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.

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 Senator John Cornyn now calling upon Eric Holder to resign, and a contempt citation in the offing, the chorus of voices demanding accountability from Barack Obama’s Department of Justice seems to have reached a critical mass. At the very least,  it has caused the current Attorney General to yield to Chairman Darrell Issa in at least one bureaucratic skirmish, although as the American Thinker points out, this  gambit might very well be simply another move in an orchestrated campaign of obstruction of justice on the part of the current administration. 

Another reason for the illusory cooperation on the part of Mr. Holder might be the willingness of Justice Department employees to come forward as whistleblowers and refute the falsehood that gunwalking was not linked to the disastrous Fast and Furious operation which resulted in so many deaths, including that of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.  We can only hope that these truth-tellers fare better than Vince Cefalu, a career ATF agent who was fired once he publicly voiced criticism of Project Gunrunner. 

Whatever comes of the latest confrontation between Congress and a recalcitrant Department of Justice, one thing that is certain is that this administration will not looking be for guidance in the Constitution. After all, as even its liberal supporters acknowledge, President Obama does not like following the law. Bully for us!

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 marks a deeply sad anniversary that will go unnoticed by most Americans, unfortunately, but which we must acknowledge if we ever hope to prevent such tragedies from recurring in the future. I speak, of course, of the murder of Arizona rancher Robert N. Krentz Jr., who was shot to death on his Cochise County ranch by an illegal alien-possibly associated with one of the powerful Mexican drug cartels-as he was coming to the aid of a Mexican national he thought was in need of help in 2010.

That ranch, which had been in the Krentz family since the 19th century, symbolizes the struggle Americans on the Southwestern border of the United States experience every day as they are besieged by ruthless coyotes, sophisticated, well-armed narco-traffickers, and thousands of illegal aliens trespassing upon their property. Janice Kephart and Bryan Griffith, both of the Center for Immigration Studies, produced a brief documentary entitled A Day in the Life of an Arizona Rancher which chronicles these battles in vivid detail.

Although Rob Krentz’s life was taken in large part due to the ineptitude of our federal government in securing our southern border, his murder prompted a wave of public indignation that ultimately led to the passage and enactment of SB 1070, the signature achievement of Governor Jan Brewer which is now before the Supreme Court. The Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, otherwise known by its shorthand, SB 1070, and the attempt by the Obama Justice Department to thwart its implementation-by no means the only attempt by this president to strip states of their rights-was the chief inspiration for American Rattlesnake. And insofar as Rob Krentz’s death spurred the campaign to protect the lives and property of innocent victims of our government’s negligence, this website.

That’s why you should reflect upon the life of an incredibly compassionate, hard-working, courageous man whose life ended far too early and who was just one of the many victims of illegal aliens whose fate our country’s politicians are  callously indifferent to. The San Francisco Immigration Examiner explores just who was lost on that southern Arizona ranch, while Jim Olson in the Tucson Citizen relates the story of Rob Krentz to readers who are unfamiliar with his family’s rich history. I suggest you read both, because they explain how an ordinary man became emblematic of a national crisis, one which must be resolved if people living in our nation’s border states are ever to find true peace and security.

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

The image you see above is a flow chart describing the process by which the bodies of illegal aliens, or in the parlance of the presenter, “undocumented border crossers,” found in the United States are identified and returned to their families. Or, in the case of those whose identities can not be verified, disposed of. It was part of a presentation by Luis Torrens, a student pursuing a Master’s in Public Health, who was invited to address a day-long seminar hosted by the CUNY Graduate Center and the Immigration Working Group which I attended yesterday. I attended the final session of the event, which was billed as a discussion of “immigration Policy and Undocumented Immigrants” and focused exclusively upon the lives of illegal aliens living-and dying-within the United States. 

Notwithstanding the ideologically blinkered nature of the discussion-of all the discussions, to be frank-I did glean some valuable insights from most of the presentations, which consisted of  original research by professors and graduate students seeking grants for further exploration of the subject of their studies. In the case of Mr. Torrens, that entailed devising a better method for the identification and recovery of the bodies of illegal border crossers from Mexico into the United States. He has pursued this goal by interviewing medical examiners and coroners from 44 border counties located in Arizona, California, and New Mexico. One of the most interesting findings from his study was the discovery that although the number of illegal border crossers apprehended has decreased in recent years, a 35 % decline from 2008-2009, the number of border crossers who have died has increased significantly, rising from 125 in the last decade of the 20th century to 802 in the years from 2000-2005. According to the General Accounting Office, most of these deaths are a result of the extreme heat and severe climatic conditions found in the desert along the Mexican-American border. 

