Raising the Bar for Dee Perez-Scott

Reforming our nation’s immigration laws is the key to progress and prosperity

Almost a quarter of a century has elapsed since the failed amnesty bill of 1986. We now have an historic opportunity to overhaul our federal immigration laws by building on our past experiences and recognizing our past failures. I strongly believe that immigration is an issue on which we can and must rise above petty ethnocentric concerns and pandering politics. No one can argue--from the right or the left--that we can strengthen America’s economy and democracy without controlling our borders and enforcing the law.

We are a nation of laws and that has been one of the secrets of our success. Yet, we are clearly losing ground on the immigration front as powerful special interest groups and their allies in Congress continue to push for yet another amnesty bill under the broader umbrella of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR). But many now recognize that amnesty and CIR are virtually synonymous. Obama apparently has decided to usurp the authority of the Congress to set immigration policy by taking action to simply excuse illegal aliens en masse in an end run that will cost him in 2012.
We are losing ground to other countries because population growth here is largely among the uneducated, some of whom have not even mastered their native tongues. Forty-seven percent of high school students fail to graduate. What we need is a fully educated workforce to enable us to recapture the manufacturing jobs sent overseas. Allowing large numbers of the uneducated to enter our country illegally and remain here and work is counterproductive to that goal. Moreover, it places extra demands on the schools for bi-lingual education and other special programs. This involves the use of resources that could better be employed in improving the graduation rate and preparing students to be productive members of society.
Our national security is threatened by the weakness of our border and port security efforts and by the sheer volume of daily pedestrian and vehicular traffic at the ports of entry. Any observer of that traffic would soon realize that the Border Patrol is faced with an impossible task. If we are to meet everyone’s goal of secure borders, we must act now with a sense of urgency.
We knew early on that the amnesty bill of 1986 had many shortcomings because the promises in the bill to secure the border were never kept. The 1.3 million illegal aliens granted amnesty in 1986 has now grown to 12 million, a compound rate of increase of 9.7% per year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see where another amnesty will lead. If the McCain-Kennedy amnesty bill had been passed in 2006, we would be debating anew today whether to provide amnesty for the 4 million to 5 million illegal aliens who have entered since. And if an amnesty were enacted tomorrow, five years from now, Congress would be debating what to do with the additional 5 million who would have entered by that time. What's more, the tens of millions of newly amnestied citizens legally would be able to bring in their next of kin through chain migration, swelling the overall number to potentially more than 50 million within a decade of the amnesty.
Although our nation cannot wait any longer, I am not optimistic about real reform because President Obama and DHS Secretary Napolitano are pushing a different agenda. While they support some additional resources, some of them temporary in the form of National Guard troops, they have yet to come to terms with the simple fact that some of what we’ve been doing is not working and more of the same is not likely to help. Business as usual is simply unacceptable. They have yet to accept that internal enforcement is an essential element of in depth border security. The lack of real interventions and adequate investment doesn’t just apply at the border and doesn’t just apply to hardened criminals. If we focus on the larger problem, we will be able to sweep up the hardened criminals along with all of the other illegals.
The East Germans found to their dismay that people would brave machine gun towers, mine fields, and multi-layered fences and walls to escape to the West, Why? Because they knew if they were successful, they would never be repatriated.
Similarly, illegal aliens know if they can escape the immediate environs of the border, they will be home free. Under the Administration’s policies, the probability of being apprehended and repatriated is extremely low. What the Administration refuses to admit is that to secure the borders requires more than just staffing and infrastructure improvements at the border itself; it requires vigorous and continuous internal enforcement coupled with the expeditious repatriation of all of those who are apprehended. That is the missing ingredient of border security in depth. Under current policies the borders can never be completely secure.
Despite the persistent and alarming failures of our current border security measures, an understanding of the East German experience can show us the way. A six month term working on border infrastructure followed by immediate repatriation is the sine qua non of border security. Our failure to expedite repatriation is the primary cause of many of our border problems. If an illegal alien pays a coyote to help him negotiate the border but is promptly apprehended and repatriated, he will soon realize that that this is a losing proposition.
We need a bipartisan open and transparent effort to strengthen our immigration laws. CIR is not the answer. Instead of a thousand page bill written by lobbyists and special interest groups containing all manner of mischief and loopholes, we need a series of shorter simpler bills that everyone can read and understand well before any votes are taken. We may have one last chance to deal with the difficult immigration issues and critical challenges facing us before the die will be cast and the political climate will change. We need to take head-on the barriers to solving the illegal alien problem. Building on what works and fixing that which doesn’t, we can develop an immigration system tuned more precisely to the exact needs of our economy and nothing else.
We will need better data systems beginning with a visa-overstay tracking system and the mandatory implementation of the E-verification of work status across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, both current employees and potential new hires. The loophole in the present law that permits an employer to get off the hook by claiming he didn’t “knowingly” hire any illegal aliens must be closed. An employer must be held accountable for the work or immigration status of all of his employees. The E-verification system permits him to do so while the applicant is busy filling out employment forms. Wireless communication systems installed in police cruisers should permit local authorities to instantly check the bona fides of anyone stopped for other violations using the E-verification system which could be expanded to include the names and numbers on drivers’ licenses, green cards, and other such documents.
It has been said that the president is looking for the “elusive middle ground” on immigration reform. If we think in terms of a football field, one goal line represents mass legalization or amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens and the other the mass deportation of all illegal aliens. The middle ground lies somewhere near the 50 yard line. The proponents of amnesty or CIR have not moved an inch away from their goal line. They have added certain conditions, largely unenforceable, which illegal aliens would have to meet to be eligible for a pathway to citizenship. They believe these conditions represent compromise but they have not moved an inch away from full amnesty for all illegals who choose to meet those conditions. To reach the 50 yard line the amnesty proponents would have to agree to the removal of a large number of illegal aliens. The opponents would have to accept that a large number would be allowed to stay and work.
Raising the bar means expecting more from both camps. It means providing strong incentives for those who wish to stay to become socially integrated and culturally and linguistically assimilated. They must also be in jobs citizens won’t take if they are offered a living wage. Other illegals must be repatriated systematically and humanely over some period of time with the objective of creating a significant disincentive for future border violations. This is the only way in which such a disincentive can be established. Without the threat and the actuality of repatriation for a large number of illegals, there will be no disincentive.
We know beefing up border infrastructure and staffing by itself has failed to stem the tide of illegal entries. While necessary, these improvements at the border will continue to be insufficient without vigorous internal enforcement. We need to scale up both efforts.
The operators of detention facilities have been paid on the basis of detainee days. That needs to be changed so that they are rewarded on the basis of throughput numbers. The government needs to make sure there are enough immigration judges or justices of the peace (JOPs) embedded in the detention facilities so that the initial immigration decision can be made within 24 hours of the detainee’s arrival. Appeals should be limited to only one week. There should be a rigid set of criteria for immigration decisions and appeals so that most of the workload can be handled by JOPs with judges required only for the most difficult cases such as those involving requests for political asylum. Other cases should be straightforward; the individual is either in the U.S. legally or he or she is not. Visa overstays fall into the latter category the day that their visas expire, regardless of any pending requests for extensions that may have been made. Maintaining family unity can never be considered as an adequate basis for a successful appeal. Minor children, regardless of citizenship, must accompany parents under a removal order. The parents are not permitted to abandon their children in the U.S. That would be child abuse.
The winning formula for immigration reform with regard to those aliens who are already here is a process by which it can be determined whether they are holding jobs citizens would take if offered a living wage. Employers must make a good faith effort to re-advertise all jobs currently held by illegals, offering a union-certified living wage and a hiring preference for citizen workers. This process must be handled through the local employment offices to avoid any gaming of the system by unscrupulous employers. Temporary migrant farm workers may be granted an exception to this general process. Illegals who survive this process may then be offered a green card which specifies the type of work they are authorized to do. Most green cards should specify agricultural work only.
Other immigration reforms that should be considered in short, separate, single-subject bills are as follows: (1) require English to be used for all government publications, documents, ballots, and proceedings at all levels of government (EO 13166 should be repealed.) Public Interpreters should be provided for those who cannot afford one or who do not have a family member who can serve in that capacity; (2) require true fluency in English before citizenship can be awarded; (3) designate English as the official language of the United States; (4) birthright citizenship limited to the children of citizen mothers; (5) chain immigrations limited to the spouses and minor children of citizens and counted against the overall immigration quota; (6) reduce the overall quota for legal immigrants to no more than 200,000 per year (exclusive of tourists, students, and temporary migrant farm workers) or whatever number is necessary to achieve a stable population; (7) establish a national goal of a stable population to be achieved through tax and immigration policies; (8) institute cap-and-trade for family size; women who wish to have more than two children must buy credits from those who wish to have fewer; (9) focus legal immigration quotas on those who have the education, entrepreneurial spirit, a record of inventiveness and innovation, and ideas most likely to help the U.S. maintain its competitiveness in the global economy; (10) provide fast track citizenship for foreign students who successfully complete a PhD degree in the physical sciences, engineering, math, or medicine and those who enlist in the armed forces for not less than 4 years and who have served at least one tour in a combat zone; (11) tie immigration quotas to the unemployment rate by sector. If the unemployment rate is above the benchmark, suspend legal immigration and expedite repatriation in that sector; (12) reduce cross border vehicular and pedestrian traffic; if you work here and you are a citizen, you must live here -- no cross border commuters; (13) unhitch foreign trailers at the border and re-hitch them to American tractors; (14) eliminate most favored nation designation for any country that does not enforce its borders in both directions; (15) recognize the right of states to enact implementing immigration laws within the scope of federal statutes; (16) devise an ID system that would enable local authorities to easily separate illegal aliens from Hispanic citizens to avoid accusations of racial profiling; (17) change the rules of engagement so that anyone apprehended at the border or internally receives a six month sentence working on border infrastructure; (18) make it clear that no amnesty or other actions will be taken until a confidential survey of all border patrol and ICE agents, administered by an outside agency, indicates conclusively that the borders are secure; and (19) issue generic birth certificates indicating the place of birth as the homeland of the mother.

