The Mexican Border in Arizona - Part II

Arizona is divided. Illegal immigration is the hottest issue on people’s minds in that state, but discussion seems to vary depending on who is there. In the southwest I’m an “Anglo,” as opposed to a “Latino.” Though I was in Arizona only a few days, I got the sense that it’s discussed openly when Anglos are present, but if there’s mixed company with Latinos present, the topic doesn’t come up. Arizona is about 30% Latino and the percentage is higher the closer you get to the border where I was.On the plane from La Guardia to Tuscon I was seated with two women flying home. One was an Anglo about my age and the other a young woman of Mexican descent. They were friendly and chatty at first, and eventually asked me why I was going to Tucson. I explained that I wanted to see, smell, feel and hear the desert southwest because I’d never been there before, and that I wanted go down around the border area and see how much of what I’d been hearing about circumstances there was true. Both tensed up. We discussed illegal immigration, but only in guarded terms.

In last week’s column, I wrote about what I saw in the Nogales area and my dealings with the US Border Patrol. Agents in the field talked openly until I told them I was a writer. Then they referred me to up to their office in Tucson, but nobody there would sit down with me and discuss things on record. Spokesman Mario Escalante said he’d answer questions on the phone or via email, but not face-to-face over a recording device. I wasted half a day between phone calls while they brushed me off as a small-time columnist.The next day, I drove to Douglas, Arizona about sixty miles east of Nogales. There I saw a new border fence under construction, but the construction bosses I spoke to on site told me they were pulling out after building only a mile for $5 million. What they’d built was a formidable double fence with a ditch in between, but as one supervisor said, “They’ll just go a mile further east and jump there as we saw two of them do this morning right over there.” He pointed to the end of the new fence he built to an older section just like the one in Nogales.At nearly sixty, I believe I could climb over it easily. I looked east to see a straight line of such fencing clear to a distant horizon.It was the same when I turned around to look west.There are two thousand miles of border between the US and Mexico, and a mile of new fence here and there are so many drops in the bucket. When President Bush got $800 million from Congress to build 800 miles of “virtual” border fence, it ended up costing $15 million per mile rather than the $1 million per mile projected.

Meanwhile, the smuggling of illegal aliens and drugs from Mexico continues. Open battles in Mexico between the Mexican military and well-armed drug lord armies are so bad that Mexican citizens aren’t sure who will win. Some foreign policy experts are concerned that Mexico may become a failed state if it isn’t already. That lawlessness has spread into the border states like Arizona to such an extent that the Bureau of Land Management is warning US tourists in five national parks near the border of dangers posed by armed drug smugglers. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer said the other day that the majority of illegals coming into Arizona are smuggling drugs. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said this week: “You’re never going to totally seal that border.” She seems to be making the case here that it’s impossible to prevent millions of people from invading our country, so why try.

Napolitano is following the Obama Administration policy on illegal immigration, which he articulated in a private meeting with Arizona Senator Jon Kyl a few weeks ago. Kyl told contituents in Phoenix that Obama said: “The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”“In other words,” said Kyl, “they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’”

Comprehensive Immigration Reform is nothing but a euphemism for amnesty. President Obama and the Democrats would solve our illegal immigrant problem with a stroke of the pen: They would grant amnesty to the 20 million or so illegals already residing here because they would become 20 million new Democrat voters.Hat tip: One-simple-idea.com

Democrats don’t want to secure the border and shut off the constant flow of a million new Democrats every year.Many Republicans are reluctant to address illegal immigration because they represent businesses which profit from cheap Mexican labor.

The majority of Americans, meanwhile, are doing a slow burn over the issue and expressing themselves through their state governments. Arizona’s new law allowing police to arrest anybody in the US illegally is just the beginning. Expect other states to follow as our federal government abdicates its responsibility to stop the invasion of America from the south.

