Update: CIS has published a backgrounder on this agreement. 

Whatever adjectives can be used to describe our new President, ‘diplomatic’ is not one which springs readily to mind. His phone conversation with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull merely serves to reinforce a reputation for bluntness that was already solidified within the public imagination. In this case, however, I think his impolitic speech is actually beneficial for American citizens. For the refugee resettlement swap cooked up by his predecessor, which involves the exchange of non-Muslim Central American refugees for Muslim boat people currently being detained at the behest of the Australian government, is another disastrous scheme to further erase our borders.

The ordinary refugee resettlement process is almost completely insulated from the democratic process. Seemingly benefiting everyone from United Nations functionaries, to bureaucrats in the federal government, but especially VOLAGs whose survival depends upon a constant stream of clients, refugee resettlement takes no account of the feelings of ordinary American citizens. The people whose lives could be ruined by the decisions made hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away by unelected officials.

The last-minute decision of President Obama to craft a backroom deal with his Australian counterpart, in large part as a means of papering over his own catastrophic failure to enforce this nation’s immigration laws, merely highlights the lack of accountability and fundamentally anti-democratic nature of this entire process. Naturally, open borders fanatics are using this incident to parade their virtue before the benighted American public, condemning the philistinism of the Australian and American governments, as well as the people who insist that their representatives protect the internal security of their nations.

Nevertheless, this is a reminder that who lives in our country is not a matter for international plebiscites or social justice campaigns. Thousands of Muslim foreigners being transferred to the heart of this country as part of a sleazy quid pro quo is not what what Americans voted for in November, and simply because it has the stamp of approval from our outgoing President and Australia’s current Prime Minister-the sixth in less than a decade-doesn’t mean the American public should sit back and accept it. It is the current year, and the powers that be should get used to it.

One of the prerequisites for any immigration debate taking place in North America or Europe is that no advocate for reasonable immigration policies be given an equal opportunity to voice his or her views on the subject. The very notion that someone opposing unfettered third world immigration might be given the chance to articulate the views of most American citizens is anathema to our media gatekeepers. Thus, we have the spectacle of Mark Krikorian sharing a platform with two open borders dogmatists from ostensibly different parts of the ideological spectrum, despite there being very persuasive progressive and libertarian arguments against mass immigration to the West from the developing world.

Even so, this discussion of the 2016 presidential race-as well as the relative merits of the various candidates-is worth watching. There may come a time very soon when patriotic immigration voices are silenced altogether. Just ask our German friends about that.

The chaotic, lawless status quo maintained on our southern border is one of our least-reported domestic catastrophes. This isn’t surprising when you consider the fact that our news media view themselves primarily as a platform for immigrants, illegal aliens and their benefactors more than objective outlets designed to convey pertinent information to the broader American public. Even when the invasion of American territory is grudgingly acknowledged by the press, it is framed in such a way as to make those trying to protect the integrity of our borders seem like mendacious, reactionary charlatans. The fact that human smugglers and brutal narco cartels are exploiting our government’s beneficence in order to ply their trade is not nearly as compelling to news anchors as the plight of doe-eyed DREAMers.

Thankfully, there are American citizens who are unwilling to put up with the wanton destruction of their property, subversion of their rights, and defamation of their character. One of these intrepid individuals is our friend Cindy Kolb, who has been reporting from the front lines of this undeclared war for many years. The latest incursion being Dicks Peak Fire, whose cause is still unknown but which would not be out of character for illegal aliens trespassing onto American territory. Whatever the cause of this particular forest fire, the danger posed to our national treasures and beautiful natural wilderness remains great as long as our public officials refuse to take their oaths of office seriously.

Thanks, Cindy, for alerting us to the public hazards created by our public officials!

Many of you are probably wondering how the untimely passing of Justice Scalia will impact Texas vs. United States, the landmark case which will determine whether or not President Obama has the authority to unilaterally modify federal immigration law. Thankfully, Jon Feere  has a written a fantastic blog entry which explains all of the possible permutations that could go into a Supreme Court decision with 8 justices, presuming-of course-that Antonin Scalia’s seat is not filled by the time this case is decided.