A Lawyer Plays the Race Card

A bottom-feeding immigration lawyer we know about favors illegal aliens over his own nation and the wishes of his own fellow citizens. It isn’t much of a stretch from there to what we would call gross disloyalty. He places more value on his immigrant law business than he does on the national interest, the national character, our national sovereignty, quality of life, and standard of living. He seems to believe that the U.S. can accommodate all the impoverished peoples of the world without any adverse impact. Alternatively, he must believe that we should endure the negative effects of excessive immigration in good spirits as a humanitarian gesture to the rest of the world. He must know that we already take more immigrants than any other country in the world.

To support his immigration law practice, he argues for what amounts to open borders based on a belief that our common humanity transcends what he considers to be arbitrary accidents of geography. The borders of a sovereign nation are hardly arbitrary accidents of geography. They were the result of conflicts, negotiations, or purchases. For example, when the Allies acquiesced to the movement of the USSR border westward to the Vistula River in what was formerly Eastern Poland that was hardly an accident of geography. In fact, the irony is that this is the same boundary that was established when the Soviets and the Nazis carved up Poland in 1939. The Louisiana and Alaska purchases are two other examples that established national boundaries that obviously were not arbitrary accidents of geography.

This lawyer believes that realization of our common humanity can lead us toward policies that benefit migrants and citizens alike in the best tradition of this migrant nation. Indeed, such policies already exist as temporary migrant workers are admitted to the U.S. to help with the planting, cultivation, and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. This policy enables them to earn more than they could in their homelands and enables Americans to have a greater variety in their diets.

The U.S. was once a nation where slavery was legal, where women were denied the vote, and which began as a nation of immigrants. We abolished slavery almost 150 years ago and granted woman suffrage in 1920 with the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

In the early days of our Republic, a vast, largely unsettled continent lay before the Founding Fathers and their successors. Natural resources like arable land, timber, fish, water, and minerals seemed limitless. Immigrants were welcomed in large numbers. Now we know natural resources are not unlimited and our policies have changed to reflect that fact. The last major wave of immigration ended in the early 20th century. Those who keep referring to our “immigrant past” are missing the point that the operative word is the word “past.” Our country is now fully developed, settled, and populated. We therefore have a very limited need for more immigrants.

We should, of course, treat immigrants exactly as their status warrants. We allow them to perform a service for us in the fields and in return they earn much more than they could in their homelands or they would not be here. We accord them basic human rights but not all the rights of citizens or legal residents. In return we ask them to abide by our laws and to leave our country before their visas expire. And we ask that they enter our country only if they have the proper authorization.

The immigration lawyer believes that we should focus all our Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement resources on the apprehension of just the drug and weapon traffickers, as if they would be willing to self-identify to make that approach possible. He would let the others go and not worry about them.

The Governor of California has been singularly negligent in his failure to aid the federal government in the discharge of its duty to secure our borders and prevent the establishment of sanctuary cities. He has finally seen the light and has recently deployed some National Guard troops to the border. Schwarzenegger's office said the governor believes more Border Patrol agents are needed to reduce illegal border crossings, human trafficking and the influx of narcotics. The point that he and so many others have failed to recognize is that, without vigorous internal enforcement, more agents or troops at the border will only minimally reduce, not stop, the flood of illegals.

The East Germans found to their dismay that people would brave machine gun towers, mine fields, and multi-layered fences and walls to escape to the West, Why? Answer: because if they were successful, they knew they would never be repatriated.

Similarly, illegal aliens know if they can escape the immediate environs of the border, they will be home free. Under the Administration’s current nonenforcement policies, the probability of illegal aliens being apprehended and repatriated is extremely low unless they run afoul of the law by committing serious crimes. What the Administration refuses to admit is that to secure the borders requires more than improvements in staffing, infrastructure, and the rules of engagement; it requires vigorous and continuous internal enforcement with expeditious repatriation of all of those who are apprehended. That is the missing ingredient of border security in depth. Under current policies the borders can never be secure. Without the threat and the actuality of repatriation, border violations will continue.

The immigration lawyer seems to think that it is easy to tell a drug smuggler from a run-of-the mill illegal alien when they appear at the border or are found in the Arizona desert. According to the immigration lawyer, as soon as a Border Patrol officer has made this easy distinction, he can turn the illegal alien loose and just arrest the drug smuggler. I can hear their conversation now. The illegal alien, who has the drugs on his person or in his vehicle, turns to the agent and points at the other alien and says, “He forced me to carry his drugs.” So the agent says, “Of course, I understand, you are free to go” and proceeds to clap the handcuffs or restraints on the other guy who is actually just a routine border jumper.

This lawyer further asserts that to sort out the drug smugglers from the legitimate tourists and visa holders at the airport ports of entry, we would have to do a body cavity search of everyone including citizens. The most important distinction that he overlooks here is that those apprehended in the desert are not likely to have papers of any kind. Those arriving at an airport would certainly have appropriate documents that could easily be checked. The two cases are entirely different in that sense and that makes it easier to hold those apprehended near the borders for processing. At the airport, those with legitimate papers may still be recognized as smugglers by experienced agents who understand how they act and the subterfuges they employ.

Young people who get into the trade are often asked to swallow many condom-wrapped packages of drugs. After they arrive in the U.S., they go to the specified address to deliver the goods. Of course, if the packages break and release the drugs, the courier could die of an overdose.

The lawyer adds that anyone who wants to enforce the law has an unspoken agenda based on the proposition that if you can’t tell drug dealers from basketball players from rappers, because they all look alike, then we should lock ‘em all up. This, of course, is a ridiculous statement on the face of it. As a lawyer, he knows that no one is suggesting that because it would be illegal and would infringe on the civil rights of citizens. That is quite a different story from those apprehended at the border or internally who have fraudulent documents or no papers at all and who may be subject a law like SB 1070. But he knows that. He, like so many others, sees everything through a glass darkly and when he has no substantive arguments, he plays the race card, or as he put it “I find it hard to be civil in the face of straight racism.”

Anyone, especially a word merchant or lawyer, who uses the term “racism” should at least be conversant with its definition. My dictionary provides the following definition: Racism--“An excessive and irrational belief in or advocacy of the superiority of a given group, people, or nation, usually one’s own, on the basis of racial differences having no scientific validity.”

The word "superiority" may be the key word in that that definition. That definition didn't stop the lawyer from drawing his own biased conclusions and labeling just about anything he disagrees with as racism. Nevertheless, we can say with certainty that in accordance with the definition none of the following beliefs constitute racism.

1. The belief that, as President Obama put it in his immigration speech, “Our nation, like all nations, has the right and obligation to control its borders and set laws for residency and citizenship. And no matter how decent they are, no matter their reasons, the 11 million who broke these laws should be held accountable."
2. A belief in national sovereignty, the national interest, and national character.
3. A belief that America is fully settled and developed and has a limited need for more immigrants.
4. A belief in or advocacy of a reduction in quotas for new immigrants to about 250,000 per year in all categories except tourists, students, and temporary migrant farm workers but including the number of all chain immigrations and family reunifications.
5. A belief that chain (family unification) immigrations should be limited to the spouses and minor children of citizens and that adult relatives of citizens should compete with all other applicants for admission on an even playing field.
5. A belief that the “limit” of finite natural resources per capita as population increases without bounds is zero. (The more there are of us, the less there is for each of us.)
6. A belief that the environment will be severely damaged by a doubling of our population.
7. A belief that homophilia is often mistaken for homophobia.
8. A belief that one can prefer his own culture to one that is loud and obscene without being a racist; and that culture can cut across races and ethnicity.
9. A belief that nations have no obligation to accept more immigrants than they can readily assimilate and who are needed by their economies.
10. A belief that the focus on immigration enforcement in the states bordering Mexico is fully justified by the great preponderance of illegal aliens and drug smugglers who come from that direction.
11. A belief that internal enforcement is an essential element of border security.
12. A belief that E-verification should be mandatory across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and prospective.
13. A belief that individuals who have been unlawfully present in the United States for a continuous period of more than 180 days, but less than one year, and who voluntarily depart the U.S. should barred from re-entry for 3 years and those who have been here longer should be barred for 10 years. (This is the current law.)
14. A belief that all individuals who have been unlawfully present in the U.S. or who have attempted to enter unlawfully should serve a six month sentence working on border infrastructure before they are repatriated with the admonition that if they return they will do hard time for a minimum of two years.
15. A belief that all local law enforcement authorities should be required to check the immigration status of anyone who is stopped for another infraction and who the officer has reason to believe could be in the U.S. illegally.
16. A belief that minor children, regardless of citizenship, should accompany their parents under a removal order as the best way to maintain family unity.
17. A belief that population growth in the U.S. is due almost solely to legal immigrants, illegal aliens, their higer fertility rates, and their progeny.
18. A belief that to reduce the future demand for energy we must stabilize our population.

I think this lawyer must be one of those small-minded, bleeding heart liberals, the ones who care nothing about the welfare of their country and whose myopia will surely destroy the greatest country on earth. I'm sorry but I find it hard to be civil in the face of straight incivility and name-calling.

The Death if Common Sense

A LONDON TIMES OBITUARY: (Adapted and paraphrased)
This is interesting and sadly true.
Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.
He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:
- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn't always fair; get used to it; and maybe it is your fault.
- Personal responsibility
- The world doesn't care about your self-esteem.
- If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
- No honest work is beneath your dignity.
- Don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
- Having as many times as you want to get the right answer bears no resemblance to anything in real life.
- In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
- It’s not what’s someone else is doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn), in the economic realm, you cannot legislate the poor independence by legislating the wealthy out of it. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. Government cannot give to the people what it does not first take away from the people. What one man receives without working for, another man must work for without receiving. He endorsed reliable strategies like: adults, not children, are in charge.

