It’s not pretty.  

And open borders enthusiasts wonder why the American public is reluctant to embrace this administration’s comprehensive amnesty. Endemic corruption-which predates the arrival of Barack Obama in the White House-utter contempt for Constitutional and legal limitations, and a staggering inability among enforcement agencies to perform the basic functions under its purview are merely the most obvious reasons why the Gang of Eight monstrosity-or any bill remotely similar in structure-should be resoundingly rejected by this Congress. 

In order to understand why we are treading such a perilous path all you need do is turn the front page of your local newspaper, turn on your television, peruse the Web, and open your eyes. 

Illegal immigration, and our government’s enablement of criminal aliens on our soil, is serious business.

Update: Five questions which won’t be asked at these hearings, courtesy of Heritage.

Watch it live!

Trey Gowdy opening up with lament for the “undocumented.”

Far be it from me to praise National Review-especially the feckless leadership of its current editor-in-chief-but when it’s right, it’s right.

And in this case, NR is absolutely correct. John Boehner-never a profile in courage-needs to be reminded why he is the Speaker of the House. Here’s a clue: it’s not to fulfill the wish list of La Raza and the Democratic Party. Tell him and his deputies to KILL THE BILL, because that’s the only way the Republican Party-and the nation-will be able to dig itself out of the hole we find ourselves in.

The DC March for Jobs is less than two days away! I urge every immigration patriot-especially those living in Maryland, Virginia, and the nation’s capital-to make their best efforts to attend this historic event. This will be a momentous opportunity to show the nation’s lawmakers, who have made a habit of ignoring the will of their constituents, why the American public categorically rejects amnesty, as well as the massive increase in legal immigration that the Gang of Eight travesty-or a corresponding bill in the House-will unleash upon the labor market. 

To understand why this show of solidarity with unemployed and underemployed Americans is so vital, you should listen to Laura Ingraham’s fantastic interview of BALA spokeswoman Leah Durant, which illustrates the scale of the unemployment crisis facing American citizens, and how much this bill will exacerbate it. The Congressional Black Caucus-like much of Congress-doesn’t give a fig for the people they ostensibly represent; it’s time to show them that American voices must be heard in this debate. 

New Yorkers for Immigration Control and Enforcement rallies against a pro-amnesty rally held this Father’s Day. Joanna Marzullo, president of NY ICE, has the details:

June 14, 2013, New York, NY. NY ICE counter-demonstrated, once again, at the Federal ICE Center at Varick Street in NYC. The photo above is from that counter demonstration, and features a NY ICE Member boldly holding a “NO AMNESTY” sign against the stampede of illegal aliens who were trying to exploit Father’s Day for amnesty. At the counter, an illegal told NY ICE that we were “ruining” her day, but, in fact, they are trying to continue to ruin our country.

Also, as this video demonstrates, illegals are fond of saying they “are human”, but that is just another deflection. They are humans who are illegally here, as the NY ICE Member in that video eloquently states amidst the hoards of illegals; not in the shadows! Contrary to their propaganda, Federal ICE is not conducting raids or detentions in any kind of massive way. Most illegals that are detained are, in fact, detained for other reasons, like drug-dealing, that are in addition to their illegal status. And, in fact, most of these illegal alien fathers have other children in in their home countries who they separated themselves from.

In fact, deporting them would serve to reunite these illegal alien fathers with their children in their home countries. Illegal alien advocates always act like the U.S. is the only country where illegal alien families can be reunited, and that’s because they want access to the America’s resources. Most of these illegal alien fathers are international Johnny Appleseeds, fathering multiple children in different countries. Don’t be fooled by their propaganda that goes against the self-interest of the citizens and legal immigrants of the U.S.!

With the United States Senate rushing headlong into its rendezvous with destiny, i.e. deconstructing what remains of this nation’s anemic and beleaguered economy, and the U.S. House following suit, it  seems appropriate to examine cui bono from these developments. Obviously not American citizens, beyond Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg and the politicians who’ll be handsomely rewarded by his corporation as a result of  yet another mass amnesty. Undoubtedly the thousands of immigration attorneys who’ll be enriched through the passage of the Gang of Eight proposal-whose case was pleaded by Laura Lichter, the president of the AILA, in laughably skewed immigration hearings-will accrue some financial benefits after comprehensive immigration reform finally occurs.

Certainly, the individuals and institutions which have collectively spent over a billion dollars lobbying Congress over the past half-decade feel that they have a vested interest in altering this nation’s immigration laws. However, the more immediate beneficiaries will be the millions of illegal aliens who will have their status changed, with the resultant benefits, including those enjoyed by their immediate family members and relatives.

