Ignoring the 800lb Elephant in the Country

The Talking Point that sounds similar coming from different people, so they can hammer it: “We have never, ever deported so many people from the country as we are doing now,” says Douglas Massey, an immigration expert at Princeton University in New Jersey.
“No administration in the history of this nation removed more illegal immigrants from the country than we did last year.”–ICE Director John Morton

It’s a shiny object and we want you look over here, ignore the 800 lb illegal elephant in the room…
In 2009, the United States deported a record 387,790 people – a 5 percent increase over 2008. Nearly two months before the end of the 2010 federal fiscal year, the deportation rate is down slightly from 2009, but the number of removals is still likely to be more than triple what it was in 2001.
The numbers come from a recently released study by Syracuse University in New York. Among the other significant findings: An increasing share of deportees are immigrants who have been convicted of a crime, reflecting President Obama’s desire to reorient the deportation process toward targeting criminals.
Critics of Mr. Obama worry that the focus on criminals could mean a pass for most noncriminal illegal immigrants. They also note that deportation alone does not represent a comprehensive immigration policy. But the deportation trend does run counter to many perceptions in border states and beyond about federal anti-illegal immigration efforts.
In 2008 and 2009, for instance, the majority of removals were people who had not been convicted of any crime, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data. Through Aug. 2, 51 percent of the 294,230 people deported or forced out this fiscal year were convicted criminals.

If you’re not a criminal the Obama Administration does care if you’re illegal. So what if you BECOME a criminal while here, say killing Catholic Nuns for instance?
Or better yet, Mexican drug cartels who come in and go back out routinely like it’s a trip to the Quik-E Mart?
And what if you deport them and because of a porous border they come back repeatedly?
I guess that’s one way to pump up your stats and ignore the real problem.
Oh, and because they are so “tough” that’s why we need Comprehensive Immigration Reform (cough…cough…AMNESTY).


Just don’t tell that to the people at the border with those lovely signs the government put up to warn you about the drug cartels and gang members and human smugglers in YOUR OWN COUNTRY!
For the right price, human smugglers can bring anyone from any country and transport them to any city in the U.S. Certainly there’s no shortage of sanctuary cities in which to hide.
California and New Mexico are great places to hide. They have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy so what better place to stay.

And did you know : A new report from the Pew Hispanic Center finds that 8 percent of all babies born in the United States in 2008 are the children of illegal immigrants. That’s roughly 340,000 out of 4.3 million births.

So if you have 340,000 new births a years and you have 2 parents who gave birth to the darling little anchor baby, you have 680,000 illegal alien parents. But ICE says they can’t handle more than 400,000 criminal aliens a year.
So even if they were all criminals (in ICE’s eyes) and you deported them all, you have a net gain of 280,000 a year!
And that doesn’t even count the non-anchors or the non-criminals (in ICE’s eyes)!
No problem here, just move along…. “No administration in the history of this nation removed more illegal immigrants from the country than we did last year.”–ICE Director John Morton.

Great, instead of a biblical flood, we just have a 500-year flood. I know I’m impressed!
These are people who don’t even want to acknowledge the full extent of the problem to begin with, but want to focus on the 2 trees in the forest fire that aren’t burning and say how great they are that they saved 1 more tree than the last crew did…
The study also found that while illegal immigrants account for four percent of the adult population of the United States, the children of undocumented immigrants account for seven percent of the population under 18.
And this has absolutely no economic and social impact of any kind!


That’s why we need Comprehensive Amnesty!  So that problem will just go away!
After all, it’s only the “criminal” ones ICE wants. Well sort of…
In a reprehensible move for an agency charged with protecting the nation, the Department of Homeland Security has released nearly 500 illegal immigrants—who remain fugitives—from terrorist-sponsoring countries and others known to present a danger to the U.S.
They caught them and then they RELEASED THEM!