Tense At The Arizona Border In Nogales

My wife left a message on my cell phone that the US Border Patrol called our house in Lovell, Maine three times. “I picked up the third time,” she said. “They asked what your date of birth was and I told them. Hope that was all right.” It had been an interesting day on the border at Nogales, Arizona - Nogales, Sonora on the Mexican side.

I had called her earlier to report that I survived my foray into Mexico and was on the highway driving back to Tucson. I told her that I’d been escorted off the US Border Patrol facility in Nogales, AZ and I’d explain later why, but that I was fine and not to worry.

I’d driven down to Nogales from Tucson where I’d been staying because I’d been hearing so much about goings-on there. Arizona and other border states are overrun with illegal aliens from Mexico and I wanted to see for myself. I discovered that the reports are quite true, and, if anything, they’re played down. “This is the busiest border station in the country,” one agent told me. I'd listened to US Senator Jon Kyl interviewed on an AM Talk station as I drove south on Route 19. He'd told constituents in Phoenix the other day about a private meeting with President Obama during which Obama told him: "The problem is, . . . if we secure the border, then you all won’t have any reason to support ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” [Audible gasps were heard throughout the audience.] Sen. Kyl continued, “In other words, they’re holding it hostage. They don’t want to secure the border unless and until it is combined with 'comprehensive immigration reform.'" That, of course, is a euphemism for amnesty.

After walking over to the Mexican side for a few hours (seeing Obama's and Napolitano's pictures prominently displayed behind US border officials), I walked back and drove along “International Street” on the American side. The road parallels the border fence, and BP vehicles move constantly chasing illegals sneaking in. One BP agent was sitting in his modified Dodge pickup - modifed by wire mesh installed over the vehicle’s windows the way some Range Rovers have screens over their headlights. “You can’t go past here,” he said as I pulled up alongside and lowered my window.

“Why not?” I asked.

He abruptly put up his hand to an earpiece and said, “Gotta go.” He gunned it in reverse to get around me then shot up a steep hill in a cloud of dust.We were within the Nogales city limits, no more than 300 yards west of the border crossover point into Mexico I’d walked back and forth over that morning. I watched as he and two other BP agents scrambled around and talked into their head-mounted communication devices. I locked my rented SUV, strolled around and took pictures, very glad I’d invested in a 18-270 mm lens last year. When two BP vehicles parked next to each other up a steep gravel road, I got into my SUV and drove on up the steep rise where they were talking. I expected them to be angry and to order me away, but instead one uniformed agent, the one who had to scramble away so quickly, told me it was dangerous for me to be up there. “If you get hit in the head with a rock, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Is that why you have that wire mesh over your windshield?” I asked.“Exactly,” he said.

“Do you guys need help keeping a lid on things here?” I asked.

“This is the busiest section of border in the country,” he said. “We arrested 57,000 illegals last year and that was down from 100,000 in 2007.”

“Right here in Nogales?”

“Yup. Right here in Nogales.”

“Probably have no idea how many got by you, right?”

He shrugged. "Somebody can cut a hole in that fence in about forty seconds."

"I saw where somebody had cut a doorway in it right over there," I said, pointing, "and somebody else welded it back up."

"Um-hmm."

“It looks like the federal government wants to seem like it’s controlling the border without really controlling it,” I said. “Would you agree with that?”

He hesitated. My sense was that he did agree, but didn’t want to say. I’d revealed that I was a columnist from Maine and he was from Maine as well. “I suggest you talk to the Public Information Office about that. I don’t want to comment.” He referred me to Jorge Uques and wrote down his phone number. “We’re so busy here in Nogales, we’ve got our own Public Information Officer.”

“Where is he at?”

“1500 West La Quinta in Nogales. About three miles from here.”

I thanked him, plugged that into my GPS, and drove off.Looking through border fence from Nogales, AZ yesterday

1500 La Quinta looked like a military base. There must have been hundreds of green-and-white Border Patrol vehicles as well as horses and ATVs. I waited at the guard shack by the entrance but nobody came out, so I drove on in, parked in the designated visitors’ parking lot and walked inside. I stated my business to a receptionist who called Mr. Ugues on the phone.

