We who write extensively on border and port security, the deleterious impact of illegal immigration, its wholesale assault on the Rule of Law, its ineluctable devaluation of American citizenship, and its indisputable enabler – our federal government — are often bowled over by the utter temerity of the corrupt government of Mexico in its persistent meddling in the internal affairs and national security of the United States. As but one example of this, kindly take a look at my post of yesterday on the “Fifth Column” that is the large, growing network of 47 Mexican consultates operating in the U.S., including two that are “mobile.” 

But this story by Mark Stevenson, writing for the Associated Press (and published in Forbes), may just take the cake and, to be sure, it’s got my hackles up this morning. Here’s a flavor of Stevenson’s report:

The Mexican government said Monday it is seeking changes in a U.S. plan to expand fences along the two nations’ border because of the threat to migratory species accustomed to roaming freely across the frontier.

The Environment Department said the fences would seriously hurt species that cross the 1,952-mile border, and said the United States needs to alter or mitigate the barriers - aimed at stopping migrants from crossing illegally into the U.S. - where necessary.

Mexico also wants Washington to expand its environmental impact study on the fences and will file a complaint with the United Nations’ International Court of Justice in the Hague, Netherlands if necessary.

Surprising? No. Consistent with Mexico’s ongoing posture vis-a-vis encouraging its poor and illiterate citizens to migrate illegally to the United States? Yes — absolutely. But nonetheless astounding given its own harsh treatment of illegal immigrants across its southern border and, even more hypocritical, given its sorry environmental record? You bet. 

Esther Schrader, in a book review published in Washington Monthly, points to the findings of author Joel Simon (”Endangered Mexico: Environment On The Edge”) on Mexico’s egregious environmental catastrophe:

What makes the story of Mexico’s environmental devastation particularly tragic is the abundance of its natural heritage. The third most biologically diverse nation on the planet, Mexico is home to more than 30,000 species of plants — more than half of which are found nowhere else on earth. In the jungles of Chiapas, rare butterflies flutter past birds and reptiles native only to Mexico. In the waters off Baja California, gray whales give birth in an annual watery dance. Clear, deep rivers rush through the red walls of Barranca del Cobre, a series of canyons that eclipses in size our own Grand Canyon. Endangered giant sea turtles lumber up the beaches of Oaxaca each autumn to leave their eggs.

But that fragile legacy has been under increasing attack for the last four centuries. As authors before him have done, Simon chronicles how first the Spaniards, and later the Mexican government, annihilated thousands of varieties of Mexican flora and fauna, and how the Spanish version of taming nature by building cities and vast public works, and introducing foreign animals and plants, forever altered the natural balance in which the pre-columbian Indians lived.

The book is at its most compelling, however, when Simon moves on to what he can describe with his own eyes. Again and again, he lets the reader taste his own horror at what he sees before him. Following the open sewer line that drains 23,200 gallons of raw sewage and industrial waste out of Mexico City every second of every day, Simon describes a canal of “thick black sludge, the consistency of syrup,” that seems not to flow but “to percolate.”

Additionally, Schrader pulls no punches in citing “… the Mexican government’s indifference to the natural world, and the pervasiveness of that attitude throughout the rest of Mexican society.”

Yet here we have Mexico, in the klieg lights of its own mendacity, publishing and distributing a how-to guide to assist its citizens in entering the United States illegally and leveraging our country’s broad array of taxpayer-subsidized social services, while concerning itself suddenly, and disingenuously so, with the fate of the Sonoran Pronghorn!

As Heather Mac Donald observed in this widely-read piece in City Journal:

Mexican officials here and abroad are involved in a massive and almost daily interference in American sovereignty.

And this from a country drowning in its own sea of litter!

But, just watch our neighbor to the south prevail in this latest foray into America’s national security prerogatives as a sovereign nation? Why, because truth be known, neither George W. Bush, nor DHS’ Michael Chertoff, nor many Congressmen seem much interested in a border fence either and despite the fact that Americans have clearly registered their desire for border enforcement.

Follow-Up: Yet another example here: Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) rightly asks, in the context of possible interference by the Mexican government in the prosecution of U.S. Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, “Why is our government so willing to accept demands from Mexico?” (H/T: PoliPundit)

Follow-Up II: Here’s a photo (and a report) from Fox News showing two members of the Pima County Sheriff’s “Border Crime Unit” subduing one of those environmentally-threatened Sonoran Pronghorns that the government of Mexico has its knickers in a twist over!

Follow-Up II: Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), appearing on CNN’s “Lou Dobbs Tonight” this evening in the context of the Congressional investigation by the House Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs of the Ramos/Compean prosecution and possible meddling by the government of Mexico in that case, flat out asserted that President Bush is much too close to Mexico. He went on to call the president the equivalent of a modern day “Rip Van Winkle,” saying that he doesn’t know how the president could otherwise sleep at night while Ramos and Compean are wrongly imprisoned.

Michael Graham, writing for Boston Herald.com, points to one of the classic, exasperating ironies found in the woof and warp of the national debate over illegal immigration:

It turns out that treating illegal immigrants like they’re doing something, oh, illegal, has the effect of encouraging them to actually obey the law.

Graham continues:

But in the bizarro world of border security, the only true crime is to enforce the law. And the true horror of enforcing immigration laws is that it actually works.

Mark Krikorian from the Center for Immigration Studies will tell anyone who’ll listen that the practical, workable solution for border security is “enforcement through attrition.”

