James H. Walsh has written the seminal column, published at NewsMax, on U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer’s issuance of a preliminary injunction “that delays the DHS/SSA from proceeding with law enforcement” vis-a-vis “employer sanctions set forth in the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA).”

I encourage you to read this entire column! Stay informed on this critical issue.

Excerpts:

The DHS and SSA have announced that they will require businesses with employees whose names and Social Security numbers do not match to correct the mistake or if uncorrectable to fire the employee for violation of the “No Match” rule.The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the labor unions, and well-connected immigrant advocacy groups, however, are challenging enforcement of this rule by the DHS and SSA. Pro-illegal alien groups filed for a preliminary injunction to enjoin the government from enforcing the IRCA employer sanctions, and they found the right judge.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer issued a preliminary injunction that delays the DHS/SSA from proceeding with law enforcement until a full hearing occurs. Breyer is the brother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, leading liberal on the U.S. Supreme Court. Both men were appointed to the bench by Bill Clinton.

The record of failures to enforce employer sanctions is a shame that the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government must live with and for which, they should be held accountable. The Breyer injunction now brings the judicial branch into this hall of shame.

Again, PLEASE, read it all.

That’s 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ Judge Sidney Thomas, writing for the majority, in overturning the pending deportation of a Mexican national (and legal U.S. resident), Alberto Quintero-Salazar, who was found guilty of the crime of statutory rape. Accordingly, the appeals’ court found no legitimate grounds for the crime of “moral turpitude” — a requirement for deporting a legal U.S. resident.

Good news is President Bush will not feel compelled now to intercede on behalf of Quintero-Salazar, as he did for convicted rapist-murderer Jose Medellin.

Bad news is that progressive-liberal-imperial judges continue to run roughshod over the American people and the concept of representative democracy.

If you’ve not done so already, as I have, do read Laura Ingraham’s “Power To The People,” and, in light of yet another egregiously preposterous decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, her Chapter Four — “Judging The Judges.”

Follow-Up: Here’s more on this outrageous decision, courtesy of the Corruption Chronicles:

Alberto Quintero was convicted and served an 11-month prison sentence after admitting that he had illegal sex with a teenage girl in 1998. Federal authorities sought to deport him in 2002 and immigration courts granted the order about a year later.

Quintero, who is married and has two U.S.-born children, appealed and remained in northern California until the notoriously liberal and often overturned 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on his case recently.

While the court acknowledged that legal residents can indeed be deported for committing crimes of “moral turpitude” that violate society’s moral standards, it said that definition doesn’t fit the crime committed by Quintero.

In a 2-1 ruling, the justices wrote that illegal intercourse between an adult over 21 and a youth under 16 was not the type of “vile, base or depraved” conduct that subjects a lawful U.S. resident to deportation although it did violate state law and was “unwise and socially unacceptable to many.”

James Pinkerton, who normally gets front-page coverage in the Houston Chronicle when his stories focus on the heart-wrenching plight of Mexico’s citizens and the millions among them who illegally jump our borders to take advantage of the Bush Administration’s open arms and persistent pro-amnesty coddling, is tellingly relegated to the “City & State” section of today’s print edition and even though he’s reporting on national statistics for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) deportation efforts for fiscal 2007.

While the Chronicle’s headline writers chose “More being forced out of U.S.” for Pinkerton’s piece, a more apropos title would have been, “ICE’s Deportation Stats Essentially Frozen Year-Over-Year.”

Here are the numbers:

In fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, ICE deported 221,600 illegal immigrants, including 84,700 who were convicted of criminal offenses. In the previous fiscal year, 204,200 were deported, although a greater number — 89,500 — of immigrants with criminal convictions were deported.

So let’s do the math. There was an increase in total deportations of 17,400, or +8.5%, in FY07. However, within that number, there was an overall decrease of 4,800, or -5.4%, in the number of deportations for convicted alien criminals. Which number do you think is intuitively the more important statistic from which to judge ICE’s performance and particularly given the fact that, by some counts, as much as “27% of the total population in all U.S. prison systems (including city, county, state and federal) is composed of criminal aliens”; and, even more compelling, don’t you think, are these facts:

On average each day 25 Americans die at the hands of criminal aliens in the United States. Twelve Americans are murdered by criminal aliens. Another ten Americans are killed by drunk-driving criminal aliens. Finally, an additional three Americans will die because of negligent homicides by criminal aliens, such as running a red light, speeding, or the negligent handling of a dangerous weapon.

