Update: My good friend was also at at the May Day events and has some fantastic video footage, which you can find at The Silent Majority No More. The rest of her coverage can be found at her website as well. More video from the day’s festivities can be found on Youtube.

As promised, today I will present the conclusion to American Rattlesnake’s May Day coverage, including the robust, sustained-and to our country’s enemies, deeply irritating-counter-protest staged by this website’s editor-in-chief in collaboration with New York Ice.

As you can see by the photo above, our critics-in this case, the feral, reflexively violent antifa thugs who met us at Foley Square-were not eager to be photographed. Whether that was out of concern for being identified by NYPD officers the next time they attempt to assault a peaceful assembly of dissident voices, or out of respect for the hundreds of visitors who would be forced to look at their faces in the following days is something I’ll  let you decide.

Fortunately, there were a few “anti-fascists” who I was able to detain for a brief snapshot. This young woman, for example, evokes memories of a young Faye Dunaway, perhaps after being hit with a tire iron. An arresting image, nonetheless.

This zaftig Mexican girl below was particularly aggrieved by my unobtrusive photography that day, although I can’t for the life of me discern why. After bombarding me with some choice expletives for several minutes, she was gently escorted beyond police barricades by some NYPD officers and asked to remove her  jaunty black bandana/face-mask.

At this point, the street theater they were attempting-by ripping signs from the hands of counter-protesters, showering us with abuse, and generally acting like ignoramuses-descended into farce, as the well-fed IA began to weep like a  young child whose favorite plaything has been ripped from her arms.

Even though these photos might lead you to  believe there was a sarin or mustard gas attack upon Foley Square, the truth is that the nose-holding and face-covering is merely part of the theatrical element antifa crybabies brought to the fore during their ridiculous posturing that day. I think you can judge its effectiveness by the look on the face of the Muslim man pictured below.

As entertaining as the black-clad anarchists were, there was also much amusement to be found throughout the rally, including on stage. The African-American gentleman in the background is, ironically enough, named Clarence Thomas. Leader of the radical International Longshore & Warehouse Union-Local 10, he was joined on stage by the afternoon’s emcee, who spent the better part of two hours explaining why her organization had decided to hold two separate rallies which were both ended prematurely.

I AM ASKED WHY WE DECIDED TO HOLD TWO RALLIES, AND MY ANSWER IS…BECAUSE…!

The last declamation was followed in short order by a tangent having absolutely no bearing on the ostensible reason for staging this rally. In other words, even the people who organized this event had absolutely no clue why they were there in the first place. I wish I could say I was surprised by this revelation.

There were also some festive people in Indian, or as the politically correct stewards of speech would say “indigenous,” dress doing a rain dress which was strangely ineffective.

And of course, what illegal alien friendly event would be complete without someone spouting completely inaccurate, misleading statistics that are easily debunked?

Thankfully, on this day the masses of pro-amnesty, anti-American, revanchist reds were confronted by a group of Americans, some of them immigrants themselves, who saw the need to assert their views amidst the cacophony of stridently anti-American voices. Although initially outnumbered, we stood our ground and endured to the end, even outlasting the loud, obnoxious, but morally bankrupt forces that had tried to colonize Foley Square that afternoon.

My favorite part of the day, bar none, was when a group of hostile illegal aliens and socialists attempted to heckle us into submission but were silenced once we withdrew our driver’s licenses and photo identification. When we asked them where their papers were, accompanied by the chorus to the great 1980s Genesis tune, Illegal Alien, we were greeted with shame-faced silence and dumb stares. A small victory, it was nevertheless an  extremely gratifying moment.

Joanna Marzullo, president of New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement, expresses her point of view. You can find video coverage of her part in the counter-demonstration on Youtube.

Even in the Big Apple, there are people who stand with Arizona, as this past May Day demonstrated.

The lesson to be drawn from this event, IMO, is that no matter how outnumbered you might feel when fighting the hordes of radical, open borders crusaders, there are always people willing to stand by your side when you defend basic American values.

An interesting article published in today’s Wall Street Journal explores the efforts of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to punish businesses that employ illegal aliens.

The tone of the piece, of course, reinforces pre-existing canards about illegal immigration. The most prominent being the idea that the jobs these illegal aliens are performing can not be replicated by legal, American workers. Somehow the thousands of Americans lined up for job fairs in this city-and throughout the country-seem to have flown under the radar of these diligent employers.