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened the condition of Common Sense.

He lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense was depressed as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault; when illegal aliens marched in the streets for rights they did not earn; when governments failed to enforce the laws they enacted.

Common Sense was disheartened when fellow citizens gave precedence to the interests of foreigners. Common sense wondered what happened to enlightened self-interest when citizens succumbed to an all too common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature’s limits.

Common Sense was finally weakened by the failure of Americans to recognize, as the eminent demographer, Joel Cohen, put it, “…the world [and the U.S.] cannot easily and comfortably accommodate an unlimited number of people at any desirable level of material, mental and civic well-being.”

Common Sense recalled the beautiful quotation from John Stuart Mill, “There is room in the world, no doubt, and even in old countries [in 1848], for a great increase in population, supposing the arts of life to go on improving, and capital to increase. But even if innocuous, I confess I see very little reason for desiring it. The density of population necessary to enable mankind to obtain, in the greatest degree, all the advantages both of cooperation and of social intercourse, has, in all the populous countries been attained. A population may be too crowded, though all be amply supplied with food and raiment. It is not good for man to be kept perforce at all times in the presence of his own species. A world, from which solitude is extirpated, is a poor ideal.”

Now more than 150 years later, Common Sense realized that the supply of food, clothing, and shelter is threatened in many corners of the world and in the niches and crannies of the U.S. economy. He saw that the need to stabilize world and U.S. populations is now urgent. He knew that population-driven economic growth is ultimately unsustainable.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot, spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement; when criminals were allowed to testify against those charged with their apprehension; and when politicians reached new heights of hypocrisy, perfidy, mendacity, and corruption.

Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his three sons, Reason, Loyalty, and Lawfulness.

He is survived by his 6 stepbrothers: I Know My Rights; I Want It Now; Someone Else Is To Blame; Amnesty Now; Open Borders; and I'm A Victim. Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Common Sense 2010

In the 1700s, patriot Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense" which made the case against King George III's tyranny and for the independence of the colonies. Apparently, at some point, the British people recognized the merit of his arguments and honored him with a statue in the city of his birth, Thetford, Norfolk, Great Britain.

One of his memorable quotes is , “A long habit of not thinking a thing right gives it the superficial appearance of being wrong." This reminds me of our misguided friends who favor illegal aliens over their fellow citizens. Their long habit of thinking secure borders and the rule of law are not very important, tends to give these issues a superficial appearance of being wrong.

It is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing. Consistent with that idea, our objectives have been to (1) allow the truth to appear about immigration's unarmed invasion and its deadly consequences, and (2) to give precedence to the national interest and the rule of law over illegal aliens or even prospective legal immigrants.

The anti-America,pro-illegals rebel against reason. They blithely ignore the long-term consequences of the support they provide for the illegal aliens in America. Few have even given those consequences a second thought and those who have, gloat about the future when minorities will be the majority and Hispanics will control the political processes of our country. They nod with approval knowing that comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) as a code term for amnesty, will mean 12-30 million instant citizens, leaving any thoughts about border security a mere façade. CIR clearly has come to mean "amnesty." They clothe their support of foreign interests in ethnocentric, quasi-humanitarianism, disregarding the broader national interest and yet, facetiously, claim to be loyal Americans. They object to any effective technique or procedure for identifying and sorting out illegal aliens. When they say they are worried about some imposition on or profiling of Hispanic citizens, they are just indulging in an artifice or "red herring." Their real objective is to prevent any meaningful effort to apprehend and repatriate a significant numbers of illegals, after they have served six months working on border infrastructure.

We believe in the equality of man; and we believe that religious and secular duties consist of doing justice, extending mercy, and endeavoring to live in harmony with our fellow-citizens. Some believe that when you look in a man's eyes you will see a divine spark that proves he is a man not a horse to be treated as a beast of burden. Others question that idea and ask, "Where have you seen this divine spark in operation? Where have you noted this magnificent equality?" No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf or a tree. Many work all their lives exercising their right to prove that they are better than others through their achievements, the jobs they have held, or the esteem in which they are held by their bosses and their peers. They may not think of it in that way. They may see it only as striving for success.

What really matters is equality of opportunity and justice for our citizens. Justice is generally defined in terms of the laws which govern all civilized societies, that justice is the legal system, or the act of applying or upholding the law. Justice can also be thought of as fairness or reasonableness, especially in the way people are treated or decisions are made. In this regard, the fairness or reasonableness with which people are treated is measured against the objective standard of the law, equally and evenly applied. Thus, he that would make his own justice secure, must guard even illegal aliens from a miscarriage of justice; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself. But the concept of justice has already been breached in the case of illegal aliens who have violated our borders and are present in our country illegally. If we do not use the objective standard of the law, the rule of law becomes meaningless and we are thrown into anarchy.

It is the business of a little mind to shrink from his or her duty and from the loyalty to their country expected of citizens. In their search for some rationale for their dereliction of duty and disloyal behavior, they are unable to obscure that they value common blood over all else without regard to its ultimate cost to the country they profess to know and love. It is an affront to treat this ethnocentric behavior and false humanitarianism with complaisance. It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry into the motivation and rationale of these latter day apologists for illegal aliens. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.

How can anyone believe that allowing our population to increase without bounds will be a good thing? How can anyone believe that reducing the diversity of immigrants entering our country will increase its diversity? How can anyone believe that finite natural resources can somehow be stretched to serve twice as many people without any impact on the quality of life? These are infidelities that characterize those who favor illegal aliens, open borders, and more legal immigrants over the national interest.

It is not a few hardworking illegal aliens that we are worried about; we are defending a country, an idea, a national culture, a national character, a national language, the national interest, the national sovereignty, and the quality of life. As many as 30 million illegal aliens and their progeny may be waiting for the Congress to betray our country for their own shortsighted, selfish interests. If Congress yields to that temptation, there will be no turning back. If amnesty is passed, the 30 million will use the outrageous "family reunification provision" to bring in their large extended families, swelling the immigrant ranks to as many as 150 million, many of whom will line up immediately to begin collecting welfare, Aid to Dependent Children, Earned Income Credits, free education, Medicaid, Medicare and even the Social Security one presidential candidate promised them in 2008. Within a year, they will have been organized by the radical Hispanic lobby groups and prepared to use the ballot box to take over our country. Already, we see on the blogs, "Voto Latino". Wouldn’t a loyal American simply ask everyone to “Vote!”. The result might be the same but at least it wouldn't be so flagrantly disloyal.

When our politicians wake up to discover what their greed and stupidity have done, it will be too late to do anything. They will be turned out of office and our country will no longer be under the control of the American people. It is this concern that motivates the opponents of amnesty and open borders, not the nativism, bigotry, xenophobia, racism or the persecution of minorities and immigrants of which they are often falsely accused in ad hominem attacks. Those are not the features of the mainstream opposition to illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration. They may play some role in the fringe organizations on the extreme left and extreme right. Some would argue that they are features of MALDEF, MEChA, La Raza and at least some of the 800 hate groups identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center (based on undisclosed criteria).

The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason. In the case of immigration's unarmed invasion, the anti-American,pro-illegals often inadvertently provide the facts that permit us to reason about the future of our country. For example, they gloat about the expected minority majority. They point out the population and demographic trends that show Hispanics to be the fastest growing ethnic group in America. It has been shown that Mexicans and their progeny alone account for as many new immigrants as the next ten countries combined. How does that add to the diversity of our nation? Obviously, it has just the opposite effect.

What they studiously avoid is any analysis that would show what this means in terms of our country's future. Victor Hansen has given us a glimpse of that future in his book, "Mexifornia: A State of Becoming". Having lived among Mexicans, taught them, intermarried with them, and observed them first hand, Hansen is in a excellent position to draw the obvious conclusions about where we are headed. These are the conclusions the legal immigration and illegal alien proponents seem incapable of discerning. It is both the direction and the magnitude which are to be taken into consideration not the individual hard working alien. Our country is clearly headed in the wrong direction on immigration and the magnitude of that problem boggles the mind. We can only reason from what is; we can only reason on actualities, not on shortsighted and unwarranted expectations without basis or a certain complacency about America's future. Bankrupt California is the harbinger of America's future.

In Arizona, citizens frustrated by the failure of the federal government to enforce our immigration laws have done the only thing left for them to do. They have fashioned a new state law that closely follows the federal statutes in a final attempt to get control of its borders by making some acts violations of state law as well as the federal law. This is an excellent law that will enable local authorities to do what the Administration has refused to do, get a handle on the illegal alien problem. Some say this will divert the police and sheriffs from their primary duties to serve and protect. On the contrary, activities under the new law will be incidental to their primary duties. The law will reinforce the ability of authorities to serve and protect.

However, the illegal alien problem cannot be solved by the border patrol or ICE agents alone. They need the full support of local government and local authorities. New laws are needed to deny illegals sanctuary in the cities and in the rural areas.

The anti-America, anti-rule of law, pro-illegals among Arizona citizens have tried, out of desperation, to associate the new law with racial profiling which is illegal or other violations of human rights. When confronted with the question of where best to look for illegal aliens particularly those from Mexico, they stutter and stammer, because they know the answer is within the Hispanic community and at the locations typically populated by illegals. They are not really concerned about racial profiling. Their real concern relates to the fact that this law might actually turn the corner on illegal aliens and begin their repatriation.

