It's understandable that the mainstream of Liberal oriented newspapers have not headlined the mishandling of the 2006 Secure Fence Act. Its original design was for two parallel fences separated by a two track highway for rapid deployment of US border Patrol vehicles. The upset came in the same year of 2006 Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations bill that directly contradicted the enacted law. The Senate insiders decided it was too expensive and cut funding; concluding in a major provision that the double fence was too expensive.
So we, as the American people should adamantly ask, when is the defense of our country from the illegal immigration invasion or from invading illegal alien criminals or certainly alien terrorists - - too expensive? The success of fencing was immediately apparent after the original construction in San Diego, California, and has been remarkable in cutting back the influx of illegal aliens in a huge 50 mile swath of previously open land.
So, I ask once again, when does protection of innocent Americans become too expensive? After all, who pays for it all? We do, Taxpayers! If the border region that cuts across California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas would have actually HAD the fence it could have likely saved thousands of lives. However, the original 2006 Secure Fence Act comprised of double layer fencing was never completed. Opponents of the fence say that the fence doesn't work; the truth is, the fence works just fine, WHERE there is fence, the problem is not that the fence does not work, but that there is not enough of the double layer fence. Many hundreds of miles have no real barrier at all, just rusting fence posts adorned with drooping barbed wire.
In other words those in Washington, D.C. of both today and yesterday apparently care nothing for the safety of Americans who own land scattered in the open range along the border. Or, those same politicians have been intimidated by the Open Border - Free Trade zealots.
A large majority of Americans do not blame Arizona's Governor Brewer or State Senator Peirce for trying to protect its own state and its citizens from the illegal alien invasion, the costs of welfare alone are staggering. Arizona is using whatever laws are available to them; including SB1070. While many state Representatives have been deliberately misinterpreting the 14th Amendment to create instant baby citizenship, knowing that this will turn into votes for them at election time, and ignoring that it is also costing their legal constituents billions of dollars in fraudulent welfare claims, abused social programs, medical costs, increased crime and incarceration costs.
Blame the liberal Democrats and a small number of Republicans for the chaos caused by not constructing the double fencing. We have billions to spend on wars abroad, but Sen. Harry Reid(D-NV), Texas Republican Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and John Cornyn are also to blame for discarding the second fence, which if completed would have been topped with ugly but effective razor wire. This is truly "Cause and Effect" by eliminating the double layer border fence, these politicians are directly responsible for the continuing invasion of illegal aliens entering America.
The unrelenting chaos generated by this invasion, this undeclared war on American sovereignty is simply a matter of the government failing to carry out one of the few Constitutional responsibilities it was charged with accomplishing.
Immigration Czar John Morton has only now decided to allow ICE to deport "serious criminal offenders", instead of - - ALL - - illegal aliens, which to most Americans is indeed a "De Facto" Amnesty. As that means "Catch & Release" is back on the rails, with thousands of illegal aliens who play a large role in the staggering unemployment and lowering of wages.
It is ridiculous for liberals to try to convince America that with all the technical knowledge available we cannot close the border? What an insult to every American citizen and legal residents! Every incumbent, career lawmaker who has a failing immigration record, beginning with Sen. Harry Reid and the czars installed to facilitate this illegal and immoral outrage must be removed from their seat in Washington, D.C. This asylum in Washington, D.C. needs a change of guard. Join NumbersUSA and aid in fighting against any amnesty and exposing the astronomical costs on American taxpayers from this invasion.
Having stolen into our country, are citizens from other countries, becoming criminal by their criminal act of crossing our border, against our laws, depleting a welfare system that was designed for Americans and legal residents and paid for by Americans and legal residents. Are you sick and tired of this travesty? Tell your Representative in Washington at 202-224-3121 and State level officials. Speak out until they understand that We the People will not sit idly by and November is rapidly approaching!
Remember illegal aliens will be voting in the midterm elections too. The Obama administration has shown its true colors, that illegal immigration is a great way to accumulate votes.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Activists Take Fight on Immigration to Border
No migrant would have dared cross from Mexico into this particular stretch of Arizona on Sunday.
Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.
But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.
“Instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders,” said Tony Venuti, a Tucson radio host who attached a huge sign to the fence that told immigrants to head to Los Angeles, where they will be more welcome, and even offered directions for getting there.
Addressing the crowd, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who conducts controversial sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and other parts of Maricopa County, said the problem could be solved if the Border Patrol was given permission to track down migrants on the Mexican side before they crossed.
“If I had all the national TV here, I’d probably climb the fence to show you how easy it is,” Sheriff Arpaio said from the rally’s stage, a flag with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” flapping behind him.
Also among the speakers was Russell Pearce, the state senator who sponsored Arizona’s controversial immigration law known as 1070, part of which was blocked by a federal judge last month.
The event was monitored on the Mexican side. A rally participant spotted a group of people in the rugged terrain in Mexico and alerted Border Patrol officers, who identified them with binoculars as members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican agency that aids migrants in distress.
Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County, where the event was held, said the area was a hotspot for traffickers.
“We’re right at the point of the spear where human and dope smuggling takes place,” Sheriff Dever said. “These mountains are a beehive of activity.”
He said he had no doubt that migrants and drug smugglers were using lookouts to keep track of the rally.
“They know this rally is going on,” he said. “They are not fools. They’re experts. They probably know more about this than we do standing here.”
J. D. Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Republican primary to be held later this month, used the event to question Mr. McCain’s commitment to fighting illegal immigration. Trying to outflank Mr. Hayworth, Mr. McCain has made several stops in the border region recently.
The Obama administration has similarly started a defense of its border policies in recent days.
“Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” John T. Morton, director of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in Phoenix last week, vowing that his agency was committed to securing the border.
The rally was held on private land, not far from where a popular Arizona rancher died in late March in a killing that helped fuel the immigration debate in the state.
Cindy Kolb, a border activist who lives nearby, yelled out through the thick metal slates in the border fence, which had been decorated on the American side with tiny flags, “Hey, don’t come over here anymore.”
She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”
Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.
But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.
“Instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders,” said Tony Venuti, a Tucson radio host who attached a huge sign to the fence that told immigrants to head to Los Angeles, where they will be more welcome, and even offered directions for getting there.
Addressing the crowd, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who conducts controversial sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and other parts of Maricopa County, said the problem could be solved if the Border Patrol was given permission to track down migrants on the Mexican side before they crossed.
“If I had all the national TV here, I’d probably climb the fence to show you how easy it is,” Sheriff Arpaio said from the rally’s stage, a flag with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” flapping behind him.
Also among the speakers was Russell Pearce, the state senator who sponsored Arizona’s controversial immigration law known as 1070, part of which was blocked by a federal judge last month.
The event was monitored on the Mexican side. A rally participant spotted a group of people in the rugged terrain in Mexico and alerted Border Patrol officers, who identified them with binoculars as members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican agency that aids migrants in distress.
Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County, where the event was held, said the area was a hotspot for traffickers.
“We’re right at the point of the spear where human and dope smuggling takes place,” Sheriff Dever said. “These mountains are a beehive of activity.”
He said he had no doubt that migrants and drug smugglers were using lookouts to keep track of the rally.
“They know this rally is going on,” he said. “They are not fools. They’re experts. They probably know more about this than we do standing here.”
J. D. Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Republican primary to be held later this month, used the event to question Mr. McCain’s commitment to fighting illegal immigration. Trying to outflank Mr. Hayworth, Mr. McCain has made several stops in the border region recently.
The Obama administration has similarly started a defense of its border policies in recent days.
“Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” John T. Morton, director of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in Phoenix last week, vowing that his agency was committed to securing the border.
The rally was held on private land, not far from where a popular Arizona rancher died in late March in a killing that helped fuel the immigration debate in the state.
Cindy Kolb, a border activist who lives nearby, yelled out through the thick metal slates in the border fence, which had been decorated on the American side with tiny flags, “Hey, don’t come over here anymore.”
She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Illegal Alien "Visa Overstays" Escape Detection
Each year, millions of visitors, foreign students, and immigrants come to the United States. Foreign visitors may enter on a legal temporary basis -- that is, with an authorized period of admission that expires on a specific date -- either with temporary visas (generally for tourism, business, or work) or, in some cases, as tourists or business visitors who are allowed to enter without visas.
The majority of visitors who are tracked depart on time, but others overstay -- and since September 11, 2001, the question has arisen as to whether overstay issues might have an impact on domestic security.
Significant numbers of foreign visitors overstay their authorized periods of admission. Based in part on its long-standing I-94 system for tracking arrivals and departures, the Department of Homeland Security estimated the overstay population at 2.3 million. But this estimate excludes an unknown number of long-term overstays from Mexico and Canada, and by definition and it excludes short-term overstays from these and other countries.
Because of unresolved weaknesses in DHS's long-standing tracking system (e.g., non-collection of some departure forms), there is no accurate list of overstays. Tracking system weaknesses make it difficult to monitor potentially suspicious aliens who enter the country legally--and limit immigration control options. Post-September 11 operations identified thousands of overstays and other illegal immigrant workers who (despite limited background checks) had obtained critical infrastructure jobs and security badges with access to, for example, airport tarmacs and U.S. military bases.
While federal investigators have arrested more than 1,360 illegal workers, the majority have eluded apprehension. Together with other improvements, better information on overstays might contribute to a layered national defense that is better able to counter threats from foreign terrorists. A more comprehensive system, US-VISIT, the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, is being phased in.
The design and implementation of US-VISIT, however, face a number of challenges. It is important that this new program avoid specific weaknesses associated with the long-standing system. Checking for these weaknesses might help identify difficult challenges in advance and--together with other efforts--enhance US-VISIT's chances for eventual success as a tracking system.
The National Strategy for Homeland Security calls for preventing foreign terrorists from entering our country and using all legal means to identify; halt; and where appropriate, prosecute or bring immigration or other civil charges against terrorists in the United States. Congress reported in June 2003 that the visa revocation process needed to be strengthened as an antiterrorism tool and recommended that the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Departments of State and Justice, develop specific policies and procedures to ensure that appropriate agencies are notified of revocations based on terrorism grounds and take proper actions.
An analysis shows that the Departments of State and Homeland Security took some actions -to address weaknesses in the visa revocation process identified in its June 2003 report. However, a review of visas revoked, including a detailed review of a random sample of 35 cases, showed that weaknesses remained in the implementation of the revocation process, especially in the timely transmission of information among federal agencies.
For example, delays exist in matching names of suspected terrorists with names of visa holders and in forwarding necessary information to the State Department. In at least 3 of the 35 cases, it took them 6 months or more to revoke visas after receiving a recommendation to do so. In 3 cases, it took a week or longer after deciding to revoke visas to post a lookout or notify the Department of Homeland Security.
Without these notifications, DHS may not know to investigate those individuals who may be in the country. In 10 cases, DHS either failed to notify or took several months to notify immigration investigators that individuals with revoked visas may be in the country. It then took over 2 months for immigration investigators to request field investigations of these individuals.
After government investigators initiated its first inquiry, additional actions were taken to improve the process, including revising procedures and reassessing the process. The DHS and State Department believe these actions will help avoid the delays experienced in the past. The State Department revised its procedures and formalized its tracking system for visa revocation cases. DHS has developed new written procedures and acted to ensure that immigration investigators are aware of all individuals with revoked visas who may be in the country.
The State Department and DHS also took some steps to address legal and policy issues related to visa revocations. In April, the Terrorist Screening Center, an interagency group organized under the Federal Bureau of Investigation, identified the visa revocation process as a potential homeland security vulnerability and developed an informal process for TSC to handle visa revocation cases. However, weaknesses remain.
For example, State's and DHS's procedures are not fully coordinated and lack performance standards, such as specific time frames, for completing each step of the process. Outstanding legal and policy issues continue to exist regarding the removal of individuals based solely on their visa revocation.
The majority of visitors who are tracked depart on time, but others overstay -- and since September 11, 2001, the question has arisen as to whether overstay issues might have an impact on domestic security.
Significant numbers of foreign visitors overstay their authorized periods of admission. Based in part on its long-standing I-94 system for tracking arrivals and departures, the Department of Homeland Security estimated the overstay population at 2.3 million. But this estimate excludes an unknown number of long-term overstays from Mexico and Canada, and by definition and it excludes short-term overstays from these and other countries.
Because of unresolved weaknesses in DHS's long-standing tracking system (e.g., non-collection of some departure forms), there is no accurate list of overstays. Tracking system weaknesses make it difficult to monitor potentially suspicious aliens who enter the country legally--and limit immigration control options. Post-September 11 operations identified thousands of overstays and other illegal immigrant workers who (despite limited background checks) had obtained critical infrastructure jobs and security badges with access to, for example, airport tarmacs and U.S. military bases.
While federal investigators have arrested more than 1,360 illegal workers, the majority have eluded apprehension. Together with other improvements, better information on overstays might contribute to a layered national defense that is better able to counter threats from foreign terrorists. A more comprehensive system, US-VISIT, the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology, is being phased in.
The design and implementation of US-VISIT, however, face a number of challenges. It is important that this new program avoid specific weaknesses associated with the long-standing system. Checking for these weaknesses might help identify difficult challenges in advance and--together with other efforts--enhance US-VISIT's chances for eventual success as a tracking system.
