Video of Frank Gaffney’s speech can be found on Urban Infidel.

One of the unofficial mottos of the United States, this phrase-which is minted on this country’s coins and emblazoned upon our paper bills-embodies the common heritage of the American nation, which was created from the union of thirteen distinct, unique former British colonies. Over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it came to symbolize the melting pot forged from a collection of people who came to the United States from various European nations in order to reconstitute their lives.

It is a concept that, like many of its inhabitants, has become alien to contemporary America. We now live in a country comprised from a polyglot agglomeration of foreign tribes, individuals and extended families, many of whom would be unable to assimilate to American culture even if a coherent one still existed and they were encouraged to do so, both dubious propositions.

One of the most persistent questions raised by the September 11th attacks, and recurring periodically since, e.g. during the debate over the construction of Park 51, the debacle that the trial of Ft. Hood jihadist Nidal Malik Hasan has occasioned, and other terrorist attacks conceived by native or naturalized American citizens, has  revolved around whether Islam as it’s practiced today can be reconciled with traditional American values embodied in documents like the United States Constitution.

This question is what brought Frank Gaffney, the founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, to the Women’s National Republican Club last week, where he addressed the “civilizational jihad” he asserts Islamists are waging against the United States, as well as the West more broadly conceived. While the sight of Mr. Gaffney delivering a policy address is far from unusual, the fact that the event was hosted by Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies reflects a growing recognition among some conservatives-albeit, not all-that our nation’s immigration policy has a deep and profound influence upon national security and foreign policy concerns.

While some believe that the growing diminution of the traditional demographic profile of America will lead to a more pacific, non-interventionist foreign policy-analogizing it to the anti-war sentiment which prevailed in this country before its entry into World War I-it can be argued that the government’s embrace of heretofore foreign ethnic and religious groups will foster an even more aggressive, and in many ways detrimental, foreign policy, which might well endanger American diplomats, servicemen and civilians in the future-as it has in the recent past. What’s more, the union of multinational jihadist platforms with digital technology has given an entire generation of Arab, Asian and African Muslim young men who are essentially unmoored-having been transplanted to a foreign land at a young age-a distinct cultural and political identity; one which involves the replacement of Western norms and mores with a muscular, revanchist interpretation of Islam. The fact that the dominant legal, cultural, and political class have spent the past five decades attempting to minimize or nullify these very same values speeds their mission.

A perfect illustration of this dilemma was discussed by Frank Gaffney in relation to the Somali community within Minnesota, which now numbers in the tens of thousands. Resettled in previously homogeneous, tranquil parts of the United States at the urging of a United Nations bureaucracy and with the assistance of the U.S. State Department, these refugees have children who are now returning to the homeland of their parents and enlisting in battle against the Transitional Federal Government which our government helped to establish and killing African Union peacekeepers whose mission it ostensibly supports. Beyond the validity of their refugee claims-many of which are wholly fraudulent-there is the inescapable conclusion one must draw that the wealth confiscated from American citizens in the form of taxes-and lavished upon social welfare programs necessitated by the Somalis inability to support themselves or their families legally-is being used in some small measure to defray the cost of living of those who intend on blowing other people up.

In addition to the expense-born in our pocketbooks and  in the gradual erosion of American community-of this experiment, there is the the genuine threat posed by a large segment of migrants who dislike this country both because of specific foreign policy decisions and concrete Koranic injunctions. It beggars belief that the federal government would seek to import scores of foreigners from third world nations whose populations harbor significant hostility towards America while at the same time another branch of the state engages in nation-building experiments and military operations in those very same lands. The fact that this process is facilitated by the United Nations, a world body whose values are diametrically opposed to those cherished by most Americans, strains credulity.

One of the points emphasized throughout Gaffney’s lecture was the global, multidimensional nature of the jihadist threat. He focused extensively on the case of a particular individual who was detained while he and his hijab-clad wife filmed the support structure of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, an incident which would ultimately lead to one of the most critical pieces of evidence introduced during the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, at the time the largest Islamic charity in the United States. The HLF was eventually revealed to be not only a financial conduit for Hamas but also part of a network of institutions within the United States which were created under the auspices of the Muslim Brotherhood in order to achieve their ideological goals on American soil.