There are many ways to reduce the extent to which the new law would represent an imposition on Hispanic citizens. But some citizens prefer to remain a part of the problem rather than become a part of the solution. One of most obvious ways is to issue a new comprehensive, counterfeit-proof, machine-readable, biometric ID to all who wish to avoid any imposition. Embedded on such an ID could be all of information found on other conventional IDs like Social Security cards, library cards, parking permits, drivers licenses, green cards, proofs of auto and health insurance, thumb prints, photos and other physical descriptors, perhaps even a coded DNA sample, and a record of honorable military service. This single universal ID would then serve many purposes from checking out a book, cashing a check,to proving a license to drive and one's immigration or workstatus. Showing this single card would be no more burdensome than showing a drivers license. The new ID could be issued by trustworthy employees at designated state and local government offices based on a thorough verification of the documents presented by the citizen, permanent resident, or other applicant. The E-verify system could be expanded to include all of the relevant information so that the bona fides of any applicant could be quickly checked. Police cruisers could also have devices for reading the biometric card. Problem solved.

The only missing ingredient is the cooperation of Hispanic citizens to help their country solve this pressing problem. Their willingness or unwillingness to provide this cooperation is a measure of their loyalty and how valid their concerns about racial profiling really are. If the police knew that most if not all Hispanic citizens in the state had such a validated ID, there would be little incentive to willy-nilly accost every Hispanic they came across. After all there must two or three million Hispanic citizens in Arizona versus perhaps only 500,000 illegals. If every Hispanic was stopped, there would be less than a 20% chance that each stop would uncover an illegal. This would not be a very wise use of the officers' time. So the police would mostly likely focus their efforts on routine traffic stops or on the use of checkpoints like those employed to catch those not wearing their seatbelts (click it or ticket) or DUIs. Neither of these approaches is remotely related to racial profiling and yet both would be very effective in identifying illegals and a beginning of a solution to the problem.

When men and women yield up the privilege of thinking and reasoning, the last shadow of liberty and the uniquely American experiment quits the horizon. When we fail to recognize the most elementary facts about our present situation and fail to draw the obvious conclusions, we have abandoned reason in favor of demagoguery. When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. When we plan for posterity, we need to remove our rose-colored glasses and objectively assess what that future nation will be like for our children and our children's children. If there must be trouble regarding immigration and illegal aliens, let it be in our day, that our children may have peace and prosperity and the same quality of life as we have enjoyed. That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly. That which we value so little, we will quickly lose.

Again paraphrasing Thomas Paine: these are the times that try the souls of men and women alike. The summer citizen and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from opposing excessive legal immigration and the flood of illegal aliens; but he or she who stands now for the national interest and the rule of law, deserves the love and thanks of all. Those who expect to reap the blessings of America must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. Perhaps in this case time will make more converts than reason but by then it will be too late. The America we know and love will be gone. If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.

Crime in Arizona

A few years ago, a young park ranger was murdered in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, presumably by drug smugglers.  Now our pourous borders and go soft approach to illegal aliens have resulted in yet another murder.

Posted on line was the following:  "Forwarded to me by a friend of a friend who retired from Border Patrol. As you know, one of the local ranchers was murdered in Douglas two weeks ago. His funeral is tomorrow. I received three messages similar to the one below from different officers within the Rangers and law enforcement. Yesterday afternoon I talked to another rancher near us who is a friend of ours and whose great grandfather started their ranch here in 1880. These are good people. He told me what really happened out at the Krentz ranch and what you won't read in the papers. The Border Patrol is afraid of starting a small war between civilians here and the drug cartels in Mexico. Bob Krentz was checking his water like he does every evening and came upon an illegal who was lying on the ground telling him he was sick. Bob called the Border Patrol and asked for a medical helicopter evac. As he turned to go back to his ATV he was shot in the side. The round came from down and angled up so they know the shooter was on the ground. Bob's firearm was in the ATV so he had no chance. Wounded he called the Cochise County Sheriff and asked for help. Bleeding in the lungs he called his brother but the line was bad so he called his wife but again the line was bad. Several ranchers heard the radio call and drove to his location. Bob was dead by this time. The ranchers tracked the shooter 8 miles back towards Mexico and cornered him in a brushy draw. This was all at night. The Sheriff and Border Patrol arrived and told them not to go down and engage the murderer. They went around to the back side and if you can believe it the assassin managed to get by a BP helicopter and a Sheriff's posse and back to Mexico. So much for professional help when you need it. One week before the murder Bob and his brother Phil (who I shoot with) hauled a huge quantity of drugs off the ranch that they found in trucks. One week before that a rancher near Naco did the same thing. Two nights later gangs broke into his ranch house and beat him and his wife and told them that if they touched any drugs they found they would come back and kill them. The ranchers here deal with cut fences and haul drug deliveries off their ranches all the time. What ranchers think is that the drug cartels beat the one rancher and shot Bob because they wanted to send a message. Bob always gave food and water to illegals and so they think they sent the assassin to pose as an illegal who was hungry and thirsty knowing it would catch Bob off guard. What is going on down here is NOT being reported. You need to tell people how bad it is along the border. Texas is worse. Near El Paso it's in a state of war. 5000 people were killed in Ciudad Juarez last year and it's over 2000 so far this year. Gun sales down here are through the roof and I get emails from people wanting firearms training. Something has to be done but I don't hold out much hope. These gangs have groups in almost every city in the US. This is serious business. The Barrio Azteca and their sub gangs are like Mexican Corporations and organized extremely well. If this doesn't get dealt with down here you guys will deal with it on your streets."

February 22, 2010

Open Letter to Rep. Luis Gutierrez:

In your introductory remarks for H.R. 4321 you made a number of statements that warrant a response. What you call “real immigration reform” in your bill turns out to be a complete emasculation of our immigration system and immigration laws. The kind of Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) most Americans will support is a far different thing from what you propose and what was previously proposed in the CIR bills that failed in 2007 and 2008.

The key question is whose or what CIR concept is best for our country? You have chosen to present a bill which you may believe to be best for you and for your illegal ethnic brethren but it is not what is best for our country. Your bill places the interests of foreigners above those of your fellow citizens. If you consider yourself a loyal American, the ethnocentrism evident in H.R. 4321is totally inappropriate.

There are many important and significant facts that you and the Hispanic Caucus have either chosen to ignore or are completely oblivious to. While the negative impacts of illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration on the 10-17% unemployment rate and the rising health care costs play an important role in America’s antithesis to your version of CIR, they are not the only considerations by any means. Nevertheless, in these times of high unemployment it is unconscionable to suggest that we need more rather than fewer legal immigrants and that we should grant amnesty to illegal aliens rather than expediting their removal.

The legal immigration quota should be reduced to the historical level of about 200,000 per year exclusive of tourists, students, and migrant farm workers who are willing to return to their homelands when the harvest is in. What you propose is just the opposite and, if enacted, would surely have an adverse effect on the long term well-being of our country and the future of our descendents.

Illegal aliens flood our emergency rooms and hospitals and soak up Medicare funds that are badly needed by citizens. Certainly this drain must have some bearing on health care costs, the health care crisis, and the billions of dollars that are spent on Medicaid. Are illegal aliens responsible for all health care cost increases and all unemployment? Of course not! Are they important undeniable factors in both Medicaid costs and the number of citizens unemployed? Of course!

The immigrants America is attracting these days are mostly poor and badly educated. They reproduce, fall ill, struggle with school, require hiring of paid interpreters, multi-lingual ballots and other government publications, and create instant citizens who drain the welfare and Medicaid budgets of states like Texas and California. Fifty three percent of immigrant households with children collected welfare from at least one government program in 2008. These programs include food stamps, Medicaid, Aid to Dependent Children, and free school lunches.

These are not people doing "jobs Americans won't do." These are people getting benefits that drain the coffers of states already in deep financial difficulty.

Each day at Parkland Hospital, Dallas, Texas some 32 babies of illegal alien parents, mostly Mexican, are born into instant U.S. citizenship. In fiscal 2006, that was 75 percent of the 16,489 deliveries. Medicaid pays the bill—or at least some of it, some of the time. Do you suppose there is any relationship between this and the need to increase the Medicaid budget every year draining funds from other important programs?

One wonders where all of this Medicaid expense and the emergency room losses are factored into the calculations of those who praise the illegal aliens as a good labor source. Isn’t it time we required all employers to provide full family health care insurance for all of their foreign employees? Is it any wonder that our nation faces a health care crisis, that Medicare is all but bankrupt, and that gazillions have to be paid out in Medicaid? Does anyone believe Gutierrez-brand CIR will solve these problems?

Your sarcasm regarding global warming and traffic congestion is misplaced. Americans produce 20 metric tons of pollutants per capita annually. Adding another 300 million people by the end of this century will produce another 6 billion tons of pollutants annually at the present rate. Even if, by some technological miracle, we were to be able to reduce our per capita output by half, to that of Mexico’s 10 metric tons per year, we would still have made absolutely no progress toward reducing the present unacceptable level as our population doubles. Have the Hispanic Caucus and the immigration lobbies thought about that or are they ignoring this inconvenient truth?

The “limit” of finite natural resources per capita as population grows without bounds is zero. The more there are of us, the less there is for each of us. How much farther down that road does the Caucus think we should go? I hope the answer is, “No más.”

There is a limit to the amount of the water that is available for domestic and agricultural uses, especially here in the Southwest where many Hispanics live. The burgeoning populations of cities like Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver are soaking up the water resources needed to grow the food needed to feed the additional people. If you check out an atlas of California, you’ll notice that Owens Lake is filled in with white, not blue. That’s because Los Angeles sucked it dry decades ago. Las Vegas is considering similar plunder of groundwater elsewhere in Nevada. And there are many other cities—Houston and Tampa, to name a couple—that have chosen to push nature’s limits. We continue to plunder the Great Plains’ Ogallala Aquifer, the largest underground reservoir in the United States and one of the largest on the planet. It once held as much water as Lake Huron. It is a treasure that took millennia to accumulate. Remarkably, it could cease to be a water resource within another generation. We are left with yet another illustration of an all too common American mindset: short on vision, mired in denial and unable to comprehend nature’s limits.