Torrens suggested that this increase in heat-related deaths is a logical consequence of three border enforcement measures pursued during the Clinton administration, which he described as having a “funnel effect” intended to push illegal Mexican border crossers into the most inhospitable of environments. These three border enforcement tools were Operation Hold the Line, a 1994 initiative in El Paso involving the forward deployment of Border Patrol agents to remote stretches of the border, Operation Gatekeeper, which focused on preventing illegal entry from the San Diego-Tijuana portion of the border, and Operation Safeguard, an operation by the Border Patrol in Nogales, Arizona with similar aims. Unfortunately, the question of whether these measures were effective in deterring illegal entry in the first place-and therefore preventing unneeded deaths in the Southwest borderlands-was never broached by the speaker at any point during his presentation. 

Another interesting fact referred to by Torrens during his presentation is the sheer number of human bodies that are not able to be identified at a all, which comprise over 60 percent of the total found by American immigration officials and law enforcement officers. The bulk of his presentation focused on “best practices,” i.e. procedures that would allow American authorities to successfully identify and return the remains of border crossers whose bodies are found in the deserts of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. His suggestion was the implementation of a medical examiner program in border counties where these deaths frequently occur, and the replacement of coroners with medical examiners when possible. Torrens asserted that medical examiners are trained pathologists, unlike coroners, and that counties with MEs, such as Bernalillo County in New Mexico, Pinal County in Arizona, and San Diego County in California, all have a more successful rate of identification than counties that merely have coroners investigating human deaths, such as Bernalillo County in New Mexico. Although not often remarked upon when debating issues like border security, the varying skills of forensic examiners has been documented by some media, such as the award-winning PBS series Frontline. 

Overall, the presentation of Mr. Torrens contained some valuable insights and recommendations, although he oversimplified the attitude found among some Border Patrol officers and law enforcement officials who come into contact with border crossers who have died in the course of their illegal entry into the United States. He invoked the case of two men on patrol who allegedly encountered the skeletal remains of a Mexican border crosser in the desert, subsequent to which the remains were dumped into their patrol vehicle. Notwithstanding the seeming callousness of this incident, I don’t think it reflects an indifference on the part of the United States Border Patrol, which is often the first and only means of rescuing distressed illegal aliens who find their lives endangered by heartless, venal criminals known as coyotes. 

Leaving aside the reservations expressed above, I did find the talk to be informative, well-researched, and cogent, which is more than I can say for the presentation prepared by Kelly James, an M.A. candidate in Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center. Her study ostensibly traced the trends in immigration to this country from the Middle East and North Africa since 2001, using the 9/11 massacres undertaken by 19 Arab-Muslim terrorists as a starting point for an examination of immigration to the United States from these two geopolitical regions. Her hypothesis was that increased scrutiny of Arab-Muslims in the wake of the 9/11 attacks would be reflected in the number of Arab-Muslims seeking to enter the United States. Her sample selection included the nations of Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Lebanon, Jordan, and Yemen, and relied upon data derived from the Department of Homeland Security’s annual Yearbook of Immigration Statistics. 

She divided her study into two distinct categories: immigrants per year, which included new arrivals to this country with visas, as well as adjustments of status, i.e. legal residents, and Nonimmigrants, which included students, visitors, and others who did not intend to permanently reside in the United States. She then traced the number of individuals from both groups who came to America from the nations listed above, attempting to to determine if post-9/11 Homeland Security, diplomatic, and/or national security policies had a discernible impact on the inflow to this country of predominantly Muslim-Arab newcomers. She asserted that while there had been a sharp decline in Middle Eastern immigrants admitted in 2001, the number surged back to its pre-2001 levels in 2003. While the number of nonimmigrants admitted has fallen from 2001 and not recovered to the same degree, the number of nonimmigrants from the rest of the world has exceeded the pre-9/11 level. 