The National Strategy for Homeland Security calls for preventing foreign terrorists from entering our country and using all legal means to identify; halt; and where appropriate, prosecute or bring immigration or other civil charges against terrorists in the United States. Congress reported in June 2003 that the visa revocation process needed to be strengthened as an antiterrorism tool and recommended that the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Departments of State and Justice, develop specific policies and procedures to ensure that appropriate agencies are notified of revocations based on terrorism grounds and take proper actions.
An analysis shows that the Departments of State and Homeland Security took some actions -to address weaknesses in the visa revocation process identified in its June 2003 report. However, a review of visas revoked, including a detailed review of a random sample of 35 cases, showed that weaknesses remained in the implementation of the revocation process, especially in the timely transmission of information among federal agencies.
For example, delays exist in matching names of suspected terrorists with names of visa holders and in forwarding necessary information to the State Department. In at least 3 of the 35 cases, it took them 6 months or more to revoke visas after receiving a recommendation to do so. In 3 cases, it took a week or longer after deciding to revoke visas to post a lookout or notify the Department of Homeland Security.
Without these notifications, DHS may not know to investigate those individuals who may be in the country. In 10 cases, DHS either failed to notify or took several months to notify immigration investigators that individuals with revoked visas may be in the country. It then took over 2 months for immigration investigators to request field investigations of these individuals.
After government investigators initiated its first inquiry, additional actions were taken to improve the process, including revising procedures and reassessing the process. The DHS and State Department believe these actions will help avoid the delays experienced in the past. The State Department revised its procedures and formalized its tracking system for visa revocation cases. DHS has developed new written procedures and acted to ensure that immigration investigators are aware of all individuals with revoked visas who may be in the country.
The State Department and DHS also took some steps to address legal and policy issues related to visa revocations. In April, the Terrorist Screening Center, an interagency group organized under the Federal Bureau of Investigation, identified the visa revocation process as a potential homeland security vulnerability and developed an informal process for TSC to handle visa revocation cases. However, weaknesses remain.
For example, State's and DHS's procedures are not fully coordinated and lack performance standards, such as specific time frames, for completing each step of the process. Outstanding legal and policy issues continue to exist regarding the removal of individuals based solely on their visa revocation.
Dismantling America: Part 4
How did we get to the point where many people feel that the America they have known is being replaced by a very different kind of country, with not only different kinds of policies but very different values and ways of governing?
Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years.
Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the institutions set up by that Constitution are enough to ensure the continuance of a free, self-governing nation. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what members of the Constitution Convention were creating, he replied, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
In other words, a Constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but on us. To the extent that we allow clever people to circumvent the Constitution, while dazzling us with rhetoric, the Constitution will become just a meaningless piece of paper, as our freedoms are stolen from us, much as a pick-pocket would steal our wallet while we are distracted by other things.
It is not just evil people who would dismantle America. Many people who have no desire to destroy our freedoms simply have their own agendas that are singly or collectively incompatible with the survival of freedom.
Someone once said that a democratic society cannot survive for long after 51 percent of the people decide that they want to live off the other 49 percent. Yet that is the direction in which we are being pushed by those who are promoting envy under its more high-toned alias of "social justice."
Those who construct moral melodramas— starring themselves on the side of the angels against the forces of evil— are ready to disregard the Constitution rights of those they demonize, and to overstep the limits put on the powers of the federal government set by the Constitution.
The outcries of protest in the media, in academia and in politics, when the Supreme Court ruled this year that people in corporations have the same free speech rights as other Americans, are a painful reminder of how vulnerable even the most basic rights are to the attacks of ideological zealots.
President Barack Obama said that the Court's decision "will open the floodgates for special interests"— as if all you have to do to take away people's free speech rights is call them a special interest.
It is not just particular segments of the population who are under attack. What is more fundamentally under attack are the very principles and values of American society as a whole. The history of this country is taught in many schools and colleges as the history of grievances and victimhood, often with the mantra of "race, class and gender." Television and the movies often do the same.
When there are not enough current grievances for them, they mine the past for grievances and call it history. Sins and shortcomings common to the human race around the world are spoken of as failures of "our society." But American achievements get far less attention— and sometimes none at all.
Our "educators," who cannot educate our children to the level of math or science achieved in most other comparable countries, have time to poison their minds against America.
Why? Partly, if not mostly, it is because that is the vogue. It shows you are "with it" when you reject your own country and exalt other countries.
Abraham Lincoln warned of people whose ambitions can only be fulfilled by dismantling the institutions of this country, because no comparable renown is available to them by supporting those institutions. He said this 25 years before the Gettysburg Address, and he was speaking of political leaders with hubris, whom he regarded as a greater danger than enemy nations. But such hubris is far more widespread today than just among political leaders.
Those with such hubris— in the media and in education, as well as in politics— have for years eroded both respect for the country and the social cohesion of its people. This erosion is what has set the stage for today's dismantling of America that is now approaching the point of no return.
Something of this magnitude does not happen all at once or in just one administration in Washington. What we are seeing is the culmination of many trends in many aspects of American life that go back for years.
Neither the Constitution of the United States nor the institutions set up by that Constitution are enough to ensure the continuance of a free, self-governing nation. When Benjamin Franklin was asked what members of the Constitution Convention were creating, he replied, "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."
In other words, a Constitutional government does not depend on the Constitution but on us. To the extent that we allow clever people to circumvent the Constitution, while dazzling us with rhetoric, the Constitution will become just a meaningless piece of paper, as our freedoms are stolen from us, much as a pick-pocket would steal our wallet while we are distracted by other things.
It is not just evil people who would dismantle America. Many people who have no desire to destroy our freedoms simply have their own agendas that are singly or collectively incompatible with the survival of freedom.
Someone once said that a democratic society cannot survive for long after 51 percent of the people decide that they want to live off the other 49 percent. Yet that is the direction in which we are being pushed by those who are promoting envy under its more high-toned alias of "social justice."
Those who construct moral melodramas— starring themselves on the side of the angels against the forces of evil— are ready to disregard the Constitution rights of those they demonize, and to overstep the limits put on the powers of the federal government set by the Constitution.
The outcries of protest in the media, in academia and in politics, when the Supreme Court ruled this year that people in corporations have the same free speech rights as other Americans, are a painful reminder of how vulnerable even the most basic rights are to the attacks of ideological zealots.
President Barack Obama said that the Court's decision "will open the floodgates for special interests"— as if all you have to do to take away people's free speech rights is call them a special interest.
It is not just particular segments of the population who are under attack. What is more fundamentally under attack are the very principles and values of American society as a whole. The history of this country is taught in many schools and colleges as the history of grievances and victimhood, often with the mantra of "race, class and gender." Television and the movies often do the same.
When there are not enough current grievances for them, they mine the past for grievances and call it history. Sins and shortcomings common to the human race around the world are spoken of as failures of "our society." But American achievements get far less attention— and sometimes none at all.
Our "educators," who cannot educate our children to the level of math or science achieved in most other comparable countries, have time to poison their minds against America.
Why? Partly, if not mostly, it is because that is the vogue. It shows you are "with it" when you reject your own country and exalt other countries.
Abraham Lincoln warned of people whose ambitions can only be fulfilled by dismantling the institutions of this country, because no comparable renown is available to them by supporting those institutions. He said this 25 years before the Gettysburg Address, and he was speaking of political leaders with hubris, whom he regarded as a greater danger than enemy nations. But such hubris is far more widespread today than just among political leaders.
Those with such hubris— in the media and in education, as well as in politics— have for years eroded both respect for the country and the social cohesion of its people. This erosion is what has set the stage for today's dismantling of America that is now approaching the point of no return.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Dismantling America: Part 3
One of the few campaign promises that Barack Obama has kept was this: "We are going to change the United States of America!"
As in many other cases, those who were thrilled by the thought of "change" seldom seemed to consider whether it would be a change for the better or for the worse. True believers in the Obama cult assumed that it had to be a change for the better.
Now it is slowly dawning on more people that it is a change for the worse— runaway government spending, under the banners of "stimulus" and "jobs" is not stimulating anything except political pay-offs to special interests. As for jobs, the percentage of the population with jobs keeps declining, even as the administration points to all the jobs it is creating.
It is of course not pointing to all the other jobs that it is destroying, whether by taking money out of the private sector or by loading so many mandates on employers that labor is made artificially too expensive for many employers to do much hiring.
But the most dangerous and most lasting damage that this administration has done to this nation has been in the international jungle, where it is alienating our long-time allies, dismantling our credibility by reneging on our commitments to putting up a missile shield in Eastern Europe and— above all— doing nothing meaningful to stop the leading terror-sponsoring nation in the world, Iran, from getting nuclear weapons.
We could deter the Soviet Union with our own nuclear weapons, but no one can deter suicidal fanatics, whether they are international terrorists like those that caused 9/11 or suicidal fanatics in charge of the government of Iran, who have long been supplying international networks of suicidal fanatics.
Threatening to launch nuclear retaliation against the people of Iran will not deter them. They have already shown how little they care about the people of Iran and how much they care about their fanatical beliefs and hate-filled agendas.
How much does our own administration in Washington care about the American people and their national security? This is not a question you would usually have to ask about any administration of either party.
But this is not like any other administration, and Barack Obama is unlike any other President of the United States in having come from a background of decades of associations and alliances with people who resent this country and its people.
Against that background, the Obama administration's undermining of our long-standing international alliances with Britain and Israel, among others, while seeking to reach accommodations with nations hostile to this country, raises painful questions and even more painful possibilities for the future.
Gratuitous affronts to both Britain and Israel began early in the Obama administration, including a clear downgrading of state visits from their national leaders. These affronts were pitched at a level unlikely to be noticed by the general public but unmistakable to anyone familiar with international relations, including both our allies and our enemies. But most of the pro-Obama media said little to alert the public.
It is not only in our foreign relations that the administration's commitment to the national security of the United States is open to serious question. Domestically, as well, the same serious and painful questions arise.
After spending hundreds of billions of dollars on political pork barrel projects from coast to coast— some frivolous beyond belief— its only major cut in federal spending has been its move to cut $100 billion from the Defense Department's budget.
If there was ever a time when we needed a larger standing army, as distinguished from relying on National Guard troops, taken suddenly from civilian life and sent on multiple tours of combat duty, this is that time. We need a bigger and constantly modernizing military, not a bargain basement military, trimmed down to leave more money for pork barrel spending.
Sometimes small things can give you a better clue than large things. A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily pointed out that hundreds of captured illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsoring nations were released on their own recognizance within the United States. Are these the actions of an administration that is serious about the national security of the American people?
As in many other cases, those who were thrilled by the thought of "change" seldom seemed to consider whether it would be a change for the better or for the worse. True believers in the Obama cult assumed that it had to be a change for the better.
Now it is slowly dawning on more people that it is a change for the worse— runaway government spending, under the banners of "stimulus" and "jobs" is not stimulating anything except political pay-offs to special interests. As for jobs, the percentage of the population with jobs keeps declining, even as the administration points to all the jobs it is creating.
It is of course not pointing to all the other jobs that it is destroying, whether by taking money out of the private sector or by loading so many mandates on employers that labor is made artificially too expensive for many employers to do much hiring.
But the most dangerous and most lasting damage that this administration has done to this nation has been in the international jungle, where it is alienating our long-time allies, dismantling our credibility by reneging on our commitments to putting up a missile shield in Eastern Europe and— above all— doing nothing meaningful to stop the leading terror-sponsoring nation in the world, Iran, from getting nuclear weapons.
We could deter the Soviet Union with our own nuclear weapons, but no one can deter suicidal fanatics, whether they are international terrorists like those that caused 9/11 or suicidal fanatics in charge of the government of Iran, who have long been supplying international networks of suicidal fanatics.
Threatening to launch nuclear retaliation against the people of Iran will not deter them. They have already shown how little they care about the people of Iran and how much they care about their fanatical beliefs and hate-filled agendas.
How much does our own administration in Washington care about the American people and their national security? This is not a question you would usually have to ask about any administration of either party.
But this is not like any other administration, and Barack Obama is unlike any other President of the United States in having come from a background of decades of associations and alliances with people who resent this country and its people.
Against that background, the Obama administration's undermining of our long-standing international alliances with Britain and Israel, among others, while seeking to reach accommodations with nations hostile to this country, raises painful questions and even more painful possibilities for the future.
Gratuitous affronts to both Britain and Israel began early in the Obama administration, including a clear downgrading of state visits from their national leaders. These affronts were pitched at a level unlikely to be noticed by the general public but unmistakable to anyone familiar with international relations, including both our allies and our enemies. But most of the pro-Obama media said little to alert the public.
It is not only in our foreign relations that the administration's commitment to the national security of the United States is open to serious question. Domestically, as well, the same serious and painful questions arise.
After spending hundreds of billions of dollars on political pork barrel projects from coast to coast— some frivolous beyond belief— its only major cut in federal spending has been its move to cut $100 billion from the Defense Department's budget.
If there was ever a time when we needed a larger standing army, as distinguished from relying on National Guard troops, taken suddenly from civilian life and sent on multiple tours of combat duty, this is that time. We need a bigger and constantly modernizing military, not a bargain basement military, trimmed down to leave more money for pork barrel spending.