Water rights bought up by cities means there will be land that can no longer be productive. This is clearly a losing proposition that needs recognition in any proposed immigration reform bill. With immigration, legal and illegal, adding up to 2 million people a year to a population that is already too large, we are setting ourselves up for a disaster.

Legal immigrants in excess of the historic level of about 200,000 per year, illegal aliens, their progeny, and their higher fertility rates are the main factors in population growth and the depletion of finite natural resources. The fertility rate of American women is near the replacement level of 2.1. It follows that immigration and tax policy reforms are needed to address population growth as an issue of vital importance to the future of our country. Your version of CIR flies in the face of these facts.

You may consider the immigrant blame game to be deplorable but that view ignores the real and significant adverse impacts excessive legal immigration and the presence of illegal aliens have on our country and will have on its future. This is not to deny the many contributions of legal immigrants and even some of the illegals who are willing to do the hardest work our economy requires. Nevertheless, we must limit the amount of foreign labor we import to the demonstrated needs of our economy and make sure employer pay the full cost of foreign workers rather than offloading some of it on unsuspecting taxpayers. With the current high unemployment rate this is the perfect time to enact enlightened tax and immigration policies that achieve the goal of a stable population but I suppose that is too much to expect from a Congress that hasn’t seen a true statesman since the days of the late Senator Arthur Vandenberg of Michigan.

In the immigration debate, some things are indeed constant. They never change but they are regularly ignored by those who have an axe to grind: immigration lawyers, the ethnocentric communities and their leaders, and, of course, employers who want to be absolved of their past sins and be assured of a continuous flow of cheap labor. They are pushing an agenda that does not bode well for the America we know and love. Does any reasonable person really believe we can double or triple our population without affecting our quality of life or standard of living? Population-driven economic growth is not sustainable in the long run? As I stated above, the more there are of us, the less there is for each of us, and that includes Hispanic citizens as well as everyone else. Why is this simple fact not understood by the Hispanic community and the pro-immigration lobby?

There are lots of people out there who give lip service to border security, just as you do, but, in the next breath, would deny us the tools we need to achieve that goal. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing. If the truth were known, they would be clearly recognized as open borders advocates. They are the worst of the anti-America, pro-immigration elements in our country.

So what would it take to secure our borders? First and foremost it is clear that the borders can never be absolutely secure. It is also clear that if illegal aliens think they will be home free once they escape the immediate environs of the border, secure borders will always be just a pipe dream. Secure borders requires a many- faceted approach: continuing improvements in border infrastructure and border patrol staffing, improvements in the rules of engagement, penalties for employers and foreign workers who violate the law, and vigorous and continuous internal enforcement. We desperately need mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers and employees, new and current, public and private. It is the sine qua non of in depth border security. If we deprive illegals of job opportunities, they will have less incentive to come. If we quickly apprehend them and send them on their way, they will stop violating our borders. If we sentence them to six months work on the border infrastructure at minimum wage, they will have some time to think about their transgressions.

Separate immigration courts with judges or justices of the peace in residence at all detention centers with a mandate to make decisions within 24 hours of apprehension would also provide a disincentive for illegal entry. Certainly, appeals must be limited to one week. Contractors who operate detention facilities should be compensated based on throughput rather than detainee-days. Quick decisions could be enabled by the enactment of a rigid set of criteria to be used by these judges and JOPs. These criteria should explicitly exclude family separation as a basis for a favorable immigration decision. Adults under a removal order must take their minor children with them regardless of citizenship. Adult children who are citizens, of course, can make their own choices whether to leave with their parents or remain. This would be no different from the situations of other immigrants who left adult relatives behind when they came to this country. I have many relatives in Germany and Denmark who are perfectly content with the decisions of their ancestors to stay there while their brothers and sisters moved on. Those immigrants made the decision to start a new life here while their adult relatives were content to continue living in their homeland.

The issues of how many legal immigrants to admit each year, whether to end chain immigrations, and to provide yet another amnesty for illegal aliens are too important to allow mere politicians to exercise complete control without accountability to the American voters. Cynical politicians ignore what is best for America and pander to those who they believe can help them to achieve perennial re-election and the power that comes with it to do more damage.

The comments of TV personalities are often closer to the truth than the typical politician’s rants. And the American people generally agree with them except when they indulge in some over-the-top comment that goes too far in an attempt to make a point or simply to be entertaining. For every Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh there is a Chris Mathews or Keith Olbermann. They all play the ratings game. Immigrants are only secondarily to blame for some of the economic, financial, and other woes of our country. The real culprits are the Congress and the Administration who have failed to enact, promote, and enforce immigration policies in the national interest.

The incessant promotion of illegal aliens and excessive legal immigration is the most deplorable element of public debate in our nation. We have failed to deal with the facts of excessive legal immigration, the continued violation of our borders, and their long term adverse impacts on our standard of living and quality of life. We need to look no farther than the teeming masses of China, India, Bangladesh, and Sub-Saharan Africa to know what that would be like.

Something else that has been predictable, constant, and dishonorable is the way that many of our nation’s Hispanic citizens have responded to the illegal presence of so many millions of aliens who are their ethnic brethren. They should know that their fellow non-Hispanic citizens want the immigration laws to be enforced. They want illegals to be removed unless an employer can provide irrefutable evidence that they are unable to fill their jobs with citizen labor, even after extensive advertising offering a living wage and a hiring preference. Instead of behaving as loyal Americans and making common cause with their fellow citizens to achieve real immigration reform, some Hispanics support those who have violated our borders and flaunted the rule of law, the very foundation of all civilized societies. They avoid completely any thoughts about the long term negative consequences to themselves and their descendents. In that respect, they are like most of our shortsighted politicians whose myopic approach to legislation has created many of the problems we face today: a huge national debt; perennial budget deficits; a negative balance of trade; a fading manufacturing capability; wasteful spending on multi-lingual ballots and other government publications and proceedings; the unprecedented Social Security and Medicare unfunded liabilities; the burgeoning costs of Medicaid, the special interest appropriations to organizations like ACORN and La Raza; and immigration and tax policies that do not serve the best interests of this country. The ineptness of Congress in keeping our fiscal house in order is well-known and hopefully will result in the failure of many re-election campaigns.

Does anyone believe that the importation of millions of people from failed countries run by oligarchs will improve America? What is the probability that a Latinized America will be less like the America we know and love and more like the countries the illegals fled to come here?

The Congress has responded to the immigration and illegal alien problems year after year with faulty legislation. While immigrant proponents have come to the table, they have failed repeatedly to craft a workable solution to our urgent crisis. Instead they offer thousand page bills containing the same old loopholes that weaken our immigration laws rather than reform them. The American people have sat patiently waiting for some statesman in the Congress to introduce a bill that meets the fundamental criteria for effective reform and that is based on a careful assessment of the long-term impact of excessive population growth and the abandonment of the rule of law.

In the public debate, some commentators and critics have used harsh language to get the attention of the American people regarding immigration’s unarmed invasion and its deadly consequences. The opposition has responded with charges of nativism, xenophobia, and racism. Then they introduce another CIR bill that they claim will cure all the ills of the immigration system but which instead merely sweeps the illegal alien problem under the carpet by offering yet another amnesty and opens the floodgates for unneeded and unwanted population growth. They try to bully those who oppose their brand of negative reform.

Immigrant citizens marched in the street flying foreign flags and ripping the American flag from counter demonstrators’ hands. They say they are asking for fairness but those who are citizens they are already enjoying all the fairness and benefits of our great country has to offer. What they are really asking for is amnesty for their illegal alien ethnic brethren and open borders for others so that hundreds of thousands more can enter without difficulty to participate in governmental welfare and largess. They are not acting like loyal citizens. They are giving precedence to foreigners who have violated our borders over the wishes of the American people who place the national interest first.

They attend community meetings to plot how to achieve their goals. They often focus on the concept of family unity or reunification. Having created the problem themselves by entering our country illegally, they now want to be absolved so that they can remain here. It is not a question of family unity. It is a question of the rule of law. Families can remain unified by simply returning as a unit to their homeland. Minor children must always accompany their parents if they are ordered to be removed. Adult citizen children can make their own choice. A fair immigration policy is one which does not grant special favors to those who have entered our country illegally and which requires families to take responsibility for their own actions. Chain immigrations obviously should be limited to the spouses and children of those who have already become citizens. There is no need for legislation to stop tearing families apart. Everyone knows they are free to return to their countries of origin or stay there to begin with.

We all have learned something from our religious leaders, who have reminded us of these words from the good book: “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth’; but I say unto you, whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” Indeed America has done this through a number of immigration bills and amnesties in the past but enough is enough. The bible surely does not expect anyone to continue to turn the other cheek. I believe our country has turned its cheek so many times that our collective head is spinning like a top.

It’s easy to be angry and frustrated about immigration but still America has turned the other cheek with patience and tolerance and dignity. But our good will and humanitarianism is not unlimited. Americans are saying, “No más!”

It is time for the Hispanic caucus to come to the table as Americans not as hyphenated Americans. It’s time to negotiate and compromise until we have determined what is in the best interests of our country, not what is in the best interests of illegal aliens or all those who wish to come here. Let’s break any comprehensive reform bill into a series of shorter bills that everyone can read and understand before any vote is taken. As you point out immigration bills need not be complicated. Neither should they be 1000 pages long.

And let’s put the debate on C-Span for all to see. Let’s begin with the reforms I have listed in the attachment. With patience, tolerance, and dignity and putting country first, we can achieve comprehensive immigration reform.