An example of this truism:

“At the time of the 9/11 attack, the largest group of illegal immigrants from the Middle East were from Pakistan,” Krikorian says. “In the wake of 9/11, basic enforcement was stepped up. It became clear in the Pakistani community that the government was serious and things like expired visas were no longer going to be overlooked. As a result, a huge percentage of illegal Pakistani immigrants chose on their own to go home. No guns, no raids, no ‘lines of buses.’ ”

Another that Graham cites:

And here in the Boston area, the MetroWest Daily News reports the disturbing news that travel agents are selling twice as many one-way tickets to Brazil this year than last. Money-wire agencies in MetroWest area have fewer customers, a sign that more Brazilian illegals are opting for the “do-it-yourself” amnesty plan: going home.

So where’s the rub? With the federal government, answers Graham — it’s the federal government, first and foremost, that is choosing to undermine the Rule of Law in our country in the context of runaway illegal immigration and its result, 12 to 20 million illegal aliens afoot in the United States.

So, if we know that even mild enforcement works, why aren’t federal authorities doing it? Unfortunately, it’s a question that answers itself.

Read the entire piece to gain yet another insight into how the Bush Administration is purposefully thwarting the implementation of common sense solutions to the national crisis that is unfettered illegal immigration.

The Dan Stein Report links to this story, written by Daniel Connolly, on the recent trip to Memphis, Tennessee, of Andres Chao, the head of Mexico’s newest U.S.-based consulate (among a fast-growing network that presently totals 47), located in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

Chao said he’ll return to Memphis in the near future to meet corporate leaders and civil authorities.

The Hispanic Business Alliance organized the event and invited representatives of groups including local churches, social service agencies and Spanish-language media. About 30 people attended.

The meeting was conducted almost entirely in Spanish and underscored the challenges that Chao and his colleagues face as they try to provide services to a far-flung, growing population that includes large numbers of illegal immigrants.

Chao said the consulate has a staff of 10 and represents as many as 1 million Mexicans living in West Tennessee, eastern Oklahoma as well as all of Arkansas and Mississippi.

As was reported here at A Certain Slant Of  Light, as if 47 Mexican consulates were not sufficient to effect a wide-ranging “Fifth Column” against United States sovereignty and American citizenship, Mexico also operates two “mobile” consulates (the equivalent of Matricula Consular cards on wheels) to advance its concerted effort at Reconquista, as well as amnesty for millions of Mexican nationals here in our country illegally.

Allan Wall (among others), in a trenchant piece written in 2002, layed the foundation for a legitimate claim that a “Fifth Column” effort is being perpetrated against the United States by the corrupt government of Mexico:

The Mexican government has developed a deliberate strategy to influence American immigration policy, increase the number of Mexicans in the United States, slow their assimilation, and retain their loyalty to Mexico. This is no secret conspiracy — Mexico’s leaders speak openly of it.

Mexican newspaper readers and television viewers are regaled constantly with descriptions of the ill-treatment of Mexicans in the United States. America’s attempts to control its own borders are presented as “racist,” “xenophobic,” and “anti-Mexican.” The United States is blamed for the deaths of illegal aliens who die crossing the border in the desert, and Mexican politicians have called the border a “slaughterhouse” and a “modern Nazi zone.”

In Mexico, all political parties support increased Mexican emigration to the United States, amnesty, and government benefits for Mexicans in the United States, regardless of migratory status. In fact, very few influential Mexicans publicly acknowledge the right of the U.S. to control her own borders. Mexican illegal aliens “are not criminals,” “they only do work the gringos won’t do,” and “they are obliged to cross the border” — these are common slogans used to justify illegal emigration.

But, Mexico has its fair share of co-conspirators right here in the United States, among them city fathers who have adopted misguided Sanctuary City policies and politically-correct mayors who have established Offices of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs.

Only recurring grassroots’ efforts by bona-fide American citizens fed up with their federal government’s deliberate failure to enforce border security and current federal immigration laws can both withstand the persistent pressure from Mexico and provide a countervailing force to defeat the concerted aims of Washington politicians hellbent on making a mockery of the Rule of Law across our land.

Follow-Up: This says it all …

Mexico is waging an aggressive diplomatic battle to protect its interests and the interests of its citizens who are working and residing illegally in the United States. While it is appropriate for a foreign government to protect the rights of its citizens abroad, it is not appropriate to encourage them or counsel them to violate the laws of the foreign government where their nationals are living, nor is it appropriate diplomacy to interfere in domestic policy making and implementation of a foreign government.

Follow-Up II: And even (surprise-surprise) the Gray Lady weighs in …

On the surface, there was nothing extraordinary about a certain government office in Little Rock, Ark., the other day as paperwork was signed, names were called, fees were paid, waits were endured and computer keyboards went tap, tap, tap.

Just the workaday humdrum of official government business — the government of Mexico, that is, in yet another new consulate, the country’s 47th in the United States.

Since 2000, consulates have opened in places where immigration from Mexico has soared, including St. Paul; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Omaha and Raleigh, N.C.

“They have every right to open one up,” said State Representative Jon Woods, a Republican from northwest Arkansas who won office last year on a platform that included combating illegal immigration. “But the problem I have with it opening up is it blatantly screams that illegal immigration is a problem in Arkansas. That’s the main reason it opened up.”

A recent analysis of census data suggested that Arkansas had the country’s fastest-growing Hispanic population this decade, set at 70,000 in 2005, a 48 percent increase over five years. At least half of the newcomers were illegal immigrants, according to the analysis commissioned by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation from the Urban Institute and released last month.

Consulate officials in Little Rock acknowledge that the 6,000-square-foot piece of Mexican territory occupying a former medical clinic serves all Mexican citizens, regardless of immigration status.