Sometimes small things can give you a better clue than large things. A recent editorial in Investor's Business Daily pointed out that hundreds of captured illegal aliens from terrorist-sponsoring nations were released on their own recognizance within the United States. Are these the actions of an administration that is serious about the national security of the American people?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Dismantling America, Part 2
"We the people" are the central concern of the Constitution, as well as its opening words, since it is a Constitution for a self-governing nation. But "we the people" are treated as an obstacle to circumvent by the current administration in Washington.
One way of circumventing the people is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that no one knows what is buried in it. Did you know that the so-called health care reform bill contained a provision creating a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins?
You might debate whether that tax is a good or a bad idea. But the whole point of burying it in legislation about medical insurance is to make sure "we the people" don't even know about it, much less have a chance to debate it, before it becomes law.
Did you know that the huge financial reform bill that has been similarly rushed through Congress, too fast for anyone to read it, has a provision about "inclusion" of women and minorities? Pretty words like "inclusion" mean ugly realities like quotas. But that too is not something that "we the people" are to be allowed to debate, because it too was sneaked through.
Not since the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French, for an English-speaking nation, centuries ago, has there been such contempt for the people's right to know what laws were being imposed on them.
Yet another ploy is to pass laws worded in vague generalities, leaving it up to the federal bureaucracies to issue specific regulations based on those laws. "We the people" can't vote on bureaucrats. And, since it takes time for all the bureaucratic rules to be formulated and then put into practice, we won't know what either the rules or their effects are prior to this fall's elections when we vote for (or against) those who passed these clever laws.
The biggest circumvention of "we the people" was of course the so-called "health care reform" bill. This bill was passed with the proviso that it would not really take effect until after the 2012 presidential elections. Between now and then, the Obama administration can tell us in glowing words how wonderful this bill is, what good things it will do for us, and how it has rescued us from the evil insurance companies, among its many other glories.
But we won't really know what the actual effects of this bill are until after the next presidential elections which is to say, after it is too late. Quite simply, we are being played for fools.
Much has been made of the fact that families making less than $250,000 a year will not see their taxes raised. Of course they won't see it, because what they see could affect how they vote.
But when huge tax increases are put on electric utility companies, the public will see their electricity bills go up. When huge taxes are put on other businesses as well, they will see the prices of the things those businesses sell go up.
If you are not in that "rich" category, you will not see your own taxes go up. But you will be paying someone else's higher taxes, unless of course you can do without electricity and other products of heavily taxed businesses. If you don't see this, so much the better for the Obama administration politically.
This country has been changed in a more profound way by corrupting its fundamental values. The Obama administration has begun bribing people with the promise of getting their medical care and other benefits paid for by other people, so long as those other people can be called "the rich." Incidentally, most of those who are called "the rich" are nowhere close to being rich.
A couple making $125,000 a year each are not rich, even though together they reach that magic $250,000 income level. In most cases, they haven't been making $125,000 a year all their working lives. Far more often, they have reached this level after decades of working their way up from lower incomes-- and now the government steps in to grab the reward they have earned over the years.
There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a "fair share" of what others have produced.
The most dangerous corruption is a corruption of a nation's soul. That is what this administration is doing.
One way of circumventing the people is to rush legislation through Congress so fast that no one knows what is buried in it. Did you know that the so-called health care reform bill contained a provision creating a tax on people who buy and sell gold coins?
You might debate whether that tax is a good or a bad idea. But the whole point of burying it in legislation about medical insurance is to make sure "we the people" don't even know about it, much less have a chance to debate it, before it becomes law.
Did you know that the huge financial reform bill that has been similarly rushed through Congress, too fast for anyone to read it, has a provision about "inclusion" of women and minorities? Pretty words like "inclusion" mean ugly realities like quotas. But that too is not something that "we the people" are to be allowed to debate, because it too was sneaked through.
Not since the Norman conquerors of England published their laws in French, for an English-speaking nation, centuries ago, has there been such contempt for the people's right to know what laws were being imposed on them.
Yet another ploy is to pass laws worded in vague generalities, leaving it up to the federal bureaucracies to issue specific regulations based on those laws. "We the people" can't vote on bureaucrats. And, since it takes time for all the bureaucratic rules to be formulated and then put into practice, we won't know what either the rules or their effects are prior to this fall's elections when we vote for (or against) those who passed these clever laws.
The biggest circumvention of "we the people" was of course the so-called "health care reform" bill. This bill was passed with the proviso that it would not really take effect until after the 2012 presidential elections. Between now and then, the Obama administration can tell us in glowing words how wonderful this bill is, what good things it will do for us, and how it has rescued us from the evil insurance companies, among its many other glories.
But we won't really know what the actual effects of this bill are until after the next presidential elections which is to say, after it is too late. Quite simply, we are being played for fools.
Much has been made of the fact that families making less than $250,000 a year will not see their taxes raised. Of course they won't see it, because what they see could affect how they vote.
But when huge tax increases are put on electric utility companies, the public will see their electricity bills go up. When huge taxes are put on other businesses as well, they will see the prices of the things those businesses sell go up.
If you are not in that "rich" category, you will not see your own taxes go up. But you will be paying someone else's higher taxes, unless of course you can do without electricity and other products of heavily taxed businesses. If you don't see this, so much the better for the Obama administration politically.
This country has been changed in a more profound way by corrupting its fundamental values. The Obama administration has begun bribing people with the promise of getting their medical care and other benefits paid for by other people, so long as those other people can be called "the rich." Incidentally, most of those who are called "the rich" are nowhere close to being rich.
A couple making $125,000 a year each are not rich, even though together they reach that magic $250,000 income level. In most cases, they haven't been making $125,000 a year all their working lives. Far more often, they have reached this level after decades of working their way up from lower incomes-- and now the government steps in to grab the reward they have earned over the years.
There was a time when most Americans would have resented the suggestion that they wanted someone else to pay their bills. But now, envy and resentment have been cultivated to the point where even people who contribute nothing to society feel that they have a right to a "fair share" of what others have produced.
The most dangerous corruption is a corruption of a nation's soul. That is what this administration is doing.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Dismantling Of America
"We the people" are the familiar opening words of the Constitution of the United States— the framework for a self-governing people, free from the arbitrary edicts of rulers. It was the blueprint for America, and the success of America made that blueprint something that other nations sought to follow.
The Constitution was so radical and a departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century. Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution's provisions were spelled out in "The Federalist," a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.
The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge— to this day— to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.
While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.
The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.
While various political leaders have, over the centuries, done things that violated either the spirit or the letter of the Constitution, few dared to openly say that the Constitution was wrong and that what they wanted was right.
It was the Progressives of a hundred years ago who began saying that the Constitution needed to be subordinated to whatever they chose to call "the needs of the times." Nor were they content to say that the Constitution needed more Amendments, for that would have meant that the much disdained masses would have something to say about whether, or what kind, of Amendments were needed.
The agenda then, as now, has been for our betters to decide among themselves which Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary government power should be disregarded, in the name of meeting "the needs of the times"— as they choose to define those needs.
The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson.
Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but "interpret" it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet "the needs of the times," were made by Woodrow Wilson.
It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?
To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of "czars" wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.
Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters— with their Constitutional rights— who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do. If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.
The Constitution was so radical and a departure from the autocratic governments of the 18th century. Since it was something so new and different, the reasons for the Constitution's provisions were spelled out in "The Federalist," a book written by three of the writers of the Constitution, as a sort of instruction guide to a new product.
The Constitution was not only a challenge to the despotic governments of its time, it has been a continuing challenge— to this day— to all those who think that ordinary people should be ruled by their betters, whether an elite of blood, or of books or of whatever else gives people a puffed-up sense of importance.
While the kings of old have faded into the mists of history, the principle of the divine rights of kings to impose whatever they wish on the masses lives on today in the rampaging presumptions of those who consider themselves anointed to impose their notions on others.
The Constitution of the United States is the biggest single obstacle to the carrying out of such rampaging presumptions, so it is not surprising that those with such presumptions have led the way in denigrating, undermining and evading the Constitution.
While various political leaders have, over the centuries, done things that violated either the spirit or the letter of the Constitution, few dared to openly say that the Constitution was wrong and that what they wanted was right.
It was the Progressives of a hundred years ago who began saying that the Constitution needed to be subordinated to whatever they chose to call "the needs of the times." Nor were they content to say that the Constitution needed more Amendments, for that would have meant that the much disdained masses would have something to say about whether, or what kind, of Amendments were needed.
The agenda then, as now, has been for our betters to decide among themselves which Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary government power should be disregarded, in the name of meeting "the needs of the times"— as they choose to define those needs.
The first open attack on the Constitution by a President of the United States was made by our only president with a Ph.D., Woodrow Wilson.
Virtually all the arguments as to why judges should not take the Constitution as meaning what its words plainly say, but "interpret" it to mean whatever it ought to mean, in order to meet "the needs of the times," were made by Woodrow Wilson.
It is no coincidence that those who imagine themselves so much wiser and nobler than the rest of us should be in the forefront of those who seek to erode Constitutional restrictions on the arbitrary powers of government. How can our betters impose their superior wisdom and virtue on us, when the Constitution gets in the way at every turn, with all its provisions to safeguard a system based on a self-governing people?
To get their way, the elites must erode or dismantle the Constitution, bit by bit, in one way or another. What that means is that they must dismantle America. This has been going on piecemeal over the years but now we have an administration in Washington that circumvents the Constitution wholesale, with its laws passed so fast that the public cannot know what is in them, its appointment of "czars" wielding greater power than Cabinet members, without having to be exposed to pubic scrutiny by going through the confirmation process prescribed by the Constitution for Cabinet members.
Now there is leaked news of plans to change the immigration laws by administrative fiat, rather than Congressional legislation, presumably because Congress might be unduly influenced by those pesky voters— with their Constitutional rights— who have shown clearly that they do not want amnesty and open borders, despite however much our betters do. If the Obama administration gets away with this, and can add a few million illegals to the voting rolls in time for the 2012 elections, that can mean reelection, and with it a continuing and accelerating dismantling of America.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Who are the Real Bigots?
Over the last year every time the media sensed that it might be on the losing side of an argument, it began shouting "Bigot". When ObamaCare and the Big Bailouts began floundering in the polls and meeting up with populist protests, the media began running stories accusing the protesters of being bigots, while claiming that "Socialist" was actually a racial slur.
Now the media and its political agenda is once again on the wrong side of the American people over the Ground Zero Mosque, and once again the media is playing the bigotry card.
But even as many prominent Democrats are cutting and running, the media has decided to make a last stand over the Ground Zero Mosque, in their time honored fashion of yelling, "Bigot" over and over again. The members of our red fourth estate, who graduated from shouting "Bigot" at college campus protests, to penning long articles for major newspapers about America's history of bigotry, have only adopted a more sophisticated way of shouting "Bigot", while showing their contempt for the vast majority of Americans who oppose the Ground Zero Mosque.
The same "courageous" activists of the press, who are busy scribbling and babbling their condemnations of American bigotry-- quietly censored themselves when it came to standing up for freedom of speech against the cartoon beheaders. Because while they might lie to the public about being afraid of the Tea Party Movement or the Ground Zero Mosque protesters, they can't lie to themselves. When the door is closed, and the shades are drawn, and it's just them and their Mac Book Pro, it's not the Tea Party they're afraid of. It's Ahmed and his axe.
Condemning Christians in America or Jews in Israel earns you a Pulitzer. Condemning Muslims in the Islamic world, earns you a jail term or a funeral. Over here, they "courageously" denounce American bigotry. In the Muslim world, they whitewash the real story so the local regime doesn't put them on the next plane back to where they came from. For their own safety. That's why a video by a US soldier or a Facebook photo by an IDF soldier will be front page stories. But the treatment of Copts in Egypt, Hindus in Bangaldesh or Kurds in Turkey will be buried somewhere far out of sight.
So who are the real bigots? There is hardly a Muslim country where Christians, Jews, Hindus, Bahai and others are not second class citizens. By contrast Muslims have been given equal rights in America, Europe and Israel. Yet that's not the image you will get from the media, which will accuse non-Muslim countries of bigotry, without daring to hold Muslim countries accountable for institutionalized discrimination with its roots in Islamic Sharia Law. The media has declared that the Muslim version of Jim Crow is just fine and dandy, and that the real problem is that some Americans couldn't help but notice that 9/11 happened.
If recognizing the daily death toll of Islamic violence worldwide makes one a bigot, then the truth itself is discriminatory. But who does it discriminate against? By sidelining coverage of Islamic bigotry and persecution, the media discriminates against Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and other non-Muslims who are oppressed and looking for aid. By denying them a hearing, the media discriminates against hundreds of millions of people. But furthermore by failing to report the truth, the media discriminates against Muslims by failing to expose and report on stories that could lead to social reforms and ethical awakenings. Instead the media shouts, "Bigots" at non-Muslims, while patting Muslims on the head and telling them how wonderful their faith is. And isn't that the worst bigotry of all? Because to deny someone in trouble the truth, is to deny them the opportunity to change.
Some Muslims have actually shown better judgment on the Ground Zero Mosque, than the media has, by recognizing that it is a bad idea. Had the media done its job of reporting the news, instead of shrilly editorializing for its own political agenda, more might have been able to reach that conclusions without having to wait for the polls, which showed that the vast majority of Americans and New Yorkers were opposed to the project. Instead it looks like Imam Rauf will be exposed as a hatemonger, and those politicians and the press that got behind the Ground Zero Mosque will be the ones on the wrong side. And because the media insisted on turning this into a referendum on Islam, they will have accomplished exactly what they claimed to be fighting against. The characterization of Islam as an ideology that encourages violence and disdains America, even when it operates on American soil. And so the media is giving it its last best effort. It's warning us that America will look hostile to Islam if it does not allow the Ground Zero Mosque to be built.
