The man you see above is the Legend of North Hollywood High, Ace, a.k.a. Adam “Lakers” Carolla. He was in town to sign copies of his latest memoir cum tragedy, Not Taco Bell Material, at the 5th Avenue Barnes & Noble and host a live podcast of the Adam Carolla Show this Friday at Caroline’s.

Although he isn’t-as two giddy Eastern European men who approached me while in line discovered to their disappointment-Jimmy Kimmel, he is one of the most entertaining, insightful broadcasters around. And we love him, mostly because he tells the truth, no matter how offensive it might seem to your Rachel Maddow-watching, Nation-reading asshat of a friend.

Just remember:  hate facts are, after all, still facts.

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.

In today’s Rattle, we cover everything from the Obama administration’s continued dismantling of border security and immigration enforcement, to the trivialization of the Civil Rights Movement by the open borders left, to congressional oversight into Attorney General Eric Holder’s obstruction of justice in the Fast and Furious probe.

But first, we look at the increasingly misnamed Southern Poverty Law Center, which continues its progressive slide into buffoonery with a report into the national security threat posed by purportedly misogynistic weblogs. As Mark Krikorian explains in The Corner, the SPLC has adopted new hate objects now that its demonization of patriotic immigration reformers has run its course. Notwithstanding the dearth of civil rights violations by non-government entities or white-on-black crimes-the ostensible raison d’etre for the organization, the SPLC continues to rake in millions of dollars from credulous liberals. Even so, the fundamental illegitimacy of Morris Dees’ operation hasn’t escaped notice, and its laughable mission is now the source of mockery on countless blogs and websites.

On a much more distressing note, yet another vicious attack by an illegal alien has been recorded in Lexington, South Carolina. In a case of life imitating art, Jose Hernandez Mendez has been charged with a string of brutal machete attacks against innocent South Carolinians and is being held on an immigration detainer. As those of you who’ve been following American Rattlesnake probably know, the dramatic spike of machete attacks inside of the United States correlates with the increase in illegal and legal immigration from Central America and Mexico, hubs for brutal criminal gangs like MS-13  and Los Zetas. Look for more such arrests-and less preventive deportations-in the future as this administration removes even the faintest veneer of immigration enforcement. What’s more, the exodus of emigrants from Latin America will increase as these organized crime syndicates go global, as this piece from InSight demonstrates.

As for the lack of enforcement stateside, there are several new, disturbing developments to report. Even as John Morton moves to expedite the administrative amnesty implemented by this administration last year, the process of eviscerating this nation’s border security and internal immigration controls has been expanded to include the United States Border Patrol. Not content to merely persecute dedicated law enforcement officials like Agent Jesus Diaz, and heedless of the lack of interagency cooperation between Customs and Border Protection and ICE, this administration seems bent on doing away with whatever remaining obstacles impede or deter illegal aliens in any substantive way. But you need not fear, because Angelenos are being protected from counterfeit sex drugs peddled by septuagenerian Koreans! What tax dollars aren’t being funneled into fake Viagra suppression sweeps are being redirected to hormone therapy for transgendered illegal alien detainees.

There are a few-far too few, unfortunately-members of Congress objecting to cuts in border security appropriations, but the vast majority of congressmen seem to be mired in a state of torpor that would be risible if these individuals hadn’t been elected in order to represent our interests. This administration is in the process of eliminating even the vestiges of immigration enforcement-while simultaneously engaging in political charades intended to mask its true intentions-and the one possible check on its exercise of unconstitutional power shirks its oversight responsibility altogether. What’s more, the leaders of the Republican House majority are actively thwarting attempts by backbenchers in their own caucus to advance E-Verify, a state of affairs so blatant in nature that Numbers USA feels compelled to run television ads taking Speaker Boehner to task for his inaction.

Congress’s dereliction of duty has had a deleterious impact across a wide spectrum of issues. For example, a new audit from the Treasury Department’s Inspector General for Tax Administration found that illegal aliens and immigrants ineligible to work had pocketed over 4 billion dollars as beneficiaries of the Addition Child Tax Credit. As if the serial manipulation of our tax code for social engineering purposes and squandering of tax dollars for economic “stimulus” weren’t enough, our federal government is now subsidizing the creation of more anchor babies.