Although it might seem absurd to believe that bedrock American institutions can be undermined by a small coterie of Islamic ideologues, you have to consider the havoc the institutional left has already inflicted upon our society. An Iraqi refugee-with prior criminal offenses-has been charged with maliciously damaging federal property for attempting to destroy a Social Security Administration office with an improvised explosive device! The systematic execution of over a dozen soldiers by Nidal Malik Hasan is deemed a case of  ‘workplace violence’ by our federal government. A premeditated jihadist assault on LAX’s El Al terminal is not even considered a hate crime, and the head of the Justice Department cannot even utter the name of the religion whose doctrines inspired the man who attempted to obliterate Times Square with an explosive device which dwarfed that used in the Oklahoma City bombing.

In this context, it’s not difficult to see how a machiavellian political apparatchik with an outsized influence over the conservative movement, or an influential Democratic congressmen popular among both leftists and militant Muslims, or a presidential advisor with dubious ties to apologists for the Muslim Brotherhood can do permanent harm, especially when constitutional rights like freedom of speech are being used as bargaining chips in relations with the Muslim world.

The fact that a would-be facilitator of regicide and terrorist financier was able to enter the good graces of a sitting president and establish a program for Muslim chaplains, which still exists, because of the oleaginous influence of someone who purports to represent American Muslims illustrates the toxic combination of  identity politics and K street lobbying. And while some maintain that establishing a pro-Arab/Muslim political infrastructure in this country is necessary to balance the existing pro-Israel bias among American lawmakers, it’s hard to imagine Israelis-regardless of the wisdom of their specific policy views-enacting violent revenge upon Americans for their government’s policy regarding the West Bank or votes on the UN Security Council.

Glenn Greenwald raises the question of whether Nidal Malik was engaged in an act of terrorism, since-from his perspective, at least-he was fighting those who had enlisted in an army which had attacked his coreligionists in the nation of Yemen. But a more pertinent question is why someone who places allegiance to a foreign religion or a terrorist group in the Persian Gulf above his oath to the U.S. Army, or even his  obligation not to slaughter unarmed Americans, is in the United States to begin with. Why must the cult of diversity take precedence over the lives of ordinary American citizens?

And the answer is not comforting. It’s because our immigration policy is not designed with the interests of Americans in mind. Our laws are built to satisfy the demand of  colleges and universities that need the tuition paid by tens of thousands of Saudi students. Of private and public institutions that demand the addition of Muslim chaplains, regardless of ideology. Of parasitical federal contractors which make a killing by resettling scores of refugees who are a drain on state coffers in towns and cities throughout the country.

The customary response from advocates of changing the cultural landscape of America is that we need to do these things in order to change the hearts and minds of those living in the Islamic world. We need to project an image of openness in order to change the negative image of the United States overseas. The problem is that it has not worked, and in all likelihood, will never work. Globalization, insofar as it facilitates the exchange of goods and services according to the law of supply and demand, is a good thing. However, importing the maladies, cultural neuroses and obscurantist religious dogmas of foreign cultures for the sake of appeasing the gods of diversity and multiculturalism, even as we engage in questionable foreign interventions urged on by figures whose interests are inimical to those of the United States, is madness.

The rotten fruit of the Arab Spring, like that from the most recent war in Iraq, is being brought to our shores, so this is as good a time as any to begin having a conversation about what we want our country’s future to look like. Like Frank Gaffney, I believe it’s time to discontinue the diversity lottery, stop issuing visas to imams for whom there is no demand, and begin to look out for the interests of Americans, first and foremost.

Dogmatism and obfuscation mark virtually any media discussion of the subject of immigration-a pattern which holds true both domestically and abroad-but Sky News managed to conduct a good interview of Nigel Farage, standard bearer for the UK Independence Party, nonetheless. The Week provides a brief summary of what caused  two caring English foster parents to have the child they had cared for ripped from their arms by a Labour council that George Orwell would have had difficulty  imagining.

For those of you who believe this to be an anomalous event, you obviously haven’t been paying attention. Six years ago the government of the United Kingdom attempted to criminalize blaspheming Islam, and although unsuccessful-by a single vote-it’s hard to believe that this issue won’t reappear once the process of strip-mining Great Britain is closer to completion. The Farage interview is illustrative of the fact that not every individual wants to embrace the brave new world charted by our current statesmen, who have decided in their infinite wisdom to elect a new people.

The issue of immigration-or even the mention of immigration enforcement-has been wholly neglected by the presumptive nominees of this country’s two major political parties. Even as prominent politicians find new ways in which to exploit ethnic divisions for the sake of political expediency, the perverse incentives of America’s federal immigration policies remain unaddressed. While Democrats seek to harvest what they expect to be a political windfall from Hispanic voters, Republicans pander, or hispander as some deem it, to what they view as an ascendent voting bloc, even going so far as introducing a bill eerily similar to one the GOP staked its reputation opposing during the final hours of a Democrat-controlled Congress.