“He’s not in. His grandmother died and he’s away. Someone else will come down.”

Agent Richard Funke, pronounced “funky,” came down the stairs and we shook hands. We exchanged business cards and I asked if he minded me recording our conversation. Wrong move. “Actually, you’ll have to talk to our Public Affairs Officer in Tucson,” he said. “He handles media relations.” We shook hands again and I walked out. I saw agents training with what looked like blue M-16s on a hillside and took pictures.Prominently posted in Nogales, AZ Historical Society building

Then a vehicle drove up and another agent told me “This is a federal facility and you shouldn’t be walking around without an escort. How did you get in here?” I explained, but that didn’t satisfy him. “What did you take pictures of?” He took my camera and erased the ones I took at 1500 West La Quinta, and gave it back. Then he called two other agents to escort me off the property.

Don’t know why they wanted my date of birth. Must be investigating me. I’ll be talking to the Public Information Officer in Tucson today.

More later.

Scarey Court Cases

Two recent court cases on two continents make me very nervous. That they’re even being tried is outrageous. That either may succeed is ominous, and few people know anything about either one.

First is the case of Roger Barnett - an Arizona rancher who has been under siege by illegal immigrants and drug dealers. In the Washington Times, Barnett claims illegals “tore up water pumps, killed calves, destroyed fences and gates, stole trucks and broke into his home.” Now sixteen illegals are suing him in federal court for $32 million, accusing him of “conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch next to the US-Mexico border.” The sixteen illegals claim Barnett caused them emotional distress by holding them at gunpoint and they want $2 million each.

Chief among our federal government’s responsibilities is to protect American citizens from foreign invasion, but it’s done little or nothing to help Barnett. Rather than protecting him, our government instead enables foreign invaders to sue him. That’s how bad it’s gotten.

The US Department of Homeland Security acknowledges virtual anarchy on the border and warns that Mexico itself is on the verge of collapse. That would come as no surprise to Barnett, who must wonder about his own country as well if it cannot, or will not control its borders. The DHS report states: “[Mexico’s] government, its politicians, police and judicial infrastructure are all under sustained assault and press by criminal gangs and drug cartels. . . . Any descent by Mexico into chaos would demand an American response based on the serious implications for homeland security alone.”

Drug cartel power depends on moving drugs across our border. We are their market. I’d say an American response is overdue already, wouldn’t you? USA Today reported in 2005 that: “First [New Mexico Governor] Richardson, then [Arizona Governor] Napolitano, declared a state of emergency this month in portions of their states along the border with Mexico.”

The second case is that of Geert Wilders in Holland: A Member of Parliament, Wilders has been charged with hurting Muslim immigrant feelings in Holland by “inciting racial hatred.” He made a film called “Fitna” comparing the Koran to Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” As Dr. Sami Alrabaa reports in Canadian Free Press: “Wilders’ comparison of the Koran to Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” and describing it as a fascist book is not inappropriate. Hitler referred to the Jews as “rats and vermin” and the Koran and fascist Muslims call the Jews “The descendants of apes and pigs.”

When radical Muslims incite racial hatred in Holland, it’s okay. When a member of Holland’s government points it out, it’s a crime.

Dr. Alrabaa also writes that “Muhammad Sayyid Al Tantawi, president of Al Azhar University [established 975 AD in Cairo] also approves of killing and maiming Christians, Jews, and other infidels. He added, ‘This is not my personal view. This what the Shari’a Law says, the law of Allah, the only valid law on the earth.’”

There. I’ve pointed it out. I’m a criminal too.

Geert Wilders was invited by a member of the British House of Lords to show his film there. When he landed in London last Friday, he was promptly deported. The London Daily Telegraph reported: “Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary refused Mr. Wilders entry because his opinions ‘would threaten community security and therefore public security’ in the UK.”