But here’s the money quote from the Pinkerton article:

“Most of these incarcerated are being released into the U.S. at the conclusion of their respective sentences because (ICE) does not have the resources to identify, detain and remove these aliens,” the Inspector General reported.

Your federal government under the aegis of the so-called Department of Homeland Security at work! We can all breathe easier at night.

But sarcasm aside, Pinkerton fails to point to the following, which puts the paltry, overall effectiveness of ICE’s efforts in stark relief:

The government has stepped up efforts to deport as many criminals as possible, but many are able to slip back into the country.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not track how many deported criminals are re-captured inside the United States, but immigration officials and border experts say it’s likely that many re-enter. And some, when they do come back into the United States, commit more crimes, such as last month’s killing of a Phoenix police officer.

Though not intentional, the “reality is a revolving door” at the border, Shirk said.

ICE has recognized that deported criminals re-entering the country is a growing problem, said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

And don’t fail, Dear Readers, to put those 221,600 deportations in FY07 in context. The total number of illegal aliens afoot in our country has long been reported at between 12 and 20 million, and a more recent study pegs the total now at being closer to 38 million. So, regardless of the denominator used, those scant 221,600 deportations represent a proverbial drop in the bucket in the battle to regain control of our country and its sovereignty, and mark the true effectiveness (make that read ineffectiveness) of ICE and DHS.

Fact is, Michael Chertoff’s and Julie Myer’s performance on the deportation front wouldn’t make for a first-rate “Show & Tell” report in a First Grade classroom.

Follow-Up: But what about Mexico? Do they deport illegals who cross their own southern border? You bet they do! This from Human Events:

… Mexico, which annually deports more illegal aliens than the United States does, has much to teach us about how it handles the immigration issue. Under Mexican law, it is a felony to be an illegal alien in Mexico.
Foreigners who fail to obey the rules will be fined, deported, and/or imprisoned as felons:

• Foreigners who fail to obey a deportation order are to be punished. (Article 117)

• Foreigners who are deported from Mexico and attempt to re-enter the country without authorization can be imprisoned for up to 10 years. (Article 118)

• Foreigners who violate the terms of their visa may be sentenced to up to six years in prison (Articles 119, 120 and 121). Foreigners who misrepresent the terms of their visa while in Mexico — such as working with out a permit — can also be imprisoned.

Under Mexican law, illegal immigration is a felony. The General Law on Population says,

• “A penalty of up to two years in prison and a fine of three hundred to five thousand pesos will be imposed on the foreigner who enters the country illegally.” (Article 123)

• Foreigners with legal immigration problems may be deported from Mexico instead of being imprisoned. (Article 125)

• Foreigners who “attempt against national sovereignty or security” will be deported. (Article 126)

Indeed, chew on this: little ol’ Mexico deports approximately 200,000 migrants from other Latin American countries annually!

Follow-Up II (10/16/07): The Freedom Folks blog points in this post to the very thing I’m talking about — namely, the revolving door that is the deportation/re-entry cycle, courtesy of the inept Department of Homeland Security. Deportation is not a silver bullet absent strict border and port security, which, of course, is virtually non-existent in our country.

Patrick Cleburne, writing for VDARE Blog, quotes Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Mark’s spot-on illumination of what he accurately depicts as “the unbridgeable divide on the Right over immigration”:

On one side is the majority of conservatives, who, despite many differing views on the specifics of immigration policy, nonetheless give first priority to Americanization, borders, sovereignty, and national cohesion. On the other side is a small but vocal group that places first priority on continued high levels of immigration, without any preconditions regarding assimilation or sovereignty. This faction is part of an odd-bedfellows coalition of business lobbyists, libertarian ideologues, racial-chauvinist groups, and left-wing open-borders activists that have been very successful over the years in preventing consistent, across-the-board enforcement of our immigration laws.

Count me among the former.

And here’s the money quote from Mark on the political infighting on the Right over immigraion policy and the deleterious impact of illegal immigration:

It’s long past time to establish the first of these two competing views as the consensus position of the Right: Assimilation first; Secure borders first; Sovereignty first. Those who disagree should either keep their own counsel or find a different political home.