That part of this story is the ostensible focus of Two Americans, a documentary about Katherine Figueroa-whose beatific face you see juxtaposed against the snarling visage of Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio in the print ad above-a nine year-old girl from Arizona whose Mexican parents were arrested and detained after an immigration sweep at their workplace.

I caught a screening of the film by directors Dan Devivo and Valeria Fernandez, which was sponsored by the Justice Action Center and Racial Justice Project of New York Law School, last week just as the debate-such as it is-about immigration reform was percolating within Congress. As you can tell by the names of these academic centers, the foremost concern among faculty members-and presumably, their students-is achieving a desired political outcome-in this case for preferred racial and ethnic groups-regardless of whether that result is consonant with basic Constitutional precepts, a broader conception of justice according to natural law, or a firm foundation in American history. One of the main problems I have with the legal  assault against immigration enforcement-and the left’s approach to the law in general-is that it relies upon this sort of results-based policy, which is predicated on achieving an outcome that is politically-not deontologically-correct.

In my estimation, this is the polar opposite of “justice,” whose definition has until recently-perhaps before the era when critical legal studies achieved a foothold in academe-meant the application of objective rules which applied equally to everyone, regardless of skin color, ethnicity, religion, or sexual preference. Fortunately, the filmmakers behind Two Americans do grapple with the statutory and constitutional issues, such as habeas corpus, due process, and equal protection, that the enforcement of immigration laws in Arizona-specifically, the suppression sweeps launched by Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County-raise. In fact, the film’s focus upon these enforcement actions-and the difficult questions of federalism and the criminal justice system-is arguably the most substantive aspect of this documentary. Personally, I wish the directors had chosen to focus exclusively on these issues, rather than attempt to create an ambitious, almost panoramic-yet not altogether successful-film that often feels like four or five separate documentaries stitched together.

While the film’s promotional materials bill it as an investigation of Joe Arpaio’s expenditure of state funds as head of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, as well as a portrayal of the struggles of young Katherine Figueroa, it actually touches upon at least half a dozen other subjects that could have constituted distinct cinematic projects. From the President’s implementation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, an extension of his administration’s administrative amnesty, to the political struggle over Arizona’s landmark law SB 1070, to the issues of leadership raised by the activities of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, to the relationship between Arpaio and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, to the relentless effort by his critics, such as Randy Parraz,  to dislodge him from office, to the battle between Sheriff Joe and the President himself, this documentary seemingly attempts to cover every angle of the immigration debate within Arizona in its hour and a half running time.

The relationship between the sheriff and Figueroa’s family is tenuous at best, as Dan Devivo readily conceded during a post-screening question and answer session, where he described how Joe Arpaio is merely a stand-in for all of the elected officials and law enforcement officers-however few in number-who are attempting to enforce immigration laws in a robust manner. I was genuinely surprised by the negligible amount of time devoted to Katherine’s dilemma-even the focus on the Figueroa family was divided between interviews of Katherine, her parents, and her custodial relatives. She is a very appealing personality for the anti-enforcement movement-lending credence to Mickey Kaus’s theory that the DREAM Act was merely a stalking horse for a much broader amnesty-and I had made the assumption going into the screening that she would be centerpiece of this film.

Admittedly, I wasn’t moved to tears-a reaction that Andrea Callan, the ACLU advocate who hosted this event, assured us would be forthcoming-at any point during Two Americans. Perhaps I’ve become inured to the barrage of sob stories and media puffery which deluge the American public on a daily basis regarding the plight of the undocumented. However, it’s hard to discount the notion that Katherine Figueroa’s story is tailor-made for a sympathetic human interest story which could have filled the plot of an anti-enforcement film in its own right. The directors chose to focus instead on the political nature of Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s public persona, which is often overlooked in discussions about the utility, legality, and impact of his office’s enforcement campaigns.

In truth, Arpaio is, in addition to being the chief law enforcement officer in Maricopa County, a public official whose capacity as sheriff rests upon his popularity with Arizona voters. So it’s not surprising that his most hotly contested public stance generates scrutiny regarding his motives; the filmmakers asserted-both in the film and subsequent Q&A session-that his crusade against illegal immigration is driven solely by political opportunism. It’s a charge seemingly buttressed by the testimony of a former colleague-interviewed throughout this film-who claims that Joe Arpaio jumped on the anti-illegal alien bandwagon in order to prosper politically. However, I feel this critique wanting, not least because Dan Devivo, in response to an audience member’s (translated) question, averred that Arpaio’s support within Maricopa was dwindling with each subsequent election. One wonders why an extremely popular elected official would adopt a stance that would earn him scorn and political antagonism among open borders enthusiasts throughout the country-and certainly generate opposition within his home county-if it wasn’t based at least partially on personal conviction.