That’s why the speech delivered by David North-seen above-at the Penn Club last month-the final one in this year’s lecture series sponsored by the Center for Immigration Studies-was such a welcome relief, especially for those of us who are looking for reliable, empirical data which illuminates the dimensions of the problem we’re facing. A former Labor Department official, Mr. North is currently an expert on legal migration patterns and processes for CIS. In that capacity he’s demonstrated just how immigration reforms enacted by Congress, from the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, to the mass amnesty of 1986 known as Simpson-Mazzoli, to the Immigration Act of 1990-which introduced the horrifying concept of the Visa Lottery-have irreparably altered the demographic future of the United States.

Although long on statistical analysis and number crunching, North’s speech was anything but dull, especially to those interested in how the mechanics of American immigration dovetail with the politics, which often seem inscrutable to people not immersed in this field. One of the most trenchant observations made during the course of his speech was an explanation of how the patterns of legal immigration have changed over the past several decades. Just over half of legal immigrants today get green cards as a result of Adjustment of Status, i.e. they are already in the United States when they become permanent legal residents. This marks a sea change in immigration policy, yet one that is barely scrutinized by the mainstream media, which seems intent upon intentionally misrepresenting the issues at stake, if they examine those issues at all. A good place to start is with the Immigration Yearbook, a compilation of statistical data examining foreign nationals who became legal residents, were newly naturalized, or applied for asylum during the previous fiscal year.

Although the data collected by the Department of Homeland Security is not comprehensive-the lack of any program monitoring the arrival and departure of non-citizens being one of its more glaring deficiencies-it is the most accurate portrayal of foreign nationals living in this country who are not part of the vast population of illegal aliens. One of the key insights you glean when looking at the population of legal immigrants in the United States is that most of them hail from a handful of nations. In fact, the top 10 feeder countries from which this country’s foreign-born population is drawn account for an exceptionally large percentage of America’s immigrant population, Mexico alone being the native country of close to thirty percent of immigrants. The reason for this is the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which abolished the National Origins Formula which had governed American immigration policy since the 1920s, replacing it with a system of family reunification that has dramatically altered both the composition and size of America’s immigrant population.

Although Mr. North condemned the pre-’65 quota system-which included a blanket prohibition of Asian immigration-he did praise the Dillingham Commission, which devised the proscriptive formula, for devoting resources to answering questions that even today remain unexamined by the ostensible stewards of our federal government. Even so, North criticized the model which replaced our pre-existing immigration system-which had held legal immigration to a few hundred thousand people per year-for its agnosticism towards skills and reliance upon family reunification, independent of merit. He suggested that adopting skills-based preferences, a la Canada or the United Kingdom, would be a step in the direction of redressing the glaring deficiencies of our current immigration system.

However, there are flaws with adopting such a policy, beginning with the obvious reservation opponents would raise. Namely, that supporters of unfettered immigration would never consent to a corresponding restriction of unskilled immigration, a point illustrated in an article by Mark Krikorian during the last major congressional debate over amnesty legislation. Moreover, the notion that immigrants are required to fill job openings in STEM fields, although a popular one among open borders dogmatists, is belied by the facts.

Perhaps the greatest objection to adopting the system of either Canada or Australia though, is the realization that embracing foreign nationals who are technically skilled or highly educated does nothing to address the cultural consequences of immigration. One need only look at the wave of honor killings in Canada-or the United States-in order to grasp the essential truth that simply coming from an upwardly mobile, well educated demographic cohort does not necessarily mean that you are an assimilable or desirable immigrant. The retrograde customs and mores of a minority of some immigrant groups that might otherwise seem like attractive additions to the beautiful mosaic that is the United States are but one reason to look askance at anyone promising a panacea based upon a points-based system.

Even so, most people would agree that, all things being equal, seeking out immigrants on the basis of what they can contribute to the United States-rather than what we can give them-would be an improvement upon our current immigration policy. Although 68 year-old Peruvian retirees might very well be laudable individuals, the idea of resting a rapidly decaying welfare state upon their shoulders is utterly foolish. That’s why David North’s lecture was so instructive. It shed light upon just why and how our immigration policy had failed, and gave us some ideas for  how these problems might be rectified in the future.

If we ever do attempt to address this issue in a serious manner, I’m certain that it will be because of the work of people such as Mr. North and organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies.