Our nation’s immigration policy should be pro-jobs, pro-rule of law, pro-secure borders, pro-stable population, pro-enforcement, and pro-security. A number of smaller bills were introduced previously in 2007 and 2008 that placed top priority on securing the borders before any other reforms could be considered. That was the correct approach but the powers that be in Congress scuttled those bills. They would have been a great beginning for immigration reform.

Legal immigrants must indeed learn English just as my grandparents and parents did. And they should not be granted citizenship until they are fully fluent in English. Multi-lingual ballots and other government publications and proceedings should be dispensed with by repealing Executive Order 13166. Those legal residents who are unable to achieve fluency will still be free of any threat of deportation. Their children will be able to achieve citizenship immediately as they progress through American schools learning English and Civics. The current English test for citizenship is a farce.

We’ve waited long enough. Just because America has turned its cheek in the past doesn’t mean we should turn away from what’s right, what is legal, and what is in the national interest. Just because we’ve been patient with illegal aliens, doesn’t mean we can wait forever for them to return to their homelands until they can enter legally.



America has given. America has granted amnesty. America has waited for its Hispanic citizens to act like loyal Americans. And America has compromised. But there are some fundamentals that America simply cannot negotiate away and cannot wait for one minute longer: secure borders, the need for illegal alien families to return to their homelands as a unit to maintain family unity, the opportunity for citizenship based only on the needs of our economy, singular citizenship and allegiance, paying taxes, social integration, and linguistic and cultural assimilation.

We need immigration reform that will secure our borders, identify those who in our country illegally, remove those who are surplus to the needs of our economy, punish employers who exploit immigrant labor or who employ illegal aliens; and reform that absolutely prohibits another amnesty or anything like it. We must assert our values and our principles as a nation of laws. We were once a nation of immigrants but no longer should be. In the early days of our nation, a largely unsettled continent lay before the Founding Fathers. Natural resources like land, water, fish, game, timber, and minerals seemed limitless. Now we know better. We are sending our treasure to despots in the Middle East and South America to buy oil while Congress and the Administration fail to exploit all of the domestic sources available. We have 300 million people in America and some would argue that is already too many. Certainly adding more people compounds the problems we are faced with in the economy, the environment, and in the availability of food, energy, and natural resources.

It is not enough to merely understand that we must secure our borders. We must backup that understanding with action and objective results. We have to agree to buttress infrastructure and staffing improvements at the border with changes in the rules of engagement and continuous and vigorous internal enforcement. We must begin with mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, current and new. These are the minimum essentials for CIR beginning with border security are listed in the enclosure. Without internal enforcement it will be impossible to achieve border security. Everyone knows that.

I hope that you will give these remarks the thoughtful consideration they deserve.



cc Senator Bennett

Senator Udall

Rep. Polis



Comprehensive Immigration Reform

The essential elements of real comprehensive immigration reform in priority order are:

1. Secure our borders first before any other immigration reforms are considered.

a. Continue improvements in border infrastructure and staffing.

b. Buttress these improvements with comprehensive internal enforcement using as the primary tool mandatory E-Verify across the board for all employers, public and private, and all employees, new and current.

c. Demonstrate that the borders are secure with objective data collected by the border patrol and ICE regarding the number and trend of apprehensions at the border and internally and a valid estimate of the total number of illegals still present in the U.S.

d. Supplement objective data with secret surveys of all border patrol and ICE agents asking their opinions as to whether the borders are secure.

e. Solicit and implement ideas from the border patrol and ICE on how border security and internal enforcement can be improved.

f. Require all illegal aliens apprehended at the border or internally to spend six months working on border infrastructure at minimum wage before they are fingerprinted, photographed, DNAed, and escorted to the border.

g. Prohibit catch and release at the border and internally.

h. End voluntary self-removal by illegal aliens; all removals, self-removal or otherwise, must be considered involuntary so that if they return without the proper documents they will be considered felons and do a minimum of two years of hard time.

i. Require illegals and their employers identified via E-Verify to pay the cost of repatriation.

j. Revise the rules of engagement to permit hot pursuit of drug runners and the use of lethal force and granting immunity from prosecution for agents in the legitimate performance of their duties.

k. Establish a deadline beyond which the use of fraudulent documents and social security numbers will be considered a felony.

2. Tie legal immigration quotas to the U.S. total unemployment rate by sector, profession, or type of work. (For example, if the unemployment level among computer programmers is above the specified criterion, legal immigration in that sector would be halted.)

a. Limit legal immigration to no more than 200,000 per year. (All successful applicants must be briefed on the desirability of a stable population and the adaptation necessary to facilitate that goal and achieve a soft landing for a sustainable economy.)

b. Design immigration and tax policy to achieve a stable population, the conservation of energy and natural resources, and the reduction of environment-destroying pollution of all kinds.

c. Use “Cap and Trade” as one means for achieving a stable population. (Women who wish to have more than the replacement number of children, about 2.1 on the average per couple, will have to buy credits from those who wish to have fewer.)



2. Grant accelerated citizenship consideration to aliens who enlist in the armed forces for at least 4 years and who serve at least one tour in a combat zone.



3. Make English the official language of the United States to be used for all ballots and other government publications and proceedings at all levels of government. (Repeal Executive Order 13166 but make public interpreters available to those who cannot afford one and who do not have a family member who can serve in that capacity.)

a. Grant legal immigration priority to English speaking applicants who have the skills needed by America to stay competitive in a global environment. Give accelerated consideration to foreign PhD students in math, physical science, engineering, and MDs in medicine who wish to become American citizens and who are prepared to renounce all allegiance to foreign countries or potentates and any claim on dual citizenship.

b. Raise the bar for citizenship to real fluency in reading, writing, and speaking English rather than the current few words and phrases from a study guide. (Failure to achieve fluency would not be cause for deportation of legal residents.)



4. Require that at least one parent be a citizen of the U.S. before birthright citizenship can be granted under the 14th Amendment.

5. End chain immigrations, except for the spouses and children of those who have been granted citizenship.

6. Make Immigration Court decisions within 24 hours of apprehension. Allow only one week allowed for appeals.

7. Establish rigid criteria for successful appeals. (Successful grounds for an appeal of a removal order may include: evidence of social integration, and cultural and linguistic assimilation, testimony of employers and co-workers as well as evidence that their children are in school learning civics, citizenship and English and are willing to declare their sole allegiance to the U.S. and renounce any dual allegiance and citizenship Family unification is excluded as a basis for an appeal. All minor children, regardless of citizenship, must accompany parents under a removal order.)

8. Prohibit the flying of foreign national flags except at foreign embassies and consulates and by permit for parades on ethnic holidays honoring our immigrant past. (For example, Columbus Day, St. Patrick's Day, Bastille Day, and Cinco de Mayo.)

9. Build a string of triage and obstetric hospitals across on the other side of the borders and provide transport to those hospitals for any foreigners who show up at the border crossings who need medical assistance. Share the cost of constructing these hospitals with our neighbors but, in return, expect Mexico and Canada to staff them.

10. Prohibit unwarranted criticism of legal immigrants and violence against anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference.

11. Allow employers to present irrefutable evidence that they have made a good faith effort to hire citizens by offering a living wage and a hiring preference before they can declare a hardship case for hiring foreign workers.

Comprehensive Immigration Reform

The essential elements of real comprehensive reform are not too hard to list:
1.  E-verify across the board for all employers and all employees, public and private.
2.  Legal immigration quotas tied to the U.S. unemployment rate by sector, profession, or type of work.   (For example, if the unemployment level among computer programmers is above the specified criterion, legal immigration in that sector would be halted.)
3.  Secure our borders first before considering amnesty for any illegal aliens.  (Demonstrate that the borders have been secured with objective data from the border patrol regarding the number and trend of apprehensions at the border and internally.  Supplement these objective data with the results of secret surveys or questionnaires completed by all border patrol and ICE agents.  Ask their suggestions for completing the job.)
4.  Recognize that the borders cannot be secured without vigorous and continuous enforcement based on E-Verify.
5.  Illegals under removal orders must serve six month working on border infrastructure at minimum wage; two years for repeat offenders.
6.  Grant legal immigration priority to English speaking applicants who have the skills needed by America to stay competitive in a global environment.  Give accelerated consideration to foreign PhD students in math, physical science, engineering, and MDs in medicine who wish to become American citizens and who are prepared to renounce all allegiance to foreign countries or potentates and any claim on dual citizenship.
7.  Raise the English bar for citizenship to real fluency rather than the current few words and phrases from a study guide.
8.  Require that at least one parent be a citizen of the U.S. before birthright citizenship can be granted under the 14th Amendment.
9.  End chain immigrations, except for the spouses and children of those who have been granted citizenship.
10.  Grant accelerated citizenship for aliens who enlist in the armed forces for at least 4 years and who have served at least one tour in a combat zone.
11.  Prohibit the flying of foreign national flags except at foreign embassies and consulates and by permit for parades on ethnic holidays honoring our immigrant past.  (For example, Columbus Day, St. Patrick's Day, Bastille Day, and Cinco de Mayo.)
 12.  Illegals identified through E-verify must be detained for ICE processing.
13.  Immigration court decisions should be made within 24 hours of apprehension with only one week allowed for appeals.
14.  Successful grounds for an appeal of a removal order may include evidence of social integration, and cultural and linguistic assimilation.  Testimony of employers and co-workers as well as evidence that any children are in school learning civics, citizenship and English may also be presented.  Family unification is excluded as a basis for an appeal.  All minor children, regardless of citizenship, must accompany parents under a removal order.
15.  Legal immigration should be limited the historic level of no more than 200,000 per year.  All such immigrants will be briefed on the desirability of a stable population and the adaptation necessary to facilitate that goal and achieve a soft landing for a sustainable economy.
16.  Immigration and tax policy will be designed to achieve a stable population, the conservation of energy and natural resources, and the reduction of environment-destroying pollution of all kinds.
17.  Cap and trade will be another means for achieving a stable population.  Women who wish to have more than the replacement number of children, about 2.1 on the average per couple, will have to buy credits from those who wish to have fewer.
18.  There will be no bashing of legal immigrants and no violence against anyone based on race, ethnicity, gender, or sexual preference.

