Uncle
The town of Riverside, NJ has rescinded an ordinance that would have punished landlords for renting to illegal aliens. They figured there was no way they could afford to defend the ordinance in court. Chalk another one up for legal blackmail.
If the following is even remotely close to true, it’s startling and brings into focus the magnitude of the problem local officials face:
Officials estimated that nearly half the town’s population of around 8,000 were illegal immigrants, and officials said their numbers were putting a strain on public services and already scarce parking spaces.
My oh my oh my.
Good news, bad news [ok, really, really bad news]
That mean thing Michelle Malkin is still staking out the illegal immigration crime watch, and reports another incident involving illegal immigrants from Guatemala. The bad news, is, of course, the crime: a brutal sexual assault on an unconscious woman. The good news is that the police department notified immigration authorities. That, oddly enough is progress and good news:
The fact that the police reported the men to the feds is a significant step forward in combating the criminal alien crisis. This is the Newark effect in action. While national media outlets have moved on and forgotten the lessons of the awful execution-style murders by criminal aliens, law enforcement has not.
This is good news.
What we need to know now is how these suspects got into the country, who aided and abetted them in staying here, who employed them if they had jobs, whose identities they stole if they had fake papers, and who released them if they had ever been caught and let go by judges/immigration courts before.
Amway does immigration
It was bound to happen: the immigration pyramid scheme. A bunch of poor ignorant suckers “bought” memberships in a Native American Indian Tribe, hoping that this would automatically make them citizens.
Bought memberships in a tribe you ask? Well, apparently the Brooklyn Bridge had been sold earlier in the day.
Aguirre is a legal U.S. resident, but he is not an American citizen. He said he bought memberships in the Kaweah Indian Nation for himself, his family and members of his congregation, anticipating they would automatically become U.S. citizens. He said about 30 people in his congregation paid $80 (€57.8) each for memberships.
Balkanization is here to stay
Republican candidates are understandably chary about going on Univison, the dominant Spanish-language television network, for a GOP debate on Latino issues. In fact–brace yourselves–only John McCain accepted the invitation:
The major Republican candidates also refused invitations to address NCLR, the National Council of La Raza, at its annual conference in July. In June, the only Republican to show up at the convention of the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials was California Rep. Duncan Hunter, the patron of the border fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Politically, this is a very awkward situation. The Hispanic voting bloc is growing and growing fast–in part because unchecked illegal immigration, as the children of illegals become U.S. citizens. The Republican base ain’t too fond of illegal immigration, as you may have noticed.
But setting vote pandering left and right aside, there is something weird going on here:
What’s worse, in the eyes of national Hispanic leaders and progressives who are keeping count, this is the third time in recent months that Republican presidential candidates have dissed the fastest-growing part of the electorate by passing up chances to address Latinos’ concerns about the Iraq war, health care, the economy and immigration.
Please explain to me why Latino concerns about the Iraq war, the economy or health care are any different from any other group of Americans? OK, immigration’s a whole different ball of wax, but the others?
What I find most disturbing about this whole thing is that the mere fact of this Spanish language network, combined with its assertive posturing in political debate here, suggests a segment of the population that has no intention of assimilating.
Try to imagine an Italian or Polish language radio network in 1955, let alone such a TV network today. It’s a ludicrous proposition. Yet try to imagine the absence of a Spanish language network 30 years from now. Equally ludicrous.
After 200 years of successfully assimilating immigrants, cultural, linguistic and ethnic balkanization is here to stay.
Judging is easy: if it feels good, do it
Everyone always makes such a big stink about judicial philosophy and judicial temperment and all the nonsense. The truth is, judging is the easiest thing in the world. You look at a policy choice, and if you don’t like it, you issue an injunction. Homer Simpson could do it for heaven’s sake.
A judge in–guess where?–San Francisco has decreed that the Social Security Administration may not send out stiff letters to employers requiring them to reconcile fraudulent SS number problems within 90 days.
Ruling on a lawsuit by the nation’s largest federation of labor unions against the U.S. government, U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney granted a temporary restraining order prohibiting the so-called “no-match” letters from going out as planned starting Tuesday.
The AFL-CIO lawsuit, filed this week, claims that new Department of Homeland Security rules outlined in accompanying letters threaten to violate workers’ rights and unfairly burden employers. Chesney said the court needs “breathing room” before making any decision on the legality of new penalties aimed at cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants.