When asked how such individuals, considered deportable, could be released on their own recognizance to disappear inside the U.S., an ICE spokeswoman said it’s impossible to detain every illegal, so only those meeting mandatory detention requirements, such as having a criminal record, are kept in custody. Merely being from a state sponsor of terror or even a country of interest is not enough.
The appalling information was revealed this week by a conservative news publication that obtained government records under the Freedom of Information Act. The records show that from 2007 to 2009, the Department of Homeland Security caught and released 481 illegal aliens from nations designated by the State Department as sponsors of terrorism or “countries of interest.”
The dangerous illegal immigrants remain fugitives whose whereabouts are unknown, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database accessed by the news group. All came from four nations that sponsor terrorism—Iran, Syria, Sudan and Cuba—or countries determined by the U.S. government to present a threat. Those include Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen.
The information obtained in the public records request includes the date that each illegal immigrant was taken into custody by the federal government, which ICE jurisdiction arrested them, the date they were released, the status of their case and other personal details about the alien. The records specifically state that there are 481 “active” cases for “fugitives” from the four state sponsors of terror and nine of the 10 “countries of interest.”
Cuba has the most with 137, followed by Nigeria (97), Pakistan (87) and Lebanon (34). Iran and Iraq have 29 and 26 respectively and Somalia 22. The rest include Somalia (22), Sudan (14), Syria (13) and Yemen and Algeria with eight each. Afghanistan has four and Saudi Arabia, where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from, has two.
Now that’s “racial profiling” for you…

ICE justifies their release by explaining that the immigration detention system can only accommodate a portion of the 1.6 million aliens being processed in the country. Everyone can’t be detained, so “we have to prioritize who we put in detention,” says an ICE official. Apparently the U.S. government doesn’t consider it a priority to keep undocumented nationals from terrorist-sponsoring nations from roaming freely throughout the country.(CNS)

Want to know why the feds would be “overwhelmed” as Judge Bolton put it in her decision on SB1070, well, now you have the answer:
The new guidelines are outlined in a June 29 memo from Assistant Secretary John Morton, who heads the agency, to all ICE employees regarding the apprehension, detention and removal of illegal immigrants, noting that the agency “only has resources to remove approximately 400,000 aliens per year, less than 4 percent of the estimated illegal-alien population in the United States.”
Mr. Morton said ICE needed to focus wisely on the limited resources Congress had provided the agency and would “prioritize the apprehension and removal of aliens who only pose a threat to national security and/or public safety, such as criminals and terrorists.”
So that’s why they let the 481 potential terrorists go.

“With this prioritization, we will ensure that our work has the greatest possible impact and most effectively advances our mission,” Mr. Morton said, adding that the new guidelines were necessary “in light of the large number of administrative violations the agency is charged with addressing and the limited enforcement resources the agency has available.”
One high-ranking ICE official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to discuss the memo publicly, said agents at a major field office who inquired were told, “Arresting and deporting aliens was administrative work, and that as ICE criminal investigators, they were not going to do administrative duties.”(Newsmax and IBD)

So what they are saying is that the problem they’ve been ignoring for a generation is now so big they can’t deal with it, but they are going to tout how much more of the broken dike he is sticking his finger in and touting how great it is that he has 3 fingers in instead of one!
And because of that, we need amnesty.
No! what we need is secure border, then when you deport them, they stay deported!
They don’t come back multiple times. You don’t have signs on the border warning people to stay away from THEM.
Then you talk about what to do with the non-criminal ones. BUT ONLY after you have an army of little dutch boys plug up every hole in the dike FIRST!
10 Years ago we could not conceive of a group of men flying planes into the Twin Towers (unless you remember that “Lone Gunmen” pilot 7 months before that is– but that was fiction ) and shoe bombers and panty bombers and the like.
So why do we lack the imagination to think that terrorists will just stroll across the border and blow something up??
Because the administration and the political elites don’t wanna go there.
And if you go there, you’re a “racist”.
Meanwhile, if you’re a non-criminal alien from a terrorist country, come on in, the climate’s fine. Don’t do anything to get noticed until you blow up a building or kill 3000 more people. ICE won’t bother with you.
They have priorities, after all!!

Border security is national security.