One Nation under God

The Last and Most Authoritative Word on Obama's Birth

Clearing the Smoke on Obama’s Eligibility: An Intelligence Investigator’s June 10 Report
Editors Note: In December ‘08 a retired CIA officer commissioned an investigator to look into the Barack Obama birth certificate and eligibility issue. Here is an unedited version of the report.
June 10, 2009 Report, updated July 18, 2009
The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii
I think that I now understand the legal background to the question of where Obama was born.
Let’s begin with the statement that Dr. Chiyome Fukino, the Director of the Hawaii Department of Health released on October 31, 2008. The television and print media used this statement as a reason to prevent and treat with contempt any investigation into whether Barack Obama was not born in Hawaii. But the language of the statement was so carefully hedged and guarded that it should have had the opposite effect.
“There have been numerous requests for Sen. Barack Hussein Obama’s official birth certificate. State law (Hawai‘i Revised Statutes §338-18) prohibits the release of a certified birth certificate to persons who do not have a tangible interest in the vital record. Therefore, I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
It is understandable that after such an apparently definitive statement most news outlets, whether conservative or liberal, would accept this as sufficient grounds to relegate the controversy to the status of a fringe phenomenon. Unless they happened to take the trouble to look into the “state policies and procedures” as laid down by the relevant statutes. If they had done so, they would have seen that Dr. Fukino’s press release was carefully hedged and “lawyered” and practically worthless. But the media in general should not be faulted. The statement seems to roll out with such bureaucratic certainty and final authority. I believed it to be significant until a Honolulu attorney mailed me the relevant statutes. I was so surprised that I laughed out loud.
Here is a summary of Hawaii’s “state policies and procedures” in 1961.
In the State of Hawaii, back in 1961, there were four different ways to get an “original birth certificate” on record. They varied greatly in their reliability as evidence. For convenience, I’ll call them BC1, BC2, BC3, and BC4.
BC1. If the birth was attended by a physician or mid wife, the attending medical professional was required to certify to the Department of Health the facts of the birth date, location, parents’ identities and other information. (See Section 57-8 & 9 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).

Actual long form Certificate of Live Birth similar to one Obama refuses to release

BC2. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then all that was required was that one of the parents send in a birth certificate to be filed. The birth certificate could be filed by mail. There appears to have been no requirement for the parent to actually physically appear before “the local registrar of the district.” It would have been very easy for a relative to forge an absent parent’s signature to a form and mail it in. In addition, if a claim was made that “neither parent of the newborn child whose birth is unattended as above provided is able to prepare a birth certificate, the local registrar shall secure the necessary information from any person having knowledge of the birth and prepare and file the certificate.” (Section 57-8&9) I asked the Dept of Health what they currently ask for (in 2008) to back up a parent’s claim that a child was born in Hawaii. I was told that all they required was a proof of residence in Hawaii (e.g. a driver’s license [We know from interviews with her friends on Mercer Island in Washington State that Ann Dunham had acquired a driver’s license by the summer of 1961 at the age of 17] or telephone bill) and pre-natal (statement or report that a woman was pregnant) and post-natal (statement or report that a new-born baby has been examined) certification by a physician. On further enquiry, the employee that I spoke to informed me that the pre-natal and post-natal certifications had probably not been in force in the ‘60s. Even if they had been, there is and was no requirement for a physician or midwife to witness, state or report that the baby was born in Hawaii.
BC3. In 1961, if a person was born in Hawaii but not attended by a physician or midwife, then, up to the first birthday of the child, a “Delayed Certificate” could be filed, which required that “a summary statement of the evidence submitted in support of the acceptance for delayed filing or the alteration [of a file] shall be endorsed on the certificates”, which “evidence shall be kept in a special permanent file.” The statute provided that “the probative value of a ‘delayed’ or ‘altered’ certificate shall be determined by the judicial or administrative body or official before whom the certificate is offered as evidence.” (See Section 57- 9, 18, 19 & 20 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961).”
[In other words, this form of vault birth certificate, the Delayed Certificate, required no more than a statement before a government bureaucrat by one of the parents or (the law does not seem to me clear on this) one of Barack Obama’s grandparents. If the latter is true, Ann Dunham did not have to be present for this statement or even in the country.]
BC4. If a child is born in Hawaii, for whom no physician or mid wife filed a certificate of live birth, and for whom no Delayed Certificate was filed before the first birthday, then a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth could be issued upon testimony of an adult (including the subject person [i.e. the birth child as an adult]) if the Office of the Lieutenant Governor was satisfied that a person was born in Hawaii, provided that the person had attained the age of one year. (See Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii which was in effect in 1961.) In 1955 the “secretary of the Territory” was in charge of this procedure. In 1960 it was transferred to the Office of the Lieutenant Governor (“the lieutenant governor, or his secretary, or such other person as he may designate or appoint from his office” §338-41 [in 1961]).