There are 539 foreign consulates in the United States, and Mexico has more than any other country. (After Mexico, Canada has 19, Japan 17 and Britain 12).

Follow-Up III: And please don’t fail to read this important insight into Mexico’s machinations by Sher Zieve, writing for Renew America (an excerpt follows):

This is the first in a series of interviews with former US Border Patrol Supervisor David J. Stoddard. Mr. Stoddard spent 27 years in the Border Patrol and served in Calexico, California, Vermont, Yuma, Tucson Sector Headquarters and Naco, Arizona. He also worked in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other locations.

Stoddard provided testimony about immigration reform to Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner’s (R-WI) House Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims in 1999 and a Congressional subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources in 2002. He has also been a guest on multiple nationally broadcast Radio and television programs, including Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor.”

The information contained in the answers given by Stoddard, which identifies the influence of the Mexican government on US Immigration Policy at our Southern border and beyond, is shocking. Stoddard’s field and management experience make him uniquely qualified as an expert on illegal immigration. His observations and, subsequent, contentions are that our US Border Patrol and our borders are increasingly under the control of a foreign power — the Mexican government.

WorldNetDaily has published yet another compelling piece by Jerome R. Corsi on the nascent North American Union and its linchpin, the NAFTA super highway, in response to Vice President Dick Cheney’s insistence that no such secret plan exists to effect a de facto, economic merger of the United States, Canada, and Mexico, on the order of the European Union.

Blogger Frank Laughter of Common Sense Junction provides the details of the existence of just such a grand scheme in this well-researched, comprehensive piece in response to one of the NAU’s naysayers, popular blogger John Hawkins of Right Wing News.

DO NOT PASS GO until you have read Steve Sailer’s brilliant and illuminating post-mortem on the defeat of S. 1348 — the Senate’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill that was tantamount to an amnesty give-away for illegal aliens.

And if you’ve yet to bookmark the VDARE and VDARE Blog sites, I encourage you to do so or you can always find their links under the “Illegal Immigration” heading in my site’s blogroll in the right sidebar. Their team of writers has long been on the cutting edge of reporting on illegal immigration and its far-reaching, deleterious impact on our country, its bona-fide citizens, and the perpetually bludgeoned American taxpayer.

Country music icon Johnny Cash’s hilarious “One Piece At A Time” came to mind this morning in reading Mike Cutler’s not so hilarious piece in Family Security, entitled “The ‘Strip-the-Car’ Approach To Legalizing Aliens.”

Cash’s song was about a factory worker at a General Motors assembly plant in Detroit who wanted a long, black Cadillac so badly that he decided to steal the parts “one piece at a time.”

 One day I devised myself a plan
That should be the envy of most any man
I’d sneak it out of there in a lunchbox in my hand
Now gettin’ caught meant gettin’ fired
But I figured I’d have it all by the time I retired
I’d have me a car worth at least a hundred grand.

 I’d get it one piece at a time
And it wouldn’t cost me a dime
You’ll know it’s me when I come through your town
I’m gonna ride around in style
I’m gonna drive everybody wild
‘Cause I’ll have the only one there is a round.

Cutler, citing the same article in The Washington Times that I wrote about in this post — a piece by S.A. Miller and Stephen Dinan on Congress’ newfound “piecemeal” approach to securing one piece at a time all those many elements of the Senate’s defeated Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill (S. 1348) that they could not secure on a grand, all-inclusive scale in but one sweeping legislative stroke — writes the following:

An article in the July 26 edition of the Washington Times reports on the new strategy of force-feeding immigration rewards for illegal aliens in a piecemeal fashion rather than in a one-shot “comprehensive” bill that includes them all.  This piecemeal approach to an immigration giveaway program reminds me of a car thief who realizes that he cannot simply break into a homeowner’s garage and steal his vintage sports car outright, so he resorts to stripping the car and over time makes off with most, if not all, of the prized vehicle. All he has to do after the piecemeal theft is to reassemble it in his own garage! 

Read the entire column and, as a citizen-patriot, don’t let your guard down, as this fight is not over by any means. As Cutler rightly notes: “Democracy is not a spectator sport!”

An article by Barbara Anderson in American Chronicle, published in March, 2006, pointed to the impact of illegal immigration on just one small school district near Salem, Oregon (the bold type is my emphasis):

Every facet of our society is affected by illegal immigration, but two are bleeding communities all over America: public education and health care.

Using Census Bureau data, it is estimated that 96 percent of the increase in enrollment in public schools is due to immigration. This being so, and parents of those students contribute little or nothing in taxes to support their education, something has to give. Usually, it is the taxpayer. Thus, programs and teachers must be cut or taxes raised on the American citizens who do pay taxes.

But, those staggering numbers just apply to big cities and big states, right? As a case in point, a small city in Oregon, McMinnville, is experiencing the same draining of its taxpayer dollars. This is a small city of about 30,000, nestled in the heart of the Willamette Valley’s wine country. Midway between the coast and Portland and 30 miles from the capitol city of Salem, it is valued as a wonderful place to live and visit.

Over the past two years, there has been an increase in the number of English Language Learners (ELL) in the McMinnville School District from 772 to 1,138, a 32 percent increase. The district has had to put a $96 million bond levy on the May ballot. Last year, the Salem School District spent over $7 million on ELL programs, but only $668,000 on the Talented and Gifted Program (TAG). That meant that an extra $2,500 was spent on an ELL student, but a mere extra $131 per TAG student. The parceling out of resources is ironic, in that, nationally, over 60 percent of ELL students do not even graduate from high school, while over 90 percent of TAG students not only graduate but also go on to universities.