Furthermore, the same insinuation can be made of Arpaio’s political enemies, such as open borders socialist Raul Grijalva, whose political fortunes-and campaign bank account-haven’t suffered as a result of his dogged campaign against SB 1070 and the current sheriff of Maricopa County. And while  questions pertaining to Arpaio’s use of his investigatory authority-particularly with regard to his office’s MACE unit-are certainly valid, the misuse and exploitation of power by some of Arpaio’s most powerful opponents is a question never broached by Two Americans. Specifically, the highly politicized tenure of Thomas Perez-President Obama’s nominee to replace Hilda Solis as Secretary of Labor, but at the time of the administration’s lawsuit against Maricopa County the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights-is never raised, nor is his extensive history of open borders activism.

Given that this documentary is advocacy journalism, I don’t know how much balance on this subject the audience is entitled to expect. However, the narrative thread of this film continuously returned to the bad faith of people who support immigration enforcement, with the implicit accusation that their beliefs are responsible for the travails of Katherine Figuroa, rather than the actions of her two parents. I give the filmmakers credit for highlighting to a certain degree the fusillade of hatred open borders advocates have unleashed upon Arpaio-including the credible death threats he has received in office-yet the reasons why Arizona voters continue to support him are never seriously scrutinized, nor examined in anything but the most cursory manner.

The extensive and sustained public support for laws such as SB 1070 never arises at any point in this documentary, and the only footage of protestors who are critical of illegal immigration focuses, curiously enough, on members of the National Socialist Movement. The many peaceful, multi-ethnic, well-attended rallies supporting this law-which were covered by mainstream, liberal media outlets in Arizona at the time-completely escape the notice of the filmmakers, as do the public statements of  large, representative, reputable immigration reduction and anti-illegal immigration organizations and individuals in this country. In the end, I think that is the biggest shortcoming of Two Americans. Not the sprawling focus, but the refusal to honestly present the arguments made by the respective camps in the immigration debate. It’s a problem that will persist so long as one side refuses to acknowledge the legitimacy of their opponents’ beliefs.

With the unfortunate news that Eric Holder is going to remain in his position as head of the Department of Justice for the second Obama term-at least for the foreseeable future-it’s only fitting that we take a cursory glance at the defining moment of his tenure as Attorney General. I refer, of course, to Operation Fast and Furious, which let high powered arms-of the sort demonized by anti-2nd Amendment demagogues and Holder apologists Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein-walk into the hands of ruthless Mexican drug cartels with the encouragement and under the leadership of Obama appointees in the ATF and Justice Department. 

One of those individuals is former Phoenix ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge George T. Gillett, Jr., a man who was entrusted with overseeing Fast and Furious for over half a year, beginning in late 2009. It’s now been confirmed that a gun from this lethally stupid operation has been traced back to Mr. Gillett personally. Anyone who’s followed the fallout from perhaps the single most outrageous abuse of power by the Obama administration is familiar with the casualties which have resulted from this scheme, which are spread across the entire hemisphere.

The lack of accountability throughout this administration for those officials responsible for its implementation-including Mr. Gillette and others who have been promoted in spite of their criminality-should be astonishing, but is in fact reflective of the habitual blame-shifting and hypocrisy at the heart of Barack Obama’s presidency. What’s more, it reflects the inherent double standards that animate our government, which seeks to deny innocent American citizens their constitutional rights even as its leaders promulgate illegal policies that lead to the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians abroad.

The same Capitol Hill gasbags eager to erode the 2nd Amendment in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, a campaign based upon non-existent facts, are the first to defend Eric Holder and Justice Department officials under whose purview Fast and Furious unfolded, and who have done everything in their power to obstruct congressional investigations into their actions.

Whether we will make any progress in achieving justice during the President’s second term is debatable. Will the media-with a few commendable exceptions-continue to cover up for the malicious actions of government officials? Will the senators who installed Eric Holder into his lofty position begin to question their unfailing loyalty to an Attorney General who has lost the confidence of the American public and, to a great degree, Congress?

We shall see. Something that this latest revelation confirms is that elections do have consequences, some of them fatal.