Yet up until September 11, plenty of mosques were built in America. Yet that did not prevent any of the Muslim terrorist attacks that occurred up until that time. The presence of mosques did not serve as a shield in Manhattan then. It certainly isn't going to now. Sensitivity will not save us. Neither will a willingness to bend over backward to our enemies. Such behavior is not only foolish, it actually provokes attack. If sensitivity were the issue here, it would be far more incumbent on Muslims to show sensitivity to 3,000 American dead, than for Americans to show sensitivity to a grandiose Muslim building project in a part of America where there is no Muslim community. Think about it. In every culture, respect for the dead is a basic value. And those who do not respect the dead of another people, similarly show that they do not respect the living. That matter of disrespect to Americans, both living and dead, has sharpened the situation. And all the doubletalk in the world from Park51 won't change that. And if the situation were reversed, and an American church was being built in a damaged building in Afghanistan, near a spot where thousands had died in Coalition bombings, there is no doubt whatsoever whose side the New York Times editorial would come out on. But that's because like Imam Rauf, the Times staffers respect Muslim dead, just not American dead.
Finally the media dragged out the "Freedom of Religion" argument, claiming that mosque opponents are undermining the Constitution. But the First Amendment provides unlimited protection to freedom of religious belief, not freedom of religious practice. If it were otherwise, houses of worship would not be subject to zoning laws. Or any laws for that matter. And since Ground Zero Mosque defenders have already argued that it is not a religious building, but some sort of 13 story community center (in a neighborhood without an actual Muslim community), they have already contradicted their own argument. They cannot argue that the building is both religious and non-religious at the same time.
But don't count on the media to hold to any intellectually consistent standards. The same media that attacked Dr. Laura for using a racial slur, will ignore Imam Rauf's use of the same racial slur. The same media that criticized Israel's reconstruction of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem, destroyed in the Jordanian ethnic cleansing of Jews from East Jerusalem, insists that any impediment to the Ground Zero Mosque is a horrifying testament to American bigotry.
In March, the same New York Times which has been going on a tear about any resistance to the Ground Zero Mosque, described the timing of the Huvra rebuilding as "unfortunate" and quoted Muslims who were worried that from certain angles, the synagogue would appear to be taller than some mosque (a no-no for infidels under Islamic law). The LA Times equated the rebuilding of the synagogue with "extremism". Reuters quoted ominous warnings about the synagogue being part of an effort to "Judaize", Jerusalem. The media did not angrily condemn Muslims for their intolerance of the rebuilding of an ancient Jewish house of worship. But that is the double standard. And it is part of the reason why people are so upset. If Muslims actually extended tolerance, instead of only demanding it-- we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Instead Muslims demand the right to do what they want in non-Muslim countries, while insisting that non-Muslims abide by a rigid code of behavior in Muslim countries. American female politicians must accept their inferiority when visiting Muslim countries by wearing a headcovering that symbolizes female submission to men. British tourists have been arrested for a casual kiss in Dubai. And the media defends all this by saying that Muslims have the right to set the rules in their country. Yet apparently we don't have the right to do the same thing. This is not about bigotry. This is about the media's moral and physical cowardice in refusing to stand up to actual bigotry around the world. And the victims of their silence include both non-Muslims and Muslims. Meanwhile the media can continue shrieking about bigotry. It will not win them the argument, all it will do is further devalue the accusation. Because you can only cry wolf for so long, until people stop paying attention. And when you refuse to cry wolf at an actual predator, while crying it at everyone you dislike, then no one will end up listening to you at all.
Now the media and its political agenda is once again on the wrong side of the American people over the Ground Zero Mosque, and once again the media is playing the bigotry card.
At times like these it's all too obvious why liberals have been so determined to co-opt race, because it gives them an open ended smear to use in virtually any situation. In the Obama Era, the media has been certain that the very presence of a half-black politician behind their agenda, meant they had an unlimited use of the race card. They were wrong. The media's smears have resounded only inside liberal echo chambers, and their constant attempts at exploiting a serious problem, for their own political advantage has rebounded on them.
The same "courageous" activists of the press, who are busy scribbling and babbling their condemnations of American bigotry-- quietly censored themselves when it came to standing up for freedom of speech against the cartoon beheaders. Because while they might lie to the public about being afraid of the Tea Party Movement or the Ground Zero Mosque protesters, they can't lie to themselves. When the door is closed, and the shades are drawn, and it's just them and their Mac Book Pro, it's not the Tea Party they're afraid of. It's Ahmed and his axe.
Condemning Christians in America or Jews in Israel earns you a Pulitzer. Condemning Muslims in the Islamic world, earns you a jail term or a funeral. Over here, they "courageously" denounce American bigotry. In the Muslim world, they whitewash the real story so the local regime doesn't put them on the next plane back to where they came from. For their own safety. That's why a video by a US soldier or a Facebook photo by an IDF soldier will be front page stories. But the treatment of Copts in Egypt, Hindus in Bangaldesh or Kurds in Turkey will be buried somewhere far out of sight.
So who are the real bigots? There is hardly a Muslim country where Christians, Jews, Hindus, Bahai and others are not second class citizens. By contrast Muslims have been given equal rights in America, Europe and Israel. Yet that's not the image you will get from the media, which will accuse non-Muslim countries of bigotry, without daring to hold Muslim countries accountable for institutionalized discrimination with its roots in Islamic Sharia Law. The media has declared that the Muslim version of Jim Crow is just fine and dandy, and that the real problem is that some Americans couldn't help but notice that 9/11 happened.
If recognizing the daily death toll of Islamic violence worldwide makes one a bigot, then the truth itself is discriminatory. But who does it discriminate against? By sidelining coverage of Islamic bigotry and persecution, the media discriminates against Buddhists, Hindus, Christians and other non-Muslims who are oppressed and looking for aid. By denying them a hearing, the media discriminates against hundreds of millions of people. But furthermore by failing to report the truth, the media discriminates against Muslims by failing to expose and report on stories that could lead to social reforms and ethical awakenings. Instead the media shouts, "Bigots" at non-Muslims, while patting Muslims on the head and telling them how wonderful their faith is. And isn't that the worst bigotry of all? Because to deny someone in trouble the truth, is to deny them the opportunity to change.
Some Muslims have actually shown better judgment on the Ground Zero Mosque, than the media has, by recognizing that it is a bad idea. Had the media done its job of reporting the news, instead of shrilly editorializing for its own political agenda, more might have been able to reach that conclusions without having to wait for the polls, which showed that the vast majority of Americans and New Yorkers were opposed to the project. Instead it looks like Imam Rauf will be exposed as a hatemonger, and those politicians and the press that got behind the Ground Zero Mosque will be the ones on the wrong side. And because the media insisted on turning this into a referendum on Islam, they will have accomplished exactly what they claimed to be fighting against. The characterization of Islam as an ideology that encourages violence and disdains America, even when it operates on American soil. And so the media is giving it its last best effort. It's warning us that America will look hostile to Islam if it does not allow the Ground Zero Mosque to be built.
Yet up until September 11, plenty of mosques were built in America. Yet that did not prevent any of the Muslim terrorist attacks that occurred up until that time. The presence of mosques did not serve as a shield in Manhattan then. It certainly isn't going to now. Sensitivity will not save us. Neither will a willingness to bend over backward to our enemies. Such behavior is not only foolish, it actually provokes attack. If sensitivity were the issue here, it would be far more incumbent on Muslims to show sensitivity to 3,000 American dead, than for Americans to show sensitivity to a grandiose Muslim building project in a part of America where there is no Muslim community. Think about it. In every culture, respect for the dead is a basic value. And those who do not respect the dead of another people, similarly show that they do not respect the living. That matter of disrespect to Americans, both living and dead, has sharpened the situation. And all the doubletalk in the world from Park51 won't change that. And if the situation were reversed, and an American church was being built in a damaged building in Afghanistan, near a spot where thousands had died in Coalition bombings, there is no doubt whatsoever whose side the New York Times editorial would come out on. But that's because like Imam Rauf, the Times staffers respect Muslim dead, just not American dead.
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| Imam Fesal Rauf |
Finally the media dragged out the "Freedom of Religion" argument, claiming that mosque opponents are undermining the Constitution. But the First Amendment provides unlimited protection to freedom of religious belief, not freedom of religious practice. If it were otherwise, houses of worship would not be subject to zoning laws. Or any laws for that matter. And since Ground Zero Mosque defenders have already argued that it is not a religious building, but some sort of 13 story community center (in a neighborhood without an actual Muslim community), they have already contradicted their own argument. They cannot argue that the building is both religious and non-religious at the same time.
But don't count on the media to hold to any intellectually consistent standards. The same media that attacked Dr. Laura for using a racial slur, will ignore Imam Rauf's use of the same racial slur. The same media that criticized Israel's reconstruction of the Hurva synagogue in Jerusalem, destroyed in the Jordanian ethnic cleansing of Jews from East Jerusalem, insists that any impediment to the Ground Zero Mosque is a horrifying testament to American bigotry.
 |
| Are You Ready For Sharia Law? |
In March, the same New York Times which has been going on a tear about any resistance to the Ground Zero Mosque, described the timing of the Huvra rebuilding as "unfortunate" and quoted Muslims who were worried that from certain angles, the synagogue would appear to be taller than some mosque (a no-no for infidels under Islamic law). The LA Times equated the rebuilding of the synagogue with "extremism". Reuters quoted ominous warnings about the synagogue being part of an effort to "Judaize", Jerusalem. The media did not angrily condemn Muslims for their intolerance of the rebuilding of an ancient Jewish house of worship. But that is the double standard. And it is part of the reason why people are so upset. If Muslims actually extended tolerance, instead of only demanding it-- we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. Instead Muslims demand the right to do what they want in non-Muslim countries, while insisting that non-Muslims abide by a rigid code of behavior in Muslim countries. American female politicians must accept their inferiority when visiting Muslim countries by wearing a headcovering that symbolizes female submission to men. British tourists have been arrested for a casual kiss in Dubai. And the media defends all this by saying that Muslims have the right to set the rules in their country. Yet apparently we don't have the right to do the same thing. This is not about bigotry. This is about the media's moral and physical cowardice in refusing to stand up to actual bigotry around the world. And the victims of their silence include both non-Muslims and Muslims. Meanwhile the media can continue shrieking about bigotry. It will not win them the argument, all it will do is further devalue the accusation. Because you can only cry wolf for so long, until people stop paying attention. And when you refuse to cry wolf at an actual predator, while crying it at everyone you dislike, then no one will end up listening to you at all.
Obama's women reveal his secret
Cherchez la femme," advised Alexander Dumas in: "When you want to uncover an unspecified secret, look for the woman." In the case of Barack Obama, we have two: his late mother, the went-native anthropologist Ann Dunham, and his rancorous wife Michelle. Obama's women reveal his secret: he hates America.
We know less about Senator Obama than about any prospective president in American history. His uplifting rhetoric is empty, as Hillary Clinton helplessly protests. His career bears no trace of his own character, not an article for the Harvard Law Review he edited, or a single piece of legislation. He appears to be an empty vessel filled with the wishful thinking of those around him. But there is a real Barack Obama. No man - least of all one abandoned in infancy by his father - can conceal the imprint of an impassioned mother, or the influence of a brilliant wife.
America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama's mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.
Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised.
Ann Dunham died in 1995, and her character emerges piecemeal from the historical record, to which I will return below. But Michelle Obama is a living witness. Her February 18 comment that she felt proud of her country for the first time caused a minor scandal, and was hastily qualified. But she meant it, and more. The video footage of her remarks shows eyes hooded with rage as she declares:
For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.
The desperation, frustration and disappointment visible on Michelle Obama's face are not new to the candidate's wife; as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher and other commentators have noted, they were the theme of her undergraduate thesis, on the subject of "blackness" at Princeton University. No matter what the good intentions of Princeton, which founded her fortunes as a well-paid corporate lawyer, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."
Never underestimate the influence of a wife who bitch-slaps her husband in public. Early in Obama's campaign, Michelle Obama could not restrain herself from belittling the senator. "I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There's Barack Obama the phenomenon. He's an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right? And then there's the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy's a little less impressive," she told a fundraiser in February 2007.
"For some reason this guy still can't manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn't get stale, and his five-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported at the time, "She added that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she'd like to meet him sometime." Her handlers have convinced her to be more tactful since then.
"Frustration" and "disappointment" have dogged Michelle Obama these past 20 years, despite her US $300,000 a year salary and corporate board memberships. It is hard for the descendants of slaves not to resent America. They were not voluntary immigrants but kidnap victims, subjected to a century of second-class citizenship even after the Civil War ended slavery. Blackness is not the issue; General Colin Powell, whose parents chose to immigrate to America from the West Indies, saw America just as other immigrants do, as a land of opportunity. Obama's choice of wife is a failsafe indicator of his own sentiments. Spouses do not necessarily share their likes, but they must have their hatreds in common. Obama imbibed this hatred with his mother's milk.
