One of the most persistent divides between traditional conservatives and their libertarian/anarcho-capitalist counterparts involves a fundamental philosophical disagreement about immigration. While most conservatives view immigration primarily through the lens of preserving American culture by only accepting those immigrants who are assimilable and will tangibly benefit our society in the future, a view expressed repeatedly during debates over illegal immigration in this country, many libertarians view the subject in an altogether different light. For them, the question is not so much whether a particular cohort of immigrants will be an asset to the United States but whether we have any right to prevent them from settling in this country in the first place, which many answer in the negative.

Libertarians extol the primacy of individual rights, which in this case entails the right to emigrate from your country of birth whenever you so desire-something that I don’t think any conservative would take issue with-and to immigrate to whatever country you want to live and/or work in for an extended period of time, which is where the divide between the two camps emerges. Libertarians view the issue as one of freedom of association-and by extension, contract-wherein willing employers, such as large agribusinesses and meatpacking plants, seek out willing employees coming from nations with under-performing economies that can’t meet the personal and financial needs of their citizens. They believe that the nexus between trade and unfettered migration is inextricable, if not completely self-evident, and that the two can not be severed if a nation hopes to grow its economy. While this may well be true as a matter of law, there are numerous holes in this thesis intellectually, which opponents of open borders-even anarcho-capitalists such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe-have exposed through well-researched arguments of their own.

However, underlying the debate over whether immigration and settlement is a natural right is the assumption that all libertarians/anarcho-capitalists agree on the immigration issue, which is not as much of  a given as it would seem on the surface of things. One of the things that I’ve attempted to do with American Rattlesnake is debunk commonly held assumptions about immigration issues, and the assumption that libertarians all subscribe to Gary Johnson’s point of view is one that needs to be reexamined. There are many libertarians and  anarcho-capitalists who recognize both the practical difficulties and existential problems inherent in society based upon unfettered immigration, especially one with the vast social welfare apparatus of the United States. One of the chief exponents of the view that welfare programs need to be curtailed in order to solve the immigration problem is Gary Johnson’s opponent in the Republican presidential race, Congressman Ron Paul. Paul has repeatedly emphasized the need to do away with the generous, taxpayer subsidized social welfare programs that-while not serving as the initial magnet-provide incentives for illegal aliens to extend their stay in this country indefinitely. The population density of legal immigrants is also heavily correlated with the availability of welfare benefits. Even acclaimed economist Milton Friedman, who held a rather benign view of immigration in general, emphasized the incompatibility of a welfare state with unfettered immigration.

The same opinion is held by many libertarians today, including self-professed constitutionalist Andrew Napolitano, who views Arizona’s landmark immigration law primarily through the prism of the Constitution’s supremacy clause and potential violations of the 4th Amendment via racial or ethnic profiling by law enforcement officers. I’m not sure that the Constitutional objection to statewide laws is dispositive, because-as Andrew McCarthy has pointed out repeatedly in National Review-there is no precedent for prohibiting states from enforcing laws that are consistent with federal statutes. Furthermore, if we look to the broader issue of legal immigration, there’s nothing to suggest that the men who drafted the United States Constitution supported the sort of unfettered immigration we have endured since passage of the Hart-Celler Act fundamentally altered this nation’s demographic destiny. This is a concept that is seldom grasped by arm-chair commentators on immigration these days, whose default option is to repeat the platitudinous-not to mention, factually incorrect-bromide that we are a “nation of immigrants.” What they neglect to mention is that most this nation’s founding fathers would have been implacably opposed to the present lassez-faire system of immigration, a fact that Thomas Woods-as anti-statist an individual as you’ll find among academics-expertly limns in this Human Events column published during the height of the amnesty debate in Washington D.C.