To be sure, and absent that “consensus position” being formally adopted by the GOP and its presidential nominee, many of us will walk away from the Republican Party in the 2008 general election. As one who voted for George W. Bush in 2000 and again in 2004, I’ll be damned if I will support with my money and my vote yet another Republican candidate depicted, at best, as the lesser of two evils in contradistinction to his Democratic rival.

Ronald Reagan, a hero to conservatives like myself, had his frequently referenced 11th Commandment, “Thou shall not speak ill of a fellow Republican.” But with all due deference to the greatest American president of this past century, I’m not reluctant in the least to point to President George W. Bush’s intractable, open-borders’, pro amnesty-for-illegals’, patently abject pandering-to-Mexico tenure in the White House as unforgiveable in terms of how American sovereignty, citizenship, and rule of law, as well as America’s Founding Principles, have been ravaged.

And now we have what cannot be described as anything other than the nadir of this administration’s compulsively unconscionable obeisance to the corrupt government of Mexico and the hegemony of the “World Court” in its determination to litigate against the state of Texas before the United States Supreme Court in Medellin v. Texas — in effect, the President of the United States (himself a former governor of Texas) siding with a savage, illegal alien, Mexican rapist-murderer on Texas’ death row.

Rudolph Giuliani — are you listening?

Follow-Up (10/10/07): From an editorial in today’s edition of the Houston Chronicle supporting President Bush’s intervention in the planned execution in Texas of illegal alien Jose Medellin, convicted of the brutal rape and murder of two Houston teenagers in 1993:

Once a sovereign nation, Texas must occasionally bow to higher authority. In the case of Mexicans not afforded their rights to consular assistance, President Bush, not the state he once governed, is on the side of the angels.

The United States of America was once a sovereign nation, too, before a string of presidents failed to secure its land borders and maritime ports, and deal forcefully and effectively with an unprecedented human invasion that has led to a current population of between 20 and 38 million foreign nationals here in our country illegally. Among the fateful consequences of presidential inaction and indifference (and of Congress going along for the ride) has been a huge crime wave that has ravaged the country. Some estimates indicate that as many as 12 American citizens are murdered each day by illegal aliens.

Yet now we have an unabashed proponent of open borders and amnesty-citizenship for illegals, who, while sitting in the White House, feels compelled to intervene on behalf of a murdering thug from Mexico and a corrupt government (Mexico) and its vast network of meddling consular offices, which are doing everything in their powers to preserve the life of someone who took innocent lives here in America. President Bush is not “on the side of the angels,” as the editors of the Houston Chronicle contend; rather, and as is his bent, he has chosen to be on the side of foreign nationals and foreign governments. No, the angels, in God’s infinite mercy, have wrapped their protective arms around Elizabeth Pena and Jennifer Ertman — the two hapless teenage girls, who were savagely raped and murdered in a gang initiation right. Meanwhile, the gates of Hell await Jose Medellin provided the United States Supreme Court does the right thing.

The “sanctuary movement” in this country has gone much too far when its reaches the confines of the Oval Office.

Follow-Up II (10/15/07): Michelle Malkin provides additional links/commentary on President Bush’s determination to go to bat for rapist-murderer Jose Medellin and to genuflect to a self-styled “supra-sovereign tribunal.” The president’s “compassionate conservatism” is now officially beyond redemption. Cliff Kincaid, writing for The Post Chronicle, hits the nail on the head:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s hearing of the case, Medellin v. Texas, has reminded the American people of President Bush’s terrible tendency to put the foreign interests of Mexico above those of the United States. But the case, being heard on October 10, is significant for another reason. It demonstrates the dangers of passing global treaties and getting involved with international courts and tribunals.

In the Medellin v. Texas case, which we addressed in a June 12 special report, the Bush Administration acted so committed to the primacy of international law and global courts that it took the President’s home state of Texas to court on behalf of a group of convicted Mexican killers.

Follow-Up III (10/15/07): Andrew McCarty, writing for Human Events, gets to the crux of the issue vis-a-vis President Bush’s insinuation into a purely state’s rights’ matter:

At bottom, the case is about the freedom of Texans to govern themselves, to put sadistic murderers to death if that is what they choose democratically to do, as long as they adhere to American constitutional procedures in carrying out that policy choice.  Sure, it offends Mexicans, Europeans, international law professors, and a motley collection of jurists who see themselves as a supra-sovereign tribunal.  But that is not a basis for the President to interfere.The administration has made a great show of promoting democracy.  Democracy, however, begins at home.

