The depressingly familiar “debate” we’re having over the aptly named Gang of Eight’s amnesty plan has covered a lot of territory, most of it found within well-maintained Potemkin villages created by a barely credible fourth estate. We, along with others of a similar disposition, have already explained the stupendous innumeracy-to say nothing of intellectual bankruptcy-of the Republican Party’s volte-face on illegal immigration. In the future, we’ll explore how the open borders left has succeeded in framing this debate, which-as Mark Steyn points out-consists to a large degree of ruling contrary opinions-or even established facts which contradict their dogma-illegitimate. 

Today we’d like to bring you the story of a reader who went through the arduous  process of  naturalization-with its attendant bureaucratic nightmares-and has a decidedly different perspective on those illegal aliens who’ll be rewarded for their dubious life decisions and questionable character traits by our Congress. Read Paul’s story after the jump. 

When I first arrived in America in 1998, I was not sure if I was going to like it here, but at the request of my future wife, we decided to give America a try before we made a firm decision on whether or not to stay in America or return to Ireland.

After getting over the initial culture shock (like driving on the wrong side of the road!), I grew to like it here more and more and to appreciate everything America had to offer. I then decided to begin the process of changing my status.

As I began this process, I was amazed at the costs involved. Each form had to be accompanied by a check. In addition, my wife and I were required to take many trips back and forth to the Charlotte INS office (now under the auspices of the Dept. of Homeland Security) because there is no office available to serve the Asheville area, despite there being many illegal Aliens in this area.

I went through so much paperwork; you cannot believe. It has taken me over 6 long years, and thousands of dollars, to get to where I am today. One form alone from the INS (ICE) in 1998 cost $470.00 to submit for consideration.

This was particularly hard on my wife and I as I was prohibited from working and earning a wage until all of these forms were approved and I was issued a permit to work, in spite of the fact that we were required to file our taxes jointly. I actually had to pay taxes before I was allowed to work and earn wages to pay taxes on!

When the time came for me to submit to my INS physical, the closest INS doctor was in Greenville, SC, which required two trips so that my TB test could be read a week later, in addition to the $300 costs of the physical and x-rays.

Also, were it not for the intervention of then-Senator Jesse Helms, I would have been required to repeat this process (and pay for it!) a second time, because your INS (ICE) physical is only good for two years.

During this entire process, I had to prove to the authorities by signing a sworn statement that I would not be accepting any sort of local, state or federal government assistance in any way. This would include food stamps, unemployment, health care, etc. Essentially, my wife had to become my “sponsor,” and had to submit her own affidavits showing her current wage, length of employment and anticipated length of future employment.

She basically had to prove that she could provide for the two of us so that at no point during the entire process would I ever become a burden to the United States government, regardless of whether I contributed to our household income or not. However, once I received my green card and my status was changed to a Resident Alien, I no longer needed her sponsorship, which was a relief to us both. 

To dare think illegal Aliens should obey the law here!

During this entire process, I had to depend on my wife to be my official “sponsor” and had to prove to the authorities that I would not be a burden on the state, by accepting any form of welfare, food stamps, unemployment compensation or free health care.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS  GO THROUGH THAT.

I was required to have a work permit, which cost me in 1998 $195 for every year prior to my being issued my green card.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to prove that I had a Social Security number before I would be issued a N.C. driver’s license.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to pay in 1998/99 $135 for a travel permit in order to leave and re-enter the country in case of a family emergency.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to demonstrate a basic knowledge of the English language before being granted citizenship.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS CAN GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to demonstrate a basic knowledge of U.S. history before being granted citizenship.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS CAN GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to wait until I became a U.S. citizen, before I was allowed to vote in an election.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to undergo a complete Federal Background Check, several times over.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS EVER GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to be fingerprinted on six separate occasions, despite the fact that fingerprints do not change over time.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS HAVE TO GO THROUGH THAT.

I had to demonstrate my fitness to be a U.S. citizen by upholding every law.

NO ILLEGAL ALIENS CAN DO THAT, BECAUSE THEY HAVE ALREADY VIOLATED THE LAW BY BEING HERE ILLEGALLY IN THE FIRST PLACE!

Do you think it’s right to award illegal aliens the same rights as American citizens when they have already broken the law, by stealing American’s identities and doing jobs that LEGAL Americans would do? 

Do you think it’s right for illegal aliens not to learn the English language, or not to assimilate? English is the language of America. English is the language of business, English is the common language that unites us all as a people.

Bi-lingualism or multi-linguilism is causing the destruction of the American way of life, because if people cannot communicate in a common language it leads to segregation.

Do you think that we as a people, should have no problem with the fact that illegal Aliens be deported, or that businesses that employ those illegal Aliens should be fined or put out of business. Impose similar penalties on those who provide them with housing? 

