We’ve documented extensively on this site the dysfunctional nature of our nation’s immigration courts. They face endemic problems that are made much worse by this administration’s willful disregard of the law and penchant to rule by executive edict, making any appointments to the immigration bureaucracy-however competent-all but irrelevant. The latest amnesty bill only exacerbates a problem that is already debilitating to our system of immigration enforcement by investing unlimited discretionary power in the hands of Janet Napolitano, who will have the ability to effectively nullify any application of this law that she feels to be too punitive.

The potential consequences of this bill are catastrophic, and we have a dwindling amount of time to prevent it from being enacted into law. We hate to sound like a broken record, but we feel compelled to remind you to call your senators! This is the decisive week before Congress adjourns for its summer break, and it is imperative that you make your voice heard among the elected officials who continue to obstinately ignore the will of their constituents.

This month’s Rattle brings us a host of stories that the mainstream media didn’t cover sufficiently-preferring instead to shower accolades upon the man responsible for abandoning immigration enforcement in the name of political opportunism. We’ll cover everything from the latest spate of violent crimes committed by illegal aliens to Barack Obama’s continued roll out of administrative amnesty, which now includes directives to ignore both interior enforcement and border security.

But first, we’ll examine this administration’s ongoing obstruction of Congress’s investigation into the ever-broadening gun-walking scandals. Courtesy of Sipsey Street Irregulars-whose coverage of Fast and Furious is non pareil-we learn that the White House is blocking testimony from Kevin O’Reilly, a former staff member of the National Security Council who wants to speak with the Senate Judiciary Committee and House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. This administration’s invocation of executive privilege is just the latest example of obstruction of justice  relating to Fast and Furious.

It should be recalled that last July the acting head of the ATF told Congress that his agency was paying FBI agents to ignore the law in pursuit of this administration’s bizarre and opaque political goals. Immigration control, not gun control, is a solution that Barack Obama’s Justice Department dismisses out of hand. We can only hope that, as Katie Pavlich reports in Town Hall, Chairman Darrell Issa pursues this investigation to its conclusion, which hopefully will result in a more than a few stiff prison sentences. Speaking of Katie Pavlich, she has a fantastic new book about Fast and Furious entitled-appropriately-Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal, which I urge you all to read.

Obfuscation and evasion are hallmarks of this administration, especially as it pertains to immigration and border security, as an insightful commentary from Michael Cutler published by Fox News Latino illustrates. The former INS agent and current immigration watchdog points out that Janet Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security is effectively “cooking the books” by relying solely upon  documented arrests-a misleading statistic-in order to pretend that this administration is cracking down upon illegal entry into the United States. FAIR’s Legislative Update further dissects this policy, which is drawing increasing scrutiny from Congress-particularly Chairman Darrell Issa and Rep. Jason Chaffetz- notwithstanding what Tom Tancredo accurately describes as a bipartisan conspiracy to hobble border security and immigration enforcement. By not logging and tracking the number of illegal border crossers who were not detained, Customs and Border Protection is painting a rosy picture of a much more dire situation.

The deceit of this administration extends beyond the CBP and encompasses virtually every aspect of immigration enforcement, both at the border and inside of the United States. Even though ICE is touting the Cross Check raids it initiated earlier this month-intended to apprehend ostensibly violent criminals, absconders and  fugitives from justice-this is merely a political expedient designed for election year consumption. The truth is that Barack Obama’s administrative amnesty proceeds apace, with four cities ordered to halt deportations, according to the Dan Stein Report. Remarkably, the Executive Office for Immigration Review has closed San Francisco’s immigration court and plans to completely halt its proceedings for the entire summer. Jim Kouri reports on yet another component of Barack Obama’s administrative amnesty, the decision to suspend deportations of illegal aliens with “families,” inside of the United States.

And while illegal aliens are not being deported, they will be able to enjoy state-of-the-art detention facilities, including some new amenities such as beach volleyball and cable TV. Lamar Smith excoriates this administration for its skewed priorities in a must-read op-ed published in The Hill. Although this new detention manual  might seem farcical, it’s far from a laughing matter. As Jim Kouri points out in his Examiner column, the Department of Homeland Security has taken virtually no action against foreigners who overstay their visas. This negligence persists over a decade after the September 11th massacres, which were committed by a cadre of jihadists whose visa applications are symptomatic of our country’s dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy. This is not merely an hypothetical problem, even after the destruction of the World Trade Center, as the case of illegal alien Amine El Khalifi demonstrates. The fact that this indifference to the lives of American citizens continues unabated, despite repeated pressure exerted by the GAO serves to illustrate this administration’s fundamental lack of accountability.