Today’s Sunday edition of the Houston Chronicle features a front-page, Op-Ed-style column in its “Outlook” section by Brooke Medina, a University of Houston graduate student, entitled: “Married to Mexican: How about a day without stereotypes?” By publishing this otherwise unremarkable, frivilous, patently jaded piece of writing, the newspaper of America’s fourth largest city continues its long-standing indictment of what it wrongly depicts as “anti-immigration” hardliners — i.e., those it limns as irredeemably heartless bigots, nativists, and xenophobes, bent on holding at bay the tire, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. In doing so, the Chronicle’s editors take a page out of Linda Chavez’s ample playbook (e.g., here, here, and here), but employ a far lesser talent and one lacking Chavez’s brutal sophistication.

The source of Mrs. Medina’s angst? Horror of horrors, the following:

I’ll never forget the day when I first realized my husband was, in a word, “Mexican.”

It was three years after we’d been married, and on July 4, 2005, Independence Day in the United States, sadly and ironically enough: While working in our yard, an unknown vehicle slowly came to a halt in front of our house.

The driver proceeded to ask my husband how much he charged. My husband was wearing dark shades, ragged clothes and a hat that held a long cloth in place to cover his neck. Just by the way he looked, he was dehumanized and his nationality was reduced to a set of unfounded stereotypes.

Is this the sort of insight that propels the Houston Chronicle in its unwavering allegiance to illegal immigrants (now numbering 400,000+ in Harris County) and support of the misguided sanctuary policy in Houston that insulates border-jumpers from immigration status checks by Houston’s finest?

And who, exactly, is invidiously painting an entire ethnic group with a broad stroke of the brush in this statement of Medina’s:

Before that day, I saw my husband, who moved to the United States in 2002, as an intelligent, hardworking and caring individual. His nationality and cultural roots were pieces of his identity that I found attractive. But that day, I became aware of how Anglo-American society saw him “that way,” and it was a deeply painful and angering experience.

Well, Mrs. Medina, I’m admittedly a member of that “Anglo-American society” you write of and, to be sure, I write extensively on the subjects of illegal immigration, porous land borders, unsecured maritime ports, and the corrupt and corrupting government of Mexico and the elites who do its bidding. But, that doesn’t make me a bigot, no matter what Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) contends. Nor am I, as Linda Chavez claims, one who “fears and loathes” Mexicans. But I shouldn’t have to defend myself in that regard.

Absent a well-grounded argument for looking askance at people who have entered our country illegally and live off not just the fruits of their own hard work, but also off the fruits of the work of law-abiding, American taxpayers, libel and slander are the all-too convenient paths taken by open borders’ proponents to marginalize those who genuinely believe that 20+ million illegal aiens afoot in our land is unconscionable in an age of international terrorism and at a time when many bona-fide Americans are having a difficult time shouldering their own responsibilities, let alone those of Third World powers who purposefully push their poor and illiterate off on us.

And, Mrs. Medina, please, it’s not been, as you disingenuously characterize it, an “immigration debate” in this country. Quite the contrary, it’s been a debate about “illegal immigration” and the security threat it poses, the enervating impact it has on our country and its citizens, and its debilitating cost to local, state, and federal governments, all unwillingly under-written by the majority of American taxpayers. And, too, it has been an issue about assimilation and political allegiance and the legitimate concern when one ethnic group tries to superimpose its culture, politics, and language on a country it has chosen to invade. Indeed, in this regard, your statement is very telling:

Regardless if one person is a Mexican and the other an American, we are both human.

If you want to see first-hand how Mexicans are really treated unfairly by selfish, closed-society elites, I suggest, Mrs. Medina, you spend some time in Mexico, not in Houston, Texas. And by the way, Latinos from other Central and South American countries do not fair any better in Mexico than do its own indigenous poor.

In the context of $3 billion added to a Senate defense spending bill to beef-up border security on the U.S. - Mexico border:

“There’s no greater domestic issue in this country than the problems on our southern border with Mexico, and it is time that Congress makes a commitment to make border security a reality,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga. “This amendment is a step in the right direction. It is time we stop making promises. It is time we start delivering.”

In the context of a case being made for amnesty for illegal-alien spouses of members of the U.S. armed forces, Mark Krikorian writes for The Corner (at NRO):

As with the matter of exercising discretion, if the numbers of people involved were small, you could get away this sort of thing. But when the immigration laws go unenforced for years and you have a large illegal population, flexibility and exceptions for special cases simply makes things worse. This is why we need a strong, long dose of muscular enforcement, with all the sob stories that will accompany it, to shrink the illegal population and regain control over immigration. Only then would it be possible to exercise discretion without making the problem worse.