Yet, even if we were to concede that there’s no firm historical or Constitutional foundation for this nation’s current open borders policies, can it not be argued that there is a compelling moral case for the views espoused by those at the Wall Street Journal editorial board, Cato Institute, Reasonoids, and other trendy, beltway cosmotarians? You would definitely think so if you took their arguments at face value. The notion that we have no moral basis for barring certain immigrants from entry into the United States is certainly widespread in certain libertarian circles, but I don’t believe that makes the idea, ipso facto, libertarian. Julian Simon, in a 1998 essay published in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, articulated the perspective felt by many that individual autonomy takes precedence over other “public” goods, including our national borders. In an anarcho-capitalist reality, nation-states would not exist, therefore deciding who should or should not be admitted to your nation would be a moot point.

But while it might seem logical that freedom of movement, freedom of association, and freedom of contract-and at its most essential level, the individual him or herself-are all prioritized over the wishes and feelings of citizens who have a vested interested in preserving the character of their nation, there are those that don’t think these competing values are necessarily mutually exclusive. In a persuasive essay written for Lew Rockwell several years ago, N. Stephan Kinsella made a very compelling argument that while the disposition of property in our society is unjust-insofar as the state has no right to expropriate land that rightfully belongs to individuals-so long as that property is entrusted to the state it has a responsibility to act as caretaker for the rightful owners. In this case, it has the responsibility to prevent the ingress of people that citizens do not want to welcome into their country. While those who are opposed to communitarianism in even its most minimal form might reject Kinsella’s public pool analogy, I think he makes a convincing case that some prophylactic measures need to be enforced to prevent the exploitation of your property-even if it’s already been subjected to theft by the state.

There are many cogent arguments against the current trendy libertarian support for open borders, several of them outlined by the first presidential nominee of the Libertarian Party, John Hospers, in paper published by the Journal of Libertarian Studies over a decade ago entitled A Libertarian Argument Against Open Borders. The concluding paragraph of the essay is especially perceptive in its analysis of the problem:

Occasionally, we hear the phrase “limousine liberals” used to describe the members of the liberal establishment who send their children to expensive private schools while consigning all the others to the public school system, which educates these children so little that by the time they finish the eighth grade they can barely read and write or do simple arithmetic, or make correct change in a drug store. It would be equally appropriate, however, to describe some other people as ”limousine libertarians” —those who pontificate about open borders while remaining detached from the scenes that their “idealism” generates. They would do well to reflect, in their ivory towers, on whether the freedom they profess for those who are immigrants, if it occurs at all, is to be brought about at the expense of the freedom of those who are not.

This passage describes, in a nut shell, the quintessence of cosmotarianism, and why most Americans-and even some in the libertarian movement-continue to reject it. I could post the most meticulously researched George Borjas journal article, the most statistically devastating backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, or the most irrefutable essay by Mahattan Institute scholar Heather Mac Donald. And although all of these sources are invaluable in the fight to define the terms of this debate, they wouldn’t hold a candle to the self-evident fact that none of the greatest exponents and defenders of open borders, be it Tamar Jacoby, or Jason Riley, or Nick Gillespie, abide by their own exhortations. None of these individuals partake of the glorious mosaic which their unyielding ideology has done so much to create.

You won’t find many Reason Magazine editors or Cato Institute scholars living in Bergenfield, New Jersey, Maywood, California, or Eagle Pass, Texas. Why, you might ask? Because they would rather pass off the tremendous costs of their bankrupt philosophy onto ordinary Americans than to admit that they might just be wrong. These people are insulated from unfettered immigration’s worst effects, including chronic unemployment, violent crime, and environmentally devasting pollution from Arizona to California and throughout the country. They have the luxury of ignoring the impact of this country’s changing demographic profile while promoting the patently absurd notion that our open borders are a boon to all but the small percentage of high school dropouts.