Even as it lags behind in locating and detaining criminal aliens, the administration of Barack Obama has deigned to grant Temporary Protected Status to thousands of Syrians living in the United States. As we’ve pointed out in the past, Temporary Protected Status is anything but temporary. In fact, it is merely another expedient used to grant de facto amnesty to a group of illegal aliens who can prove “hardship” circumstances, most of which persist indefinitely-making their stay in the United States permanent. This is even more disturbing when juxtaposed against the State Department’s recent decision to bar inspection of a visiting Egyptian delegation consisting of Muslim Brotherhood officials. Of course, Egypt isn’t the only country where the Ikwhan has a strong foothold.

The problem is that Barack Obama’s ostensible opposition, i.e. congressional Republicans, are doing virtually nothing to investigate the egregious overreach of his administration on immigration matters. Quite the contrary, some are hard at work developing proposals that would only worsen the situation, such as DREAM Lite, in hopes of  cultivating the ever-elusive Hispanic vote. Republican leaders in the states are not faring much better in this regard, as the difficult struggle in New Hampshire to prevent illegal aliens from capitalizing upon in-state tuition benefits demonstrates.

In an update to a story that we’ve covered recently, the North Carolina General Assembly held another hearing on illegal immigration and potential enforcement mechanisms. Unfortunately, according to NC Listen, it was dominated by illegal aliens and their supporters in the legislature, including some of the very people who had disrupted a previous hearing about these problems. Heading further south, we learn that the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act has been killed in the Mississippi State Senate. Apparently, Judiciary Chairman Hob Bryan has caved knuckled under to the Mississippi Poultry Association and its desire for cheap labor, notwithstanding the harm such a decision may inflict on innocent Mississippians. Its neighbor to the East, Alabama, has revisited HB 56, the landmark legislation that targeted illegal aliens living in that state. Rep. Micky Hammon has decided to alter some of the provisions that have been enjoined by a federal court, but maintains that he and his fellow Republicans will not repeal the law, which is welcome news.

In not so good news, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has decided to defy Immigration and Customs Enforcement and refuse detainer requests for criminal aliens housed in her county’s jails. Saul Chavez is one beneficiary of Preckwinkle’s benevolence, having fled the country upon being released from jail after killing William McCann. The carnage our government’s policies wreak is not limited to the odd vehicular manslaughter though, as the massacre at Oikos University in California makes clear to any impartial observer. Limits to Growth has an insightful story about mass-murderer One L. Goh which explains the circumstances surrounding his rampage which the main stream media willfully ignores. Oikos was apparently more concerned with harvesting tuition payments by foreign students-often with loans backed by American taxpayers-than ensuring the safety of its student body. It brings to mind  9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whose entrance to the United States was facilitated by a campus administration eager to recruit students from the Middle East, heedless of the potentially deadly repercussions.

The fact that there are visa mills exploiting the F-1 Visa program should come as no surprise to people who are aware of the extensive fraud and exploitation present in the legal immigration system. Just as in Canada-which recently charged attorney Sandra Zaher with inventing false refugee claims-the United States is plagued by immigration fraud so pervasive that the conviction of Earl Seth David, aka Rabbi Avraham David, head of a New York law firm, headlines an ICE press release. The irony of an agency headed by John Morton-who’s tasked with expediting illegal immigration-spotlighting the conviction of someone for immigration fraud is apparently lost on this administration.

In another prime example of abuse, a lawsuit by two former employees of Larsen & Toubro InfoTech Limited Inc alleges systemic fraud at the India-based IT firm for which they once worked. Joining an earlier class action filed against the firm, this suit asserts that the plaintiff was forced to not only forge documents related to H-1B visas-a program rampant with corruption and fraud-but told not to report the crime to outside authorities. Read the sickening story for yourself, if you feel you have the requisite stomach. The baffling purposes of the H1-B visa program weren’t illuminated by a recent decision by Judge Gregory Frost, who ordered suppressed almost all information related to the case of  Geza Rakoczi, who is described thusly,

…a young alien man with a mysterious legal status, probably an illegal alien, who has a bachelor’s degree from a marginal educational institution, a private one that accepts all applicants, and his employer, a mortgage finance company in trouble in two different states.