In the context of his attendance at a meeting held in Mexico City in which government officials of Mexico announced their intentions to ramp up further the political lobbying efforts (i.e., meddling) of Mexico’s vast network of consulate offices in the United States on behalf of Mexican nationals (legal and illegal) living and working here, Primitivo Rodríguez, a Mexico City resident, alluded to the likelihood of an increase in self-deportation owing to the growing clamor among Americans for strict enforcement of U.S. federal immigration laws:

… he worries that it’s too late for the Mexican government to try a new strategy, and many Mexicans may soon be returning to a country unable to provide good-paying jobs.

“There is a tsunami, not a thunderstorm, coming toward us, and I don’t think the government has a plan,” said Mr. Rodríguez, coordinator of the Coalition for the Political Rights of Mexicans Abroad, which has members in Chicago, Los Angeles and Houston. “What will Mexico do with so many unhappy, desperate people? Mexico is simply not prepared for what’s coming next.”

In the context of President Bush’s stubborn persistence in going against the grain of American opinion overwhelmingly in favor of enforcement first by saying the following in Lancaster, PA:

“One of the reasons I was strongly in favor of comprehensive immigration reform is so that would preempt local governments from taking a variety of actions which creates a confusing mosaic around the country,” Bush said. “Obviously, you know, local governments can do what they want to do. But I believe the reason they feel like they need to do that is because the federal government hasn’t acted with a comprehensive immigration reform bill. And one of the consequences of the federal government not being able to act in a focused, concerted way is that people felt obligated to respond locally.”

… Hazelton, PA’s mayor, Lou Barletta, responded (to his credit) with the following:

“He should be reminded we already have policies dealing with immigration,” he said Wednesday night. “We have existing laws to prevent people from entering the country without proper documentation. But the federal government chooses not to enforce its own policies. That inaction forces cities like Hazleton to take the steps we have.”

“There needs to be strong leadership on the federal level so existing laws can be enforced,” Barletta said.

Follow-Up: And here’s a U.S. veteran’s quotes in response to his determined removal of a Mexican flag being flown illegally above a bar in Reno, NV:

“I’m Jim Broussard,” he said, “and I took this flag down in honor of my country with … a knife from the United States Army. I’m a veteran, I’m not going to see this done to my country. If they want to fight us, then they need to be men, and they need to come and fight us. But I want somebody to fight me for this flag. They’re not going to get it back.”

The veteran affirmed … there are many Hispanics who are equally upset about illegal immigration and the resistance to assimilation.

“We have many cultures who’ve come here, and they’ve learned our language, and they respect our culture, because they know America is a great country, and they simply want to be a part of it,” he said.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez was out on the stump on Monday, arm-in-arm with Senator Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC), beating the drum for Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation and more “temporary guest workers” to keep the cheap, exploitable, foreign labor pool replenished.

As Kirsten Singleton reported in the Savannah Morning News:

The United States doesn’t have enough native workers to keep up with its growing economy and must pass a comprehensive immigration policy in order to keep moving forward, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez said Monday.”What we do on immigration, how we think about it, how we think strategically about it, will have an impact not just for the next five years, but I would say - I would dare to say - for the next century,” he said.

Gutierrez spoke to a group of University of South Carolina business students and professors.

With Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., at his side, Gutierrez praised the senator’s immigration proposal - legislation that failed to pass the Senate this summer and that was derided by many in the Republican Party as providing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

“There are certain people who rise. There are certain people who are right in the middle of debates, and there are certain people who people listen to - and Lindsey Graham is one of those people,” Gutierrez said.

Well, Mr. Gutierrez, I don’t listen to Lindsey Graham and neither do a lot of other American taxpayers who are thoroughly fed up with illegal immigration, porous borders, unsecured ports, visa overstayers, and a president and a Congress conspiring to devalue American citizenship by legitimizing lawbreaking border-jumpers, while catering to the special interest groups who gorge themselves on foreign-born, cheap, exploitable labor at the expense of American workers.