 Ms. James postulated that most of the temporary decline in admissions could be attributed what she views as overly zealous screening and security procedures implemented by the federal government in the wake of the September 11th atrocities committed by Al Qaeda, particularly with respect to the newly created Transportation and Security Administration, whose excesses have also drawn the criticism of many American citizens as well. While this theory might very well be a valid interpretation of the DHS figures, it does not explain why individuals from non-Arab and non-Muslim countries-and even Muslim countries located outside of the two studied regions-were not impacted similarly during 2001 and 2002. Furthermore, her assertion that security agents were trained to profile people entering this country based upon personal appearance and behavior is simply not accurate, and flatly contradicted by the outrageous, TSA-related incidents we’ve experienced time and time again.

Yet, this is not even the primary objection I have to the disturbingly shoddy presentation of Ms. James. My main complaint regarding her paper is the insistence-all facts to the contrary-that the now-defunct National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS) was both discriminatory and ineffective in achieving its ostensible objectives. This program was first implemented in September of 2002 by the Bush Administration in order to keep track of foreign nationals from 26 countries that have served as a recruiting ground for Al Qaeda, among other global, Islamic terrorist organizations. Despite acknowledging that NSEERS replaced a notoriously anachronistic, inaccurate method of tracking the arrival and departure of foreign nationals, which involved the hand filing of paper I-94 forms, James refused to concede that it represented any sort of streamlining or improvement upon the normal, dilatory, incompetent process adhered to by the federal bureaucracy. She also did not even allude to the many defenders of NSEERs, including its chief architect in the Bush Department of Justice,  and the many valid, factual points they’ve made to demonstrate the program’s efficacy. Nor did she explain the rationale behind the Obama administration’s eventual termination of NSEERs, which occurred in May of this year. 

As weak as the presentation by Ms. James was, it wasn’t the only substandard research paper presented during Friday’s event. In my next post I’ll explore the flawed methodology and logic of two other speakers, as well as describe an impeccably researched, polished paper examining the approximate number of illegal aliens currently residing in the United States. 

The damning evidence implicating high-level ATF officials in the Fast and Furious fiasco continues to pour in, as Pajamas Media reveals in an update to a story about gross government malfeasance. The fact that the highest-ranking officials in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms approved of a program that led to the death of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry illustrates the misguided priorities of the leadership of this agency.

As a side note, you can read the testimony that Agent Terry’s family members gave to the House Committee investigating this program at Tucson Citizen. 

However, this negligence-and that’s if you accept the rationale for Operation Gunrunner at face value-extends beyond the ATF and encompasses the U.S. Department of Justice as well, as this scathing editorial from The Washington Examiner describes. The House committee hearings initiated by Chairman Darrell Issa are a good start, but there needs to be a fuller, more extensive investigation into the motives behind  Fast and Furious. We need to know how the gun-trafficking operation that resulted in putting more guns into the hands of violent, Mexican criminals was implemented, why there was not greater oversight by the Justice Department, and why senior members of this administration continue to evade responsibility for what has turned out to be a disastrously misguided policy.

There have been new developments in a story that we’ve covered on this website in the past, which involves another American death at the hands of Mexican drug cartels.

In a slanted story published by CNN, which recycles the pernicious canard that David Hartley’s widow is somehow implicated in his murder-rather than the men who attacked the couple after they strayed into the Mexican portion of Falcon Lake, we finally learn what Mexican authorities have been doing since their abortive investigation into the attack began last year.

Apparently, there are two new suspects accused of participating in the attack that killed David Hartley, neither of whom is his Mrs. Hartley. The fact that we’re even discussing her potential involvement says more about the bias of the mainstream media, which never hesitates to whitewash the horrific news coming from our nation’s border states while at the same time rushing to tarnish the motives and reputation of those Americans who believe in our national sovereignty, than it does about patriotic Americans.

The Falcon Lake tragedy is yet another example in a litany of misguided reportage on this subject, but it’s also a lesson in the vulnerability of our nation to the narco-driven violence that has gripped the five northernmost states of Mexico, and which is increasingly seeping into American territory. How long will our government put up with this anarchy before it decides to send National Guardsmen-with real deterrent capabilities-to our border? It’s something that even many Hispanic Americans seem to support and which looks increasingly like the only alternative to complete and utter chaos.

The condition of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who only a few days ago was thought to be near death, continues to improve, according to doctors treating her in Arizona. The Associated Press has the full story, which should be inspiring for a nation that has just dealt with a horrific attack that’s left six dead and several seriously injured. We can only hope that for the sake of her husband, family, and her constituents she makes a full and complete recovery.
We wish her and all of the survivors of the Tucson massacre well, both today and in the future.