Putting the lie to the idea that these visas are reserved for “highly-skilled” immigrants. More often than not they are merely convenient bodies used to replace the more demanding, highly-compensated Americans who they’ve made redundant. If you don’t believe me, just ask the wife of unemployed semiconducter engineer Darin Wedel, who is still waiting to hear back from President Obama. But do not fear, the virtual border fence is back on track,which I suppose is small comfort to the thousands of hard-working Americans like Mr. Wedel.  However, India is not the only nation to take advantage of the nebulous, easily exploitable H1-B visa program. As Phyllis Schlafly  points out, the Islamist Gulen movement in Turkey has used these same visas in order to indoctrinate Muslim students in American charter schools. The dangers posed by the Gulen movement have been explored ad nauseam in other forums, but it should be noted that even if you ascribe the most benign of intentions to the Gullenists, the idea that fundamentalist Muslim teachers are somehow highly skilled workers is implausible on its face.  Focusing on yet another rising Asian power, the New American has an interesting story about the PRC’s use of the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program in the state of Idaho which is well worth reading.

Returning to more timely issues, we discovered this past week that it’s not all that difficult to register to vote using a fabricated identity, or even assuming the persona of the current Attorney General  of the United States. Thanks to James O’Keefe we’ve discovered how simple it is to game the system, although officials at the increasingly misnamed Justice Department don’t seem to agree. Of course, acknowledging that vote fraud exists would require the Obama administration to prosecute those responsible for it, which wouldn’t bode well for the electoral prospects of Barack Obama’s party. From New York to Florida, from Indiana to Arizona, stealing elections has become quite commonplace, even as the White House-and its complaisant cronies in the media-scoff at the notion. Some Democrats, though, readily admit that trying to manipulate the outcome of elections is a routine practice, and a few even have the integrity to support measures that would rectify this betrayal of democracy.

In an ironic twist, labor unions-which were some of the most vehement supporters of President Obama’s Stimulus plan-are now complaining about some of the jobs stemming from stimulus projects going to Korean workers. I suppose the lesson is to be careful what you wish for, especially if it is over 700 billion dollars worth of taxpayer-financed boondoggles.

In more border violence, two illegal immigrants were murdered just northwest of Tucson on Thursday by two camouflaged gunman, echoing an attack that occurred  near the same city in 2007. This sort of bloodshed is rare but not unheard of in Arizona, especially in the Tucson sector, where over forty percent of this nation’s  illegal aliens come through. It is yet another reason why the constitutionality of SB 1070 must be upheld by the Supreme Court, in spite of the hostility of open borders dogmatists such as the misleadingly named Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Our final story is related to our relationship to the state as individuals, and how that relationship is changing as a result of our government’s decades-long recalibration of this country’s demographics. Courtesy of the Pew Hispanic Center, we now know that over seventy percent of Latinos want the government to provide more services to Americans, not less. Limits to Growth has a fascinating summary of the survey’s other findings, which include a belief among Hispanics that they should learn English in order to succeed in the United States, but not in order to integrate into the broader society. The findings about faith in government are worth exploring though, because they reinforce something that our side has been saying for a very long time. Namely, that Hispanic voters’ support for Democrats and generally left wing political candidates has very little to do with the GOP’s position on immigration, but a lot to do with their endorsement of redistributive economic policies.

The findings of the Pew Hispanic Center demonstrate that the cause and effect most often cited in declining Republican Party affiliation among Hispanics-embodied by the specious narrative about Pete Wilson and the waning fortunes of the California GOP-is reversed. Hispanics do not support the Democratic Party because it advocates open borders, the Democratic Party supports open borders because it enhances its ability to win future elections. In effect, what is happening is that the political elite is electing a new people. This dynamic needs to be remembered whenever we hear mealy-mouthed Republicans exhorting us to abandon any attempt to impose reason upon an anachronistic immigration system that is designed to thwart the wishes of the vast majority of the American public.

It’s going to be a long, tumultuous election year.

-We begin the blotter with a bone-chilling story focusing upon a particularly senseless, brutal murder by a 27 year-old Mexican national in Stark County, Ohio. The heartless, illegal killer of 61 year-old taxi company owner and driver Jerry Laury-a man who, as his sister points out, had survived both a kidney transplant and open heart surgery-was given a 33 year sentence, after which he can be deported, although I’m sure that’s small solace to Mr. Laury’s surviving family members. The death of Jerry Laury at the hands of this piece of sub-human detritus concretizes the senselessness of our country’s open borders policies.