Reality is a Dish best Served Cold

Optimists think that if we manage to turn a few things around, their kids may have it . . . almost as good. The country they inherit may be . . . almost as good. And it’s kind of a shock to think like this; pessimism isn’t in our DNA. But it isn’t pessimism, really, it’s a kind of tough knowingness, combined, in most cases, with a daily, personal commitment to keep plugging.
But do our political leaders have any sense of what people are feeling deep down? They don’t act as if they do. I think their detachment from how normal people think is more dangerous and disturbing than it has been in the past. I started noticing in the 1980s the growing gulf between the country’s thought leaders, as they’re called—the political and media class, the universities—and those living what for lack of a better word we’ll call normal lives on the ground in America. The two groups were agitated by different things, concerned about different things, had different focuses, different world views.
But I’ve never seen the gap wider than it is now. I think it is a chasm. In Washington they don’t seem to be looking around and thinking, Hmmm, this nation is in trouble, it needs help. They’re thinking something else. I’m not sure they understand the American Dream itself needs a boost, needs encouragement and protection. They don’t seem to know or have a sense of the mood of the country.
And so they make their moves, manipulate this issue and that, and keep things at a high boil. And this at a time when people are already in about as much hot water as they can take.
To take just one example from the past 10 days, the federal government continues its standoff with the state of Arizona over how to handle illegal immigration. The point of view of our thought leaders is, in general, that borders that are essentially open are good, or not so bad. The point of view of those on the ground who are anxious about our nation’s future, however, is different, more like: “We live in a welfare state and we’ve just expanded health care. Unemployment’s up. Could we sort of calm down, stop illegal immigration, and absorb what we’ve got?” No is, in essence, the answer.
An irony here is that if we stopped the illegal flow and removed the sense of emergency it generates, comprehensive reform would, in time, follow. Because we’re not going to send the estimated 10 million to 15 million illegals already here back. We’re not going to put sobbing children on a million buses. That would not be in our nature. (Do our leaders even know what’s in our nature?) As years passed, those here would be absorbed, and everyone in the country would come to see the benefit of integrating them fully into the tax system. So it’s ironic that our leaders don’t do what in the end would get them what they say they want, which is comprehensive reform.
When the adults of a great nation feel long-term pessimism, it only makes matters worse when those in authority take actions that reveal their detachment from the concerns—even from the essential nature—of their fellow citizens. And it makes those citizens feel powerless.
Inner pessimism and powerlessness: That is a dangerous combination. (Peggy Noonan)

And as one who was not abundant, and still isn’t, when I see what I see and the complete disconnect from reality that is the Twilight Zone at the Beltway around D.C. I do wonder about this.
I have no kids, I probably never will.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t look at the kids I see on the street and wonder what life is going to be like for them when they are my age.
And I don’t think it will be that good, certainly not like their childhood.
And that is a sad legacy.
But to pick up on Mrs. Noonan’s point about Arizona. (as an aside, where is the lawsuit against Missouri for slapping the government in the face? Are there not enough Latinos in the state to warrant it?).
IBD: In federal lawsuits, defendants may answer litigation filed against them with a counterclaim against the plaintiff for damages or other relief.
The Constitution of the United States mandates at Article 4: “The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government … that the United States shall protect each of them (the states) against invasion and … against domestic violence.”
“Republican form of government” is defined as a republic that is a system of government in which the people hold sovereign power and elect representatives to exercise that power.
To “guarantee” means to warrant or undertake that something has happened or will happen. The term “invasion” is (regarding a country or territory ) a hostile incursion.
The term “shall” used in the third person singular denotes an imperative, without discretion or choice. Thus, the phrase “shall guarantee” leaves no wiggle room.
Remedies for breach of guarantee are damages (expenses incurred in repairing guaranteed product) or rescission (return of product for refund of purchase price — i.e., “money back” guarantee).
Recently, the federal government — the present regime in particular — has not only violated the guarantee of republican form of government and the pledge to protect Arizona from invasion and domestic violence, but has actively worked to achieve the exact opposite result.
By the federal government’s determined resistance to enforcing existing federal law against illegal immigration and attempting to penalize Arizona for attempting to cope with illegal immigration on its own, the federal government has crassly flouted its obligation to guarantee a republican form of government for the state of Arizona.
One of the most effective means for destroying a republic is to bankrupt it and beggar its people.SB
It’s the only thing Obama & Co ARE good at. :)