So, when Muslim clerics in the UK preach hatred and violent jihad against the British government, it’s all right. But when Wilders expresses a negative opinion about that preaching, he’s the threat, not them.

This is what Europe, seat of western civilization and democracy, has come to.

Back here, groups like MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund) use the US Constitution to bring suit against Americans like Roger Barnett when he tries to defend his property. MALDEF doesn’t recognize the US border. Similar radical Mexican groups like MEChA deny the legitimacy of state governments all across the southwestern United States, calling the area “Aztlan” and claiming themselves as indigenous people not subject to US law. MEChA has chapters in most colleges across the American southwest. If you check out their web site here, you’ll see their symbol: an eagle gripping an Aztec war club in one talon and a stick of dynamite with its fuse lit in the other. Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Governor Cruz Bustamante are former members.

MEChA receives funding from La Raza (“The Race”). Politicians across America go out of their way to pay homage to “The Race.” President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain addressed the organization during the 2008 campaign, where both virtually promised amnesty for illegals. Two out of three voted for Obama.

Barnett and Wilders are brave men defending western civilization on the front lines. If they go down, watch out.

Rape, Injustice, Anger

(Two Maine papers declined to publish this in 2005 when I submitted it - afraid of lawsuits, they said. Only one paper in New Hampshire, The Conway Daily Sun, ran it. Now that I have a blog, I've decided to put it out there again.)

A fourteen-year-old retarded girl was abducted from the Maine Mall and raped two years ago. Three Nigerian immigrants were arrested and charged with gross sexual assault. Newspaper and television coverage was widespread and, this being every parent’s nightmare, a lot of people heard about it. Very few, however, know how it finally turned out. I didn’t know myself until the girl’s mother, Laurie Stanley from Bridgton, called me. She was crying with frustration and asked me to write about it.

The Nigerians got away with it, essentially, and this fact was all but ignored by local media. Charges against Kingsley Nwaturocha were dropped. Dan Eneagu and Okey Chukwurah pled guilty to misdemeanor assault. Eneagu got a suspended sentence and two years probation. Chukwurah got a $1000 fine. That’s it. The Portland Press Herald ran a tiny news brief buried in the December 10, 2003 issue, saying: “A Nigerian man accused of raping a 14-year-old Gorham girl in Old Orchard Beach last year has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault charges and has been released after his attorneys said the man would receive a death sentence if deported.”

The York County District Attorney’s office contacted Laurie Stanley the day before trial to tell her that Eneagu would be killed in Nigeria if he were deported. “Is that what you want?” a woman from the DA’s office asked her over the phone. “As mad as I was that they raped my daughter,” she said, “I didn’t want that. I didn’t want them to die.” I listened silently. “What would you have done?”

“If they raped my daughter,” I said, “execution would be fine with me.”

Semen found in the girl matched Eneagu’s DNA. A rape conviction would have been a slam-dunk, yet the DA’s office offered a plea bargain on the belief that the men would be deported and executed in Nigeria if convicted of felony rape. That seemed suspicious to me. Checking into it, I discovered that a rape conviction is extremely difficult under Islamic law and it would have been highly unlikely for those men charged with rape in Maine to be accountable there. I called Eneagu’s attorney, Nicholas Mahoney, several times to ask where he got his information but he didn’t return my calls.

Islamic law, or “Shari’a,” considers a woman’s testimony worth only half that of a man’s. Robert Spencer, author of “Islam Unveiled,” wrote in his article “Rape in Islam: Blaming the Victim” that four Muslim male witnesses are required for a conviction and that “without these witnesses and a confession from the accused rapist, the victim will stand condemned by her very accusation: she wasn’t raped, so she must be guilty of zina.” Zina, under Islamic Law, is sexual activity outside of marriage. In Nigeria, women found guilty of zina are sentenced to death by stoning.