Wonder if it ever dawned on Mr. Gutierrez (or many of the Washington elites) that were it not for abortion-on-demand, there would have been nearly 50 million more babies born in this country since 1973 and many of those, in turn, would have had children. Why kill off that labor pool of vast, indigenous, American talent by judicial fiat and eroded cultural values and go shopping instead for mostly hapless and illiterate foreign workers who have no allegiance to the United States of America and send a good portion of their earnings — $44.1 billion in 2005 — back home?

Think about it: much of their money goes back home, while a big chunk of ours goes through Washington and our state capitals and right back to the immigrants’ pockets via subsidized healthcare, public education, food assistance, incarceration, and a veritable goody-bag of government giveaways (not to mention the concomitant of suppressed wages for impacted American workers).

Something’s profoundly wrong with this equation. Wake up America! We’re shooting ourselves in the foot and our federal government is willingly holding the gun.

Answer: As many as one million American soldiers might have died in the invasion of Japan in World War II.

Why? Because if the bungling, foot-dragging Michael Chertoff cannot get a border fence built, how could he ever have developed an atomic bomb before Nazi Germany or the Empire of Japan did? Fortunately, America, fighting a two-front war and facing the prospect of a horrific number of casualties in bringing Japan to submission, had the benefit of General Leslie R. Groves’ services, rather than a lame, photo-op-inclined Washington bureaucrat.

“Where’s The Fence?”

Still on the drawing board, according to Department of Homeland Security’s Michael Chertoff, as reported by Michelle Mittelstadt in today’s edition of the Houston Chronicle.

So let’s see what’s become of America’s can-do spirit. This from Eleanor Stables of CQ.com (with my emphasis added):

The U.S. border with Mexico is approximately 1,933 miles; the border with Canada is about 3,987 miles.

Legislation (PL 109-367) signed by President Bush just before the 2006 midterm elections authorized 700 miles of fencing along the Mexican border. The fiscal 2007 Homeland Security spending bill (PL 109-295) appropriated $1.2 billion for construction of a U.S.-Mexican border fence that combines physical infrastructure, vehicle barriers and sensor technology. The law did not specify how much should be spent on two-layered fencing or “virtual fence,” which consists of a mix of cameras, sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and other technology.

Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., an original cosponsor of the 2006 fence law, wrote to Bush in August requesting that border fence construction be immediately accelerated. “Not only is our open and unprotected Southern land border a major exposure in the War on Terrorism, but large and increasing numbers of illegal aliens, as well as dangerous criminal populations, continue to move freely across the border,” wrote Hunter, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination. Hunter spokesman Joe Kasper said in an e-mail to CQ Homeland Security that the congressman believes the fencing authorized in the law could be built in approximately six months by having multiple contractors building the fence concurrently.A December report from DHS to Congress said the department expects to gain control of the border with Mexico over several years at a cost of $7.6 billion. The department plans to complete Bush’s Secure Border Initiative investment that is “needed to gain control of the Southwest land border by the end of [fiscal] 2011, although we certainly expect to gain substantial control of the border prior to that time,” the report said.

At the beginning of summer, the Department of Homeland Security had only about 13 miles of double-layer border fence built along the contiguous U.S.-Mexico border. Imagine that. There are now 20+ million illegal aliens afoot in our country, but nearly six (6) years after the fateful terrorist attack on our homeland of September 11, 2001, our land borders remain porous, our maritime ports unsecured, and the human invasion continues largely unabated, and with terrorists and human smugglers breeching our northern and southern borders damn near at will.

President John F. Kennedy committed the United States of America to putting a man on the moon and returning him home safely in a speech delivered on May 25, 1961. On July 20, 1969 — eight years later — American astronaut Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon’s surface.

In 1942, the Manhattan Engineer Project was established to produce a deliverable atomic weapon. In August, 1945, two of Japan’s cities — Hiroshima and Nagasaki — were devastated by enriched uranium bombs, resulting in Japan’s near immediate surrender.

But we live in a different age now in which Americans and their federal government cannot pull together to do what needs doing and in a compressed timeframe when national security issues dictate teamwork and timeliness.

According to CNN correspondent Bill Tucker, appearing on “Lou Dobbs Tonight” last evening, there are “more than 1,400 bills currently pending in state legislatures aimed at tackling the issue of illegal immigration on a state-by-state basis.” In a fractured, factious nation overwhelmed by the competing, contentious issues of multiculturalism run amuck, the states are trying desperately to do what George W. Bush, Michael Chertoff, and the United States Congress refuse to do: secure America against a foreign invasion of unprecedented proportions — an invasion rife with implications for America’s security, treasure, culture, and Founding principles.