Michelle Obama speaks with greater warmth of her mother-in-law than of her husband. "She was kind of a dreamer, his mother," Michelle Obama was quoted in the January 25 Boston Globe. "She wanted the world to be open to her and her children. And as a result of her naivete, sometimes they lived on food stamps, because sometimes dreams don't pay the rent. But as a result of her naiveté, Barack got to see the world like most of us don't in this country." How strong the ideological motivation must be of a mother to raise her children on the thin fair in pursuit of a political agenda.
"Naiveté" is a euphemism for Ann Dunham's motivation. Friends describe her as a "fellow traveler", that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice. Ann Dunham met and married the Kenyan economics student Barack Obama, Sr, at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and in 1967 married the Indonesian student Lolo Soetero. It is unclear why Soetero's student visa was revoked in 1967 - the fact but not the cause are noted in press accounts. But it is probable that the change in government in Indonesia in 1967, in which the leftist leader Sukarno was deposed, was the motivation.
Soetero had been sponsored as a graduate student by one of the most radical of all Third World governments. Sukarno had founded the so-called Non-Aligned Movement as an anti-colonialist turn at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Before deposing him in 1967, Indonesia's military slaughtered 500,000 communists (or unfortunates who were mistaken for communists). When Ann Dunham chose to follow Lolo Soetero to Indonesia in 1967, she brought the six-year-old Barack into the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediate following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.
Dunham's experience in Indonesia provided the material for a doctoral dissertation celebrating the hardiness of local cultures against the encroaching metropolis. It was entitled, "Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds". In this respect Dunham remained within the mainstream of her discipline. Anthropology broke into popular awareness with Margaret Mead's long-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which offered a falsified ideal of sexual liberation in the South Pacific as an alternative to the supposedly repressive West. Mead's work was one of the founding documents of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and anthropology faculties stood at the left-wing fringe of American universities.
In the Global South, anthropologists went into the field and took matters a step further. Peru's brutal Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla movement was the brainchild of the anthropologist Efrain Morote Best, who headed the University of San Cristobal of Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, between 1962 and 1968. Dunham's radicalism was more vicarious; she ended her career as an employee of international organizations.
Barack Obama received at least some instruction in the Islamic faith of his father and went with him to the mosque, but the importance of this experience is vastly overstated by conservative commentators who seek to portray Obama as a Muslim of sorts. Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Jamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.
Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion. He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.
There is nothing mysterious about Obama's methods. "A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is," wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world's biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.
America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice aforethought, he has sought out their sore point.
Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America's success made it a magnet for the world's savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever.
ericans regard upward mobility as a God-given right. America had a double founding, as David Hackett Fischer showed in his 1989 study, Albion's Seed . Two kinds of immigrants founded America: religious dissidents seeking a new Promised Land, and economic opportunists looking to get rich quick. Both elements still are present, but the course of the past quarter-century has made wealth-creation the sine qua non of American life. Now for the first time in a generation Americans have become poorer, and many of them have become much poorer due to the collapse of home prices. Unlike the Reagan years, when cutting the top tax rate from a punitive 70% to a more tolerable 40% was sufficient to start an economic boom, no lever of economic policy is available to fix the problem. Americans have no choice but to work harder, retire later, save more and retrench.
This reversal has provoked a national mood of existential crisis. In Europe, economic downturns do not inspire this kind of soul-searching, for richer are poorer, remain what they always have been. But Americans are what they make of themselves, and the slim makings of 2008 shake their sense of identity. Americans have no institutionalized culture to fall back on. Their national religion has consisted of waves of enthusiasm - "Great Awakenings" – every second generation or so, followed by an interim of apathy. In times of stress they have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen.
Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.
The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.
"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.
The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.
Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.
We know less about Senator Obama than about any prospective president in American history. His uplifting rhetoric is empty, as Hillary Clinton helplessly protests. His career bears no trace of his own character, not an article for the Harvard Law Review he edited, or a single piece of legislation. He appears to be an empty vessel filled with the wishful thinking of those around him. But there is a real Barack Obama. No man - least of all one abandoned in infancy by his father - can conceal the imprint of an impassioned mother, or the influence of a brilliant wife.
America is not the embodiment of hope, but the abandonment of one kind of hope in return for another. America is the spirit of creative destruction, selecting immigrants willing to turn their back on the tragedy of their own failing culture in return for a new start. Its creative success is so enormous that its global influence hastens the decline of other cultures. For those on the destruction side of the trade, America is a monster. Between half and nine-tenths of the world's 6,700 spoken languages will become extinct in the next century, and the anguish of dying peoples rises up in a global cry of despair. Some of those who listen to this cry become anthropologists, the curators of soon-to-be extinct cultures; anthropologists who really identify with their subjects marry them. Obama's mother, the University of Hawaii anthropologist Ann Dunham, did so twice.
Obama profiles Americans the way anthropologists interact with primitive peoples. He holds his own view in reserve and emphatically draws out the feelings of others; that is how friends and colleagues describe his modus operandi since his days at the Harvard Law Review, through his years as a community activist in Chicago, and in national politics. Anthropologists, though, proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama inverts the anthropological model: he applies the tools of cultural manipulation out of resentment against America. The probable next president of the United States is a mother's revenge against the America she despised.
Ann Dunham died in 1995, and her character emerges piecemeal from the historical record, to which I will return below. But Michelle Obama is a living witness. Her February 18 comment that she felt proud of her country for the first time caused a minor scandal, and was hastily qualified. But she meant it, and more. The video footage of her remarks shows eyes hooded with rage as she declares:
For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country and not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.
The desperation, frustration and disappointment visible on Michelle Obama's face are not new to the candidate's wife; as Steve Sailer, Rod Dreher and other commentators have noted, they were the theme of her undergraduate thesis, on the subject of "blackness" at Princeton University. No matter what the good intentions of Princeton, which founded her fortunes as a well-paid corporate lawyer, she wrote, "My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'Blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my White professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong."
Never underestimate the influence of a wife who bitch-slaps her husband in public. Early in Obama's campaign, Michelle Obama could not restrain herself from belittling the senator. "I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There's Barack Obama the phenomenon. He's an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right? And then there's the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy's a little less impressive," she told a fundraiser in February 2007.
"For some reason this guy still can't manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn't get stale, and his five-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is." New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported at the time, "She added that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she'd like to meet him sometime." Her handlers have convinced her to be more tactful since then.
"Frustration" and "disappointment" have dogged Michelle Obama these past 20 years, despite her US $300,000 a year salary and corporate board memberships. It is hard for the descendants of slaves not to resent America. They were not voluntary immigrants but kidnap victims, subjected to a century of second-class citizenship even after the Civil War ended slavery. Blackness is not the issue; General Colin Powell, whose parents chose to immigrate to America from the West Indies, saw America just as other immigrants do, as a land of opportunity. Obama's choice of wife is a failsafe indicator of his own sentiments. Spouses do not necessarily share their likes, but they must have their hatreds in common. Obama imbibed this hatred with his mother's milk.
Michelle Obama speaks with greater warmth of her mother-in-law than of her husband. "She was kind of a dreamer, his mother," Michelle Obama was quoted in the January 25 Boston Globe. "She wanted the world to be open to her and her children. And as a result of her naivete, sometimes they lived on food stamps, because sometimes dreams don't pay the rent. But as a result of her naiveté, Barack got to see the world like most of us don't in this country." How strong the ideological motivation must be of a mother to raise her children on the thin fair in pursuit of a political agenda.
"Naiveté" is a euphemism for Ann Dunham's motivation. Friends describe her as a "fellow traveler", that is, a communist sympathizer, from her youth, according to a March 27, 2007, Chicago Tribune report. Many Americans harbor leftist views, but not many marry into them, twice. Ann Dunham met and married the Kenyan economics student Barack Obama, Sr, at the University of Hawaii in 1960, and in 1967 married the Indonesian student Lolo Soetero. It is unclear why Soetero's student visa was revoked in 1967 - the fact but not the cause are noted in press accounts. But it is probable that the change in government in Indonesia in 1967, in which the leftist leader Sukarno was deposed, was the motivation.
Soetero had been sponsored as a graduate student by one of the most radical of all Third World governments. Sukarno had founded the so-called Non-Aligned Movement as an anti-colonialist turn at the 1955 Bandung Conference in Indonesia. Before deposing him in 1967, Indonesia's military slaughtered 500,000 communists (or unfortunates who were mistaken for communists). When Ann Dunham chose to follow Lolo Soetero to Indonesia in 1967, she brought the six-year-old Barack into the kitchen of anti-colonialist outrage, immediate following one of the worst episodes of civil violence in post-war history.
Dunham's experience in Indonesia provided the material for a doctoral dissertation celebrating the hardiness of local cultures against the encroaching metropolis. It was entitled, "Peasant blacksmithing in Indonesia: surviving against all odds". In this respect Dunham remained within the mainstream of her discipline. Anthropology broke into popular awareness with Margaret Mead's long-discredited Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which offered a falsified ideal of sexual liberation in the South Pacific as an alternative to the supposedly repressive West. Mead's work was one of the founding documents of the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and anthropology faculties stood at the left-wing fringe of American universities.
In the Global South, anthropologists went into the field and took matters a step further. Peru's brutal Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerilla movement was the brainchild of the anthropologist Efrain Morote Best, who headed the University of San Cristobal of Huamanga in Ayacucho, Peru, between 1962 and 1968. Dunham's radicalism was more vicarious; she ended her career as an employee of international organizations.
Barack Obama received at least some instruction in the Islamic faith of his father and went with him to the mosque, but the importance of this experience is vastly overstated by conservative commentators who seek to portray Obama as a Muslim of sorts. Radical anti-Americanism, rather than Islam, was the reigning faith in the Dunham household. In the Muslim world of the 1960s, nationalism rather than radical Islam was the ideology of choice among the enraged. Radical Islam did not emerge as a major political force until the nationalism of a Jamal Abdel Nasser or a Sukarno failed.
Barack Obama is a clever fellow who imbibed hatred of America with his mother's milk, but worked his way up the elite ladder of education and career. He shares the resentment of Muslims against the encroachment of American culture, although not their religion. He has the empathetic skill set of an anthropologist who lives with his subjects, learns their language, and elicits their hopes and fears while remaining at emotional distance. That is, he is the political equivalent of a sociopath. The difference is that he is practicing not on a primitive tribe but on the population of the United States.
There is nothing mysterious about Obama's methods. "A demagogue tries to sound as stupid as his audience so that they will think they are as clever as he is," wrote Karl Krauss. Americans are the world's biggest suckers, and laugh at this weakness in their popular culture. Listening to Obama speak, Sinclair Lewis' cynical tent-revivalist Elmer Gantry comes to mind, or, even better, Tyrone Power's portrayal of a carnival mentalist in the 1947 film noire Nightmare Alley. The latter is available for instant viewing at Netflix, and highly recommended as an antidote to having felt uplifted by an Obama speech.
America has the great misfortune to have encountered Obama at the peak of his powers at its worst moment of vulnerability in a generation. With malice aforethought, he has sought out their sore point.
Since the Ronald Reagan boom began in 1984, the year the American stock market doubled, Americans have enjoyed a quarter-century of rising wealth. Even the collapse of the Internet bubble in 2000 did not interrupt the upward trajectory of household assets, as the housing price boom eclipsed the effect of equity market weakness. America's success made it a magnet for the world's savings, and Americans came to believe that they were riding a boom that would last forever.
ericans regard upward mobility as a God-given right. America had a double founding, as David Hackett Fischer showed in his 1989 study, Albion's Seed . Two kinds of immigrants founded America: religious dissidents seeking a new Promised Land, and economic opportunists looking to get rich quick. Both elements still are present, but the course of the past quarter-century has made wealth-creation the sine qua non of American life. Now for the first time in a generation Americans have become poorer, and many of them have become much poorer due to the collapse of home prices. Unlike the Reagan years, when cutting the top tax rate from a punitive 70% to a more tolerable 40% was sufficient to start an economic boom, no lever of economic policy is available to fix the problem. Americans have no choice but to work harder, retire later, save more and retrench.
This reversal has provoked a national mood of existential crisis. In Europe, economic downturns do not inspire this kind of soul-searching, for richer are poorer, remain what they always have been. But Americans are what they make of themselves, and the slim makings of 2008 shake their sense of identity. Americans have no institutionalized culture to fall back on. Their national religion has consisted of waves of enthusiasm - "Great Awakenings" – every second generation or so, followed by an interim of apathy. In times of stress they have a baleful susceptibility to hucksters and conmen.
Be afraid - be very afraid. America is at a low point in its fortunes, and feeling sorry for itself. When Barack utters the word "hope", they instead hear, "handout". A cynic might translate the national motto, E pluribus unum, as "something for nothing". Now that the stock market and the housing market have failed to give Americans something for nothing, they want something for nothing from the government. The trouble is that he who gets something for nothing will earn every penny of it, twice over.
The George W Bush administration has squandered a great strategic advantage in a sorry lampoon of nation-building in the Muslim world, and has made enemies out of countries that might have been friendly rivals, notably Russia. Americans question the premise of America's standing as a global superpower, and of the promise of upward mobility and wealth-creation. If elected, Barack Obama will do his utmost to destroy the dual premises of America's standing. It might take the country another generation to recover.