York County Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Moskowitz negotiated Eneagu’s plea bargain and I asked him if he verified the defense attorney’s execution claim. He told me he called the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, but they had no idea about it. Then, he consulted an immigration lawyer in Portland, who referred him to “a Nigerian” in Portland whose opinion was that “there was a good chance Eneagu would be killed.” When I related what I had learned about Islamic law, he said I was comparing apples to oranges because Eneagu would have been deported already convicted, and would not likely be re-tried in Nigeria. When I asked Moskowitz if he thought justice was done, he said he had no regrets about how he handled the case and would do the same thing again.

I called the immigration lawyer Moskowitz talked to, an attorney name George Hepner. He said he didn’t have an opinion about Eneagu at the time and referred Moskowitz to Najim Animashaun of South Portland. Animashaun is Muslim, a practicing attorney in Maine. He has also practiced in the UK and in Nigeria. He told me he didn’t specifically recall consulting with Moskowitz on the Eneagu case either, although he might have. He said he often discusses hypotheticals concerning certain legal cases and does remember talking to Eneagu’s attorney, Nick Mahoney. He told me it was very unlikely Eneagu would have been executed. Eneagu is not a Muslim and Islamic law is only applied to Muslims. He said though Islamic law is practiced only in some parts of Nigeria and death sentences are often made, they’re seldom carried out. When I asked why, he said Islamic officials are afraid of executing someone wrongly because they themselves would be accountable in the afterlife if they made a mistake.

Laurie Stanley called me originally, not just because the men were never convicted of rape, but also because she read another tiny news brief in the Portland Press Herald that day last September about Kingsley Nwaturocha against whom the rape charge was dropped. He was granted $95,000 because he claimed to have been beaten by corrections officers at the York County Jail while awaiting trial. “I was trying to get my daughter into a residential school to protect her because it was getting to point that I couldn’t handle her,” Stanley said. “I was afraid she might go off with someone like she did at the Maine Mall, but the school wouldn’t pay for it and the state wouldn’t either. And now he gets all that money. My daughter was raped, bitten, and burned with a cigarette. They gave her herpes. She had to be tested for AIDS. She was robbed of her innocence, and he gets $95,000!”

Stanley found an attorney willing to file suit against Nwaturocha, but he discovered that the Nigerian had gotten his payoff three months earlier and moved to Maryland. Believing the money to be gone by then and because it would be difficult to file suit in a state so far away, the attorney dropped the case. Stanley’s frustration became unbearable and she wanted the story told. After seeing how everything turned out, she wishes now the men were executed.

My inquiries into this sad case produced as many questions as answers. Why didn’t the York County DA’s office scrutinize the defense’s execution claims more closely? Why didn’t they just enforce Maine law instead of worrying about Nigerian law? Why would the local media virtually ignore the plea bargain? Were they afraid of public outrage? Was it overzealous opposition to the death penalty? Why delay reporting the $95,000 settlement for three months? Was it sympathy for immigrants? Whatever it was, two of those men are still here, free to walk among us, and they don’t have to register as sex offenders because they were never convicted of rape.

Angry Voters

Ordinary Americans are infuriated. Between 12 and 20 million illegal aliens live in the United States with more sneaking in every day. The federal government virtually ignores them. State governments ignore them. Local governments ignore them. No. It’s worse than that. All three levels of government don’t just look the other way; they implement policies to make the problem worse. They provide benefits to illegals like free schooling, free medical care, free food, subsidized housing, heating assistance, etc. When taxpaying citizens object through referendum votes to cut off funding, federal courts declare the cutoffs unconstitutional. Our federal government has sole authority to stop illegal immigration, but refuses to. Then it has the gall to use its courts to force states, cities and towns to pay for its malfeasance. Governors in states like Maine order welfare officials not to ask if an applicant is here illegally, and they face penalties if they do. Mainers already shoulder the highest tax burden in the whole country and our governor is telling freeloaders from around the world to come on over. Anybody from anywhere can force the rest of us Mainers to pay for them to live here free just by showing up. How long will this go on?