Perhaps one issue where Congress-or at least, its Republican membership-has continued to press this administration for accountability is its ongoing probe into the Fast and Furious fiasco. Breitbart.com’s Big Government reports on the growing chorus of Republican congressmen who have called upon Eric Holder to resign, a group which now includes former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann-who has pushed for a no-confidence vote on the Attorney General in the House of Representatives. To discover what the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee is doing to bring this administration to account, take a look at Representative Jason Chaffetz grilling Holder for his serial evasion and obstruction of justice.

While Congress vacillates between dithering and actively holding this administration to account for its skewed priorities, the impact of the greatest recession-and most stunted recovery-in decades continues to be felt by ordinary Americans. Unfortunately,  many of those Americans who are unemployed are not able to find work at home. As CNN reports, American manufacturers are scouring foreign shores to find qualified factory workers that allegedly do not exist in this country. However, much like the purported dearth of qualified American engineers, this media narrative is a complete and utter fabrication.

There are more than enough factory workers and engineers to occupy vacancies within their respective industries, but the problem is that “tech titans,” as the Wall Street Journal so lovingly describes them, would rather fill them with illegal aliens and imported workers using the H1-B visa program, which-as we’ve pointed out repeatedly in the past-is rife with fraud and corruption. The reason being that American workers expect to command a salary commensurate with their level of training and education, whereas foreigners can be locked into contracts that even supporters of lenient immigration laws compare to indentured servitude. These policies obviously have devastating consequences for Americans seeking employment, as this Edwin Rubenstein analysis of last month’s job data illustrates.

The quest to replace the American worker continues at nearly all levels, as does the attempt to stretch the increasingly elastic immigration laws that do exist. For example, in the state of Massachusetts, Senator Scott Brown is attempting to expand the E-3 Visa-currently available only to Australian workers-to include nearly 11,000 Irish nationals seeking admittance to the United States. In the proud tradition of ethnic pandering carried out by his predecessor, the late Ted Kennedy, Senator Brown is attempting to curry favor with a mainstay of Massachusetts’ politics, i.e. Irish-American voters, by contorting American immigration law. It should be noted, however, that drastic changes to immigration laws often have unintended consequences.

On a statewide level, the fight for immigration enforcement plods along, encountering the same impediments that Arizona did when Governor Jan Brewer decided to stand up to the Obama Justice Department nearly two years ago. Even so, activists like D.A. King-president of the Dustin Inman Society-have begun to wield the law to our advantage. The Montgomery Advertiser has a story exploring how he has lodged a complaint with the Immigration Enforcement Review Board-an entity charged with applying Georgia’s new immigration law-over Atlanta’s decision to accept illegitimate Matricula Consular  cards as valid identification for the purposes of dispensing public benefits.

Mexican-issued identification cards are prevalent in many American cities and states, especially in the South. In addition to the mockery they make of our election laws-a threat this administration does not seem to be cognizant of, based upon its attempts to nullify voter i.d. laws-these fraudulent i.d. cards, through their wide availability, also invite domestic terror attacks, as the House Judiciary Committee pointed out nearly nine years ago! To appreciate the true scope of the damage inflicted by American institutions which have chosen to accept these cards, check out this CIS backgrounder, which explains how and why the Matricula Consular has proliferated in the United States.

Moving on to Georgia’s neighboring state, Alabama, we find open borders hysterics beclowning themselves once again. This time, by analogizing Alabama’s landmark immigration enforcement law HB 56  to Jim Crow Era segregation. Dr. Frank L. Morris, punctures this insipid, desperate comparison brilliantly in his Daily Caller column, which I urge you all to read in its entirety.

Finally, our fight against the negation of American immigration law shouldn’t let us lose sight of the courage and compassion displayed by the front line warriors in this nation’s battle to protect its borders. Officer Ross Goodwin is just one member of the Border Patrol who deserves our gratitude for his selfless devotion to duty, which has been recognized by the New Mexico Sheriffs’ and Police Association, as KOB reports. Officer Goodwin was accorded the honor of being named Officer of the Year  for saving the life of an illegal immigrant while in the line of duty.