But let’s do a Google search, shall we, and see what’s going on presently in the context of Barbara Anderson’s report of a little over a year ago. Seems Patton Middle School in McMinnville, Oregon, is trying to hire an “ELL Teacher” (scroll down the page) for “English Language Learners,” which is a disarmingly euphemistic way of saying that local property taxes are, in part, subsidizing the education of the children of illegal aliens and migratory workers.

So why am I focusing on a small school district in Oregon and one middle school in that district to illustrate a worsening national phenomena — i.e., the onerous burden on American taxpayers of providing, among a broad array of subsidized services, public education for the children of illegal immigrants?

Before I answer that question (I promise I’ll eventually do so), kindly indulge me one digression.

I want to publish a Letter To The Editor, dated July 21, 2007, to the News-Register from citizen Glen Doty of McMinnville, Oregon, that puts the deleterious effects of illegal immigration in bold relief (the bold type is my emphasis):

In Casey Nortness’ letter (Readers’ Forum, July 14), he states that ultraconservatives used bigotry and racism to defeat the immigration bill. I’m not ultraconservative or a Republican, but I am tired of proponents of illegal immigration name-calling those who want the laws of this country upheld. I question Nortness’ statement that 98 percent of illegal aliens are employed, especially since the unemployment rate is around 5 percent in the United States.Here are some facts about illegal immigration:

Since 9/11 over 23,000 Americans have been killed by illegal immigrants. That’s seven times more than have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Nearly 30 percent of our federal prisons are filled with foreign nationals. Oregon spends $34 million a year on illegal immigrants in our prisons.

Nearly 50 percent of Latinos in Oregon are here illegally.

The state has given out more than 175,000 drivers’ licenses to people who have no right to be in this state.

There are more than 50,000 children of illegal aliens in Oregon schools - equivalent to the enrollment of 25 schools the size of Mac High. Can you say overcrowded schools? At more than $10,000 per child, you do the math.

Twenty percent of McMinnville students are non-English speaking.

The Drug Enforcement Agency states that over 80 percent of all illegal drugs come across our southern border, affecting hundreds of thousands of American lives and families.

The back of our quarter and penny has the phrase “E Pluribus Unum,” meaning from many comes one. Commonality, as much as diversity, has made this country great. In the ’50s and ’60s, we fought against segregation. Now, because of illegal immigrants, some in this country welcome segregation at the expense of culture and sovereignty of the United States. All I’ve just stated are facts, so save the calls of racism and xenophobia for the playground.

Good for citizen Glen Doty!

Now then, you ask, where is all of this going? Assail me if you will for perhaps mixing apples with oranges, but a column by the redoubtable Mark Steyn on a newsworthy piece out of (of all places) McMinnville, Oregon, caught my eye today and made me think yet again that America’s priorities, and particularly those of many of its elected government officials (the people we put our faith in to do the right thing), is truly out of whack — and the choice of the word “whack” is, indeed, a not so humorous ”pun intended.”

Writes Mr. Steyn (long excerpts follow, but do read the whole piece):

Do you know Cory Mashburn and Ryan Cornelison?If you do, don’t approach them. Call 911 and order up a SWAT team. They’re believed to be in the vicinity of McMinnville, Ore., where they’re a clear and present danger to the community. Mashburn and Cornelison were recently charged with five counts of felony sexual abuse, and District Attorney Bradley Berry has pledged to have them registered for life as sex offenders.

Oh, by the way, the defendants are in the seventh grade.

Messrs Mashburn and Cornelison are pupils at Patton Middle School. They were arrested in February after being observed in the vestibule, swatting girls on the butt. Butt-swatting had apparently become a form of greeting at the school – like “a handshake we do,” as one female student put it. On “Slap Butt Fridays,” boys and girls would hail each other with a cheery application of manual friction to the posterior, akin to a Masonic greeting.

So, upon being caught butt-swatting, Mashburn and Cornelison were called to the principal’s office, where they were questioned for several hours by vice principal Steve Tillery and McMinnville Police officer Marshall Roache. At the end of the afternoon, two boys who’d never been in any kind of trouble before were read their Miranda rights and led off in handcuffs to spend five days in juvenile jail.

Tough, but I guess they learned their lesson, right?

Ha! The state of Oregon was only warming up. After a court appearance in shackles and prison garb, the defendants were charged with multiple counts of felony sexual abuse, banned from school and forbidden any contact with their friends.

Of 14 other students interviewed by officer Roache, seven (boys and girls) told him they had engaged in bottom-swatting themselves. Two of the “victims” said they had done it to others. At the initial hearing, a couple of female students spontaneously testified that they’d felt very much pressured to conform during their interviews with the vice principal and the police officer. “Well, when the principal asked me stuff, I kind of felt pressured to answer stuff that I was uncomfortable, and that it hurt, but it really didn’t,” said one girl.

What does hurt? Attracting the attention of the district attorney. The prosecutor’s office reduced the counts from felony sexual assault (with which he’d successfully charged a couple of other middle-school students a year ago) to five misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse and five counts of sexual harassment.

Mashburn and Cornelison do not believe they’ve committed a crime, so they would like to exercise their right to the presumption of innocence – a bedrock principle of the English legal tradition now in great peril from American prosecutorial excess. Instead of letting the state bully them into a grubby, shaming deal, the boys would like it to do what justice systems in civilized societies are required to do: prove the crime. It’s a gamble: Those 10 charges each command a one-year sentence, plus lifelong sex-offender registration.

District Attorney Berry told reporter Susan Goldsmith of the Oregonian that his department “aggressively” pursues sex crimes. “These cases are devastating to children,” he said. “They are life-altering cases.”