It used to be just a border state issue, but now the whole country is mad. Neither Democrats nor Republicans are dealing with it, but suddenly it’s a major issue for the November elections. It’s been big in border states for a while now, but as illegal aliens spread all over the country, so does the anger. Both parties avoid it but for different reasons. Democrats see illegals becoming citizens eventually and voting Democrat as so many ethnic-minority-victim-groups traditionally have. Republicans have two reasons: Businesses comprising a big part of the Republican base profit by hiring illegal low-wage workers and not paying benefits and passing those costs to taxpayers. Businesses also profit when wages for blue-collar Americans are kept low because millions of illegals work cheap nearly everywhere in the country. America’s working poor suffer the most.

Legitimate small businessmen suffer too when illegitimate competition with an illegal workforce is able to continually underbid them. Illegals cost about a third of what legitimate workers cost when you add in Workers’ Compensation, Social Security taxes, and all the rest. When illegals get sick or injured and are treated at emergency rooms without health insurance, those costs are passed on as higher taxes and higher health insurance premiums. Legitimate businesses pay for this along with the rest of us, but, with competition getting stiffer all the time, the temptation to go under the table increases.

Competition from illegal aliens is the worst problem, but legal aliens are displacing low-wage Americans as well. A woman from Sweden, Maine emailed me recently because her seventeen-year-old son lost his job to a foreign student. He worked at a local summer camp the past two summers and wanted to return this year. Though he worked at the camp, his employer was a large foodservice firm called Sodexho - a multibillion dollar, multinational food service company based in France. The boy had a good work record, but Sodexho informed him they were employing international students this year and he had to look elsewhere. This would seem to be in violation of Maine State Law, which states that employers may bring in foreigners only “. . . in cases where it can be demonstrated that there are insufficient qualified U.S. workers available and willing to perform the work . . .” Clearly that was not the case here. But, after September 11th, the new federal Department of Homeland Security assumed authority for granting and policing temporary work visas for international students and states don’t police it anymore. Nearby North Conway, New Hampshire brings in hundreds of foreign students to work in retail and tourist industries there during summer. The federal government can’t possibly assess the impact of legions of foreign workers on wages scales locally. Fighting terrorism is one thing, but feds should leave it to the states to regulate local economic impact of temporary foreign labor. Students working summer jobs to avoid huge student loan payments later must be able to negotiate a decent wage. The Maine woman who contacted me about her son is complaining to Senator Olympia Snowe even though she and Senator Susan Collins recently voted to grant amnesty to illegal aliens across the United States. Somehow, I don’t think she’ll be getting any satisfaction from our congressional delegation on immigrant labor issues.

Though President Bush - along with both Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate - want amnesty for illegal aliens, there is some hope from House Republicans. When they passed a strong bill calling for deportation of illegals and strong penalties for businesses who hire them, hundreds of thousands of illegals marched in the streets of Los Angeles, Houston, and other cities carrying Mexican flags and demanding “civil rights.” They thought they were flexing their muscles, but they only made it worse for themselves in the eyes of taxpaying citizens who will be going to the polls this fall.

Like I said, ordinary Americans are fed up. They’re infuriated and most of our representatives in Washington don’t even have a clue. It’s going to be an interesting election.

Illegal By Definition

There was an automobile accident in front of my father-in-law’s house in Lowell, Massachusetts last summer. When police responded, they discovered the driver and occupants of one vehicle were illegal aliens from Brazil. They had no driver’s licenses, no registration and, needless to say, no insurance. One cop said sarcastically to the other, “What a surprise.” In other words, it was no surprise at all because such accidents happen frequently there. The driver of the other car, who was not at fault in the accident, would have to pay for the damage to her vehicle herself or deal with her own insurance company and see her rates increased because she won’t be able to collect anything from the illegal aliens. They were ticketed and released, but the police doubted they would ever show up in court. Federal immigration authorities were not even contacted because they routinely tell local police to just release illegal aliens found in violation of traffic laws. If you or I were driving with no license, registration, or insurance, we would have to suffer the consequences.