She set the next hearing on the matter for October 1.
Worker’s rights to what? Work with fraudulent social security cards?
But note what’s absent in the article: any statutory or constitutional basis for the injunction or the lawsuit. It’s like a four year old arguing that it’s not fair they have to go to bed: they don’t even know what the word means. It’s just a synonym for “me no like.”
My heart’s on fire for Elvira
Elvira Arellano is outraged at being returned to Mexico after protesting immigration enforcement in Los Angeles. She wants the Mexican government to appoint her a special ambassador with diplomatic credentials to wander around the U.S. pursuing “peace and justice.”
The meaning of the outrage is very clear: Elvira and the gang do not want the U.S. to have any immigration policy at all. Anyone who wants to should be able to cross our borders at any time and set up shop. That really is the only possible meaning of all this.
I expose, you exploit
Ruben Navarrette thinks Mitt is a twit for “exploiting” the immigration issue. “Exploiting” is what other people do when they says things I don’t like about something I don’t want to hear about. “Exposing” is what I do when I do when I say things others don’t like about things they don’t want to hear about.
Navarrette is anxious to point out what we don’t know, and what we do.
Despite what you hear on talk radio, it’s possible that this case has nothing to do with sanctuary. Legal experts say that local officials may have assumed that Carranza was in the country legally and that he may have fallen through the cracks due to bureaucratic ineptitude — the kind that sometimes results in U.S. citizens getting bail when they shouldn’t.
So we don’t know if the Peruvian perpetrator in the Newark case with the long rap sheet slipped through the system through a formal sanctuary policy, or through a less formal indifference, which amounts to the same thing. A legal system concerned with weeding out this kind of thing would take pains to positively identify immigrants, legal or un, and make sure they didn’t get bail in an armed robbery case or cop a cheap plea to escape deportation. Sanctuary is not just a policy; it’s a state of mind.
What we do know is that Mitt for years employed a landscaping firm that relied on illegal workers. And it seems almost certain that he knew it. I think that’s fair game, and if someone made a stink about it, they’d be “exposing” it, not “exploiting” it.
On being Australian
This isn’t the only country struggling with immigration and assimilation. The Aussies are giving a go at teaching people to be Australian as a prereq for citizenship.
Applicants for citizenship will also have to answer 20 questions - drawn at random from a pool of 200 - that examine knowledge of Australia’s history, governance and culture. Applicants will be asked to study a Government booklet that devotes several paragraphs to the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s best-known horse race, and also to the country’s obsession with cricket and other sports.
Among the lessons are how to be a “mate.”
Mateship is defined as a tradition “where people help and receive help from others voluntarily, especially in times of adversity. A mate can be a spouse, partner, brother, sister, daughter, son or a friend. A mate can be also a complete stranger.”
Sounds like one way to get a social disease.
The new tests for citizenship - which will include a requirement that applicants have lived for four years in Australia instead of the current three - are part of the Howard Government’s plans to promote Australian values further after violent beachside clashes in Sydney in 2005 between Muslim and white youths draped in Australian flags.
I guess it’s a step in the right direction, on an Australian beach, to find people draped in anything.
What will they think of next?
Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown points to the coming crackdown on social security card abuse as a defining moment in the immigration debate. Either the economy will crack under the pressure, or it will not.
The backbone of the crackdown is this amazing new device know as the “computer“, which–get this–allows the Federal government to actually detect when someone is using a fraudulent social security card. I know, sounds crazy, but apparently it’s true:
In other words, that should mean that illegals, or anyone else for that matter, will not be able either to get a fake card, or a fake number, just to fill out employment forms. If they do, the computers will show that number is not theirs.
And the wisdom to know the difference
Russ Smith has a column here in the NY Press castigating, albeit in passing, the immigration control crowd for linking the Newark murders to our disastrously lax immigration policies:
Just last week, syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin, echoing the intellectually-gone-to-seed Newt Gingrich, blamed the heinous killings of three students in Newark on porous borders, as if that’s the cause of all homicides today. This is deceitful hysteria at its most blatant: Look at the drug-related murders in Baltimore and Detroit, say, and you’ll find that the vast majority of criminals are U.S. citizens.
Whoah, hold on there, dude. First, no one has suggested that immigration is “the cause of all homicides today.” Russ, where did you learn to write with such tendentious hyperbole?