You get the flavor: a twisted form of political correctness resides in McMinnville, Oregon, along with a fair share of illegal aliens and their offspring drinking unabashedly and unfettered from the well of the American taxpayers’ subsidization (and, to be sure, not by choice) of people who have no right to be here and who broke the law in coming here.

The whole sorry situation in McMinnville, Oregon, across the length and breadth of America, and in the Oval Office of the White House, as well as in the Senate offices of Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Jon Kyl, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham is a slap in the face (or should that read: kick in the hindquarters) to bona-fide American citizens (not the Harry Reid variety, I should add) fed up with the deliberate undoing of the Rule of Law in this country.

Meanwhile, while a prosecuting attorney in Oregon tries to ruin the lives of two middle school boys for, at worst, distasteful, juvenile behavior, here’s what’s really going on in America in terms of sex crimes:

Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each.

It is deplorable enough that the United States government sits idly by on its bureaucratic haunches while the corrupt government of Mexico grows a vast string of Mexican consulates on U.S. soil (now numbering 47 and with the most recent addition in Little Rock, Arkansas) to serve a growing Hispanic population, many of whom are illegal aliens (i.e., Mexican nationals who have jumped our borders), and to further its strategic aims; but, to add insult to injury in a country teeming with anywhere from 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, Mexican consulates have gone “mobile” and travel in our country carte blanche and unrestricted to hand out their matricula consular cards and provide guidance to Mexican citizens here illegally on how best to leverage (should read: “exploit”)America’s broad social safety net of services. Indeed, Mexico instructs its citizens (mostly poor and illiterate) on how to enter the United States illegally, then, once here, gives them pseudo identification to mitigate their “undocumented status,” and, finally, directs them on how to maximize their subsidization by American taxpayers and the use of U.S. governmental agencies and programs.

From the Appleton Post-Crescent, this story:

Chicago’s mobile consulate, with stops also in Illinois and Indiana, could have the seventh-largest representation in the country of 47 Mexican consulates, Romero said. It is booked through the end of September and has tentative dates for visits through November.

One of two mobile programs in the country, Chicago’s was established five years agao to serve a region in the Midwest roughly the size of one-third of Mexico. The consulate targeted communities where there was a relatively large Mexican population and whose residents could not afford to travel to Chicago for the paperwork. At the time, the consulate’s service also included Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio.

So Mexico continues to blatantly interfere in U.S. internal affairs, particularly in U.S. immigration policy, and with veritable impunity from the Bush administration, which has long been in bed with that government. And, the crazy irony of it is is that Mexico refuses to walk the talk in terms of its own immigration policies!

Well, one outraged American citizen in Appleton, Wisconsin has it right:

I’m writing about the Mexican consulate conducting official business at the Appleton Public Library.

I called Mayor Hanna’s office on July 20 to find out who authorized this. I was forwarded to Library Director Terry Dawson. He told me he received a request from the mayor’s office for the Mexican consulate to use the library.

Mr. Dawson explained that it’s “the policy of the library to allow various groups access to the public meeting rooms.”

The Mexican consulate also gives legal advice to illegal aliens and issues them the matricula consular card. Mexican citizens legally in the United States don’t need the matricula consular card because they have other documents they can use for identification (passport or green card). The Post-Crescent stated on Thursday that 150 matricula consular cards were issued with expected “larger crowds by the weekend.”

According to the FBI, matricula consular cards are used almost exclusively by illegal aliens.

Our tax dollars should not be used to support the efforts of a foreign government to subvert our federal immigration laws.

I called various aldermen, including Ald. Walter Kalata. He told me he first heard of this issue when he read about it in The Post-Crescent.

Mayor Hanna’s office and the library board approved this without input from the public or our elected officials. They were fully aware of the contentiousness of this issue, since the Green Bay Common Council enacted new ordinances making it difficult for illegal aliens to reside there. Because of these new ordinances, the mobile Mexican consulate felt “unwelcome” in Green Bay and decided to move its circus to Appleton.

Evidently, Mayor Hanna doesn’t mind spending our tax dollars to help illegal aliens defy federal law and allow them to stay in our city and our country. Will Appleton be the next “sanctuary” city?

Don’t put your head down on your pillow tonight without first having read Frank Laughter’s comprehensive, well-informed post on the North American Union — a post in response to a prominent, right-of-center blogger who dismisses the NAU out-of-hand.

A few short years ago John Hawkins was mocking bloggers as reactionary and off base for wanting the U.S. borders secured, FIRST. In those days he was working to get consulting deals with GOP candidates and NOBODY back then wanted to run as anti illegal aliens. After Bush was safely ensconced for a second term, the heat on illegal immigration rose and by Election 2006 John suddenly found it comfortable to become a borders-security-FIRST advocate.

Now, on the North American Union, while most members of Congress and potential candidates are still being secretive about the globalization of America, John finds golden opportunities to resort to name calling like he once used against advocates for border control. John may have forgotten the past, but I haven’t.

What would be encouraging to see (but I’m not holding my breath) would be for some of the big-name, high-readership, conservative bloggers to link to Frank’s post to give his viewpoints the kind of circulation they merit and even if these bloggers are not in complete agreement with Mr. Laughter.

In my humble opinion, Frank’s post merits a must-read designation. And for the record, and as I have written previously, I think the concerns about a nascent NAU are compelling.

Answer: Certainly not I; rather, it is the figment of a jaded, convoluted mind bent on rank deceitfulness to advance an agenda of libertarian-style open borders and the free, unimpeded movement of peoples in violation of national sovereignty and homeland security.

