leroy Blake, is a Jamaican national convicted of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor in 1992. The feds began deportation proceedings in 1999. An immigration judge ruled Blake deportable in 2000. Blake took his case to the federal Board of Immigration Appeals, which remanded the case back to the immigration judge, who granted him relief from deportation. The then-INS appealed the judge's ruling. In 2005, the Board of Immigration Appeals sided with the INS and ordered Blake removed from the U.S. Blake filed a motion to reconsider, then took his case to the Second Circuit."
More appeals than the average citizen, it looks like. The clear point here is that illegal aliens aren't just "people from Mexico." Blake was a Jamaican national, and the Fort Dix terror plot proves that not all illegal immigrants in the U.S. are from Mexico (though they may use Mexico as an avenue to get here.) Malkin has many more examples of non-Mexican illegal immigrants committing horrendous atrocities against U.S. citizens in her copiously researched book, Invasion.
Despite this wealth of evidence, the predictable provocations of the Left (and, some on the Right) after the bill's rejection start with the globalist LA Times, which shows concern over "international ramifications":
"One of these [international ramifications] is that it can change the way Latin America views Washington, and as a result, it can help Washington counter the offensive of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in the region. Very few things could make as much of a difference in Mexico, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia and the Caribbean as a generous, broad-minded and workable reform of immigration. It would show that the United States really wants to mend fences (rather than simply erect them).
"For many senators, this is an irrelevant factor; they believe that immigration is a domestic matter and that the needs and desires of other countries should not be taken into account. But this is shortsighted. These are not the best of times for the United States in Latin America; allowing relations to deteriorate still further means playing directly into the Venezuelan president's hands. That, perhaps, is something worth pondering."
So, if we let in at least 12 million illegals, the governments of Mexico, countries of the Caribbean, and the rest of Latin America will unify and convince Hugo Chavez to like America? Chavez has called President Bush "genocidal" and the "devil." Newsflash: he won't be liking us anytime soon - legalizing Venezuelans and their anchor babies will not suddenly turn the tide.
Mark Steyn speaks for many Americans (emphasis mine):
"The people who are truly 'anti-immigrant' are the folks who want to send that immigrant from Slovenia or Fiji who applied in May 2005 back to the end of the line. But then 'comprehensive immigration reform' is about everything but immigration, including subverting sovereignty and national security. Remember the 1986 amnesty? Mahmoud abu Halima applied for it and went on to bomb the World Trade Center seven years later. His colleague, the aforementioned Mohammad Salameh, was rejected but carried on living here anyway. John Lee Malvo was detained and released by US immigration in breach of its own procedures and reemerged as the Washington sniper. The young Muslim men who availed themselves of the US government's 'visa express' system for Saudi Arabia filled in joke applications – 'Address in the United States: HOTEL, AMERICA' – that octogenarian snowbirds from Toronto who've been wintering at their Florida condos since 1953 wouldn't try to get away with. The late Mohammed Atta received his flight-school student visa on March 11th 2002, six months to the day after famously flying his first and last commercial airliner.
"All the above passed through the US legal immigration system. And, whether they were detained, rejected, approved or posthumously approved, in the end it made no difference. Because US immigration had no real idea who these men were.
"But, don't worry, they'll be able to handle another '12 million undocumented Americans' tossed in for express processing."
Linda Chavez, please take note. We're not racists.
Laura Ingraham remains as vigilant as anyone in informing the public of the "amnesty in disguise" bill, as she leaves contact information for both the Senate and Congress on her website. She also lists those Republicans vulnerable to voting for an amnesty bill in the future - those are the ones we need to pay attention to.
Finally, Ann Coulter contrasts the Mexicans George Bush likes to those he doesn't like (border patrol agents Ramos and Compean versus the illegal aliens they were pursuing):
"Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean are normally the sort of Mexican-Americans Bush would tear up at while promoting amnesty for illegal aliens. Both served in the military and are taxpaying, law-abiding citizens. They've been risking their lives as Border Patrol agents for years.
"Ramos was nominated for Border Patrol Agent of the Year in 2005. His nomination received a major setback when the Bush administration decided to put him in prison instead. Ramos and Compean are now serving more than 10 years apiece in solitary confinement for chasing a drug-running illegal alien back to Mexico....
"...As I understand it, you're also supposed to not cross the border illegally from Mexico with a van full of drugs. But the Bush administration has no interest in enforcing those laws. Ninety-eight percent of illegal aliens captured crossing the border illegally are not prosecuted. Those drugs are doing the job American drugs just won't do!"
President Bush, PLEASE take note. Our country depends on it.