In spite of the racist crudities heaped upon them by embittered Mexican nationalists, and the unremitting hostility open borders dogmatists exhibit towards them, our nation’s Border Patrol agents continue to risk life and limb in order to protect Americans, as well as save the lives of Mexican and Central American border crossers who have been left to their fate by coyotes wholly indifferent to human suffering. While this administration continues its predecessors’ policy of political prosecutions of Border Patrol agents, these men and women are putting themselves at risk in order to help their fellow human beings, something we should all keep in mind the next time we see or hear a know-nothing assault against immigration enforcement.

 Hat Tip: bcsco and Nafbpo

Today’s Daily Rattle cuts a wide swath across the political landscape, including stories about the ongoing carnage of the Mexican war against the narco cartels, some high profile endorsements of Mitt Romney by immigration enforcement advocates, and a potential reentry into the political realm by our good friend Russell Pearce. But first, we examine the continued success of Alabama’s landmark HB 56, which has transformed the economic fortunes of many Alabamians for the better while causing its enemies-including the Obama administration-to redouble their efforts at thwarting the will of the people. It turns out that Alabama’s immigration enforcement law has cut statewide unemployment once again, an inescapable fact that FAIR has some fun with in its reportage of this underreported news. The Federation for American Immigration Reform report analyzing state unemployment statistics post-HB 56 is devastating to the proponents of the discredited “jobs Americans won’t do” theory, although it won’t stop this administration from waging war against Alabama.

Moving north, we find a promising bill pending in New Hampshire that would deny college tuition discounts to illegal aliens residing in that state. Currently, the only requirement to pay in-state tuition is that you have lived in New Hampshire for a calendar year prior to registration. Although the struggle against statewide mini-DREAM Acts has been a tough slog, with some disappointing setbacks this year-including Californians failing to get a repeal of AB 131 onto November’s election ballot-there have been some notable successes. For example, the people of Maryland will be able to decide for themselves whether or not they want to repeal their legislature’s Dream Act as they vote in the upcoming presidential election. Proving yet again that citizen activism in this arena yields results.

As we head over to the Windy City, we find a former “massage parlor” operator  convicted of human trafficking for impressing four foreign women into sexual slavery. Staying in the Mid-West, we find a surprisingly well-reasoned editorial by the stridently open borders Chicago Tribune which takes the Cook County Board to task for its sanctuary policies. Of course, the Obama administration has done its best to ignore Cook’s flagrant violation of the law and endangerment of American citizens, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention to this issue. On a much less exasperating note, Minnesota has decided to adopt Secure Communities, the 27th state in the nation to do so.  If only the leaders of this state were as sensible as those in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. Over on the Great Plains, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is fighting hard against a cheap labor amnesty being pushed by the state’s agri-business interests and duplicitous politicians. Modeled on the dreadful Utah Solution, this plan is not only of dubious legality, but could have a potentially devastating impact upon those Kansans who remain mired in unemployment.

The individual statistics of crime, death, and perpetual unemployment are part of a vast fabric of human misery that our alleged gatekeepers in the mainstream media continue to ignore, with a few notable exceptions. One neglected story describes the saga of Kesler Dufrene, an illegal alien who murdered three innocent Americans-including a 15 year-old girl-in a killing spree after a Florida judge had ordered him deported back to Haiti. The catch and release policies pursued by this administration will only lead to more tragedies of this sort as its wholesale administrative amnesty-including the de facto amnesty of Haitians granted Temporary Protected Status-allows hundreds of thousands of Haitians to remain in the United States in perpetuity. But don’t worry, John Morton and his bureaucrats at ICE have appointed a Public Advocate. For Americans besieged by criminal aliens? Of course not! For illegal aliens. Read the story for yourself. Perhaps in addition to advising illegals on how to evade justice, he can also suggest ways of exploiting our government’s generous food stamp programs, which inordinately benefit illegal alien households. Speaking of the Caribbean, the Washington Post reports on a tragic boat accident that has taken the lives of Dominicans seeking to enter the U.S. illegally through Puerto Rico, a problem that is nothing new, as this 1987 piece from Time makes abundantly clear.