Michelle and others, myself included, have noted that all of these creeps are immigrants of dubious standing and that more than one of them has a rap sheet that ought to be have gotten them deported. So, yes, our lax immigration deportation policies and don’t ask/don’t tell sanctuary city policies helped cause this disaster.
No one has said a word about drug-related murders in Detroit or Baltimore, so far as I can tell. Nor has anyone suggested that the vast majority of criminals are not U.S. citizens; only a statistical numskull would suggest such a thing.
The real issue here is captured in that hackneyed cliché: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change [domestically bred crime]; the courage to change the things I can [deporting known criminal aliens with lengthy rap sheets]; and the wisdom to know the difference.
Russ, God grant you some obviously needed extra help on the last of these.
The tangled web we weave
Just try to figure out what’s going on with the aliens who murdered the students in Newark. I dare you. Michelle Malkin today does about as good a job as seems possible as an early cut:
No Social Security number. No green card. A US passport of uncertain validity. But they can’t figure out his immigration status. So, what could be going on here? Let’s step back a moment. You may recall that in January 2005, I criticized the Bush administration’s decision to extend a mass amnesty program called the “Temporary Protected Status” program.
She presses for answers on whether they were in fact legally here under TPS.
But the mere fact of these programs–temporary in name only–is a scandal. It appears that fraud is rampant, and TPS status is easily obtainable even by the most undesirable characters, and even if they are here in the country illegally already.
Pay particular attention the email from an ICE employee at the end of Michelle’s post, where she argues that TPS has been particularly abused by the notorious MS-13 gang, that it makes them virtually untouchable and undeportable.
It should not be that complicated to track legal immigration, and it should not be that easy to abuse it. This system is a maze of confusion that seems almost consciously designed to prevent us from securing our borders and protecting our citizens.
Newark murders: the saga continues
The most recent Newark murderer has been arrested. As usual, Michelle Malkin is on it, and once again, it’s an illegal alien:
Melvin Jovel spoke softly and answered several questions from the judge, including whether he has a green card, to which he answered no.
The mayor of Newark is surprisingly sophomoric:
“The perpetrators didn’t go there that night, I think, seeking out to do ill will,” Booker said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “They just happened to be there and it just manifested as evil within them, and they made this assault.”
Kind of a cross between 1960s psychobabble and good old fashioned religion. Almost expect him to launch into an exorcism/love-in hybrid. What a flake.
No word yet on this kid’s rap sheet, how long he’s been in the country illegally, and which local authorities are culpable for not having kicked his butt outta the country several times before.
Or … is it small-minded, ungenerous and nasty of me to to feel this way?
Do I stand corrected?
I’m not sure. Usually when I’m wrong, I have a pretty good idea I’m wrong. But I’ve accused Rudy of not making sense, because his biometric card would be issued to illegals, and could be used to obtain jobs, at least according to the Times of London. I’ve also wondered who Fred Barnes was pointing to, as I hadn’t seen Rudy’s tough talk yet.
So now I have Rudy’s tough talk in hand–and it is tough–but I’m still left wondering what he means by it. The key question in the Times article is not addressed in this O’Reilly interview. Here’s what the Times wrote:
Under Giuliani’s plan, illegal immigrants would be allowed to obtain a card, work and ultimately become citizens - a route to legitimacy derided by some hardline Republicans as an “amnesty”.
Which leaves me wondering: how deep does Rudy’s conversion on immigration go, and is he artfully playing both ends against the middle? Or is the Times flat out wrong about the card being available to illegals? Here’s the tough talk. I’ll let you decide what it means.
Fred Barnes: small-minded, ungenerous and nasty
Fred Barnes offers a multi-faceted prescription for the listing GOP ship. One on the list is changing the tone on immigration. Here’s his take on that:
And they’ve allowed their obsession with illegal immigrants to get out of hand. This drives away Hispanic voters and leaves the impression that Republicans are small-minded, ungenerous and nasty. The worst offenders are the presidential candidates, who would be wise to tone down their rhetoric on immigration.
With the exception of Tom Tancredo–a candidate only in the loosest sense–this statement seems oddly misplaced. McCain, obviously not. Rudy is still defending sanctuary cities offering amnesty … with biometric card! [See update with more questions than answers here.] Or Mitt, who has suggested that sanctuary cities be shut down?
Ah, Mitt is the nasty boy? But his rhetoric hasn’t been strident. He’s just making the point that cities should not be setting immigration policy, and that the feds have ample financial leverage to stop it.