-Meanwhile, on the Left Coast, jury selection began in the trial of another 27 year-old illegal alien who gunned down 60 year-old Charles Ellsworth Richardson in front of his trailer repair shop in Riverside County, California. This charming fellow, in addition to being a cold-blooded killer, has already been convicted of the following crimes:

...possession of marijuana for sale, transportation of marijuana for sale, possession of an assault weapon and a misdemeanor count of carrying a loaded firearm in public.

Aren’t you glad this “undocumented American” is part of the wonderful new mosaic of California?

-Next, we move a bit north, to the Pacific Northwest, where another Mexican national who had been deported just three weeks prior murdered his 21 year-old former girlfriend, who was the mother of his five year-old son, Griselda Ocampo Meza. A statutory rapist with previous convictions for domestic violence? Good to know that in the future such pettifogging crimes won’t merit the attention of American immigration enforcement.

-Finally, we head south to the Sunshine State where, courtesy of the New American, comes word of the 13 year sentence handed down to a 26 year-old, illegal border jumper convicted of vehicular manslaughter in Sarasota, Florida. We wish we could say this was an isolated incident, but as the New American points out-and as has been reported on American Rattlesnake in the past-the link between drunk driving and illegal aliens is one that continually reappears, and one that will keep cropping up if our government persists in its lackadaisical policies, re: immigration enforcement.

Today is the National Day of Remembrance of Victims of Illegal Aliens which is an opportunity to spotlight the scores of lives that have been prematurely ended through the wanton disregard for this nation’s laws by our ostensible representatives. Sponsored by the FIRE Coalition, Victims of Illegal Alien Crime Memorial, as well as dedicated public servants like Representative Steve King, this day serves not only as a commemoration of the precious lives that we’ve lost to open borders dogmatism, but also a call to arms for those of us who want to see an America where our sovereignty and the lives of our citizens are placed above the narrow interests of the political elite. 

New Yorkers will mark this solemn occasion by holding an event in Manhattan in front of the New York ICE field office and immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza. I urge all of those who want to maintain the integrity of this nation’s laws to join NY ICE members in demonstrating solidarity with those Americans who have been victimized by the callous attitude of government officials who refuse to enforce the law. Here is a video demonstrating just what we have lost through lax enforcement of our immigration laws. 

This woman is smiling because she is a newly naturalized American citizen. I caught her exiting the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building, which houses an office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service, as seen below:

This was the site of the Jericho Walk,a sometimes amusing, often exasperating parade of horribles, from illegal alien advocacy groups, to members of the Service Employees International Union, to actual illegal aliens, demanding that we recognize their “right” to violate violate our laws, in sharp contradistinction to the process followed by the jubilant East Indian woman seen at the beginning of this photo-essay. The irony of choosing an Israeli biblical hero to represent a consortium of groups seen routinely at pro-Hamas, anti-Israeli rallies was apparently lost on the participants in this theater of the absurd, as you can see from these photographs:

I’m not sure if the palm fronds were a nod to Islam, or simply a continuation of the tortured analogy to the struggles of the enslaved Hebrews. Lord knows, there were plenty of those, the most offensive among them being a group of marchers tied together with fake chains. Get it? Bondage?

The man in the first photograph is blowing a shofar, apparently in the hope that the USCIS offices will come tumbling down. Fortunately, if that does happen, it will obviate the need for any more of these farcical protests.

The clergy was well-represented, as were numerous political apparatchiks. The woman standing beside the priest in the picture above is a staffer for Jose Serrano, a congressman who represents a congressional district with one of the highest poverty rates in the nation. Apparently, that is not a persuasive enough argument to dissuade him from open borders advocacy.

The man holding the microphone is Ydanis Rodriguez, who represents District 10 in the New York City Council. A native of the Dominican Republic, he holds a master’s degree Bilingual Education, which is such an effective means of imparting the English language to non-English speakers that it’s been banned in the state of California for over a decade.

This woman was part of a rather unfriendly contingent from the Minkwon Center for Community Action, a Korean lobby group that seems to focus exclusively on loosening American immigration controls and border enforcement. She was visibly upset when I took her photograph, asking me, “did you ask me if you could take my picture?” To which I replied, “no, but then again, you didn’t ask me if you could break my country’s laws.” So I suppose we’re even.