The outrages emanating from this administration include, let us not forget, the continued obstruction of any and all congressional investigations into Operation Fast and Furious, which isn’t surprising when you consider the scope of its malfeasance and abuse of power. For a brief  overview of how extensive federal involvement in these gunwalking cases were, check out this article by the St. Louis Gun Rights Examiner, which gives you a taste of the alphabet soup of federal agencies involved in this harebrained scheme. The ostensible rationale for Fast and Furious was to apprehend high-level cartel leaders in Mexico, much like the man Mexican police recently arrested whose cartel received guns courtesy of this administration. The havoc wrought by administration officials comes into stark relief when you consider the insidious spread of Mexican and Central American drug cartels inside of the United States, a phenomenon illustrated vividly by the beheading of an Oklahoma teen by Mexican gangbangers. For a full run-down of the most prominent incidents of cartel driven violence, I suggest you check out the most recent issue of the M3 Report, an invaluable resource in this regard.

Fortunately, there are still public officials willing to stand up for the rights of American citizens. The most prominent among them being, of course, embattled Maricopa County sheriff Joe Arpaio.  Sheriff Joe has filed an appeal of the decision to limit his immigration authority, a move by the Obama Justice Department that was undertaken solely out of political spite, as attested to by numerous sources outside of Sheriff Arpaio’s office. This administration can brook no opposition in its policy of unfettered access to the United States by illegal aliens, and any public servant that opposes it should expect political and legal retribution from Obama’s cronies in the Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Eric Holder. Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s refusal to quit, in spite of new challenges posed by open borders Democratic apparatchiks, is inspiring. It’s refreshing to see such sustained resistance in the Grand Canyon State, including by former Arizona Senate Majority Leader Russell Pearce, who has recently filed to run in the reconstituted Legislative District 25. Let’s hope that the voters of District 25 reward Senator Pearce for his years of dedicated public service on behalf of Arizonans and Americans. Let’s also hope the congressional seat being vacated by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is filled by a staunch constitutionalist who believes in upholding the integrity of our southern border. Although the race is still fluid, there are a lot of promising candidates looking to replace Gabby. As we remain in the southwest, we find that the battle over illegal alien driving privileges remains a contested issue in the state of New Mexico. Even as courageous Democratic Representative Andy Nunez pushes to repeal driver’s licenses for illegals, the treason lobby fights to maintain New Mexico as one of only two states that upholds this insane policy. A policy that opens up the United States to future 9/11s.

Moving to the west coast, we have an update on the case of an Oakland man living here illegally who is in need of a kidney transplant. As the San Jose Mercury News points out, there was a willing donor for Jesus Navarro-his wife-and a private funding stream, but no hospitals were willing to perform the operation because of the prohibitive expenses involved in post-transplant followup care. Now the University of California-San Francisco has agreed to perform the transplant after a lobbying campaign by Change.org. The costs entailed by caring for illegal aliens living in this country are extraordinary, as the case of the severely brain damaged Guatemalan patient Luis Alberto Jiménez illustrates.

Also costly, albeit in a more direct way, is the reversal of L.A.’s impound policy with respect to unlicensed drivers. Police Chief Charlie Beck and Antonio Villaraigosa have  succumbed to political pressure-not that the man not so affectionately known as Viva LaRaza needed much pressure-and increased the risks involved in driving through Los Angeles. Larry Elder delineates just why this policy change is so deranged in a fantastic column published in the L.A. Daily News. This is why so many Californians supported the political career of Pete Wilson, a staunch foe of the policies that have cratered the once-golden state. Interestingly enough, the former governor of California has joined immigration warrior Kris Kobach in endorsing Mitt Romney. Whether his support will boost Romney’s flagging presidential campaign, or help him to capture California’s 172 delegates to the Republican National Convention, is anyone’s guess.

One of the most recent instances of our misguided immigration policies compromising our national security involves the plot to destroy the U.S. Capitol-in a self-immolating bomb attack-by an Arab-Muslim illegal alien living in Virginia named Amine El Khalifi. Of course, you would learn none of these details if you were to rely upon the inveterately untrustworthy narrators in the mainstream media. In order to discover the true origins of this plot you must read this James Fulford entry on the foiled terror attack. Once again, the Internet steps in the for the paid shills of the MSM, especially on borders, language, and culture. Something else you won’t hear mentioned by anyone in the press corps is the devastating impact unfettered immigration has upon the American job market. For that, you have to go to the inestimable Ilana Mercer, who has an infuriating post on her blog exploring in detail how highly skilled American engineers are being systematically discriminated against in the search for a never-ending supply of cheap, imported labor.