"Evil will oft evil mars", J R R Tolkien wrote. It is conceivable that Barack Obama, if elected, will destroy himself before he destroys the country. Hatred is a toxic diet even for someone with as strong a stomach as Obama. As he recalled in his 1995 autobiography, Dreams From My Father, Obama idealized the Kenyan economist who had married and dumped his mother, and was saddened to learn that Barack Hussein Obama, Sr, was a sullen, drunken polygamist. The elder Obama became a senior official of the government of Kenya after earning a PhD at Harvard. He was an abusive drunk and philanderer whose temper soured his career.
The senior Obama died in a 1982 car crash. Kenyan government officials in those days normally spent their nights drinking themselves stupid at the Pan-Afrique Hotel. Two or three of them would be found with their Mercedes wrapped around a palm tree every morning. During the 1970s I came to know a number of them, mostly British-educated hollow men dying inside of their own hypocrisy and corruption.
Both Obama and the American public should be very careful of what they wish for. As the horrible example of Obama's father shows, there is nothing worse for an embittered outsider manipulating the system from within than to achieve his goals - and nothing can be more terrible for the system. Even those who despise America for its blunders of the past few years should ask themselves whether the world will be a safer place if America retreats into a self-pitying shell.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Birthright Blunder
A number of Republican congressman and others are talking about amending the Constitution so that children of illegal immigrants who are born in this country would no longer automatically be granted citizenship. If they are serious, this is bad policy. If they are simply engaged in election year pandering, it is bad politics.
In recent weeks, such figures as House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona have all said the idea of changing the rules on what is termed "birthright citizenship" should be examined.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are automatically U.S. citizens.
Graham has called this "a mistake." He and others have suggested hearings on a possible constitutional amendment. Graham in particular has said, "(P)eople come here to have babies."
According to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, about 1 in 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the child of illegal immigrants. However, Pew demographer Jeffrey Passel told the Wall Street Journal that more than 80 percent of illegal immigrant mothers who gave birth in this country did so only after being here for at least a year or longer. Many had been in this country for about a decade, Passel added.
Mounting a constitutional amendment effort is a large task.
It won't be accomplished with a Democratic majority in Congress.
Even if the GOP gains control of one chamber of Congress in the fall elections, it is unlikely.
While such talk may whip up some parts of the Republican base who are frustrated with the federal government's efforts to deal effectively with immigration, it will distract from sensible immigration reforms that have been suggested first by former President George W. Bush and most recently by President Barack Obama.
These include securing the border, to be sure, but also a system of guest worker permits that would allow migrants to work in this country legally and also allow for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to better monitor cross-border traffic.
A way must be found to grant the 11 million undocumented aliens a route to legal residency here with appropriate fines and waiting periods.
Changing the Constitution, even if it could be done, would throw more than a century of immigration law into disarray. Immigration law is difficult to enforce now.
Without the bright line of birthright citizenship in which all children born here are automatically citizens, it would be even more difficult to administer.
And it would turn the United States into a different kind of country — one that is less admirable.
Finally, from a purely political point of view, this kind of talk is simply unwise for Republicans. Ultimately, their political calculations are their business but alienating a large and growing segment of the population — Hispanics — doesn't seem very smart.
In recent weeks, such figures as House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Jeff Sessions of Alabama and John McCain and Jon Kyl of Arizona have all said the idea of changing the rules on what is termed "birthright citizenship" should be examined.
The 14th Amendment to the Constitution states that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof" are automatically U.S. citizens.
Graham has called this "a mistake." He and others have suggested hearings on a possible constitutional amendment. Graham in particular has said, "(P)eople come here to have babies."
According to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center, about 1 in 12 babies born in the United States in 2008 was the child of illegal immigrants. However, Pew demographer Jeffrey Passel told the Wall Street Journal that more than 80 percent of illegal immigrant mothers who gave birth in this country did so only after being here for at least a year or longer. Many had been in this country for about a decade, Passel added.
Mounting a constitutional amendment effort is a large task.
It won't be accomplished with a Democratic majority in Congress.
Even if the GOP gains control of one chamber of Congress in the fall elections, it is unlikely.
While such talk may whip up some parts of the Republican base who are frustrated with the federal government's efforts to deal effectively with immigration, it will distract from sensible immigration reforms that have been suggested first by former President George W. Bush and most recently by President Barack Obama.
These include securing the border, to be sure, but also a system of guest worker permits that would allow migrants to work in this country legally and also allow for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to better monitor cross-border traffic.
A way must be found to grant the 11 million undocumented aliens a route to legal residency here with appropriate fines and waiting periods.
Changing the Constitution, even if it could be done, would throw more than a century of immigration law into disarray. Immigration law is difficult to enforce now.
Without the bright line of birthright citizenship in which all children born here are automatically citizens, it would be even more difficult to administer.
And it would turn the United States into a different kind of country — one that is less admirable.
Finally, from a purely political point of view, this kind of talk is simply unwise for Republicans. Ultimately, their political calculations are their business but alienating a large and growing segment of the population — Hispanics — doesn't seem very smart.
Alarming Illegal Immigration Statistics
Immigration into our country is not a problem. They contribute heavily to the success of our nation, and without them, we would have a much different standing than what we have right now. Immigrants lead to a much more diverse workforce to span all current industries. Immigrants pay their taxes and follow the law to keep the country’s economic and social stability. All these are fine examples of what they can do for our country.
That is – IF they’re really legal immigrants.
83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.
Illegal immigrants primarily come from Central America and Mexico because of the close proximity to the United States. Coming in through different modes of land transportation, these illegal immigrants purposely defy immigration laws to get into the country for a multitude of reasons – however, it all boils down to going to a better place than their own countries. The purpose might be valid and noble, but their means of getting it done is unjustifiable.
Security is one of the biggest issues in this situation. The government needs to have a record of all the people in the country – Americans and immigrants alike. The pain of the September 11 attacks is still fresh in the minds of some, and so national security must be accounted for on all fronts. Illegal immigrants coming into the country do not submit documents of any form, so they are just like ghosts on our land. There’s no clear information on them, so it would be difficult to track them down if there is a need to do so. While not all of illegal immigrants get into trouble with the law, there are a handful that do so – and this security breach makes it harder for our law enforcement to get these people into their custody.
29% (630,000) of the inmates in all state and federal prisons are illegal aliens—at a cost of $1.6 billion annually.
Illegal immigration statistics also show that as these illegal immigrants grow in number, their needs grow as well. Because illegal immigrants operate under the radar to prevent themselves from being caught, they don’t declare their income. In turn, they receive welfare benefits such as free health care. Public education is given to their children as well, as children born in the country, even when their parents are both illegal immigrants, are granted US citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Millions of Americans do not receive these benefits, and yet these illegal immigrants do so. There is a severe issue of priority here – as Americans, all we should be receiving benefits that the government spends for. However, with these illegal immigrants in the picture, we are experiencing having to share these funds with them, when they are not supposed to be here in the first place. It’s not only us who are affected, but as well as our children and our future generations if this continues happening.
More than 380,000 “anchor babies” born in the United States in 2005 were to parents who are illegal aliens; making those 380,000 babies automatically U.S. citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayer.
Most importantly, these illegal immigrants are taking jobs which could have been given to legal immigrants and American citizens. It’s bad enough that some of our countrymen are experiencing tough times. It’s even worse that the jobs that they can take to help their situations are being taken by illegal immigrants who have not followed the law regarding their entry to the country. It’s just downright unfair for Americans to have to deal with unemployment when illegal immigrants are taking up opportunities that are not meant for them.
These illegal immigration statistics are compiled to give the general public the information that they need to realize the severity of this situation. While there are many problems facing our nation today, the issue of illegal immigrants is one of the most immediate problems because of its direct impact to our way of living. Because of their presence and the funds that they siphon off from deserving American citizens, statistics need to be calculated just to show the general public how complicated this situation has become.
Statistics are presented in this website – but the action needed in solving this widespread problem would come from the little things that you can do. We can present all the statistics that we can gather regarding the situation, but it is up to you, the readers, to take the first step.
After reading through the information found here, we are hopeful that you can help us in our fight to solve the problem of illegal immigrants in our country. It is not enough that we know how many illegal immigrants there are in our country. It is not enough to know how many millions of dollars are being drained because of their presence. We have to take action, and we have to take action now.
More than 66% of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
What action can we do? As average American citizens, we have the responsibility of protecting our homeland. If you have any suspicions or have received information regarding illegal immigrants, contact your local authorities right away. Your anonymity will be preserved when you provide such valuable information. Being vigilant is the key, as all it takes to expose a whole house of illegal immigrants is one phone call tip from a responsible citizen. The government can only do so much in putting guidelines and preventive measures in place for illegal immigration. As always, the support of the people is needed in any endeavor that they put into motion.
Immigrants are very much welcome in the country. They have paid their taxes, they have submitted their requirements, and have worked hard to carve out their place in our society. However, illegal immigrants are breaking the law. If they are given the freedom to continue to stay in the United States, many benefits, privileges, and opportunities meant for legal American citizens will be allocated to them.
24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
These illegal immigration statistics expose the extent of the problem. How we, American citizens, and the government can solve it is a major hurdle in making our country a better place for us and for our children. With this information, hopefully we can all be moved to fight against this situation.
The Rising Cost of Illegal Immigration: Healthcare and Health Insurance
The US economy is in a rut and people today are more desperate for good paying jobs than ever before. Rising unemployment rates and a slow economy have fueled the recent debate over the cost of illegal immigration in the country today.
It’s no secret that illegal immigration has been on the increase in the past decade. Even with the recent slowing down of the US economy, foreign workers still flock to the US for the relatively higher wages they will be receiving compared to those in their home countries.
What are the costs of illegal immigration in the country today?
In spite of what many people believe, illegal immigrants do in fact pay taxes. They are also not eligible for most government aid and services such as food stamps, welfare or Medicaid. So the idea that undocumented workers take a huge share of Social Security benefits while not paying taxes is untrue.
However, one of the benefits that they can enjoy is that the children of illegal immigrants may go to free public school. This is considered a cost of illegal immigration that is worth paying because it would be unproductive and even dangerous to have a large amount of out-of-school and unskilled children and youths in society.
Allowing the children of illegal immigrants access to public school is really much better than the alternative. Nobody wants to have gangs of unemployed teenagers running around because they lack training and education.
A frequently discussed topic is healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Emergency hospital rooms are obliged to take in illegal immigrants because they are not allowed to turn away anyone, even if they cannot pay for the cost of medical care. Since most of them do not have health insurance, the hospital is obliged to absorb the cost of emergency care.
This cost is not negligible and in large hospitals can cost tens of millions of dollars, especially since emergency care is much more expensive than the non-emergency care available. Not all of the cases are even emergencies – many people just go to the emergency hospital room for care because they know the hospital is not allowed to turn them away.
Of course, some of these hospitals are funded by taxes and people have objected to taxes being spent on non-citizens.
While some take the position that publicly funded clinics should turn away non-citizens, others assert that public health and safety concerns dictate that all sectors of society have proper healthcare. Illnesses would be spread much faster if a large portion of the population was denied proper medical care.
Lawmakers are divided on the issue. Medical personal, consistent with the nature of their job, simply prefer not to turn away sick people.
In any case, before policymakers can tackle the issue, they must ponder what the real cost of illegal immigration would be if such a large segment of the population were deprived of health care. Especially in states like Arizona which share a border with Mexico. The government might save a few tax dollars to deny illegal aliens health care but would there not be a cost in the form of danger to public health and the possible increased spread of illness? This is a complicated matter that needs clear minds and not hysterical rhetoric.
That is – IF they’re really legal immigrants.
83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.
95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.
Illegal immigrants primarily come from Central America and Mexico because of the close proximity to the United States. Coming in through different modes of land transportation, these illegal immigrants purposely defy immigration laws to get into the country for a multitude of reasons – however, it all boils down to going to a better place than their own countries. The purpose might be valid and noble, but their means of getting it done is unjustifiable.
Security is one of the biggest issues in this situation. The government needs to have a record of all the people in the country – Americans and immigrants alike. The pain of the September 11 attacks is still fresh in the minds of some, and so national security must be accounted for on all fronts. Illegal immigrants coming into the country do not submit documents of any form, so they are just like ghosts on our land. There’s no clear information on them, so it would be difficult to track them down if there is a need to do so. While not all of illegal immigrants get into trouble with the law, there are a handful that do so – and this security breach makes it harder for our law enforcement to get these people into their custody.
29% (630,000) of the inmates in all state and federal prisons are illegal aliens—at a cost of $1.6 billion annually.
Illegal immigration statistics also show that as these illegal immigrants grow in number, their needs grow as well. Because illegal immigrants operate under the radar to prevent themselves from being caught, they don’t declare their income. In turn, they receive welfare benefits such as free health care. Public education is given to their children as well, as children born in the country, even when their parents are both illegal immigrants, are granted US citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Millions of Americans do not receive these benefits, and yet these illegal immigrants do so. There is a severe issue of priority here – as Americans, all we should be receiving benefits that the government spends for. However, with these illegal immigrants in the picture, we are experiencing having to share these funds with them, when they are not supposed to be here in the first place. It’s not only us who are affected, but as well as our children and our future generations if this continues happening.
More than 380,000 “anchor babies” born in the United States in 2005 were to parents who are illegal aliens; making those 380,000 babies automatically U.S. citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayer.