Both the question and my answer to it came to mind in reading the sophomoric pontifications (as well as a broad array of ad hominem attacks) of Alex Racheotes, a Research Associate for the “Council On Hemispheric Affairs” — a liberal-progressive think tank founded in 1975, which focuses on political and economic affairs in the context of U.S. policies vis-a-vis Latin America.

Some excerpts provide the flavor of this man’s thinking:

Many arguments have been made against illegal immigration to this country, especially by the more conservative anti-immigration activists and Hill lawmakers.

Instead of taking a moral and logical stand in support of America’s rich heritage of immigration, even some of the more “liberal” politicians have practically ceded the issue to their ideological foes and are being led in circles around watered-down guest worker programs and other tepid substitutes to a full-throated immigration strategy which this nation patently requires and which is inherently humane. It is hard to blame humble citizens however, given the massive amount of misinformation and heavy duty propaganda being thrown against the most controversial aspects of immigration. In the absence of a level-headed coverage of the issue, many Americans have fallen back upon crude nativism to guide their understanding of immigration; a dangerous pattern of simplification that politicians help to fuel with paranoid soundbytes reminiscent of the worst sci-fi films such as “no amnesty for criminals!,” and an “alien invasion is occurring around you.”

Are you laughing heartily yet or just shaking your head in utter disbelief? And to think this sort of thing passes as scholarship in some circles. Wonder if this kind of diatribe is President Bush’s (or Ted Kennedy’s) nighttime reading preference?

There’s more (but gulp some oxygen first and hold your breath):

No matter what scare tactics have been employed to caricature the debate up to now, regulated immigration is good for the United States. Open door immigration - the legalization of any and all immigrants who wish to come to the country, (which is what I am advocating) …

The irrational xenophobia gripping American politics has led many to fear for their culture and lifestyle in the face of an immigrant “invasion.” For some, America has reached its cultural limit, and any additional contribution of divergent mores– especially if its practices and customs are at odds with the prevailing Anglo-Teutonic value system – will somehow damage the existing cultural milieu.

The very land the U.S. now occupies was acquired, by means of a self-declared right of conquest, from the continent’s Native Americans, while California, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma were snapped up in an act of sheer imperialism, from Mexico in the Mexican-American War.

Now we need an Ed McMahon-style call for tympani as Alex Racheotes reaches even more ridiculous heights of intellectual fraud (and mindless animadversions):

If most Americans took the time to look at the realities behind contemporary trends affecting immigration movement and the boon that such population swells have had on American society, then there wouldn’t even be a debate, and the “issue” of immigration would disappear entirely. Unfortunately, most Americans have long been intentionally misled by fear-mongering politicians who will use nativist, isolationist, and to a large extent, racist arguments to attract undeserved votes and as a base to achieve personal power.

By denying mass immigration into the wealthiest country in the world, the U.S. has essentially created a reverse Berlin Wall.

And, finally, this pseudo-intellectual’s equivalent of a Bolero-style, symphonic paroxysm of notes:

The real war on terror needs to start at home, and shouldn’t just be aimed at catching terrorists. U.S. citizens must break free from the fear and terror that has been used to shackle and manipulate them and realize that any resort to nativism is not only ethically wrong, but is against their self interest. Fear not the immigrant whose life and priorities are much the same as your own. The only thing we have to fear is being used to achieve the ends of the political-industrial complex, which has no qualms with exploiting the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, and who will gladly sow misinformation and prejudice when it suits their needs.

Pablum — pure, unadulterated pablum.

Surely proponents of open borders, amnesty, and a pathway to citizenship for lawbreakers can do better than this!

In a front page, below-the-fold story, written by Cynthia Leonor Garza and published in today’s print edition of the Houston Chronicle (i.e., what should be a straight news story on a federal judge’s voiding of a Hazelton, PA, anti-illegal immigration municipal ordinance), the following is written in the second paragraph:

Advocates for illegal immigrants hailed the ruling against a law in Hazleton, Pa., as a victory and powerful reminder that immigration is a federal issue Congress must ultimately deal with by passing comprehensive reform.

A thorough reading of Ms. Garza’s piece finds no quotes corroborating what in my mind is more a patent editorial comment belonging on the Op-Ed pages, than objective news reporting appropriate for the newspaper’s front pages.

After all, the notion that the deleterious consequences of 12 to 20 million illegal aliens afoot in our land — aliens who illegally breeched our land borders, entered our maritime ports by stealth, and purposefully overstayed tempoary visas — can only be solved by so-called comprehensive immigration reform legislation is the jaded, careworn mantra of a President of the United States who refuses to enforce ample, existing, federal immigration laws, while choosing to duck accountability by propagandizing that it is the laws that are inadequate, not the chief enforcement officer.  

The nation didn’t buy it (nor, ultimately, did a Senate majority) and discerning, disciplined readers of the old media are not going to buy it either.

Most Americans (bona-fide citizens, not the Harry Reid variety) want border and workplace enforcement first. Period. It is the government of Mexico, the Latino lobby led by the National Council of La Raza, and those sympathetic to libertarian notions of open borders and the free movement of people unimpeded by the concept of national sovereignty, that persist in trying to diffuse the far-reaching, deleterious effects of a HUMAN INVASION by suggesting that our nation’s “immigration policies” require a comprehensive re-write, rather than the Oval Office and the Department of Homeland Security a major reform.