The obliviousness of our nation’s media dinosaurs is illustrated vividly by the Rattle’s final story, which posits some unheralded heroes for 2011′s Person of the Year. Unlike the clueless editors at Time, Kathleen Millar has her priorities in order. Her Foreign Policy Association essay delineates very clearly what the difference is between a media-generated phenomenon and true bravery. Her conviction that political prisoner and dedicated Border Patrol agent Jesus Diaz, the late Brian Terry-victim of this administration’s asinine gunrunning to Mexican drug cartels-and Dakota Meyer-a Medal of Honor winner and courageous United States Marine-are the true People of the Year is worth repeating in this space, if only because it exposes the gulf between what the fifth estate idolizes and what ordinary Americans value. Although the continued plight of Agent Diaz, as well as the horrific policies that led to Agent Brian Terry’s death, have both been well documented by American Rattlesnake, the heroic actions of Corpsman Dakota Meyer are less well known. For an overview of how Meyer tried to defend his fellow citizens, in spite of the opposition of his own government, I suggest reading this informative Fox News story. As we put this month’s Rattle to rest, let’s remember that this country has may heroes, both in and out of uniform.

Months of strenuous campaigning, millions of dollars in political advertising, and countless days of retail politicking will culminate in just a few hours, when a select few will decide who will be awarded the first presidential delegates of the 2012 Republican race for President of the United States. Although not always an accurate gauge of who is ultimately nominated by the Republican Party-a fact pointed out rather inelegantly by Jon Huntsman-the Iowa caucuses do have a significant impact upon the results of future contests, particularly the New Hampshire primary.

That’s why it’s important that we scrutinize the words and deeds-and in some cases, rather extensive voting records-of those who seek the GOP nod to face President Obama this November. Specifically, from the perspective of the immigration enforcement and reform  movement. There are a number of recent polls, from Insider Advantage to Rasmussen Reports, which all show more or less the same dynamics at play. Namely, a battle for the top spot between Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, a surging Rick Santorum, a rejuvenated Rick Perry campaign, and a large percentage of undecided voters who’ve yet to make up their minds. While Fox News has provided a helpful primer on the state of play in Iowa on the eve of the caucuses, it’s important that we take some time to ponder the implications of today’s vote, vis-a-vis sensible immigration policy. 

We start with a candidate  American Rattlesnake has neglected to cover this primary season, mostly because his support among Republican voters amounted to a rounding error, notwithstanding some noteworthy endorsements by conservative political organizations and evangelical Christian activists. However, times have changed for Rick Santorum, who now finds himself third among Republican presidential candidates in most Iowa polls. This rise allows us to examine Santorum’s record on immigration and border security issues, which is a mixed bag, at best. While his overall record is absolutely atrocious, if we’re going to judge him by his Numbers USA scorecard-which is as good a barometer of fitness as any in this regard-then the former senator from Pennsylvania is near the bottom of the pack in terms of potential GOP nominees. Roy Beck gives a harsh, but fair, analysis of Santorum in an overview for Numbers USA that I suggest you all read.

His record in the U.S. Senate and Congress was respectable, as Beck readily acknowledges, and got significantly better the longer he served-he was a strong “no” vote against the DREAM Act during the lame duck session of Congress convened by Senator Harry Reid. What’s more, he has tried to woo us during this primary-going so far as to condemn the sanctimonious scroungers at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who have turned societal pardon of illegal aliens into an official sacrament. That said, his record on E-Verify, probably the most effective immigration enforcement tool we currently have at our disposal-and a perfect wedge issue, as Mickey Kaus points out-has been positively abysmal, with his past votes and statements regarding legal immigration being a greater disappointment, although not an anomaly in this field, regretfully.