It’s an insult to the Hispanic voter to suggest that to secure their vote one must cower from having any immigration policy at all. For it’s not a policy if all comers are free at will to violate it and be rewarded for it.
Barnes also mistakes insistence on having a policy with what that policy should be. One can favor [as I do] vastly more open immigration, and still insist that it be a policy.
Is that “small-minded, ungenerous and nasty?” Or is Fred Barnes again substituting ad hominems for reasoned dialogue? Sounds like the latter to me. Shame on him.
You needed a study for this?
The coneheads at the inaptly named Project for Excellence in Journalism have released a landmark study of the immigration debate this summer and discovered [are you ready?] that talk radio and Lou Dobbs played key roles in defeating the immigration bill:
Opposition from key talk radio and cable TV hosts helped kill the immigration bill in Congress, a study out today concludes.
But wait, there’s more:
But it’s not just immigration. Rosenstiel, a former media critic for the Los Angeles Times and chief congressional correspondent for Newsweek, said the new data clearly show that talk radio has “the ability to magnify issues.”
Another riveting insight: talk radio’s influence may depend on the issue:
Looking ahead, Rosenstiel said the effect of talk radio on the political process is likely to depend on the issue, “in the same way that coverage on cable TV about international crises from around the world influence policy only when conditions line up a certain way.”
I opined yesterday that journalism students are the lowest form of intellectual life on college campuses. I think pretty much proves my point.
That don’t make no sense
When I saw this headline, I thought, “Oh good, he’s coming around.” He wants to require all foreigners in the U.S. to carry a biometric ID. [For those not up on this lingo, that means you have a fingerprint on it.]
Wow, that is tough. Of course, one would suppose, only foreigners who are in the country legally would be eligible for the card. Oh, no. Quite the contrary:
Under Giuliani’s plan, illegal immigrants would be allowed to obtain a card, work and ultimately become citizens - a route to legitimacy derided by some hardline Republicans as an “amnesty”. But Giuliani’s success as a former prosecutor and mayor who cracked down on criminals has given him unique credibility. He has vowed to strengthen patrols along the most porous parts of the border with Mexico and deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of drug dealing and other crimes.
[Derided by “some hardline Republicans as amnesty?” Um, if that ain’t amnesty, please define the word for me?]
So Rudy wants a biometric card and more rigorous border patrols, but if you get past those patrols then your reward is … your own biometric card! In what sense, then, is anyone illegal? In what sense do we have an immigration policy at all?
Again, let’s review: if you are in the country illegally, you get a card with identifies you and allows you to work … legally?
You can slice this anyway you like, and it’ll still be incoherent. In Pete’s immortal words from O Brother Where Art Thou: “That don’t make no sense.”
What the hell happened in Irvington, NJ?
Sanctuary cities–and the mentality that they both spawned and nurtured–have more to answer for today. Two new arrests and more to come on the Newark triple execution murders, and this time it’s an Nicaraguan immigrant in the plot, who like the other illegal co-perpetrator, had a long rap sheet and should have been long gone.
What’s not clear yet is if Godinez was ever legally in the country. What is clear is that he should have been deported long ago, and if local authorities were concerned with the safety of their citizenry, they would have done so:
Godinez has lived on Midland Avenue and Manor Drive in Newark, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement records indicated he may have also been in the country illegally. Rodolfo Antonio Godinez Gomez entered the U.S. from Nicaragua on Oct. 24, 1992. He was ordered deported on May 5, 1993, but it isn’t clear if he ever left the country, according to Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontura.
“It seems to me that he was illegal,” he said tonight.
Godinez was first arrested as a juvenile on June 21, 1999 in South Orange for robbery which was downgraded to theft for which he got 18 months probation. In September 2002, he was arrested in Irvington for aggravated assault, robbery and weapons possession. He was indicted but its not clear what happened after that. In April 2003, he was arrested for robbery in Newark which was downgraded to theft and got 18 months probation, Essex County records show.
I don’t care whether not connecting the dots here was policy or incompetence. There is no excuse. Use a gun to commit a felony, and go to prison. Use a gun to do so when you are a guest in this country, and go to hell. No bail, no excuses, just a one way plane ticket with cuffs. Even the robbery downgraded to theft should mean deportation. 18 months probation–twice?
In particular, the families of these murder victims deserve to know what happened in Irvington in September, 2002. “Not clear what happened after that” ain’t gonna cut it.