Even as California increasingly seems intent upon sinking into the abyss, there is some encouraging news to report from the Golden State. Most of you are familiar with the tragic story of Jamiel Shaw Jr., a bright, energetic young student-athlete from Los Angeles who was indiscriminately killed by a criminal alien while his mother was serving her country overseas. After four painful years of pursuing justice, the Shaw family can now take some comfort in the knowledge that the illegal alien gangbanger who murdered their son has been convicted by a California jury. 

I urge you all to listen to the reaction of Jamiel Shaw’s father to the verdict, which can’t possibly repair the psychic trauma of losing not only his namesake, but his link to the future. The Shaw family has doggedly fought against the institutionalized politics of a city that joyfully clings to its status as the capital of the third world by attempting to pass Jamiel’s Law, which would have amended Special Order 40-the directive that allowed the murderer of Jamiel Shaw Jr. to roam Los Angeles without any fear of apprehension and deportation. The fact that the political class has refused to adopt this measure does not mean the threat from illegal aliens in the City of Angels has abated. To the contrary, the systemic targeting of black individuals by primarily Mexican and Central American gang members continues to plague Southern California. To get an idea of how pervasive this crime pandemic is, I recommend reading The Mexican Mafia by Tony Rafael, which chronicles the rise to power of the most ubiquitous criminal syndicate in the state of California.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Shaw family as it continues to struggle for justice and fights for the memory of its beloved  son and nephew, Jamiel Shaw Jr. As we enter the sentencing phase of this trial, we can only hope that this capital crime is punished with the harshest sentence available.

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.

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.

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

I’ll discuss this at length in the days ahead, but I’d be remiss in not reporting the news that Senator Pearce seems to have been recalled by voters in Arizona’s Legislative District 18. The people who want to turn Arizona into a haven for illegal aliens would appear to have achieved a significant political victory, although it should be noted that they needed to resort to gross deception in order to win. Even so, it can’t be denied that this is a huge feather in the cap of a well-funded, media-supported open borders political machine and that the strategy used to unseat Majority Leader Pearce will be replicated throughout the country whenever a public official has the temerity to stand up for the civil rights of his constituents. 

I’m loathe to make a snap analysis of tonight’s results, and will temper my remarks by reminding everyone that this fight will be a long, protracted struggle, but the fact that Lewis won by such a large margin will undoubtedly buttress the heretofore weak argument cautioning politicians against taking a tough stand on immigration issues, lest you be punished by “moderate” voters. Until now the chief-some would say only-example of this argument being validated at the polls was the decade-long erosion of support for the California GOP after the retirement of Governor Pete Wilson, a staunch supporter of anti-illegal ballot measure Proposition 187. This reversal of fortunes for the Republican Party was, predictably, described as the Wilson backlash. Why this animus towards Mr. Wilson never manifested itself during his three decade-long service in statewide and national office was never adequately explained, or even addressed, by immigration enthusiasts. 

However, the fact that opponents of American law now have a prominent scalp to wave will undoubtedly further invigorate their efforts to bolster the narrative that opposing the will of illegal aliens and their numerous supporters will have dire consequences at the ballot box. Expect LULAC, NCLR, the AFL-CIO, and other entrenched left wing interest groups to redouble their efforts at enacting amnesty on a national level, and on a statewide basis you can rest assured that the unceasing campaign to oust Sheriff Joe Arpaio will continue apace. That is why we must remain steadfast, and not let this admittedly very dispiriting result impede what will be a long term process of reasserting control over  this country’s porous borders.

Finally, I’d like to extend my gratitude to Senator Russell Pearce for his dedicated service to his state and country. Not only has he valiantly defended American citizens through his legislative efforts, but as a deputy in Maricopa County’s Sheriff’s office he heroically fought off a gang that nearly fatally wounded him, and as Stand with Arizona points out, along with his son is the only father and son to be awarded the Medal of Valor. Even though his efforts might not have been appreciated by monomaniacal open borders fetishists, I can say without hesitation that scores of patriotic Americans are grateful for the selfless work of Russell Pearce. You will be missed, Senator.

Republicans can march with Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Republican Chairman John Morrissey tomorrow morning. Those of you who don’t live in the district can still help defeat the open borders colossus. If you live in Arizona, and are free next Tuesday, you can drive those  voters who are incapable of walking to the polls. You can also remind friends who live in Russell’s district that they need to come out next week and support the man who is responsible for SB 1070, the most important statewide immigration law since Proposition 187. Whatever little you can do to help him out in this race counts, because the margin of victory-or defeat-is likely to be razor thin. And we can not afford to lose Senator Pearce’s voice in the important battles that loom.