Most importantly, these illegal immigrants are taking jobs which could have been given to legal immigrants and American citizens. It’s bad enough that some of our countrymen are experiencing tough times. It’s even worse that the jobs that they can take to help their situations are being taken by illegal immigrants who have not followed the law regarding their entry to the country. It’s just downright unfair for Americans to have to deal with unemployment when illegal immigrants are taking up opportunities that are not meant for them.
These illegal immigration statistics are compiled to give the general public the information that they need to realize the severity of this situation. While there are many problems facing our nation today, the issue of illegal immigrants is one of the most immediate problems because of its direct impact to our way of living. Because of their presence and the funds that they siphon off from deserving American citizens, statistics need to be calculated just to show the general public how complicated this situation has become.
Statistics are presented in this website – but the action needed in solving this widespread problem would come from the little things that you can do. We can present all the statistics that we can gather regarding the situation, but it is up to you, the readers, to take the first step.
After reading through the information found here, we are hopeful that you can help us in our fight to solve the problem of illegal immigrants in our country. It is not enough that we know how many illegal immigrants there are in our country. It is not enough to know how many millions of dollars are being drained because of their presence. We have to take action, and we have to take action now.
More than 66% of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
What action can we do? As average American citizens, we have the responsibility of protecting our homeland. If you have any suspicions or have received information regarding illegal immigrants, contact your local authorities right away. Your anonymity will be preserved when you provide such valuable information. Being vigilant is the key, as all it takes to expose a whole house of illegal immigrants is one phone call tip from a responsible citizen. The government can only do so much in putting guidelines and preventive measures in place for illegal immigration. As always, the support of the people is needed in any endeavor that they put into motion.
Immigrants are very much welcome in the country. They have paid their taxes, they have submitted their requirements, and have worked hard to carve out their place in our society. However, illegal immigrants are breaking the law. If they are given the freedom to continue to stay in the United States, many benefits, privileges, and opportunities meant for legal American citizens will be allocated to them.
24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
These illegal immigration statistics expose the extent of the problem. How we, American citizens, and the government can solve it is a major hurdle in making our country a better place for us and for our children. With this information, hopefully we can all be moved to fight against this situation.
The Rising Cost of Illegal Immigration: Healthcare and Health Insurance
The US economy is in a rut and people today are more desperate for good paying jobs than ever before. Rising unemployment rates and a slow economy have fueled the recent debate over the cost of illegal immigration in the country today.
It’s no secret that illegal immigration has been on the increase in the past decade. Even with the recent slowing down of the US economy, foreign workers still flock to the US for the relatively higher wages they will be receiving compared to those in their home countries.
What are the costs of illegal immigration in the country today?
In spite of what many people believe, illegal immigrants do in fact pay taxes. They are also not eligible for most government aid and services such as food stamps, welfare or Medicaid. So the idea that undocumented workers take a huge share of Social Security benefits while not paying taxes is untrue.
However, one of the benefits that they can enjoy is that the children of illegal immigrants may go to free public school. This is considered a cost of illegal immigration that is worth paying because it would be unproductive and even dangerous to have a large amount of out-of-school and unskilled children and youths in society.
Allowing the children of illegal immigrants access to public school is really much better than the alternative. Nobody wants to have gangs of unemployed teenagers running around because they lack training and education.
A frequently discussed topic is healthcare for undocumented immigrants. Emergency hospital rooms are obliged to take in illegal immigrants because they are not allowed to turn away anyone, even if they cannot pay for the cost of medical care. Since most of them do not have health insurance, the hospital is obliged to absorb the cost of emergency care.
This cost is not negligible and in large hospitals can cost tens of millions of dollars, especially since emergency care is much more expensive than the non-emergency care available. Not all of the cases are even emergencies – many people just go to the emergency hospital room for care because they know the hospital is not allowed to turn them away.
Of course, some of these hospitals are funded by taxes and people have objected to taxes being spent on non-citizens.
While some take the position that publicly funded clinics should turn away non-citizens, others assert that public health and safety concerns dictate that all sectors of society have proper healthcare. Illnesses would be spread much faster if a large portion of the population was denied proper medical care.
Lawmakers are divided on the issue. Medical personal, consistent with the nature of their job, simply prefer not to turn away sick people.
In any case, before policymakers can tackle the issue, they must ponder what the real cost of illegal immigration would be if such a large segment of the population were deprived of health care. Especially in states like Arizona which share a border with Mexico. The government might save a few tax dollars to deny illegal aliens health care but would there not be a cost in the form of danger to public health and the possible increased spread of illness? This is a complicated matter that needs clear minds and not hysterical rhetoric.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Immigration Bait and Switch
Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program created under President George W. Bush and now being greatly expanded by President Obama, is billed as an effort to catch and deport “the worst of the worst,” the violent criminals, drug and gun smugglers, gang members and other dangerous aliens. That would be excellent, if true. It doesn’t seem to be.
The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public-interest legal organization, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network analyzed arrest and deportation statistics and other data on Secure Communities they obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The records, covering the program from its inception in October 2008 through June 2010, lend disturbing credence to fears voiced by immigrant advocates and some law-enforcement officials.
The program requires agencies to automatically run fingerprints through federal immigration databases for anyone they arrest. Critics warned that it would be an indiscriminate dragnet — ensnaring illegal immigrants without criminal records, and encouraging racial profiling. Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco objected to Secure Communities, saying it targeted too many noncriminals and would have a dangerous “chilling effect” on the willingness of communities to work with local law enforcement.
It turns out the critics were right.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show that a vast majority, 79 percent, of people deported under Secure Communities had no criminal records or had been picked up for low-level offenses, like traffic violations and juvenile mischief. Of the approximately 47,000 people deported in that period only about 20 percent had been charged with or convicted of serious “Level 1” crimes, like assault and drug dealing.
The national average of Secure Communities deportees with no criminal records was about 26 percent, but that figure also varied wildly around the country. It was 54 percent in Maricopa County, Ariz., whose sheriff is notorious for staging indiscriminate immigration raids. In Travis County, Tex., it was 82 percent.
The Obama administration has deployed Secure Communities in 544 jurisdictions in 27 states, including every county along the southern border. It plans to have the entire country participating by 2013. Secure Communities “focuses our resources on identifying and removing the most serious criminal offenders first and foremost,” said John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The program now appears to be quite different from that: an effort to yoke local police into a broad campaign of civil immigration enforcement, maximizing the detention and deportation of the people whom Mr. Obama says he wants to give a chance to pay their debt to society and earn their right to become Americans.
Secure Communities won’t make the country more secure, not the way it is working. Police departments that don’t want to participate should be able to opt out. The Obama administration needs to fix it or jettison it.
The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public-interest legal organization, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network analyzed arrest and deportation statistics and other data on Secure Communities they obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The records, covering the program from its inception in October 2008 through June 2010, lend disturbing credence to fears voiced by immigrant advocates and some law-enforcement officials.
The program requires agencies to automatically run fingerprints through federal immigration databases for anyone they arrest. Critics warned that it would be an indiscriminate dragnet — ensnaring illegal immigrants without criminal records, and encouraging racial profiling. Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco objected to Secure Communities, saying it targeted too many noncriminals and would have a dangerous “chilling effect” on the willingness of communities to work with local law enforcement.
It turns out the critics were right.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement records show that a vast majority, 79 percent, of people deported under Secure Communities had no criminal records or had been picked up for low-level offenses, like traffic violations and juvenile mischief. Of the approximately 47,000 people deported in that period only about 20 percent had been charged with or convicted of serious “Level 1” crimes, like assault and drug dealing.
The national average of Secure Communities deportees with no criminal records was about 26 percent, but that figure also varied wildly around the country. It was 54 percent in Maricopa County, Ariz., whose sheriff is notorious for staging indiscriminate immigration raids. In Travis County, Tex., it was 82 percent.
The Obama administration has deployed Secure Communities in 544 jurisdictions in 27 states, including every county along the southern border. It plans to have the entire country participating by 2013. Secure Communities “focuses our resources on identifying and removing the most serious criminal offenders first and foremost,” said John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The program now appears to be quite different from that: an effort to yoke local police into a broad campaign of civil immigration enforcement, maximizing the detention and deportation of the people whom Mr. Obama says he wants to give a chance to pay their debt to society and earn their right to become Americans.
Secure Communities won’t make the country more secure, not the way it is working. Police departments that don’t want to participate should be able to opt out. The Obama administration needs to fix it or jettison it.
Friday, August 20, 2010
Activists Take Fight on Immigration to Border
No migrant would have dared cross from Mexico into this particular stretch of Arizona on Sunday.
Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.
But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.
“Instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders,” said Tony Venuti, a Tucson radio host who attached a huge sign to the fence that told immigrants to head to Los Angeles, where they will be more welcome, and even offered directions for getting there.
Addressing the crowd, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who conducts controversial sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and other parts of Maricopa County, said the problem could be solved if the Border Patrol was given permission to track down migrants on the Mexican side before they crossed.
“If I had all the national TV here, I’d probably climb the fence to show you how easy it is,” Sheriff Arpaio said from the rally’s stage, a flag with the words “Don’t Tread on Me” flapping behind him.
Also among the speakers was Russell Pearce, the state senator who sponsored Arizona’s controversial immigration law known as 1070, part of which was blocked by a federal judge last month.
The event was monitored on the Mexican side. A rally participant spotted a group of people in the rugged terrain in Mexico and alerted Border Patrol officers, who identified them with binoculars as members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican agency that aids migrants in distress.
Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County, where the event was held, said the area was a hotspot for traffickers.
“We’re right at the point of the spear where human and dope smuggling takes place,” Sheriff Dever said. “These mountains are a beehive of activity.”
He said he had no doubt that migrants and drug smugglers were using lookouts to keep track of the rally.
“They know this rally is going on,” he said. “They are not fools. They’re experts. They probably know more about this than we do standing here.”
J. D. Hayworth, who is challenging Senator John McCain in the Republican primary to be held later this month, used the event to question Mr. McCain’s commitment to fighting illegal immigration. Trying to outflank Mr. Hayworth, Mr. McCain has made several stops in the border region recently.
The Obama administration has similarly started a defense of its border policies in recent days.
“Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” John T. Morton, director of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in Phoenix last week, vowing that his agency was committed to securing the border.
The rally was held on private land, not far from where a popular Arizona rancher died in late March in a killing that helped fuel the immigration debate in the state.
Cindy Kolb, a border activist who lives nearby, yelled out through the thick metal slates in the border fence, which had been decorated on the American side with tiny flags, “Hey, don’t come over here anymore.”
She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”
Hundreds of Tea Party activists converged on the border fence here in what is typically a desolate area popular with traffickers to rally for conservative political candidates and to denounce what they called lax federal enforcement of immigration laws. The rally brought a significant law enforcement presence as well as numerous private patrols by advocates of a more secure border.
But rallies, even daylong ones, are no way to seal the border. The Obama administration insists that its statistics show that significant financing increases in the federal Border Patrol have helped bring down crime at the border and make the smuggling of immigrants and drugs harder than ever.
But the activists who gathered Sunday had a decidedly different take. The border, in their view, is still far too easy to get across and has become so dangerous that some of them brought their sidearms for protection. Organizers urged participants to leave rifles in their cars.
“Instead of finding bugs in our beds, we’re finding home invaders,” said Tony Venuti, a Tucson radio host who attached a huge sign to the fence that told immigrants to head to Los Angeles, where they will be more welcome, and even offered directions for getting there.
 |
| Sheriff Joe Arpaio |
Addressing the crowd, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who conducts controversial sweeps in immigrant neighborhoods in Phoenix and other parts of Maricopa County, said the problem could be solved if the Border Patrol was given permission to track down migrants on the Mexican side before they crossed.
 |
| Sen. Russell Pearce |
Also among the speakers was Russell Pearce, the state senator who sponsored Arizona’s controversial immigration law known as 1070, part of which was blocked by a federal judge last month.
The event was monitored on the Mexican side. A rally participant spotted a group of people in the rugged terrain in Mexico and alerted Border Patrol officers, who identified them with binoculars as members of Grupo Beta, a Mexican agency that aids migrants in distress.
Sheriff Larry A. Dever of Cochise County, where the event was held, said the area was a hotspot for traffickers.
 |
| Sheriff Larry Dever |
“We’re right at the point of the spear where human and dope smuggling takes place,” Sheriff Dever said. “These mountains are a beehive of activity.”
He said he had no doubt that migrants and drug smugglers were using lookouts to keep track of the rally.
“They know this rally is going on,” he said. “They are not fools. They’re experts. They probably know more about this than we do standing here.”
 |
| J.D.Hayworth |
The Obama administration has similarly started a defense of its border policies in recent days.
“Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. Is the problem a significant one, a challenging one for the nation? Absolutely,” John T. Morton, director of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in Phoenix last week, vowing that his agency was committed to securing the border.
The rally was held on private land, not far from where a popular Arizona rancher died in late March in a killing that helped fuel the immigration debate in the state.
Cindy Kolb, a border activist who lives nearby, yelled out through the thick metal slates in the border fence, which had been decorated on the American side with tiny flags, “Hey, don’t come over here anymore.”