What’s more, they make the equally ludicrous assertion-outlined in the Caplan speech above-that importing millions of unskilled, uneducated immigrants, who will be dependent upon costly government services, from quasi-socialist nations will expand this nation’s economic liberty. Forget the fact that we now enjoy less economic freedom than our northern neighbors, a development concurrent with the greatest expansion of immigration in this country’s history, the entire premise underlying this concept is flawed. You do not build a prosperous, 21st century, post-industrial society around foreigners from countries with low human capital. And the amount of time, energy and economic resources that need to be shifted in order to improve the educational prospects and earning potential of these immigrants, e.g. the billions funneled into ESL programs each year, is so cost prohibitive that it outweighs whatever benefits can be gleaned from such an arrangement.

Another seeming inconsistency in the archetypal libertarian solution to our immigration problem is the reluctance of most libertarians to support any sort of relief for American taxpayers who are tasked with paying for millions of illegal aliens and immigrants who are dependent upon costly social services. Particularly, public schooling and emergency health care. Invoking Friedman’s argument once again, we find that while many libertarians will concede that dependency upon welfare programs is a bad thing they will do nothing to limit access to these programs by illegal aliens or permanent residents. To the contrary, if any such bill-which is immigration neutral-is proffered, they will stalwartly oppose it. Just ask new Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who supports the DREAM Act, despite the fact that taxpayers would be subsidizing the in-state tuition discounts of its recipients. Paleolibertarian writer Ilana Mercer deftly skewers  purported libertarians who routinely call for the abolition of the welfare state while adding a proviso that excludes immigrants and illegal aliens from the fiscal demands of their libertopia.

True believers in liberty, like Mercer and the late Murray N. Rothbard, recognize the inherent contradiction in persuading your fellow Americans to reject the embrace of the state while simultaneously welcoming millions of non-Americans into the country who prefer a larger and more intrusive government in almost every respect into our society. They realize that the banal platitudes used to support unfettered immigration are grossly inaccurate, if not transparent lies. They also realize that the interests of the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau, and the hospitality industry do not necessarily coincide with the interests of the free market, and that to a large extent our current immigration policy is another form of corporate welfare, which putative libertarians would be quick to denounce in any other context. The time-saving, productivity-increasing technological innovations that would normally be welcomed by these same individuals are rejected by those who apparently think pre-industrial stoop labor is the best method of improving  our agricultural production. Finally, they recognize that the  utopian, globalist conception of freedom-where people living in Gabon or the Hadhramaut have just as much say in how we are governed as American citizens living in New York-contravenes the distinctively American, Constitutional, federalist, representative republic designed by this nation’s founding fathers.

In short, the issue before the house is not whether it is an abandonment of principle for libertarians to embrace sensible immigration restrictions, it’s why institutional libertarians representing organizations like the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation have stifled an honest, open intellectual debate about this subject. Even as the negative repercussions of our government’s devotion to open borders become harder to ignore for all but the most oblivious, the gatekeepers of respectable opinion on this subject continue to narrow the parameters of discussion to their own narrow, ahistorical perspective. I don’t expect that to change any time in the near future, but those of us who want an intellectually honest debate about the most important issue of our time can at least begin to clarify its terms, if for no other reason than to educate those novices interested in how mass immigration has impacted our society who are asking themselves how they should view these changes from a liberty-oriented perspective.

John, a member of both NY ICE and the Republican Governors Association, went to the RGA’s annual meeting held in Orlando, Florida earlier this month. In addition to the recreational activities-which looked like a blast-he also had the chance to meet some of the nation’s governors, including two who are on the front lines of the battle to enforce the immigration laws our current administration has so woefully neglected.

Here he is with Governor Bob McDonnell, who has had a spotty record on immigration issues in the past.

Governor Martinez, who’s fought valiantly to reverse New Mexico’s reputation as a document mill for illegal aliens, was also in attendance.

As was Ohio governor John Kasich, who up to this point has been reluctant to embrace the cause of immigration enforcement.

Finally, one of the most exemplary state executives when it comes to these issues, Governor Mary Fallin. Not only has she wholeheartedly supported Jan Brewer and the people in Arizona in their fight against the Obama Justice Department, Mexico, and scads of well-paid lawyers, but she made immigration enforcement a central plank in her election platform.