Incidents like these are more and more commonplace and US citizens are understandably irate about the federal government’s refusal to enforce our immigration laws. Illegal aliens can show up in most states and get Section 8 housing, food stamps, and medical care. If they have children, they are educated for about $10,000 per kid per year, all paid for by taxpayers like the woman whose car was smashed up in Lowell that day. You want to guess how she feels about granting amnesty to 11 million illegals here in the United States?

When illegals apply for welfare benefits here in Maine, state employees may not ask them about their immigration status or they will be violating an executive order from Governor Baldacci. That means anyone, from anywhere in the world can come to Maine and get free housing, free food and free medical care, not to mention free education for their children. Maine’s taxpayers have to support them whether we like it or not, even if they violated our laws by sneaking in here. If they’re here, they own us. While only 20% of citizens collect welfare, more than 30% of immigrants, legal and illegal, collect it. What’s wrong with this picture?

Most illegals come from Mexico, whose government encourages them to sneak into our country. However, Mexico’s government has a much different policy for Guatemalans or Salvadorans who sneak into Mexico from the south. They don’t complain to the Mexican government. They get no benefits. Instead, they’re arrested and deported. Two weeks ago, a half-million illegals demonstrated in the streets of Los Angeles waving Mexican flags or upside-down US flags and demanded citizenship. A week later, another half-million demonstrated in Dallas, but this time “immigrant rights” groups like like the communist-dominated A.N.S.W.E.R (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), and National Council of La Raza (the race), distributed American flags and told them to hide their Mexican flags because they didn’t look good on TV.

According to a Zogby poll quoted in a recent Claremont Institute essay by Victor Hanson, 58% of Mexicans believe that “the territory of the United States’ southwest rightfully belongs to Mexico.” The also believe “they should have the right to cross the border freely and without US permission.” Hanson quotes former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, saying “the Mexican nation extends beyond the territory enclosed by its borders . . . [and Mexican migrants are] an important - a very important - part of this.” Hanson quotes Mexico’s national newspaper Excelsior which writes: “The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot.” Indeed, the Democratic governors of Arizona and New Mexico have each declared a state of emergency because of the illegal alien problem down there. Hanson quotes Mario Obledo, former California Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, saying, “California is going to be an Hispanic state. Anybody who doesn’t like it should leave.”

How did it get this bad? For decades Democrats and Republicans have avoided dealing the problem except to define it out of existence by issuing periodic amnesties. A stroke of the pen and no more illegal alien problem. That’s what President Bush says his “guest worker” program is not an amnesty, but most Americans know better. Such policies don’t eliminate the problem; they only make it worse by encouraging more Mexicans to sneak in and wait for the next amnesty. Mexico isn’t going to make any changes in its corrupt government as long as it can ship its discontents north to the United States. Why should it?

Meanwhile, local police in our states, cities and towns can continue to take illegals into custody for various offenses, call federal immigration authorities, and are instructed to just release them. Illegals don’t have to obey the laws the rest of us have to obey. In the rare case they’re actually deported, they sneak right back in. When the federal government refuses to deal with illegals, how can we expect legal immigrants to continue obeying the rules? How can we expect anyone to? If we can’t control our borders, how long can we call ourselves a country?

And that’s the way it is, as Walter Cronkite used to say. It’s not likely to change much either, unless US voters send a clear message to congressmen and senators this November: Stop illegal immigration, once and for all.