Stop providing our schools with bi-lingual teachers whose only function is to assimilate the children of US citizens to the Spanish language.

Change the laws regarding “anchor babies,” and return them and their parents to their country of origin, only allowing their return upon their eighteenth birthday.

In North Carolina alone, there are 500,000-700,000 plus illegal aliens that are putting an untold burden on our legal and social welfare system.

For instance, why is it that as a U.S. citizen I am not entitled to free health care or education, yet the illegal Aliens that live in my county and State and New Country are?

I haven’t gotten anything handed to me, and to be honest with you I don’t want anything handed to me.

The whole idea of America is that the opportunities are there for us. That’s what’s great about America and the system we got here. 

When are the representatives of the people going to uphold the law by detaining and deporting all illegal aliens? 

And when are we going to hold their feet to the fire, or VOTE them out? 

North Carolina is already a very expensive state to live in, due mainly to the illegal immigration problem. When is enough enough?

I resent so many of my tax dollars being spent to support illegal aliens that have not gone through the same effort as I have to earn their place in this great country.

America is not without its faults, but without a doubt, it is still the greatest country in the world. It is the last bastion of freedom and liberty, the shining City on the Hill.

While citizens of other countries are quick to criticize us, I would bet that given the opportunity, they would all trade places with me in a heartbeat.

Yes, it was a long and difficult process to become a citizen, but I am grateful for the opportunities and the bounty that is America. I am grateful to all of my American family and friends, for making me feel like a member of the American family. I will always be proud to be Irish, but I’m very, very proud to be an American.

Remember security on the border is not a Democrat or Republican issue. It’s an American issue and we, as citizens, need to speak up!

The Democrats deny the existence of voter fraud.  Yet it occurs on the floor of their own convention, as the Convention Chairman approves the mention of God in the platform against the overwhelming objections of the delegates.

You know, they might just have a point.  Still, I doubt it will register with the deniers.

Hat Tip: Progressive Libertarianism.

The precedent established by the Islamist-led prayer-not for the United States, of course-endorsed by the DNC continued on the second night of the Democratic National Convention. The celebration of a post-American nation included a brief, yet vitally important, speech by an illegal alien who served as a stand-in for the millions of “undocumented students” who were gifted an indefinite stay in the United States by President Obama via his unconstitutional administrative amnesty.

The welcome the Undocu-bus received in Charlotte  was in keeping with a party that has done everything in its capacity, both within and outside of the legal fabric of this country, to do away with immigration enforcement while at the same time perpetuating the disastrous policies begun with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and which have continued unabated for the past five decades.

The surprise is not so much that Democrat power-brokers invited an illegal alien to address their party’s convention, but that she wasn’t selected to deliver its keynote address. I suppose that’s something the open borders fetishists have something to look forward to in 2016.

The divided-and misleadingly named-Arizona vs. U.S. Supreme Court decision, which upheld one key enforcement provision of SB 1070 while invalidating others, the unilateral administrative amnesty which the Obama administration has used to bypass Congress, and the systematic abandonment of federal immigration law by individual states-including New York-have all brought the battle over American sovereignty to a head in this volatile election year. 

That’s why I’m pleased to announce that our friend William Gheen, founder and president of Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, will be participating in a crucial gathering in his home state of North Carolina this weekend-beginning today-which is focused upon addressing one of the most important subjects not being discussed by the two major party nominees during this election year.

The iiiMPACT Conference is something that I urge all North Carolinians to attend-if possible-and those living outside of the state to watch via this link. The details are provided below.

A free, bipartisan educational event featuring leaders and experts on the state, local, and national levels who will share their expertise and knowledge to discuss the impact of illegal immigration in North Carolina check out iiiMPACT to register and for more information. 

We’ll dive into this educational event with a viewing of Dennis Michael Lynch’s ground-breaking documentary, They Come to America. A comprehensive and in-depth look at the reality and the costs of illegal immigration in America, this movie will help to educate the public on this issue on the national level. Step beyond the media pundits’ racially charged sound-bites into what’s really going on in our cities and along America’s border. 

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.

Those of you who are not Angelenos, but are Adam Carolla fans, are already aware of the complete and utter disaster Tony Villar’s administration has been, but for those of you who are neither, the great Doug McIntyre-of KABC and the Los Angeles Daily News-is here to debrief you. And, unfortunately for her, party hack Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Enjoy:

Let’s be very clear what happened here.  Two women proudly and publicly stated that they were present in this country illegally.  They were being held in a local jail and ICE knew where they were and could have easily picked them up and started deportation proceedings.  ICE told the jail to let them go.

What is the point of having immigration laws if the government refuses to enforce them?