I left the following “Comment” at Frank Laughter’s “Common Sense Junction” blog on a post in which Mr. Laughter decries the Hazelton ruling:

Article IV, Section 4 of the United States Constitution requires that the federal government protect states against invasion. Invasions do not, by definition, have to be armed incursions. And enemies, by definition, do not necessarily have to comprise uniformed, gun-toting armies. Estimates vary from 500,000 to as many as 1 million illegal aliens jumping our land borders, entering our maritime ports, and deliberately overstaying their temporary visas each year. We now have anywhere from 12 to 20 million illegal aliens, many carrying forged documentation, afoot in our land and with more breeching our borders and violating our nation’s sovereignty every day. That’s an INVASION. With a president, a Congress, and a bumbling, inept Department of Homeland Security unwilling to enforce ample current federal immigration laws, cities and states have been forced to pass laws and ordinances to deal with that INVASION and its far-reaching, deleterious consequences. So now that they have begun doing so, enter “Stage Left” a federal judiciary determined to uphold the prerogatives of a federal government unwilling to exercise those Constitutional prerogatives. It’s akin to a police department sitting on its hands and never leaving the confines of its police station, while judges on the bench try and convict citizens for protecting themselves, their families, and their assets from criminal assault and thievery. It’s a classic Catch-22 in which a sitting President of the United States and a federal judge have said: Screw you!” Frank, you’re right: we are losing our country. And you and I (and hundreds of thousands of bona-fide American citizens) are not going to sit idly by and let that happen without a fight. To borrow from the Declaration of Independence, our “patient sufferance” in the wake of “a long train of abuses and usurpations” is fast reaching the boiling point. Our federal government’s brazen indifference to this HUMAN INVASION and the ample evidence of the government of Mexico’s encouragement of it — paced by President Bush’s repeated determination to devalue American citizenship and undermine the “Rule of Law” by granting amnesty to millions of lawbreakers — constitute an unmistakable form of TYRANNY.

What Ted Kennedy and the Dems and John McCain and the RINOS couldn’t accomplish on a grand scale in the United States Senate — a Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill (S. 1348) centered on amnesty and a pathway to citizenship for illegal aliens — they may be endeavoring to achieve on a smaller scale by employing a long-standing, time-honored, labor negotiation method: the salami technique. 

Slicing the salami consists of seeking concessions in small increments — like gaining possession of a salami one thin slice at a time. If you overtly try to take something big away from your adversary, particularly on a major issue, he or she is likely to put up a strenuous defense. However, if a big issue can be divided into smaller issues on which the stakes are low, cooperation and compromise may be easier to obtain.

S.A. Miller and Stephen Dinan report in The Washington Times today that “piecemeal measures” have become the order of the day in chipping away at the countervailing force that was the grassroots groundswell against amnesty for illegals and in favor of enforcement first — a groundswell that resoundingly defeated the Bush-Kennedy-Kyl-McCain Shamnesty bill.

Senate Democrats yesterday defeated a Republican effort to authorize $3 billion for new border security and immigration enforcement. Instead, the Democrats proposed a new agriculture workers program to bring in hundreds of thousands of foreign workers and grant legal status to illegal aliens now working in the fields.

It was the first major skirmish on immigration since President Bush’s bill collapsed last month, and members of both parties are filing piecemeal measures to deal with various aspects of the crisis and leave for another day the issue dealing with the estimated 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens already here.

As the Washington Times’ writers continue:

The piecemeal approach is favored by some members of both parties, including several of those who fought hardest for the earlier bill, including Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. The two top Democratic 2008 presidential candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, told the National Council of La Raza earlier that they would be “open” to voting for piecemeal legislation.

Democrats tried to get an agreement yesterday to pass an agriculture worker bill that would create a program for future agriculture workers and offer a path to citizenship to hundreds of thousands of illegal alien agriculture workers already here. Republicans objected to giving illegal aliens a path to citizenship, a proposal that doomed the Bush legislation.

Last week, Sen. Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, tried to attach to the defense bill the Dream Act, which would give illegal alien college students a path to citizenship. Mr. Reid pulled the defense bill from consideration, though Mr. Durbin will likely try again in September.

What the Bush-Kennedy-McCain forces may realize now is that, in retrospect, they gave the forces that oppose amnesty and the destruction of the Rule of Law in this country much too big a target to shoot at and one which in its over-arching, ”comprehensive approach” became a magnet for a comprehensive public rejection of the Senate’s cynical pandering to lawbreakers and the sinister advocacy groups that unabashedly endeavor to turn 12 to 20 million border jumpers, many of them rank criminals, into objects of sympathy. 

Now it would appear these same forces in the Senate (and similarly, but to a lesser extent, in the House) have determined that efficacious grassroots organizations such as NumbersUSA, the F.I.R.E. Coaliton, and the Eagle Forum (and even conservative talk radio) may find it much tougher sledding to arouse public sentiment against a series of piecemeal bills over an extended period of time, than it was to do so in one grand defensive action in which everyday American citizens (the bona-fide kind, not the Harry Reid variety) were pitted against proponents of a single piece of incompehensible, sweeping legislation. Indeed, to combat the salami technique is akin to fighting a long series of jungle skirmishes with entrenched guerilla fighters, instead of rallying forces on a single battlefield to combat adversaries regaled in full combat gear.

Frankly, I wouldn’t put this past the Bush administration; and I certainly wouldn’t put it past Ted Kennedy and those in both political parties who obsequiously defer to him.

What to do? If you’re not already a grassroots’ activist, become one. And, along with this site, I encourage you to stay current on what’s going on vis-a-vis so-called “immigration reform” by reading such outstanding sites as the VDARE Blog and the others I’ve listed in my blogroll under the heading of “Illegal Immigration.” After all, a well-informed citizenry is the greatest antidote to the enervating effects of those forces lobbying for the devaluation of American citizenship and the resurrection of the Welfare State.