She added: “We don’t like illegals hiding under bushes when our kids wait for the school bus. This border needs to be secure.”
 |
| Cindy Kolb |
Thursday, August 19, 2010
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Update, August 19, 2010
63 convicted criminal aliens, fugitives arrested in ICE enforcement surge
In the largest operation of its kind ever carried out in Arizona, more than 60 convicted criminal aliens and immigration fugitives have been arrested following a three-day targeted enforcement operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During the operation, which concluded Wednesday evening, ICE officers located and arrested 55 aliens with prior criminal convictions. In addition, 16 of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives, aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country. Of those arrested during the enforcement action, at least 25 have already been removed from the United States.
Because of their serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records, at least 12 of those arrested during the enforcement surge have been presented for federal prosecution for re-entering the country illegally after a formal deportation. A conviction for felony re-entry carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
"We are dedicated to bringing criminals to justice all along the southwest border, and in particular we will aggressively prosecute offenders with violent criminal convictions and who pose a threat to our communities," said Dennis Burke, U. S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. "We are pleased to stand together with our partners in Homeland Security and the Marshals Service and our state partners in the Offices of Probation and Parole to secure the southwest border through targeted enforcement strategies like today's action."
Among the arrestees is a 45-year-old Mexican woman who was convicted in California for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a scheme that netted her and her conspirators more than $820,000.
Also arrested was a 55-year-old Mexican man who was convicted of selling methamphetamine in 2003. This individual has already been convicted once of felony re-entry into the United States in 2009, and following this arrest he will be prosecuted again in federal court.
The foreign nationals detained during the operation who are not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.
Of those arrested, 52 were male and 11 were female. They represent 9 different nations, including countries in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).
Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number.
ICE arrests 11 gang members and associates in Madison, Wis., area
MADISON, Wis. - Agents with the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in close partnership with the Madison Police Department (MPD), arrested 11 illegal alien gang members and gang associates on Tuesday. This is the latest joint local action of an ongoing national ICE HSI effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs.
The arrests were made Aug. 11 under an initiative by ICE's National Gang Unit dubbed "Operation Community Shield." As part of the initiative, ICE partners with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs. Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies are essential to the initiative's success, and they help further ensure officer safety during the operations.
All 11 men arrested are members or associates of the Chicano Pride and C-14 street gangs; all are Mexican nationals. They have been charged with administrative immigration violations and are being processed for deportation. Five of those arrested have previous criminal convictions in addition to their immigration violations. Some of their arrests and convictions include: carrying a concealed weapon, resisting or obstructing a police officer, battery, theft and criminal damage to property. For privacy reasons, ICE does not release the names of those arrested on administrative immigration charges.
In addition to the Madison Police Department, ICE received assistance from the following agencies: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin; and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).
"Street gangs pose a growing public safety threat to communities in the Madison area," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE HSI office in Chicago. "With each gang member we arrest and remove from the United States, we're making a positive impact in our communities and improving public safety."
"The arrests during this joint operation with ICE are consistent with what the MPD has stated in the past: we are focused on removing violent gang members from the streets of Madison," said Madison Police Chief Noble Wray. "It is a matter of public safety, and we will work in concert with federal authorities to diminish potential threats. This in no way; however, changes our approach and philosophy in dealing with other members of our immigrant communities."
ICE's National Gang Unit identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements to deter, disrupt and dismantle gang operations by tracing and seizing cash, weapons and other assets derived from criminal activities.
Through Operation Community Shield, the federal government uses its powerful immigration and customs law enforcement authorities in a coordinated, national campaign against criminal street gangs in the United States. Transnational street gangs have significant numbers of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border.
Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 18,000 gang members and associates belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide.
The public is encouraged to report suspicious activity by calling the ICE toll-free hotline at: 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock.
5 more Texas counties to benefit from ICE strategy to enhance the identification, removal of criminal aliens
Uses biometrics to prioritize immigration enforcement actions against convicted criminal aliens
SAN ANGELO, Texas-On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information-sharing capability in five more Texas counties - Borden, Gaines, Mitchell, Scurry and Sterling counties - that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities - ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).
If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offences first-such as those with convictions for major drug offences, murder, rape and kidnapping.
"The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody," said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. "Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE's mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners."
With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to these 5 Texas counties, ICE is now using it in 193 Texas jurisdictions. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 553 jurisdictions in 29 states. ICE plans to be able to respond to leads generated through the biometric information sharing capability nationwide by 2013.
"The Scurry County Sheriff's Office is pleased to work side by side with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and assist them in the removal of Criminal Aliens who victimize our communities," said Scurry County Sheriff Darren Jackson. "Like all groups of people, there are honest hard-working people who are in our country legally and do not pose a danger to citizens, and we appreciate and respect their contributions to our communities. This program targets those who violate the laws of this Country and State and create a burden for the local taxpayers. We believe that by working with ICE to remove this group of individuals from our communities we can truly make our streets and neighborhoods a safer place to live."
Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 10,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 27,000 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.
The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).
"US-VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."
"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."
In the largest operation of its kind ever carried out in Arizona, more than 60 convicted criminal aliens and immigration fugitives have been arrested following a three-day targeted enforcement operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
During the operation, which concluded Wednesday evening, ICE officers located and arrested 55 aliens with prior criminal convictions. In addition, 16 of the individuals ICE officers took into custody were immigration fugitives, aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who had failed to leave the country. Of those arrested during the enforcement action, at least 25 have already been removed from the United States.
At a news conference here Thursday, ICE Director John Morton announced the results of the enforcement action, which involved more than 60 ICE agents and officers, as well as personnel from the U.S. Marshals Service. Those officers fanned out across the state making arrests in Phoenix, Tucson, Sedona , Mesa, Tempe and Prescott.
"These are not people we want to see walking the streets here in Phoenix or in any other community in Arizona," said ICE Director John Morton. "Those who come to the United States to prey upon communities in Arizona will be prosecuted for their crimes and ultimately returned to their home countries.
The results of this operation demonstrate ICE's commitment to that principle."
Because of their serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records, at least 12 of those arrested during the enforcement surge have been presented for federal prosecution for re-entering the country illegally after a formal deportation. A conviction for felony re-entry carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
"We are dedicated to bringing criminals to justice all along the southwest border, and in particular we will aggressively prosecute offenders with violent criminal convictions and who pose a threat to our communities," said Dennis Burke, U. S. Attorney for the District of Arizona. "We are pleased to stand together with our partners in Homeland Security and the Marshals Service and our state partners in the Offices of Probation and Parole to secure the southwest border through targeted enforcement strategies like today's action."
Among the arrestees is a 45-year-old Mexican woman who was convicted in California for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, a scheme that netted her and her conspirators more than $820,000.
Also arrested was a 55-year-old Mexican man who was convicted of selling methamphetamine in 2003. This individual has already been convicted once of felony re-entry into the United States in 2009, and following this arrest he will be prosecuted again in federal court.
The foreign nationals detained during the operation who are not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.
Of those arrested, 52 were male and 11 were female. They represent 9 different nations, including countries in Latin America, Europe and the Middle East.
This week's special enforcement action was spearheaded by ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives - aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts. ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety, including members of trans-national street gangs and child sex offenders.
The officers who conducted this week's operation received substantial assistance from ICE's Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) located in South Burlington, Vt. The FOSC conducted exhaustive database checks on the targeted cases to help ensure the viability of the leads and accuracy of the criminal histories. The FOSC was established in 2006 to improve the integrity of the data available on at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives nationwide. Since its inception, the FOSC has forwarded more than 550,000 case leads to ICE enforcement personnel in the field. In addition, leads were developed through the assistance of the Arizona Supreme Court Adult Probation Division.
ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).
Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number.
ICE arrests 11 gang members and associates in Madison, Wis., area
MADISON, Wis. - Agents with the local U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), in close partnership with the Madison Police Department (MPD), arrested 11 illegal alien gang members and gang associates on Tuesday. This is the latest joint local action of an ongoing national ICE HSI effort to target foreign-born members of violent street gangs.
The arrests were made Aug. 11 under an initiative by ICE's National Gang Unit dubbed "Operation Community Shield." As part of the initiative, ICE partners with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs. Partnerships with local law enforcement agencies are essential to the initiative's success, and they help further ensure officer safety during the operations.
All 11 men arrested are members or associates of the Chicano Pride and C-14 street gangs; all are Mexican nationals. They have been charged with administrative immigration violations and are being processed for deportation. Five of those arrested have previous criminal convictions in addition to their immigration violations. Some of their arrests and convictions include: carrying a concealed weapon, resisting or obstructing a police officer, battery, theft and criminal damage to property. For privacy reasons, ICE does not release the names of those arrested on administrative immigration charges.
In addition to the Madison Police Department, ICE received assistance from the following agencies: the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Wisconsin; and the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS).
"Street gangs pose a growing public safety threat to communities in the Madison area," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of the ICE HSI office in Chicago. "With each gang member we arrest and remove from the United States, we're making a positive impact in our communities and improving public safety."
"The arrests during this joint operation with ICE are consistent with what the MPD has stated in the past: we are focused on removing violent gang members from the streets of Madison," said Madison Police Chief Noble Wray. "It is a matter of public safety, and we will work in concert with federal authorities to diminish potential threats. This in no way; however, changes our approach and philosophy in dealing with other members of our immigrant communities."
ICE's National Gang Unit identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements to deter, disrupt and dismantle gang operations by tracing and seizing cash, weapons and other assets derived from criminal activities.
Through Operation Community Shield, the federal government uses its powerful immigration and customs law enforcement authorities in a coordinated, national campaign against criminal street gangs in the United States. Transnational street gangs have significant numbers of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border.
Since ICE began Operation Community Shield in February 2005, more than 18,000 gang members and associates belonging to more than 900 different gangs have been arrested nationwide.
The public is encouraged to report suspicious activity by calling the ICE toll-free hotline at: 1-866-347-2423. This hotline is staffed around the clock.
5 more Texas counties to benefit from ICE strategy to enhance the identification, removal of criminal aliens
Uses biometrics to prioritize immigration enforcement actions against convicted criminal aliens
SAN ANGELO, Texas-On Tuesday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) began using a new biometric information-sharing capability in five more Texas counties - Borden, Gaines, Mitchell, Scurry and Sterling counties - that helps federal immigration officials identify aliens, both lawfully and unlawfully present in the United States, who are booked into local law enforcement's custody for a crime. This capability is part of Secure Communities - ICE's comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
Previously, fingerprint-based biometric records were taken of individuals charged with a crime and booked into custody and checked for criminal history information against the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Now, through enhanced information sharing between DOJ and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), fingerprint information submitted through the state to the FBI will be automatically checked against both the FBI criminal history records in IAFIS and the biometrics-based immigration records in DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT).
If fingerprints match those of someone in DHS's biometric system, the new automated process notifies ICE. ICE evaluates each case to determine the individual's immigration status and takes appropriate enforcement action. This includes aliens who are in lawful status and those who are present without lawful authority. Once identified through fingerprint matching, ICE will respond with a priority placed on aliens convicted of the most serious offences first-such as those with convictions for major drug offences, murder, rape and kidnapping.
"The Secure Communities strategy provides ICE with an effective tool to identify criminal aliens in local custody," said Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella. "Enhancing public safety is at the core of ICE's mission. Our goal is to use biometric information sharing to remove criminal aliens, preventing them from being released back into the community, with little or no additional burden on our law enforcement partners."
With the expansion of the biometric information sharing capability to these 5 Texas counties, ICE is now using it in 193 Texas jurisdictions. Across the country, ICE is using this capability in 553 jurisdictions in 29 states. ICE plans to be able to respond to leads generated through the biometric information sharing capability nationwide by 2013.
"The Scurry County Sheriff's Office is pleased to work side by side with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and assist them in the removal of Criminal Aliens who victimize our communities," said Scurry County Sheriff Darren Jackson. "Like all groups of people, there are honest hard-working people who are in our country legally and do not pose a danger to citizens, and we appreciate and respect their contributions to our communities. This program targets those who violate the laws of this Country and State and create a burden for the local taxpayers. We believe that by working with ICE to remove this group of individuals from our communities we can truly make our streets and neighborhoods a safer place to live."
Since ICE began using this enhanced information sharing capability in October 2008, immigration officers have removed from the United States more than 10,800 criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 crimes, such as murder, rape and kidnapping. Additionally, ICE has removed more than 27,000 criminal aliens convicted of Level 2 and 3 crimes, including burglary and serious property crimes, which account for the majority of crimes committed by aliens. ICE does not regard aliens charged with, but not yet convicted of crimes, as "criminal aliens." Instead, a "criminal alien" is an alien convicted of a crime. In accordance with the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE continues to take action on aliens subject to removal as resources permit.
The IDENT system is maintained by DHS's US-VISIT program and IAFIS is maintained by the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS).
"US-VISIT is proud to support ICE, helping provide decision makers with comprehensive, reliable information when and where they need it," said US-VISIT Director Robert Mocny. "By enhancing the interoperability of DHS's and the FBI's biometric systems, we are able to give federal, state and local decision makers information that helps them better protect our communities and our nation."
"Under this plan, ICE will be utilizing FBI system enhancements that allow improved information sharing at the state and local law enforcement level based on positive identification of incarcerated criminal aliens," said Daniel D. Roberts, assistant director of the FBI's CJIS Division. "Additionally, ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving its goals."
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