Let’s hope that 2012 sees the election of many more politicians in the mold of Governor Fallin, and that their job will be made easier by a less obstructive White House which only seems interested in rewarding people who’ve broken the law.

Update: Welcome to readers from Creeping Sharia. Thanks, once again, to Pamela for the link! We always love getting readers from Atlas Shrugs.

Earlier today I took it upon myself to journey to Foley Square in Manhattan, where an anti-NYPD, anti-intelligence agency gathering sponsored by CAIR, Al-Awda, and Desis Rising Up & Moving, among other Islamic activist organizations, was taking place. For a full recap of what occurred I suggest you check out my Twitter account, which I used to live-tweet the event as it was occurring. However, for now I’ll just lay out my impression of the gathering and thoughts about its message, then let the photographs speak for themselves. The question of whether American citizens should be surveilled, watched, and interrogated for potential terrorist conspiracies is always a touchy one. As Americans we have problems with the notion that domestic investigative and law enforcement agencies are monitoring our activities, regardless of the merits of the case they may be able to mount, and react viscerally to any perceived encroachment upon our privacy.

However, when you have organizations such as CAIR-which was an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism financing case in this nation’s history and whose antecedent organization, the Islamic Association of Palestine, was an offshoot of Hamas-operating inside of your country, to ask agencies charged with protecting us-such as the FBI-to lay off is a bit much. When a group such as the Muslim American Society-another co-sponsor of this rally-which all but admits that it’s a branch of the same tree as the Muslim Brotherhood, is allowed to operate on American soil the notion that Americans would not be interested in their activities is a bit preposterous.

That’s why I think the best solution to this unique dilemma of retaining our open society, yet preventing both terrorism and the loss of our freedoms, is to eliminate the chances of a fifth column developing on American soil. There’s no reason we should allow the mass migration of people who can or will not adapt to American cultural norms to our shores. However, that’s the solution today’s demonstrators rejected wholeheartedly. Now on to the photos.

There was a sparse crowd at the beginning of the rally:

But it began to fill up as the day progressed. I’d estimate that there were somewhere between 70 and 85 people at the height of the rally, including the ubiquitous, green-hatted members of the Marxist National Lawyers Guild.

As well as the self-consciously imposing Muslim “toughs” acting as security for the day’s speakers.

This is a banner from the Muslim Solidarity Committee, an organization founded in order to raise funds for the family members of Yassin Aref and others convicted of rendering support to the Pakistani terror organization Jaish-e-Mohammed.

There were scads of lawyers and law students present, including those from the City University of New York:

And lots of praying, including the adhan, which is not nearly as mellifluous as some people would have us believe.

I wasn’t keeping track, but I did count at least three separate prayers during the time I was there.

And where there’s Islam, there’s proselytization:

There was no love lost between those in attendance and the New York Police Department.

Not that the Central Intelligence Agency was a fan favorite either.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly was a frequent target of enmity, with calls for his dismissal echoing from the speaker’s podium and the crowd.

There were a large number of East Indians in attendance:

Most speakers tried to draw a parallel between the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations that had taken place only a few blocks away, at Zuccotti Park, and today’s festivities. To be fair to the Muslims, they at least had a semi-consistent message going for them.

Not that inveterate, elderly Marxists didn’t try to muddle things a bit.

Their incongruous ally:

Speaking of Marxists, I ran into this gentleman, who denounced “all religions” and talked over one of the many calls to prayer-for which he was chastised by a Muslim participant in the crowd. Perhaps the Red-Green alliance isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as the Mujahadeen e-Khalq learned the hard way.