How is it, every American should ask, that we cannot get a double-layer border fence built, but the National Action Party of Mexico (PAN) can hold a political convention in Los Angeles this week and Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, can state with bold-faced impunity that illegal immigration to the United States is “inevitable” and should be facilitated by the U.S. Congress and that “Mexico does not stop at its border.”

No wonder our confidence in the Congress and the President have sunk to all-time lows. No wonder Reconquista and a North American Union loom now as distinct possibilities.

Follow-Up: And, as Thomas Allen reports at VDARE Blog, if you think it can’t get any worse than it already is, think again. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to bring the DREAM Act back for another vote later this year. So much for legislative priorities and putting America (and Americans) first.

Follow-Up II: One multicultural nation, under a plethora of gods, irretrievably divisible, with liberty, and justice, and build-to-suit “diversity” for those who perpetually leverage activist courts and political correctness to their agenda-driven advantage.

Follow-Up III: “We pledge allegiance to no flag of the Fractured States of America …”

Follow-Up IV: Are you as fed up as I am at this juncture? Well, there’s more. This from Diggers Realm about the “Anchor Baby” gambit to devalue American citizenship (otherwise known as “Birth Tourism”).

Follow-Up V: If you dig it, they will come — and, remember, “wherever there is a Mexican, there is Mexico.”

Follow-UP VI: If you build it, they will work … (easier than building a border fence and more conducive to a ready supply of cheap, exploitable, taxpayer-subsidized labor).

Follow-Up VII: Debbie Schlussel describes how we’re losing the “culture war,” as Americans and their government cast a blind eye, while failing to “wake-up and smell the Jihad.”

Follow-Up VIII: There is no Union, in the best tradition of Lincoln’s determination to prevent its dissolution, when labor unions sign up illegal aliens. So much for patriotism.

Follow-Up IX: Alan Ashinoff, writing for American Chronicle (with my emphasis added):

Living in the midst of the US government sanctioned illegal Mexican sub-culture one can’t help but come into contact with the Mexican aliens in American society. In fact, due to the influx of Mexicans in Arizona, English comprehension is a major consideration in neighborhood schools, at the post office, and in the voting booths. To many people in the Southwest illegal immigration is a daily reminder that the government has an agenda that is not in the best interest of the United States or it citizens.

Try as we may, those of us who cannot afford to price discriminate are forced to live among people who do not speak our language, have no desire to join our culture, and have violated our laws by simply being in here. But our politicians, those millionaires who live in far removed palatial estates, insist that those scurrying across our border without our knowledge or consent are decent, hard working people who are simply trying to make a living by taking jobs that no Americans want to do.

Americans have been, for far too many years, unconditionally compassionate to those non-Americans in need. Americans have accepted with open arms people from all over the world and offered them refuge and hope. But there is a distinct difference between a welcomed house guest and someone who squats in a vacant home and uses the law, or the lack of enforcement of the law, to prevent expulsion by the rightful owner. There’s a difference between a grateful refugee and an obnoxious foreign squatter demanding things which he, by birth, is un-entitled.

The American poet Robert Frost wisely wrote that “good fences make good neighbors.” Despite President Bush’s or Nancy Pelosi’s feelings on the matter, the American people desperately need a good fence.

Follow-Up X (10/03/07): Digger of Diggers Realm is spot on in this telling observation (my emphasis added):

Illegal aliens have cost the taxpayers of Los Angeles County California $35 million in welfare and food stamps for the month of July 2007 a new report revealed by LA County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich finds. In addition to this expense, which totals $440 million per year of LA county taxpayer dollars, illegal aliens in the county chew up an additional $400 million for healthcare and $220 million for public safety each year. This totals over $1 billion per year in funds wasted on illegal aliens instead of American citizens and legal residents in the county.

One major thing the report ignores is that actual cost of illegal aliens to the education system, which as you would imagine is astronomical.

Funny thing though, try getting a few billion dollars allocated for a border fence and all of the sudden this “magical taxpayer money” can’t be found anywhere.

Frosty Wooldridge, who writes and lectures extensively on illegal immigration, has published a “must-read” piece in Human Events on the “deadly results” of the insanity of sanctuary city policies in the United States.