Melting Pot Redux

Born into a Boston-Irish-Catholic-Democrat family, I was taught early about how the British oppressed the Irish for eight hundred years. For whatever was wrong with the Irish, the British were to blame. It was a convenient way for so-called Irish-Americans to look at the world because it wasn’t necessary to examine ourselves for any faults. Why should we when there was such a convenient scapegoat? That there weren’t any British in America wasn’t an obstacle to this world view because there were the descendants of British colonists here to criticize. We blamed the “Boston Brahmins” or the Yankees or the WASPs (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants) who kept the Irish down. There was, no doubt, some discrimination. However, even when the Irish had virtually taken over Boston and elected mayor after mayor during almost the entire twentieth century, they still blamed the Yankees or the British for their problems and bragged about sending money to terrorists in the IRA (Irish Republican Army) to blow up Protestant pubs and British soldiers in Northern Ireland.
Gradually though, the Boston Irish assimilated into the great melting pot as they married Italians from the North End or moved out to the suburbs. After a while, most identified themselves as just Americans with no hyphen. When I moved from the Boston area to rural Maine thirty years ago, the “Protestant Ethic” still prevailed here - what dictionary.com calls: “a belief in and devotion to hard work, duty, thrift, self-discipline, and responsibility.” In other words, if something was wrong in your life, the first place you should look for a reason was in the mirror. It was the polar opposite of the “oppressed victim” mentality prevalent in the Democrat Party. Bit-by-bit, however, Maine morphed into a liberal Democrat state much like Massachusetts - ever ready to champion victim groups.
Victim mentality dovetails nicely with the newer, liberal Democrat ethic of “multiculturalism” which is quite different from the traditional melting pot model. Multiculturalism would encourage people to identify with their minority group rather than assimilate into the larger culture. Multiculturalism is a loose concept which seems to claim that all cultures are equal, but that allegedly oppressed cultures are more equal than others. The least equal of cultures would be the previously-dominant Yankee culture which established the Constitution and all the individual rights people in victim groups enjoy. Multiculturalists believe minority victim groups should not assimilate into a great melting pot, but should cherish and preserve whatever makes them different from everybody else.
Wikipedia defines multiculturalism as “the public policy for managing cultural diversity in a multiethnic society, officially stressing mutual respect and tolerance for cultural differences within a country's borders.” It’s official federal policy in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and it’s the prevailing ethic in humanities departments of almost every college and university in the western world. Critics of multiculturalism, including this writer, are called racist and xenophobic. Afraid of such labels, few spoke out against it, but that is beginning to change.
While not yet official government policy in the European Union, multiculturalism has certainly been the practice in western or “Old Europe.” It’s major flaws are exposed by fast-growing minorities of Muslim immigrants and their descendants in nearly every European city. At first, they were embraced by liberals as victim groups and granted “asylum,” but that’s wearing thin. It’s getting difficult for European liberals to maintain tolerance when Muslim minorities in their countries riot, burn cars, rape women, burn synagogues, torture Jews to death, kill fim directors, blow up trains and busses, and threaten Europe with September 11th style attacks because of a few cartoons. Muslim neighborhoods want to follow sharia (Islamic law) instead the laws of their adopted countries. European Muslims are a stridently intolerant minority in their attitudes toward women, homosexuals, Jews, and other minorities. It’s getting extremely awkward for liberals to celebrate that kind of multicultural diversity. How do you tolerate a culture that wants to destroy your way of life? Will the multiculturalists tolerate intolerance too?
Multiculturalists are beginning to realize that they shouldn’t have chucked the old American “Melting Pot” model. Their “cultural mosaic” model, and “salad bowl” model, and “celebrating diversity” models are all disintegrating with the onslaught of radical Islam all over the world. Several of Europe’s most liberal countries including Netherlands, France and Germany are taking steps to drastically cut, eliminate, or even reverse Muslim immigration.
It looks like the diversity celebration is almost over in Europe at least. Last call still a ways off here in the USA, but it’s coming.