One of the hallmarks of the Obama administration throughout its first term has been deception. The compulsion of the President and his surrogates to deny, obfuscate, and blatantly deceive the press corps, their political opponents-even, on occasion, their political allies-and the American public is beyond dispute. That Barack Obama is willing to stand behind his attorney general, despite the fact that he has dissembled repeatedly before Congress and the public, in some cases about deliberate actions which have led to the murder of hundreds of innocent Mexican civilians and several American immigration and Border Patrol agents, testifies to how little he values accountability or transparency in government.

For those who might have thought this tendency would dissipate in the President’s second term, you need only look at the criminal coverup involving one of Barack Obama’s close political allies, Senator Robert Menendez, to be disabused of this hope. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that an administration which has no respect for the rule of law would abet lawlessness on Capitol Hill as well as in the White House. The non-enforcement of immigration law is now being applied to criminal aliens who are sex offenders, at least if they happen to work in the office of one of President Obama’s political allies. Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security’s protection of sex offenders extends beyond the TSA.

As this New York Daily News article illustrates, the chief response of Robert Menendez to the arrest of his unpaid, illegal, sex criminal intern was, naturally, to bang the drum for a further expansion of Barack Obama’s unconstitutional evasions of immigration law such as DACA and administrative amnesty. Unfortunately,  Senator Menendez can’t be deported, having been born in New York City. Therefore, New Jerseyans will be stuck with him for the next six years.

With a little under a month remaining until Election Day, the Obama campaign has transitioned into full-blown hispandering mode. This week’s symbolically potent, yet empty, exercise in  gestural politics entailed President Obama designating the home of former California labor leader Cesar Chavez a national monument. The ostensible purpose of this decision is to rally support among one of his party’s most reliable voting blocs, i.e. Hispanic Americans. Because even though they still decisively support the President’s reelection, that support does not always translate into votes, as other analysts have trenchantly observed.

What makes Obama’s trip to California so fascinating though is not the seemingly transparent play for votes among an ethno-linguistic group already inclined to vote for his reelection, but the figure he chooses to honor in pursuit of this goal. It should be remembered that as head of the United Farm Workers, Cesar Chavez was militant in his efforts to increase the wage scale of California’s poorly-paid and exploited agricultural workers. And despite the fact that his legacy has been appropriated by radical open borders socialist Dolores Huerta-a co-founder of the UFW-Chavez was most militant in his actions against illegal aliens and the guest-workers from Mexico large growers relied upon in order to depress wages.

While today he is looked upon simply as a totemic figure for the left, to be utilized for whatever cause du jour-including comprehensive immigration reform-requires his unique biography, Cesar-or, as our President prefers to call him, (SEE-ZER)-Chavez began his labor activism in response to the federal government’s bracero program. His opinion regarding mass immigration-at least with regard to the agricultural sector-was the polar opposite of the contemporary Democratic Party. His views on illegal immigration were identical to that of today’s Minutemen, and expressed in a much more militant manner, it should be noted.

One of the chief reasons that farmworkers in California achieved parity with skilled workers in the manufacturing sector was precisely because of Chavez’s political efforts at restricting the inflow of unskilled, foreign workers to the state. Unsurprisingly, the steep decline in wages for this same cohort of workers-and the one that’s followed-tracked with the opening of our borders, including successive amnesties and manipulation of existing work visa programs by large agri-businesses. Agricultural concerns which still don’t believe there are enough foreign-born farmworkers in this country, despite the evidence that mechanization and innovation has actually improved farming techniques in the state of California.

You would learn none of this, however, if you relied upon the dominant media narrative for information about Cesar Chavez’s career, or gathered a fragmentary picture of  his life from vacuous, politically expedient gestures like this new national monument, or the christening of a warship in his name. However, my point isn’t that the mainstream media selectively omits certain facts and/or opinions when it suits their political purposes-which is something most of you already know-or that leftist, open borders advocates are willing to hijack the legacy of an iconic figure in order to see their ideological beliefs into law.

I raise this issue because it speaks to a gaping hole in this nation’s historical memory. The fact that craven politicians-of every stripe-will lie with impunity in order to advance their agendas is nothing new. However, the notion that they can so easily manipulate the public in an age where access to information is quite literally at the fingertips of each and every American, should be profoundly disturbing to anyone who values our republican form of government.

If the philosophy of such an historic figure-who was alive less than two decades ago-can be willfully distorted-despite the abundance of evidence clearly establishing his views on this subject-in pursuit of a tendentious agenda, then what hope is there for engaging in an honest, open debate during this most contentious of presidential elections? If the American public is not able to differentiate fact from fiction, then what hope is there that it will make an informed decision as our country casts its ballots this November? As the great Spanish philosopher, poet, and novelist George Santayana once wrote, those who cannot remember the past, are condemned to repeat it.

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.