One of the more disconcerting images from the rally in Foley Square, aside from the representative of CAIR praising the Detroit imam who was shot by the FBI, was the presence of both the mother and father of three men who were part of the terror plot involving an attack upon Fort Dix. Even though they were not given prime speaking slots-as was the mother of one of the men convicted in the Herald Square bomb plot-the fact that their case was used as an illustration of law enforcement overreach led me to question the true motives of those behind this demonstration.

They knew who the real guilty ones were, i.e. the people assisting the prosecution of terrorist suspects:

Many of the speakers denounced the notion of government informants, evoking images of the more widespread stop snitchin‘ campaign prevalent among many African-Americans living in urban communities. Overall, it was a slightly dispiriting experience, although it should be noted that there was at least one East Indian speaker who struck a distinctly conciliatory tone, and yet another speaker who went so far as to commemorate the massacres that occurred on September 11th, 2001, albeit only in the context of condemning other atrocities he saw as being of greater magnitude, e.g. the trans-Atlantic slave trade, expulsion of Native Americans from the interior of the country, and countless other sins we still haven’t atoned for as a nation, according to him.

I think that a lot of the issues raised would be resolved by a more sensible immigration policy, as opposed to the ad hoc, needlessly dangerous and stupid philosophy our government currently espouses, but that’s just my opinion. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.

But first, we tackle the burgeoning scandal known as Fast and Furious, which has already claimed an untold number of lives on both sides of the border and continues to unravel, despite the best efforts of the Obama administration to obstruct congressional investigations of rogue DOJ and BATF officials. The U.S. Senate has unanimously adopted an amendment authored by Senator John Cornyn that would prohibit Congress from funding future gunwalking operations. The chairman of the House Oversight Committee and the ranking member of the U.S. Senate Judiciary have written a letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, asking him to account for the discrepancy between what DOJ “sources” told the press and what an official DOJ report revealed about Agent Brian Terry’s death. Based upon the history of obstruction of Congress relating to any investigation of Fast and Furious, I wouldn’t expect Senator Grassley or Congressman Issa to receive a definitive answer any time in the near future. Finally, documents obtained by CBS News-which has done an exceptional job covering Executive malfeasance that much of the mainstream media seems intent on ignoring-demonstrate once again how deeply entangled Attorney General Eric Holder is in the Obama administration’s multifaceted gunwalking debacle.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has begun to implement the vast adminstrative amnesty set in motion by the Morton Memos. In keeping with the administration’s strict policy of rewarding lawbreakers-but only if they came here from another country-the illegal aliens who have been amnestied will be able to work at jobs  that those 14 million Americans who are unemployed apparently won’t do. And what will these newly empowered non-legal residents need to do in order to cause the immigration bureaucracy to reconsider their statuses? Not much, according to Chris Crane, the president of the union representing ICE officers who has revealed the Obama adminstration’s policy of not apprehending felonious, criminal aliens. All self-serving press releases to the contrary, ICE leadership is systematically dismantling immigration enforcement in a brazen example of political expediency.

On the heels of news that the world’s most-wanted fugitive, and head of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartel, has an inamorata who’s birthed two children on American soil, Mexico’s current El Presidente has insinuated that “El Chapo” Guzman may in fact be living in the United States himself. Although I doubt that’s the case, considering the open borders policies of this administration, it doesn’t surprise me that some are making the allegation.

The most recent GOP presidential debate gave immigration analysts plenty to chew over, especially on the issue of border fencing. While Michele Bachmann-the best candidate on this issue who has thus far emerged-reiterated her promise to construct a double fence on the Mexican border, Mitt Romney emphasized the priority of interior enforcement, and cutting off the access illegal aliens currently have to jobs within the United States. Some of those jobs, of course, once involved landscaping Governor Romney’s estate, as was made clear once again by his inadvertent gaffe during the debate. Rick Perry, of course, opposes any sort of obstruction to illegal ingress for Mexican border crossers, but that stance was not what made headlines this week. No, the truly stunning revelation involved a plane chartered by the Perry campaign that had been used by Mexican drug smugglers in the past. Although it doesn’t appear that Rick Perry or his campaign was aware of the illicit use to which the plane had been put, it does certainly present bad optics for a presidential candidate whose lax stance on illegal immigration has already been rightfully skewered by his opponents.