This is what befell Rome, which went from a republic to what would now be called a dictatorship as a result of the financial drain on the country resulting from the empire.
In the case of Arizona, recent figures disclose that illegal immigration costs the state $2.5 billion annually. This amounts to approximately $400 for every man, woman and child in the state, which has a population of less than 7 million.
The federal government has not only filed litigation against Arizona, but informed an association of Arizona sheriffs that it intends to prosecute as an example at least one deputy for enforcing Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration legislation (SB 1070).
There are reports the administration is seeking ways to cease doing business with Arizona and is encouraging other states to do the same, to exercise economic coercion on the state.
The administration has praised the efforts of states such as California for economically boycotting Arizona. The sanctions the administration has imposed on Arizona are hardly less draconian than those that the same administration has imposed on Iran to prevent Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. All this for Arizona’s daring to exercise its republican form of government and passing widely popular legislation in a manner completely consistent with Arizona’s Constitution.
The Obama administration has thus tried to take control of Arizona and abridge/suppress its republican government in substance and in process.
Also violated by the federal government is the pledge to protect Arizona from invasion. The enormous influx of illegal immigrants into Arizona—uninvited, demanding and belligerent—clearly constitutes a hostile incursion.
The surge in illegal immigration has brought with it crime and violence. Phoenix is now the kidnap capital of America as a result of the Mexican gangs that have invaded Arizona using kidnapping as a form of turf acquisition and protection.
Notably, on the Independence Day weekend this year a Mexican drug gang announced that the border with Mexico and Arizona was “moved” several miles into Arizona whereby Interstate Highway 8 would now be the border. There was no response to this by the Obama administration.

I feel I should point out that Insterstate 8 is not “several miles from the border. It is a LOT of miles from the border!!
Interstate 8 starts/ends at  Interstate 10 just south of  Casa Grande, AZ. THAT IS 40 Miles from My house in South Phoenix!!!!
That is 134 miles from the Nogales, AZ on the border!!!
What we do have at the border are signs warning Americans to stay away from the gangs and cartels!!



It is undeniable that the federal government has shamelessly and willfully violated its guarantee and pledges under Article 4, constituting suitable grounds for counterclaims by Arizona against the federal government.
The question is whether the remedy for such violation should be rescission or damages. If the latter, a figure of $2.5 billion annually could be employed per the latest studies projected backward as well as forward. As to the rescission alternative (the “money back” guarantee, whereby the contract is undone or rescinded), this would constitute rescission of the breached agreement whereby Arizona entered the union in 1912.
Gaspers in disbelief regarding rescission/secession should know that there is nothing sacrosanct about the federal government; only the Constitution is inviolable. When the federal government willfully refuses to comply with a constitutional mandate, the Constitution can be upheld only by implementing its provisions, in this case the “money back” guarantee.
An independent Arizona can contract with the federal government for defense, as do small cities with the counties in which they are located, for police/fire protection. The outsourcing of defense by an independent Arizona might be expensive, but with the money saved from illegal immigration, Arizona could afford it.
The federal government might even make money on the deal and, for the first time, turn a profit on something.
To those who would label this “draconian,” the answer is this is a race to a precipice with a sheer drop greater than that of Arizona’s crown jewel, the Grand Canyon.
Personally, we’d go for damages. What’s 10 or 20 billion nowadays anyway? If the verdict came down in the early-ish morning, the Obama administration could have the money printed up by lunchtime.
After all, after the $4 Trillion Dollars in 19 Months with nothing to so for it,so what if they’d spend what another few billion… :)
It’s not like it’s real money to them anyhow… :(


Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the interrelated structure of reality. –Martin Luther King, Jr.
The challenge that is already with us is the temptation to accept as true freedom what in reality is only a new form of slavery. —Pope John Paul II