Santorum’s presidential candidacy reflects the essential dichotomy of the Republican field’s relationship to the subject of immigration. While almost every one of the candidates abjures the term “amnesty,” sometimes comically so, and is in a sense an improvement upon the the Republican Party’s previous presidential nominees, and certainly the previous occupant of the White House, almost all of them have serious limitations and flaws with respect to national identity, sovereignty, and the impediments to progress that our current policy of unfettered, mass immigration represents. The reflexive paeans both Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney heap upon the disastrous H1-B visa program is but one example of the weakness of the top tier of Republican presidential candidates. Even Ron Paul, who has made admirable strides to highlight pivotal issues such as the insanity of extending birthright citizenship to the children of illegals and subsidizing those in this country who are trespassing, has regressed during this campaign.

Ironically, the wholly antagonistic nature of the Obama administration, which has effectively declared war on large swathes of the American population, presumably comprising  a portion of the electorate he can safely discard, has actually served to enhance the profile of a crop of candidates that has a conspicuously dovish position on the subject of immigration. For even the disingenuousness of a Rick Perry or harebrained, semantic sophistry by a Newt Gingrich doesn’t approach the unremitting hostility this administration has displayed towards enforcing immigration law. From executive edicts that flagrantly defy the law, to implicit sanction given to localities that flout federal directives on immigration enforcement, to politically-driven witch hunts undertaken against those who have the temerity to enforce the law, President Obama has been an unmitigated disaster for  American citizens who don’t profit personally from the illegal alien industry.

So in that sense, any Republican candidate-now that open borders libertarian Gary Johnson has officially abandoned the GOP-would be better than the current resident of the Oval Office. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that every Republican candidate would promote good immigration policy once elected to the presidency. Particularly disappointing has been the flagging campaign of Michele Bachmann, who at one point seemed poised not only to become a prime challenger to Mitt Romney, but also to put the issue of illegal immigration at the forefront of this presidential election. Unfortunately, like the presidential campaign of intrepid congressman Tom Tancredo, Bachmann’s candidacy does not look like it will garner much traction beyond the Iowa caucuses. The fact that Sarah Palin has consigned her to the realm of the Huntsmans of this race certainly does not bode well for her candidacy.

However, that doesn’t mean that the attention she -and even the abortive campaign launched by Herman Cain-gave to the subject of our misguided immigration policy-and the intentional recklessness of this administration in disregarding its duty to protect and defend our borders-did not have an impact on the dimensions of the Republican race. Nor does it mean that this issue will be forgotten any time soon, as the Supreme Court hearing regarding the appeal of an injunction against SB 1070 during the height of the 2012 presidential race ensures. Our porous borders and the devastating consequences of illegal immigration during a prolonged recession will be election issues, regardless of the attractiveness of the eventual GOP nominee. It is our job, as citizens and activists, to push whoever that candidate is in the right direction, and to demand that he make the contrast with President Obama on these issues explicitly clear. Our country can’t afford a return to the days of Obama v. McCain, or Bush v. Kerry…and neither can we.

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.

Our last Rattle of 2011 runs the gamut, all the way from an immigration enforcement success in Pennsylvania to a disappointing judicial setback in South Carolina. However, we begin the final roundup of the year with a must-read essay in The American Conservative by W. James Antle III. It looks at the immigration scorecard in a sober, realistic analysis that takes into account the substantive victories of immigration reformers-such as continued nationwide support for SB 1070 and its clones-to the unquestionable failures, including a seismic change in the language of the immigration debate, which has turned the phrase “immigration reform” into a synonym for wholesale amnesty. It’s a piece that anyone who is concerned about this subject-as I know most of you are-should read in its entirety. 

We continue by highlighting a great post over at the American Thinker that poses several questions that Newt Gingrich has yet to satisfactorily answer about his dubious proposal to create a tiered system of permanent non-citizen workers out of the pool of 11-20 million illegal aliens currently living here. Be John Galt  expresses some other concerns that have yet to be addressed by Newt while emphasizing the points made by Mickey Kaus in his own analysis of Newt’s plan. Something that conservatives supporting Gingrich-but who are ostensibly opposed to amnesty-need to answer is why they’re backing a candidate whose immigration platform mirrors the one put forward by open borders, libertarian economist Bryan Caplan.