Finally, our least-favorite incompetent New England governor/all-around nitwit is back in the news. Lincoln Chafee, proving once again that political nepotism is never a good thing, has given an interview to a local news station where he declares that his sanctuary state policies will not attract more illegal aliens to Rhode Island. As you can see by watching the exchange, his assertion is not very convincing. Perhaps Canada had the right idea after all.

That is a copy of the U.S. Customs form filled out by the astronauts on board the Apollo 11 mission after they returned to the planet on July 24, 1969. Which just goes to show you that our federal bureaucracy took things a little bit more seriously in the Age of Aquarius than they do these days.

Check out an enlarged version of this at Geekosystem.

Hat Tip: Space.com

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 meet, greet, and eat summertime picnic event (byo food and drink) to celebrate the first battle in the Revolutionary War, whereby the American troops proved that they could stand up to the British regulars without the advantage of surprise.

Bring the whole family. Let your children and grandchildren know that the early battles of the War of Independence were fought right here in New Jersey.

Members, followers and supporters of all these organizations are invited.
(Listed in alphabetical order)

Act for America

Americans For Prosperity 

Campaign for Liberty

Among others.  The gathering will take place on Saturday, July 23 from 11 AM to 3 PM at Monmouth Battlefield State Park. 16 State route 33, Malapan, New Jersey. You can find the instructions on how to get there at the park’s official website.

As well as the legislature of the state of Alabama, for enacting what is now being called the “toughest” immigration enforcement law in the country. The Federation for American Immigration Reform has a fantastic summary of HB 56 on their website which I highly recommend reading. Of course, the usual suspects have denounced Alabama’s lawmakers for daring to target illegal aliens, which to the open borders lobby serves as both a protected class and a political cudgel in its drive to irrevocably reshape American culture.  

The fact that Alabama and Georgia have now joined Arizona in standing up for American citizens is a sign that the concerted effort by the treason lobby to delegitimize the efforts of Kris Kobach and Jan Brewer-and to intimidate American voters-has failed. Despite the repeated invocation of lawsuits, boycotts, and an array of measures intended to bully states and localities that pursue immigration enforcement measures, the voters and their elected representatives have not been cowed.

That’s why the passage of HB 56 marks such a pivotal moment in this country’s immigration debate. It signifies a growing resistence to the demands of open borders lobbyists, who have dominated the debate up to this point. It also demonstrates that concerns over border security and immigration enforcement transcend the political climate of the Southwest, which has been on the front lines of this battle for many, many years. Hopefully, the courageous actions of Alabama legislators and Governor Robert Bentley will serve as inspiration for other states going forward.

Conversely, you could say that the Chamber of Commerce and ACLU have lost, and lost big-time. Overall, it was a very good day for the Supreme Court of the United States, or as law nerds like to call it, SCOTUS. However, it was an even better day for Arizonans, and for those of us who sympathize with their struggle to combat illegal immigration almost single-handedly. Not only did the Supreme Court majority reject the specious arguments advanced by those who want to retain a class of indentured servants from foreign countries in perpetuity, it affirmed the right of state legislatures to employ one of the most effective immigration enforcement tools in their arsenal.

As Dan Stein of the Federation for Immigration Reform points out in his organization’s press release, this Supreme Court decision deals a decisive blow to the flimsy attempts by open borders lobbyists to knock down statewide immigration enforcement statutes based upon the preemption doctrine. In an illuminating post over at The Volokh Conspiracy, the rationale for rejection based upon implied preemption is fully explained with a carefully excerpted portion of Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion.