Here are some excerpts, but do read the entire column:

Last month, in Newark, New Jersey, two illegal aliens executed three college-bound teenagers. Both men sported rap sheets as long as a football field. Jose Carranza, featuring 31 indictments, raped a five-year-old girl. Rodolfo Godinez committed violent assaults and distributed drugs. Both enjoyed freedom via bail bonds while escaping deportation through Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s “Sanctuary Policy.” Booker allows illegal aliens immunity from police discovering their immigration status. Instead of deportation, they roam free in our country.

With more cities condoning the loss of the rule of law, we can expect more crime against Americans.

You must ask yourself: when will my loved ones or I become a victim of illegal aliens in my own community because someone elected to represent the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law abdicates in favor of illegal alien criminals?

Where will the next Newark Massacre or police execution occur because of the sanctuary policy that allows criminal illegal aliens free access to kill American citizens? Where will the next 9/11 occur because of the sanctuary policy? Stay tuned: you’ll read about it or you’ll be one of the victims.

Now let’s segue to a WorldNetDaily.com article on how the Democratic Party’s candidates for its 2008 presidential nomination remain mum on the subject of cutting off federal funding to cities that honor a “Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell” policy vis-a-vis suspected illegal aliens.

As Craig R. Smith observes:

Not one of the Democratic hopefuls is willing to close down sanctuary cities. It is just that plain and just that simple. Apparently if a Democrat is our president, he or she will not enforce the federal laws they will swear to uphold. Not a single candidate. These same candidates repeat over and over how the rule of law is so essential to our nation; yet will not enforce the law. I guess the rule of law is only important to Democrats when Scooter Libby is on trial.

Can any American (not the Harry Reid variety, I should add) worth his or her salt vote for a candidate, whether in the presidential primaries or the 2008 national election, who is unwilling to secure our land borders and maritime ports and end the insanity of policies that forbid police officers from questioning the immigration status of criminal suspects?

I think not.

And surely we want the antithesis of California’s Nancy Pelosi holding a seat in Congress and passing laws that impact our families!

Let’s stop the insanity.

Regardless of political party affiliation, if an incumbent or a challenger is opposed to or remains resolutely silent on the subject of the strict enforcement of current federal immigration laws in the context of 20+ million illegal aliens moving about our country unimpeded (taking jobs away from bona-fide American citizens by using forged documentation or engaging in identity theft) they should not get our votes. Period!

It all starts with those of us who vote (and those of you who should, but don’t).

Follow-Up: Mark Krikorian, writing for the San Francisco Chronicle, makes an important point of tremendous consequence for all American citizens and I urge you to think on it long and hard before your next trip to cast your vote:

… immigration enforcement is not exclusively about guarding the border and chasing after illegal immigrants who manage to get in. Immigration control also requires what might be called a “firewall strategy,” which would make it as difficult as possible to live and work here illegally, so that prospective illegal immigrants don’t come and those already here give up and deport themselves.

With a municipal ID card, illegal immigrants could embed themselves in our country, making it easier for them to live and work here. The result would be increased illegal immigration and a decreased return migration of illegal immigrants.

This month, New Haven, Conn., became the first city to issue municipal ID cards for illegal immigrants, but there are other actions that state and local governments have been taking to accommodate and help embed illegal immigrants. Some (including San Francisco and Oakland) have declared themselves “sanctuary cities,” barring police or other municipal employees from getting involved in immigration questions.

Follow-Up II: From page 26 of a pdf file on the Congressional Research Service (CRS) report of August 14, 2006, on “Enforcing Immigration Law: The Role of State and Local law Enforcement”, the following list of sanctuary cities, counties, and states has been drawn:

Anchorage, Alaska
Fairbanks, Alaska
Chandler, Arizona
Fresno, California
Los Angeles, California
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Sonoma County, California
Evanston, Illinois
Cicero, Illinois
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Orleans, Massachusetts
Portland, Maine
Baltimore, Maryland
Takoma Park, Maryland
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Durham, North Carolina
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Aztec, New Mexico
Rio Arriba County, New Mexico
Sante Fe, New Mexico
New York, New York
Ashland, Oregon
Gaston, Oregon
Marion County, Oregon
Austin, Texas
Houston, Texas
Katy, Texas
Seattle, Washington
Madison, Wisconsin.

* Alaska and Oregon both have state-wide policies that forbid state agencies from using resources to enforce federal immigration law. Oregon law, however, does provide an exception to allow law enforcement officers to share information on immigration status with federal authorities with those arrested for criminal offenses.