The males of the group seemed to be even more aggressive, and less inclined to be picture hounds. This particular character found my innocuous photography so infuriating that he gave me the one-fingered salute, which I unfortunately did not record for posterity.

His friend with the buzz cut graced me with a few choice expletives before stalking off. Say “hello” to the readers of American Rattlesnake, gentlemen!

Not everything was so serious, of course. There were some elegant hats on display:

And even a youth observer from the Marxist National Lawyer’s Guild seemed to be pleased with my presence:

Although it was by no means a universal sentiment:

Tomorrow: More disgruntled leftists, open borders dogmatists, and assorted riff raff. Plus, the cavalry arrives!

A story so familiar to us that I almost hesitate to post it. Yes, yet another community-not a community of Americans, mind you-is outraged that the federal government is enforcing laws that criminalize being a criminal.

Here’s the full, disgusting story.

Essentially, the Department of Homeland Security arrested or detained several dozen illegal aliens who had been engaging in document fraud, identity theft and unspecified other crimes within Ellensburg, Washington. Of course, this has prompted howls of anguish and fury from the community of illegal aliens that DHS has targeted.

As we’ve seen in the past, this hysterical reaction is nothing new, unfortunately. The heretofore lax, tacitly pro-amnesty leaders of federal agencies charged with ensuring our nation’s homeland security and the integrity of its borders decide to finally crack the whip and stage an immigration raid. The “community,” filled with people who were never granted permission to remain in this country and led by opportunistic politicians, then proceeds to bemoan the harsh tactics of federal law enforcement agencies.

This is something that we’ve become accustomed to, but something else that we seem to have become inured to is the continued indifference of these same agencies to the threats posed by illegal aliens. You need go no further than the bottom of the article I’ve linked to in order to discover how little the federal government’s attitudes towards IAs has changed, despite the new administration.

DHS said the 16 others were taken into custody on administrative immigration violations. Three of them were released “for humanitarian reasons” while they await a hearing before an immigration judge, and the rest are in the custody, according to DHS.

In other words, Catch and Release. The fact that this practice continues despite its lethal consequences illustrates the fundamental lack of seriousness of our government in addressing this issue. The fact that this raid occurred is good news, but it doesn’t mitigate the harm inflicted by the government’s haphazard enforcement of our laws. It certainly doesn’t do anything to address the fact that there are large swathes of this country filled with people who view those laws with as much indifference-if not antipathy-as the chief executives of our nation’s top immigration enforcement agencies.

Something in this equation has to change if we are to ever hope of making progress in reasserting our national sovereignty.

We have some new ones, courtesy of some recent appointments by President Obama. The Executive Office of Immigration Review-and for those of you who aren’t aware of just what this agency does, you can peruse a brief description on the Department of Justice’s website which explains its functions-now has an acting director named Juan P. Osuna.

There’s a short analysis of the implications of this appointment, and the one to the office vacated by Mr. Osuna, by David North of the Center for Immigration Studies. Well worth checking out, in my estimation.

In yet another move that brings discredit to what should be a creditable organization, the Diversity Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists has decided that the technically accurate, descriptive term for people who are not legally permitted to remain in this country should be verboten.

The most laughable aspect of this edict is the assertion that by labeling someone an “illegal alien” a journalist or editor is assuming the role of a jurist. Merely reporting the facts turns you into an EOIR judge, evidently. Curiously, we haven’t yet seen a ruling advising reporters on the real estate beat to stop using the phrase “foreclosed homes,” or those on the crime beat to cease referring to indicted criminals as “indicted.” Perhaps that’s in the offing, although I doubt a decision that ridiculous would be made with regard to a subject that doesn’t bite into the fourth estate’s pocketbook. 

It looks like selective political correctness to me, but you can judge for yourselves.

It turns out that the furor surrounding the Obama administration’s plan to enact amnesty through executive fiat is not simply an exercise in political hysteria by the the President’s opponents, but an understandable reaction by people who’ve witnessed his administration’s unwillingness to enforce immigration laws throughout his first term.  Now we have concrete evidence that this backdoor amnesty-and that’s what this plan is, Mr. Morton-is proceeding apace. Courtesy of the Houston Chronicle, we learn that the federal immigration bureaucracy has decided to address a backlog in cases by not enforcing the law.

While we were earnestly told that these alleged non-criminal illegal aliens were being downgraded on the BICE’s list of priorities, in actuality they were being given a green light to apply for asylum and legal residency, as the Chronicle report illustrates. I can’t say that I’m surprised by these developments.