Outrage has a Price Tag

Outrage has a Price


June 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment · Edit This

Everyone should see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DY1o3LV6V8M&feature=player_embedded
Here’s what the president said, ‘The problem is, if we secure the border, then you all won’t have a reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.’ In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with comprehensive immigration reform. I explained that, ‘you and I, Mr. President, have an obligation to secure the border. That’s an obligation. It also has potentially positive benefits. You don’t have to have comprehensive reform to secure the border, but you have to secure the border to get comprehensive reform.’ I said, ‘you would be surprised maybe you don’t think there wouldn’t be no incentive for comprehensive reform, but I’m not so sure that’s true. In any event, it doesn’t matter. We’re supposed to secure the border.’
But that’s why it’s being done. They frankly don’t want to do it. They want to get something in return for doing their duty.
What’s in it for me? Why should I do my job if there’s no quid pro quo.
Now that’s REAL leadership for you!
There was even an extended clip that warned the Democrats could likely use the same cram down/deem it passed reconciliation on Cap & Trade.
Now that’s Democracy in action!
Meanwhile, In Sanctimonious Los Angeles:
Two much-debated City Hall issues are expected to converge this week when the Los Angeles Police Department’s red light camera program moves to the front of the line for an exemption from the city’s contracting boycott of Arizona over that state’s new immigration enforcement law.

On Tuesday, the City Council is scheduled to consider — and appears likely to approve — an exception to the boycott allowing a 10-month extension of a multimillion-dollar agreement with Scottsdale-based American Traffic Solutions.

The firm operates cameras at 32 city intersections that catch tens of thousands of red light violators each year. The council’s Public Safety Committee says the exception is justified because red light cameras provide a “significant benefit to public safety.”



Whoops!

In addition to extending the current red light camera agreement, the council is scheduled to consider asking for bids on a new contract to operate and expand the photo enforcement program to more intersections starting next year.

That action could further entangle the two issues. In addition to the current vendor, a top competitor for the new contract — Redflex Traffic Systems — also has its headquarters in Arizona.
“Industry wide, they’re two front runners,” noted Matthew Crawford, a senior administrative analyst in the city’s budget office.
Poor babies, their sanctimony ran held long at 55mph into “public safety”….
Last week, what could have been the first exemption from the boycott — an LAPD request for officers to attend an Arizona training conference — was withdrawn after some council members voiced concern. This prompted the police officers’ union to complain that political correctness at City Hall was taking precedence over public safety.(LA Times)
I guess sanctimony has a price.
And then there’s this ditty From Nogales, AZ:

A Mexican drug cartel has threatened Nogales [Arizona] police officers, saying they will be targeted for retribution if they conduct off-duty drug busts.

Nogales Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham told the Nogales International on Friday that the threats stemmed from an incident approximately two weeks ago, when off-duty officers surprised marijuana smugglers while riding horseback in an unincorporated border area east of town. The officers seized part of the drug load, and the smugglers were able to flee back into Mexico with the other part. “As a result of that,” Kirkham said, “our officers have received threats from the cartel that they are to look the other way if they are off-duty, or they will be targeted by a sniper or by other means.” NPD learned of the threats through informants, he said. Following the threats, Kirhkam said, NPD notified the Border Patrol and other federal law enforcement agencies, which responded by stepping up manpower and surveillance in the area where the off-duty bust occurred. In addition, Kirkham met with his officers to advise them of the threats and to authorize them to take precautions, including wearing firearms while off duty.

“The Nogales Police Department will not be intimidated,” he said. Kirkham said the threats highlighted the need for more federal law enforcement at the border.

“This has nothing to do with SB 1070 or illegal immigration,” he said, “it has to do with narco-trafficking and the violence of the cartels.” Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada said he was unaware of similar threats being made against his deputies.
“They seem to respect an officer who’s doing his job,” Estrada said of the cartels, “but when you do it as a civilian, they really take offense.” Given the cartels’ track record of violence, Estrada said, any such threat “has to be taken very seriously”.

Here’s what the president said, ‘The problem is, if we secure the border, then you all won’t have a reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.’

Your blood boiling yet?
If it’s not you must be a Liberal…