Staying in the field of presidential politicking, American Rattlesnake wholeheartedly endorses the statements of Mitt Romney, vis-a-vis President Obama’s illegal alien uncle, Onyango Obama. For those of you who might not recall, Omar Onyango Obama is not only residing in this country illegally-much like the President’s beloved Aunt Zeituni-but is the owner and operator of a liquor store in Boston, despite his recent DUI conviction.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney’s opponent Rick Perry continued his tough on the border pantomime in Iowa, decrying the inability of the federal government to control our southern border with Mexico, as well as declaring that he would withdraw the Justice Department’s lawsuits against states like Arizona and Alabama. The pull quote from this article is “the border has to be shut down for the future of the United States of America.” One wonders what he would do with the estimated forty percent of illegal aliens who overstay their visas. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see how serious Governor Perry is about his newfound posture of immigration hawk.

It does seem that the current crop of presidential candidates is being forced to address the concerns of Republican voters, however reluctantly and haltingly. That said, VDare has a fascinating piece exploring the damage that refugee resettlement has caused in Manchester, New Hampshire, and why the national GOP has been completely AWOL on this issue, despite its ritualistic paeans to the role of New Hampshire as the first state in the nation to hold its presidential primary. The politically courageous current mayor of Manchester is standing up for his constituents, even if the federal government and parasitical members of the refugee resettlement industry won’t. Perhaps the boldness of Ted Gatsas will serve as an example for his timorous counterparts in the national GOP to emulate. We can all hope.

The internal strife caused by the U.S. State Department in Maine is mirrored in Florence, Italy, where the tragic deaths of two Senegalese street merchants is being exploited by media organs to condemn the “racism” of ordinary Italians. Sadly, the exploitation of tragedies like this for political purposes is nothing new to the multicultural zealots spearheading the militant, Gramscian left. Nor is the equation of patriotic, reasonable opposition to mass immigration to racism an anomaly, unfortunately. It seems like these sorts of ad hominem attacks come with the territory, as Peter Brimelow pointed out in yesterday’s post.

Heading down to Washington D.C., we find that the usual rogue’s gallery of open borders demagogues is trying once again to foist amnesty upon an American public, and a Congress, that has consistently rejected it since it was first introduced over a decade ago.  The tireless efforts of Dick Durbin to give the bird to American taxpayers and hard-working students wouldn’t be newsworthy in itself, if not for the fact that a Philippine newspaper is now leading the charge to see the enactment of the DREAM Act. Media bias in reporting of immigration issues is nothing new, especially from foreign newspapers who hold no reverence for American law. However, the fact that a member of the United States Senate is cribbing notes from a newspaper overseas in order to undermine the country he’s ostensibly representing is a sad commentary on the state of politics in America in 2011.

Taking a short jaunt to Baltimore, we say farewell to WBAL institution Ron Smith. Before being struck down by cancer at the age of 70, Smith was a resonant voice of reason and integrity in a world where too may fall prey to the lure of the D.C. cocktail circuit. Gregory Kane has a fitting tribute to him in the Washington Examiner. Michelle Malkin testifies to the humanity of Ron on her website as well. Like the late, great Terry Anderson-another immigration patriot who died last year-Ron Smith will be missed by many people across the country, most of whom never knew him personally. Rest in Peace, Ron.

In slightly cheerier news, the Pennsylvania House of Representatives has approved a bill that would penalize employers who hire illegal workers. Fox News Latino has the entire story, which touches upon similar bills that were eventually enacted in states like Alabama and Arizona. On the other hand, the drive for immigration enforcement suffered a blow in South Carolina, where a federal judge has enjoined a law that cracked down on human smuggling and gave law enforcement officers the opportunity to detain those arrested for unrelated crimes if they were illegal aliens. As Governor Nikki Haley’s spokesman has said, the ultimate resolution of this case rests in the hands of the Supreme Court.

Our neighbor to the north is having its own immigration problems, which  have been amply documented by American Rattlesnake in previous updates. Canada’s capable Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is tackling them in stride, initiating the largest crackdown on citizenship fraud in recent memory. Of course, his proactive initiatives-including an innovative tip line ordinary Canadians can use to report cases of immigration fraud-have earned scorn from the usual suspects. Notwithstanding the carping from bottom-feeding immigration attorneys and radical, open borders socialists, Kenney has earned respect from the public and his adversaries across the aisle, as this National Post article demonstrates.