The opponents of this law made a variety of claims, echoed in the dissents by Justice Breyer and Justice Sotomayor, but the case was ultimately won on the argument that the 2007 bill enacted by the Arizona legislature and signed into law by then-governor Janet Napolitano was a licensing law, and that licensing laws fall under the purview of the states. The notion that the law mandating the use of E-Verify ran afoul of implied preemption is ridiculous on its face, as the majority opinion pointed out.

This law simply required Arizona businesses to implement a method of screening out illegal workers that the federal government has encouraged them to adopt for years, and which is clearly outlined on the Department of Homeland Security’s own website! The corollary argument that the federal government did not intend individual states to enforce the laws it enacted is even more devious when you stop to consider the consequences of this chain of reasoning. So the federal government passed immigration enforcement provisions that it clearly did not intend to see enforced, yet is compelled to punish those states that take Congress at its word? This is the sort of Catch-22 that has caused border states like California and Arizona to be overrun by illegal aliens and beset with the subsidiary problems caused by their presence, e.g. crime, fraud, overpopulation, depleted resources, etc…

The idea that  implementation of this law would have led to discrimination against Hispanic workers is even more ridiculous than the tissue paper thin constitutional arguments used by opponents of immigration enforcement. When did it become unreasonable to ask prospective employees to provide a legitimate, legal Social Security number to a potential employer? Of course, the reasonableness of this decision, as well as the Arizona law it affirms, hasn’t prevented the journalistic mouthpieces for America’s #1 sanctuary city from critiquing the alleged flaws in e-Verify while simultaneously calling once again for Congress to enact amnesty. This, despite the fact that E-Verify’s reliability has already been demonstrated, it is becoming a standard business practice, and is being improved month by month, and has never been substantively criticized by someone who does not have a vested interest in keeping the spigot open, e.g. the ACLU, open borders rags like the L.A. Times, pandering politicians, among other opponents of real immigration enforcement.

Whether or not this decision augers well for SB 1070-which is expected to head to the Supreme Court for review regardless of how the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals rules-can’t be answered at this point. I tend to agree with the opinion of Marcia Coyle, a legal analyst for PBS News Hour, who believes that this decision will have little practical impact upon United States of America v. Arizona when it inevitably reaches the Supreme Court’s docket. That said, I think I speak for many when I state that had SCOTUS ruled in favor of the Chamber of Commerce and other open borders advocates in their decision, I would have been greatly discouraged.

This legal victory is a huge win for patriotic Americans everywhere. It is not only a gigantic setback for the Obama administration and its allies in the open borders lobby, it serves as a greenlight for other states-such as Colorado-that have been hesitant to implement E-Verify up to this point. Regardless of what this decision portends for SB 1070′s future, it should be celebrated by Americans today and serve as inspiration for the battles ahead.

That’s why small, yet tangible and concentrated, efforts to address this problem are so essential. And that is why I’m pleased to bring you news of a fantastic new project being undertaken by Mr. Henry Buhl, a civic activist, generous philanthropist, and long-time ally of our cause.

Mr. Buhl was at the forefront of the Coalition for a Secure Driver’s License, which was instrumental in stopping former Governor Elliot Spitzer from continuing his drive to give every illegal alien driver in this state a valid Department of Motor Vehicles-issued ID. Now he’s leading an organization called the Coalition to Protect American Workers, which is a self-described “private, humanitarian effort assisting the voluntary repatriation of people unlawfully present in the United States.” In other words, this group was created with the expressed intent of helping reunite the families that have been broken up by illegal immigration, while simultaneously helping unemployed Americans regain a foothold in this country’s economy.

Mr. Buhl has a long history of helping out those in need, particularly those who have found themselves abandoned on the street or who have become homeless and unable to support themselves. So his newest initiative should come as a surprise to no one, especially when you consider his long history of activism in our movement. For those of you who want to make a difference but don’t have an abundance of time, I suggest you look into the innovative solution he has devised for what we all know is an enormous problem facing our country. If the federal government isn’t willing to preserve our nation’s sovereignty, then at least we know there are still Americans willing to defend it.