… all the more reason we need the former Speaker of the House to enter the political fray and represent the conservative point of view. Gingrich’s insistence that there’s no need for him to seek the GOP’s presidential nomination should Fred Thompson officially enter the race and gain sufficient traction is disappointing to this writer and more so now that I have read Brenda Walker’s post at VDARE Blog.

I have two fundamental litmus tests: the candidate must be irrevocably Pro-Life; the candidate must be categorically in favor of stringent borders’ and ports’ security and his official campaign position the antithesis of the open borders/amnesty for illegals crowd.

Follow-Up (07/26/07): According to this report in The Politico, Newt may be flirting more with a Fred Thompson run for the presidency, than his own.

In this age of television sound-bytes, YouTube videos, Powerpoint talking points, and pithy, Glenn Reynolds-style blog posts, it’s increasingly difficult to get even thoughtful Americans to read and digest full-length articles on important subjects; but, it’s still, on occasion, worth the proverbial college try.

Today is such an instance for readers of ACSOL who are, like this writer, thoroughly fed up with Pesident Bush’s (The Decider’s) stubborn persistence in willfully failing to secure our nation’s borders in this post-9/11 era of global Islamofascist terrorism. As I wrote yesterday (and on countless previous occasions), the president has deliberately failed in his Constitutional mandate to protect the states of the Union from invasion. And an invasion it is.

So, PLEASE, oblige me, kindly trust me, and find time today to read these two trenchant pieces on our nation’s porous borders, the gross contradiction in terms of fighting a global war on terrorism while our country’s land borders and maritime ports have yet to be secured all these years later, and President Bush’s unconscionable failure to protect this nation:

Philip Giraldi’s piece, published at The Huffington Post, entitled “Border Insecurity for Sale“;

Peter Gadiel’s piece, published at Family Security Matters, entitled “Insecure Borders: Let’s Give Blame Where Blame Is Due.”

Is there any doubt whatsoever that Homeland Security is a misnomer (and an extravagant boondoggle at that) when administration after administration (and this one is by far the worst given the savage terrorist attacks of “9/11″) allow the human invasion across our nation’s borders to continue largely unabated?

It’s a joke; but, alas, the joke unfortunately is on us.

Stephen Dinan, writing for The Washington Times, in a story published yesterday entitled “Hispanic Group Aims To Stop ‘Wave of Hate,’” quotes Cecelia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza, speaking in the context of the recent defeat of the Senate’s Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill:

I don’t think we should be comfortable with the fact that the United States Senate responded to what was largely a wave of hate …

 I think we have to shine a light on it …

At the end of the day, we believe people need to take sides, that you can’t stand on the sidelines, especially if part of what is motivating the actions of the United States Congress is not really about the public-policy debate, but is about their discomfort with Latinos.

Of course, Munoz, taking a page from the playbook of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and columnist Linda Chavez, apparently reserves the right to ascribe to opponents of the Bush-Kennedy-Kyl-McCain Shamnesty Bill — i.e., a bill that would have legalized 12 to 20 million illegal aliens — the pejoratives of nativist, bigot, and xenophobe. After all, when you want to advance a subversive agenda, might as well pull out all the stops.

Fact is, American citizens who overwhelmingly and legitimately took issue with the Senate’s amnesty-citizenship giveaway do not have “discomfort with Latinos”; rather, they have an abiding respect for the Rule of Law in this country and have run out of patience with a president and a Congress which refuse to secure our nation’s borders and maritime ports, and who think the answer to governmental malfeasance, ineptitude, and wilfull disregard of the Constitutional mandate to protect every state in the Union from invasion, is more incomprehensible legislation, rather than strict enforcement of ample, existing federal immigration laws.

High time that the bomb-throwers of La Raza — the strident, open-borders advocacy group that seeks to foster a nation within a nation — turn their ad hominem attacks on those who deserve it: the lawbreakers from foreign lands who trample our laws, pillage our system, and put their arrogance on display in our streets.

As former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich correctly observed:

I think that the first reality is that, overwhelmingly, all Americans, including Hispanic-Americans, want to see the border controlled. Eighty-five percent of the American people, including a vast majority of Hispanic-Americans, want to see English as the official language of government.

Most Americans want legal immigration, but they don’t want illegal immigration. And that includes most Hispanic-Americans.

Every poll I have seen showed 2-1, or better, opposition to the Senate bill, the way it is currently written. I think — but that is not anti-Hispanic. That’s anti-illegality. It’s anti-failure to control the border. Those are all strong values for most Americans, not just Republicans, but Hispanic-Americans, African-Americans, across the board.

Follow-Up: Barak Obama, to his discredit, pandered to the race-baiting crowd, groveling obsequiously for votes. Democrats ought to see him for the fraud that he is and not vote for the man. Fact is, 55% of registered Democrats, according to Rasmussen Reports, favored enforcement only, rather than comprehensive immigration reform legislation.

Follow-Up II: I encourage my Hispanic readers to acquaint themselves with the ”You Don’t Speak for Me” organization and to tell Barak Obama that he doesn’t speak for them, anymore than La Raza ought to be given any credence given its patently anti-American, ethnocentric agenda. As American Chronicle reports:

In response to the hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have been marching under the Mexican flag demanding to be rewarded for having violated US immigration law, a new coalition has been formed to accurately represent Hispanics in the US who work hard, play by the rules and want the opportunity to see their own kids get ahead. Known as “You Don’t Speak for Me.” the coalition aims to dispel the impression that the people out on the streets represent the views of Hispanic-Americans.