You can read it for yourself on the Center for Immigration Studies website. To get an idea of why Scalia was so respected by conservative intellectuals, we recommend reading his caustic dissent in Arizona v. United States, which exposed some of the flaws in logic of open borders advocates. This is essential reading as we head into what should be one of the most consequential sessions in recent memory.

All too often the choices offered to the American public come down to differences of packaging. Would you rather vote for the interventionist, open borders, chubby white guy, or the interventionist, open borders, svelte Hispanic male? The media’s relentless denial of the facts and refusal to acknowledge alternative points of view only entrenches the failed policies that millions of Americans live with on a daily basis.

That’s why the question posed above-by one of the many victims of illegal alien crime-needs to be heard. You can listen to some of the other questions-none of which were broached during last night’s Republican presidential debate, it should be noted-by going to the website of the Center for Immigration Studies. It will give you a taste of what a debate might look like if we had media willing to be honest interrogators, instead of megaphones for their own preferred policy choices.

One of the most useful methods for understanding our current immigration crisis is looking at the cumulative effect of our government’s endorsement, both tacit and explicit, of illegal immigration. The Center for Immigration Studies has developed a handy tool that helps individual citizens do this. Namely, their sanctuary cities map. It is a sobering portrayal of the lengths to which this country’s elected officials-particularly those in states like California and New York-have gone in order to placate a what is essentially a large cohort of criminals who are in this country without legal permission.

I urge you to check it out for yourselves, and to see where your locality fits into this problem. Hopefully, we’ll see significantly fewer in the years ahead.

Today marks the half-century mark of what is one of the most important-and arguably, the most disastrous-pieces of domestic legislation enacted by the United States Congress. Manipulating the national sense of shame over what were genuine grievances felt by black Americans whose fundamental civil rights had been denied, Lyndon Johnson and his former legislative allies abolished the national origins quota system, and in so doing, irreversibly altered the demographic composition of the United States. 

Grafting the desire of those in the developing world to immigrate to what was then-and still is-the richest democratic republic on the planet, onto an overwhelmingly popular crusade for civil rights-belonging to men and women who were born American citizens-proved to be a winning formula for those seeking to elect a new America. However, the results for the country as a whole have been mixed, to say the least. 

Jerry Kammer has a comprehensive historical analysis of this monumental law-as well as an examination of its sponsors and their motivations-at the Center for Immigration studies. It is well worth reading on the day when open borders dogmatists celebrate, but the rest of the nation weeps. 

One of the preferred tactics of open borders enthusiasts, when confronted with reality, is to throw out seemingly enticing facts that they believe might sway less informed observers to their historically unpopular stance. An illuminating example of this scenario occurred recently on the eponymous Stossel, a libertarian-minded talk show broadcast by the Fox Business Network. Promoting her latest book, Adios America: The Left’s Plan To Turn American Into A Third World Hellhole, Ann Coulter was flogged with an archetypal pro-immigration tidbit intended to rebut the central thesis of her book. But as the Center for Immigration Studies illustrates, the factoid wielded by John Stossel is not nearly as impressive once exposed to rigorous analysis. 

Like most facts that cheap labor demagogues love to trot out in their unrelenting campaign for the dissolution of immigration controls, this one has more truthiness than truth. Sorry John, as much as I admire your work-generally speaking-you’ve got this one wrong.

Congressman Barletta, the architect of the Hazleton ordinance targeting illegal aliens, explains how sanctuary cities are endangering American lives. Another timely symposium from the Center for Immigration Studies.

On Tuesday, we posted a link to a CIS backgrounder by Dan Cadman which demonstrated the necessity of detention to any system of workable immigration enforcement. The brutal murder of Kathryn Steinle proves that our government’s embrace of illegal aliens-and stubborn refusal to pursue their deportation-has tragic consequences for innocent citizens living throughout this country. Today, Mr. Cadman unravels the veil of lies open borders fetishists have tried to erect in order to exculpate themselves from blame for Steinle’s preventable death. In order to understand what’s wrong with the current open door policy towards criminal aliens, you need to go beyond the myths created by individuals who work for the city of San Francisco, state of California, and this administration, which is habitually incapable of telling the truth to the American public about this subject.

These opportunistic cretins have blood on their hands, regardless of what pathetic excuses they now use to shield themselves from responsibility for the needless murder of an American citizen.