If only our president had cabinet members willing to stand up for their fellow countrymen. Instead, we have Hilda Solis, the U.S. Secretary of Labor, doing everything in her capacity to empower illegal aliens instead of the Americans who are struggling beneath a crushing unemployment rate and prolonged recession. Even as the unemployment rate plummets in the Yellowhammer State because of HB 56, Solis tries to find ways to double down on the failure of the Obama administration to provide economic opportunities for American citizens. Combined with the administration’s decision to remove the last remaining National Guard troops from our southern border, Barack Obama has demonstrated his disdain for the concerns of the American electorate.

In other administration news, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Alan Bersin, has resigned from his post. An unconfirmed recess appointment by President Obama, Bersin will be replaced by David V. Aguilar. But don’t worry open borders enthusiasts, Mr. Aguilar is four square in favor of amnesty, although he prefers to call it something else.

Finally, the ongoing congressional investigations into Operation Fast and Furious and this administration’s persistent coverup continue apace. We now have Senator Joseph Lieberman, previously known for his atrocious record on immigration issues, directing the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, which he currently chairs, to investigate the interagency “miscommunication” that lies at the heart of the Fast and Furious debacle. Let’s hope that he and Senator Grassley can elicit a more responsive reaction by administration officials than we’ve seen in the past. What is certain is that the men and woman who were killed, including Agent Jaime Zapata, as a result of the Justice Department’s and ATF’s negligence will never return to the warm embrace of their loved ones. If nothing else, let’s push for some measure of justice and accountability for those still alive.

Hat Tips: The Tea Party Immigration Coalition NCFreedom and NAFBPO

Yesterday afternoon I attended a fascinating conference on immigration organized by the CUNY Graduate Center, which I will explore further in  future posts. However, I’d be remiss in not reporting a decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to enjoin parts of Alabama’s landmark immigration enforcement law. While the court blocked some parts of HB 56, it did allow some very important sections of the law to be implemented, including one that allows law enforcement officers to ascertain the immigration status of people they suspect might be in this country illegally. Although this decision will probably be hailed by open borders lobbyists looking for political victories denied to them by voters, the fact that police officers have been given the green light to maintain the laws our Executive Branch is neglecting to enforce is a significant victory for Americans. 

 Even as the Department of Justice attempts to thwart the wishes of Alabamians and consistently ignores the will of the American people by siding with opponents of HB 56 in every conceivable way, that state’s public officials-just like Governor Jan Brewer and State Senate Majority Leader Russell Pearce in the similarly besieged state of Arizona-are not backing down. And regardless of how the federal courts interpret the constitutionality of Alabama’s new law, I think that is the takeaway from recent developments. We can’t be cowed into submission by the open borders demagogues or their allies, either in the media or in the White House. If Alabama and Arizona can stand up for their country, the least we can do is stand together with them in solidarity.

Although HB 56, Alabama’s powerful new tool for immigration enforcement, has been largely upheld by Judge Sharon Blackburn, the fight over this law will continue in the weeks and months ahead. As NPR reports, this is just the first step in what will likely be a protracted legal and political battle over key provisions contained within the law. Whether or not Alabama is ultimately successful in defending HB 56 will depend in large measure upon how appellate courts deal with the objections raised by the perennial opponents of immigration law-such as the ACLU-cited in this article.

One thing we can be certain of, however, is that the Obama administration will fight Alabama every step of the way. As this article in the Washington Post notes, the Department of Justice is busy filing lawsuits against nearly every state that has had the temerity to step into the gaping void left by President Obama’s conscious strategy of non-enforcement, which includes the broadest administrative amnesty in the nation’s history. The legal crusade against responsible governors and state legislatures has-as I’ve pointed out in the past-been aided by an active collusion between the main open borders advocates petitioning for injunctions-such as the ACLU-and the Justice Department.

There’s no telling where the decision by Judge Blackburn will lead us in the fight to defend our nation’s borders, but the fact that there is a long struggle ahead of us is indisputable. Hopefully, this will be just the first of many victories for the American people in the days ahead. Let vigilance be our watchword.