A more relevant insight though is the observation that many employers are compelled to hire illegal workers, even if that is not their preference, due to draconian civil rights statutes that directly conflict with other laws they also must be in full compliance with, lest the Justice Department attack them. You might remember this Catch-22 being debated during the controversy that erupted once news of former gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s illegal alien nanny came to light. At the time, some pro-enforcement commentators brought up the inherent contradiction embodied by the federal government’s approach to immigration enforcement.

In any case, the article is worth reading in its entirety. The fact that derelict immigration bureaucrats like John Morton are finally being compelled to do their job is cause for celebration, even though we must continue to be vigilant in our fight to have all of this nation’s immigration laws enforced across the board.

As we mark the end of the old year and the beginning of something new, it’s wise to take a step back and assess the accomplishments and setbacks of our movement. 2010 was probably the most significant year in terms of advancing the debate over immigration enforcement within the body politic of this country in recent memory.

The most notable event, of course, was the decision by Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona to sign into law Senator Russell Pearce’s signature piece of legislation, SB 1070. As a quick reminder, the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act makes it a misdemeanor to be an illegal alien, requires the enforcement of all relevant federal immigration laws by state and local law enforcement officials during their regular duties, and targets those who hire, shelter, or harbor people living in Arizona illegally.

Although large parts of the law have been enjoined by Judge Susan Bolton, Governor Brewer and the state of Arizona are appealing that injunction. In fact, the likelihood that this law will eventually reach the Supreme Court, as another Arizona law targeting employers of illegal aliens already has, is high. But even more importantly, the decision by President Obama’s Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, to sue the state of Arizona served as a litmus test moment in the broader immigration debate we’ve been engaged in since Californian’s approval of Proposition 187 in 1994.

Taking the side of special interest groups like the National Council of La Raza, LULAC and other opponents of immigration enforcement in the United States, such as the ACLU and the government of Mexico, against the state of Arizona, as well as the vast majority of the American public, told us all where the Obama administration stands on this issue. It also galvanized public support for the stance of Governor Brewer and spurred efforts to enact similar laws in other states, as this New Year’s article by UPI points out.

But SB 1070 wasn’t the only major national development in the world of immigration reform. 2010 also saw the attempt by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his deputy whip, Senator Dick Durbin, to foist the DREAM Act upon us after being rebuffed repeatedly by Congress in the decade since it was first conceived. Thankfully, opponents of DREAM, led by the indefatigable Senator Sessions and his allies at Numbers USA, were able to defeat their backdoor attempt at amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

As gratifying as this victory was, it was not the only success we had over the course of the past year. 2010 also saw the widespread adoption of Secure Communities, a program mandating local authorities share the fingerprints of arrestees with ICE, by  states and localities around the country, including ones run by governors with notoriously weak records on this issue, such as Massachusetts and our very own New York State. While perhaps a small step in the right direction, it is an indication that the Obama administration can be prodded into immigration enforcement when it is politically pressured to do so.

Perhaps the single greatest achievement of 2010, though, was the electoral victory of November 2nd, when the forces of immigration enforcement and reform defeated Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputies across the nation. And even though there were some blots on an otherwise great score card, the overall results represented a huge shift away from the House of Representatives that passed the DREAM Act in a lame duck session. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, whose comical efforts I’ve chronicled in the past, will be replaced in the new Congress with immigration hawk Steve King, while the former chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, anti-fence, anti-enforcement Rep. Bennie Thompson, will be replaced with a congressman familiar with that territory, Rep. Peter King.

And even though the campaign to unseat amnesty proponent and panderer Harry Reid fell short, we did see the replacement of several dreadful members of the U.S. Senate this year, including the defeat of DREAM Act supporter Bob Bennet, and the retirement of former co-sponsor Sam Brownback-who is now the governor of Kansas. Overall, the November elections marked a huge shift in favor of immigration enforcement and common sense tools like e-Verify, which is a priority of new House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith.

Overall, I think we can look back on the past year with a great degree of pride in our achievements and determination to correct those mistakes that were made in the course of this struggle. The focus of most of our energies over the past year has been in thwarting potentially disastrous legislation on the federal level, such as the DREAM Act and AgJobs, and helping states pick up the slack of the federal government, as was the case with SB 1070. I think 2011 will mark a transition to a focus on the federal government assuming its proper, but long-neglected, role in border security and immigration enforcement. The success of Secure Communities proves that state-federal cooperation can be an effective tool in stemming the flow of illegal immigration.

Rest assured, this website will continue to bring you news of any developments on that front as the year progresses.