Rudy’s intransigence on sanctuary cities is mind-boggling. It wouldn’t be that big a deal to acknowledge that this was NYC’s policy under his watch, and say that times were different and perspectives change. Just pass it off as a pre-9/11 naiveté. I’ve been cheering for Rudy because I think he understands terror and can beat Hillary. But this is severely trying my patience.
[ht: Riehl World View] [More updates and reaction here]
Watch this number
Conventional wisdom is that GOP malaise and party ID tilting toward Democrats signals a fundamental shift. Factors include Iraq and the Media/Left propaganda machine’s barrage against it. Add to this a tongue-tied White House and a congressional GOP that abdicated its 1994 revolution. It would be shocking if there were not malaise in the base and disenchantment at the center. However, the immigration fiasco reveals a marked cleavage favoring the GOP, despite dogged White House efforts to neutralize it. Rasmussen has a new poll out showing that
Fifty-eight percent (58%) of voters nationwide favor cutting off federal funds for “sanctuary cities” that offer protection to illegal immigrants. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that just 29% are opposed.
And this:
By a 56% to 31% margin, voters want the government to continue building a fence along the Mexican border.
58-29 or 56-31 [functionally the same number] is significant. These are landslide election ratios, numbers that include the swing voters the GOP–the Reagan Democrats and the Perot voters of previous decades. And their tilt in this poll here shows they are still there.
Where there is a strong gut feeling on immigration, there will also be a strong gut feeling on other issues that traditionally favor the GOP–including crime, welfare, and strength abroad. These voters should also be instinctively open to an empowerment agenda on social security and education, if it were presented persuasively at the right time.
In short, 58-29 is a big number because it shows a clear pulse for a segment of the electorate that some think has flat-lined but may only be discouraged or distracted. How to appeal to them is another matter, and much hinges on chance as well as skill.
The frustrating thing here is that the candidate who might best be able to take advantage of this split–Giuliani–is tainted with the sanctuary city virus, and doesn’t seem interested in a cure.
Rudy tosses a putrid red herring at Mitt
“Under fire from GOP rival Mitt Romney over New York’s status as a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants during his term as mayor, a boastful Rudy Giuliani pointed out that crime rates also decreased dramatically and said his approach to immigration was part of the reason. [serious non sequitur there.]
“The reality is, New York City went from being the crime capital of America to being the safest large city in the United States during the time I was the mayor, which means it was safe in all categories,” Giuliani told reporters when asked about Romney’s attack following a lunch stop at a cafe here. “It had less illegality per capita than just about any city in the country.”
Romney responded:
Asked to respond to the challenge, Romney drew distinctions between the topics. “Safety and security is a very interesting and important topic — illegal immigration is a different topic,” he said after a town hall meeting in Londonderry, N.H., Thursday night.
I find it hard to argue with Romney on this one. Immigration and crime are distinct issues that can tragically intersect. But the “sanctuary city” gambit–which Giuliani joined in–was apparently a key factor in the murder of those three college students.
To deflect a criticism of self-righteous cities creating their own immigration policy by pointing to a general decline in crime is a very stinky red herring. It may throw a few hounds of the scent, but not the brighter ones.
Mitt is perfectly within his rights to question sanctuary cities and Rudy’s association with them. It is possible that a coherent defense could be mounted, or the error could be acknowledged. But the Rudy’s petulance here is not persuasive.
[More on Mitt & Immigration at Michelle Malkin.]
So open minded we are scatter-brained
The concept of the sanctuary city is frankly beyond me. Maybe Rudy can explain it.
HotAir has a weird exchange between Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera. Rivera is always at best an odd duck. That mustache is just outa control. But here he’s flippin angry at the focus on the illegal alien who raped a five year-old in Newark, was released on bail only to murder three college students.
Why wouldn’t illegal immigration be the story here? Scores of people–the judge, prosecuters and policy force in Newark–all new this creep was a threat. And they all knew that he was in our society illegally. Why would you not alert DHS to sweep him off our streets?
“This was a heinous crime, and these suspects have deep psychological issues,” said Gustavo Ramirez, head of the Passaic-based Immigration and American Citizenship Organization. “This crime, however, cannot be explained by immigration status, any more than terrorism can be.”
Yeah, don’t link terrorism to our slack immigration policy. The tragicomedy that is U.S. immigration continues apace.
