-We begin today’s rattle with an interesting story about an Indian-or Muslim, depending upon PR needs of the open borders squad-athlete who was ushered into this country by our very own Senator Chuck Schumer. Unfortunately, this gifted sportsman is also a sex offender. Perhaps this isn’t quite as bad as having an alien interning for your office who is also a registered sex offender, but it does make you question the collective wisdom of our Democratic friends in Congress. Maybe we shouldn’t be taking their advice, vis-a-vis, controversial immigration decisions made by the Executive branch.

-In a reminder that there are actually rational people living in The People’s Republic of Vermont, the voters of Rutland have just turned out their incumbent mayor, Chris Louras, after he attempted to deluge their town with Muslim refugees from Syria and Iraq. While ignoring the public’s deep discontent with our government’s refugee resettlement programs-when not imputing racism and bigotry to Americans who express reservations about these schemes-is the norm, even the alternative weekly was forced to concede the enormous political consequences of this decision.

-For those of you who were wondering whatever happened to the thousands of unaccompanied minors who were allowed to enter into this country, wonder no more. According to an in-depth backgrounder from the Center for Immigration Studies, our government has absolutely no clue what it’s doing. While over 80 percent of their sponsors are illegal aliens, 44 percent of the UACs in question were ordered deported. Have the vast majority of these children been deported? Of course not, silly!

-You may ask yourself, “Why is this important?” It’s a good question. After all, it’s not as if these individuals will bring brutal Central American inter-gang warfare to the placidity of our nation’s suburbs, right? Well, I have some bad news for you on that score. It turns out that Latin American gangs, including MS-13, one of the most prolific and ruthless criminal networks in the Western Hemisphere, has actually established a pretty firm beachhead in our own backyard. Naturally, almost all of these gangbangers are criminal aliens. In an ironic twist, the moniker of the man who made an abortive attempt to unify the Mara Salvatrucha within the United States is, you guessed it, Dreamer.

-For those of you who think Europe’s approach to immigration is any less self-defeating and preposterous than the United States, I give you France. A nation where municipal authorities in Calais are attempting to prevent thousands of migrants from recreating the notorious refugee camp known as The Jungle. The biggest proponents of turning The Camp of the Saints into reality are, of course, other Europeans who believe Western civilization is uniquely evil. The ostensible plight of migrants from the third world is simply a cudgel with which the Gramscian left-with the help of corporate bean counters-can beat native Europeans into submission.

-After all, what are a few dozen, or a few hundred, honor killings in the grand scheme of things? Is the systemic dehumanization and murder of girls in nations which were responsible for the idea of religious toleration and freedom of conscience too high a price to pay for erecting the beautiful mosaic? When bad whites are saying intemperate, obnoxious things about people who are off-white, doesn’t that negate their entire philosophical worldview?  Even if that perspective is confirmed multiple times every single day?

-Everyone knows that the real reason millions of Muslims across the world support ISIS, Al Qaeda, and similar jihadist networks is because there isn’t enough inclusion in Hollywood casting decisions. See, the real villain isn’t Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It’s those bastards who refused to green light an all-Muslim reboot of Star Trek!

-The cognitive dissonance at work in the mind of an an open borders leftist must be overpowering. They want to live in a high-trust, quasi-collectivist techno-utopia-along the lines of something created by Gene Roddenberry-yet simultaneously support policies which make this already far-fetched goal virtually impossible. The mentality of a social justice warrior in high dudgeon can be found in this VICE piece, which laments the role homeless shelters have been playing in the deportation of migrants. The traditional liberal concern for the working class and the poor is discarded when it conflicts with the categorical imperative, i.e. preserving diversity. The spiritual hollowness and intellectual vapidity of this type of leftist ‘thinking’ was brilliantly and caustically skewered by George Orwell nearly a century ago. It’s good to know that some things haven’t changed all that much.

-I’d like to leave you on a good note, so here’s some refreshing news to come out of Austria. 8 Iraqi men have been convicted of the gang rape of a tourist. Unlike the Middle Eastern cab driver in Halifax who was, to all intents and purposes, high-fived by a Nova Scotia judge for raping an unconscious passenger, these rapists were actually given (relatively) stiff prison sentences. What’s more, we’ve discovered that these horrific incidents actually constitute an anomaly within the Islamic immigrant community.

Migrants and refugees from other countries expressed concern that the crime will make Austrians hostile toward all newcomers.

“Eight people raping a woman — that’s honor-less! Such a thing doesn’t exist in our religion,” Burhan Akbas, a migrant from Turkey, said.

“When such people come here and screw up like that, then everybody will think that Chechens, Afghans, all refugees from war areas are all the same,” Mansur Salamou, an asylum-seeker from Chechnya, said. “But it’s not like that. For example, the majority of us — we also cause problems, commit crimes. But no rape! Only criminal assaults and robberies.”

See, Europeans?! You only have to worry about being assaulted and robbed by the millions of North African and Middle Eastern refugees and migrants making their way towards Europe. What a relief.

We’ll see how long this particular detainment lasts. InSight Crime has an interesting exploration of the politics behind any possible extradition to the United States. Another piece worth reading-published several years before El Chapo’s last escape from captivity-describes the twins who betrayed their former boss, as well as the disturbing relationship they had with American federal law enforcement agencies.  For what it’s worth, I would be very leery of loud sounds emerging from Mr. Guzman’s future destination.

Many of you will remember this site’s description of El Narco, a wonderfully illuminating and disturbing look into the world of the transnational cartels which have embedded themselves within Mexican society written by British investigative journalist Ioan Grillo. Mr. Grillo has just published an insightful op-ed, in the New York Times that explores the grisly discovery of a fresh batch of corpses on the outskirts of the city of Iguala, which lies just a little over sixty miles away from the capital of Guerrero State in southwestern Mexico.

Some of the unfortunate victims of his horrific crime may have been students from a teacher-training college with a history of activism associated with leftist political causes. The overlapping themes of crime, social equality and class divisions, and extensive political corruption make identifying the actual culprits in this massacre difficult, as does a wholly dysfunctional criminal justice system that allows between 60 and 80 percent of murders to remain unsolved.

Reporters like Mr. Grillo and others like him deserve credit for attempting to shed light upon what is one of the most opaque, convoluted subjects related to contemporary Mexico.

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

Most of you are familiar with the extensive coverage we’ve given to the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata,  as well as the subsequent investigation into his killing. Recently, the founder of Los Zetas-the powerful Mexican drug cartel who many believe is responsible for Agent Zapata’s death-was apprehended by authorities in Mexico City. Insight on the News has all of the details. Whether or not his arrest will lead to any revelations about the attack on agents Zapata and Avila is an open question. Whether it will lead to a decrease in the drug and corruption-fueled violence plaguing Mexico is something that can’t be determined, although the truth is that previous Zetas founders have been arrested with no corresponding drop in violence.