Certification of Live Birth, released by Obama

In 1982, the vital records law was amended to create a fifth kind of “original birth certificate”. Under Act 182 H.B. NO. 3016-82, “Upon application of an adult or the legal parents of a minor child, the director of health shall issue a birth certificate for such adult or minor, provided that the proof has been submitted to the director of health that the legal parents of such individual while living without the Territory or State of Hawaii had declared the Territory or State of Hawaii as their legal residence for at least one year immediately preceding the birth or adoption of such child.” In this way “state policies and procedures” accommodate even “children born out of State” (this is the actual language of Act 182) with an “original birth certificate on record.” So it is even possible that the birth certificate referred to by Dr Fukino is of the kind specified in Act 182. This possibility cannot be dismissed because such a certificate certainly satisfies Dr Fukino’s statement that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.” If this is the case, Dr Fukino would have perpetrated so unusually disgusting a deception that I find it practically incredible (and I greatly doubt that anyone could be that shameless). On the other hand, if the original birth certificate is of types 2, 3, or 4, Dr Fukino’s statement would be only somewhat less deceptive and verbally tricky. I only bring up this possibility to show how cleverly hedged and “lawyered” and basically worthless Dr Fukino’s statement is.
Sections 57-8, 9, 18, 19, 20 & 40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act explain why Barack Obama has refused to release the original vault birth certificate. If the original certificate were the standard BC1 type of birth certificate, he would have allowed its release and brought the controversy to a quick end. But if the original certificate is of the other kinds, then Obama would have a very good reason not to release the vault birth certificate. For if he did, then the tape recording of Obama’s Kenyan grandmother asserting that she was present at his birth in Kenya becomes far more important. As does the Kenyan ambassador’s assertion that Barack Obama was born in Kenya, as well as the sealing of all government and hospital records relevant to Obama by the Kenyan government. And the fact that though there are many witnesses to Ann Dunham’s presence on Oahu from Sept 1960 to Feb 1961, there are no witnesses to her being on Oahu from March 1961 to August 1962 when she returned from Seattle and the University of Washington. No Hawaiian physicians, nurses, or midwives have come forward with any recollection of Barack Obama’s birth.
The fact that Obama refuses to release the vault birth certificate that would instantly clear up this matter almost certainly indicates that the vault birth certificate is probably a BC2 or possibly a BC3.
It is almost certainly a BC 3 or even a BC 4 if the “Certification of Live Birth” posted on the Daily Kos blog and the fightthesmears.com website by the Obama campaign is a forgery. Ron Polarik has made what several experts claim to be a cogent case that it is a forgery. There have been a couple of attempts to refute his argument and Polarik has replied to the most extensive of them. I do not claim expertise in this area, but I think it would be best for journalists and politicians to familiarize themselves with the arguments on both sides before they casually dismiss Polarik’s position without taking the trouble to understand it.
Here are 2 of Polarik’s websites: http://bogusbirthcertificate.blogspot.com/
http://bogusbithcertificate.blogspot.com/
Because the disputants know far more about this subject than I do, I am an agnostic about Polarik’s argument. However, the likelihood that this computer-generated “Certification of Live Birth” was forged, is, I believe, increased by the fact that it has been pretty clearly established that Obama “either didn’t register for the draft or did so belatedly and fraudulently. The documents indicate that it’s one or the other.” http://www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/004431print.html The forgery of Obama’s selective service registration was necessary, because according to Federal law, “A man must be registered to be eligible for jobs in the Executive Branch of the Federal government and the U.S. Postal Service. This applies only to men born after December 31, 1959.” http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/wars/a/draft2.htm)
It is also very strange that Dr Fukino’s statement in no way attested to (or even addressed the issue of) the authenticity of the “Certification of Live Birth” (and the information that appears on it) that the Daily Kos blog and the Obama campaign posted on line. Dr Fukino merely stated that “I as Director of Health for the State of Hawai‘i, along with the Registrar of Vital Statistics who has statutory authority to oversee and maintain these type of vital records, have personally seen and verified that the Hawai‘i State Department of Health has Sen. Obama’s original birth certificate on record in accordance with state policies and procedures.”
If there is no hospital or physician record in the vault birth certificate, then he wasn’t born in a hospital in Hawaii. And a home birth or non-hospital birth can then be ruled out for the following reason.
When someone has a home birth or is not born in a hospital, this becomes a part of his family’s lore and is now and again spoken of by his parents. He and his siblings grow up knowing that he was born at home or his uncle’s house, etc. The fact that someone in the campaign told a Washington Post reporter that he was born in Kapioliani hospital and his sister said he was born at Queens hospital indicates that there was not and is not any Obama/Dunham family memory of a home birth or non-hospital birth in Hawaii.
And if there is no hospital record in the original vault birth certificate, then he was not born in a hospital in Hawaii.
Instead of the birth certificate on file at the Hawaii Dept of Health, the Obama campaign posted on the Daily Kos blog and the Fightthesmears website a “Certification of Live Birth”. The Certification of Live Birth is not a copy of the original birth certificate. It is a computer-generated document that the state of Hawaii issues on request to indicate that a birth certificate of some type is “on record in accordance with state policies and procedures”. And there is the problem. Given the statutes in force in 1961, the Certification of Live Birth proves nothing unless we know what is on the original birth certificate. There are several legal areas (involving ethnic quotas and subsidy) for which the state of Hawaii up until June 2009 did not accept its computer-generated Certification of Live Birth as sufficient proof of birth in Hawaii or parentage. Why should the citizens of the United States be content with lower standards for ascertaining the qualifications of their President?
If you combine an awareness of what the Certification of Live Birth posted on the internet really is with 1) a knowledge of the relevant statutes in 1961 and 2) Obama’s stubborn refusal to permit the release of the real birth certificate and his determination to fight any legal actions that would compel him to do so, it becomes clear that there is no logical explanation for Obama’s refusal without taking into consideration the relevant statutes. Then his behavior becomes clear. The Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii is the missing piece of the puzzle.
Most people think of a birth certificate as a statement by a hospital or midwife with a footprint, etc. (That may be why some main-stream journalists have straight out lied about this. Jonathan Alter, senior editor at Newsweek magazine, for example, told Keith Olbermann on MSNBC on Feb 20, 2009 that “They [the Republicans] are a party that is out of ideas so they have to resort to these lies about the fact that he’s not a citizen. This came up during the campaign, Keith. The Obama campaign actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” But it is Alter who resorted to lying to the American people on television. “The Obama campaign” never “actually posted his birth certificate from a Hawaii hospital online.” On July 17, 2009 CNN’s Kitty Pilgrim lied when she stated that the Obama campaign had produced “the original birth certificate” on the internet and that FactCheck.org had examined the original birth certificate; whether it was forged or not, the Certification of Live Birth that was posted by the campaign and FactCheck.org is not, and by definition, cannot be the original birth certificate or a copy of the original birth certificate. There were no computer generated Certifications of Live Birth in 1961, the year Obama was born. Obama’s original birth certificate (whether it was filed in 1961 or later) was a very different document from the Certification of Live Birth on FactCheck.org. On the FactCheck.org web site, the claim is made that “FactCheck.org staffers have now seen, touched, examined and photographed the original birth certificate.” So FactCheck.org is lying about this as well.
FactCheck.org gets its prestige from a reputation for objectivity. Why would those who run this site choose to tell so obvious a lie and so endanger the site’s reputation? The answer is in the date of the posting, August 21, 2008. It was in mid-August that questions about the Certification of Live Birth began to reach a critical mass and threaten to enter the public discourse. The mostly pro-Obama television and newspaper/magazine media had to be given an excuse and cover for their collective decision to dismiss or ignore the substantial questions about whether Obama met the qualifications for the office set forth in Article II section I of the Constitution. And those reporters and editors who were not in the tank for Obama had to be deceived. After Labor Day the swing voters would begin to pay attention to the Presidential campaign. The truth had to be killed. And with its lie about “how it examined and photographed the original birth certificate“, FactCheck.org killed it.)
Most people would not consider a mailed-in form by one of his parents (who could have been out of the country or whose signature could have been forged by a grandparent) or a sworn statement by one of his grandparents or by his mother or even a sworn statement by himself many years later to be sufficient evidence (when set next to the statements by his maternal grandmother and the Kenyan ambassador that he was born in another country). Unless the American people are shown the original birth certificate, all of these are possibilities. And if Obama refuses to allow the state of Hawaii to release the original birth certificate, it begins to look like he was not born in a Hawaii hospital or at home with the assistance of a doctor or midwife. A reasonable person would acknowledge that there are serious reasons to doubt that Barack Obama was born in the United States. This is especially true because, if Obama was born in a foreign country, his family had a compelling reason to lie about it.
In 1961 if a 17 year old American girl gave birth in a foreign country to a child whose father was not an American citizen, that child had no right to any American citizenship, let alone the “natural born” citizenship that qualifies someone for the Presidency under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution.
In 1961, the year that Barack Obama was born, under Sec. 301 (a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, Ann Dunham could not transmit citizenship of any kind to Barack Obama.
“ 7 FAM 1133.2-2 Original Provisions and Amendments to Section 301
(CT:CON-204; 11-01-2007)
“a. Section 301 as Effective on December 24, 1952: When enacted in 1952, section 301 required a U.S. citizen married to an alien to have been physically present in the United States for ten years, including five after reaching the age of fourteen, to transmit citizenship to foreign-born children. The ten-year transmission requirement remained in effect from 12:01 a.m. EDT December 24, 1952, through midnight November 13, 1986, and still is applicable to persons born during that period.
“As originally enacted, section 301(a)(7) stated: Section 301. (a) The following shall be nationals and citizens of the United States at birth: (7) a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than ten years, at least five of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years: Provided, That any periods of honorable service in the Armed Forces of the United States by such citizen parent may be included in computing the physical presence requirements of this paragraph.”
The Immigration and Nationality Corrections Act (Public Law 103-416) on October 25, 1994 revised this law to accommodate “a person born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States who, prior to the birth of such person, was physically present in the United States or its outlying possessions for a period or periods totaling not less than five years, at least two of which were after attaining the age of fourteen years”.
But in 1961, if Barack Obama had been born outside of the country, the Dunham family had no way of knowing that in 1994 Congress would pass a law that would retroactively make him a citizen. At that time, the only way to get citizenship for him would be to take advantage of one of the loopholes in the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act.
People can debate the meaning of the term “natural-born citizen” as long as they like but this is clear: If, in 1961, 17 year old Ann Dunham gave birth to a child on foreign soil whose father was not an American citizen, then the Immigration and Nationality Act at that time denied Barack Obama any right to American citizenship of any kind. Therefore if at the time of his birth Obama was ineligible for American citizenship of any kind, then he cannot be a “natural-born citizen”. This is true even if the Immigration and Nationality Act was changed 33 years after he was born. Even if the law was retroactively changed to grant citizenship (but not “natural-born” citizenship) to some of those who had at birth been denied it. If a person is not at the time of his birth an American citizen, he cannot be a natural-born citizen. Therefore, that person is ineligible under Article II, Section1 for the Office of President of the United States.
It is only by examining the 18th century usage and definition of a term that we can ascertain its meaning in the Constitution. In the 18th century, and at the time of the framing and ratification of the Constitution by the states, the term “natural-born” subject or citizen was always used or defined in such a way as to exclude the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen. No 18th century jurist would have thought the term “natural-born” citizen or subject could have been extended to the child of a British or American girl or woman when that child was born in a foreign country and that child’s father was a foreign citizen.
Here is Blackstone’s classic exposition in 1765 of the legal meaning of the term from the Commentaries on the Laws of England.
William Blackstone, Commentaries 1:354, 357–58, 361–62
1765
“Natural-born subjects are such as are born within the dominions of the crown of England, that is, within the ligeance, or as it is generally called, the allegiance of the king; and aliens, such as are born out of it.. . .
“When I say, that an alien is one who is born out of the king’s dominions, or allegiance, this also must be understood with some restrictions. The common law indeed stood absolutely so; with only a very few exceptions: so that a particular act of parliament became necessary after the restoration, for the naturalization of children of his majesty’s English subjects, born in foreign countries during the late troubles. And this maxim of the law proceeded upon a general principle, that every man owes natural allegiance where he is born, and cannot owe two such allegiances, or serve two masters, at once. Yet the children of the king’s embassadors born abroad were always held to be natural subjects: for as the father, though in a foreign country, owes not even a local allegiance to the prince to whom he is sent; so, with regard to the son also, he was held (by a kind of postliminium) to be born under the king of England’s allegiance, represented by his father, the embassador. To encourage also foreign commerce, it was enacted by statute 25 Edw. III. st. 2. that all children born abroad, provided both their parents were at the time of the birth in allegiance to the king,…might inherit as if born in England: and accordingly it hath been so adjudged in behalf of merchants. But by several more modern statutes these restrictions are still farther taken off: so that all children, born out of the king’s ligeance, whose fathers were natural-born subjects, are now natural-born subjects themselves, to all intents and purposes, without any exception; unless their said fathers were attainted, or banished beyond sea, for high treason; or were then in the service of a prince at enmity with Great Britain.” [The italics are Blackstone's]
The irresponsible confirmation in the Senate of the irresponsible tallying of votes in the Electoral College does not supersede the clear meaning of Article II, Section 1. If it is allowed to stand, disregard of the Constitution by all branches of the government would be openly established. To all who believe that the Constitution is the government’s basic law, that the Constitution is the only instrument that gives the enactments of Congress and the commands of the Executive validity, it will be clear that the rule of law in the United States is a fiction.
Journalists and politicians complain that we must avoid a Constitutional crisis, but there already is a Constitutional crisis. It has been caused by Obama’s refusal to take the simple step to clear the matter up. The power of the Executive branch has been compromised. Its right to collect taxes and sign Congressional enactments into law, in fact all of its powers, have become problematic. Since their validity under Section I is now doubtful, they depend on the illegal exercise of force. Since officers of the American military take their oath on commissioning to the Constitution and not the President, their obedience to the Commander-in-Chief has lapsed and, if they challenge or resist his authority, any courts-martial will also be an illegal exercise of force. The only way out of the present Constitutional crisis is for Obama to do as McCain did when he was confronted by far less pressing doubts about the circumstances of his birth. He must disclose his vault birth certificate. Since the document has been so suspiciously withheld for so long, it should be subjected to rigorous forensic tests. Then whatever is on it should be judicially assessed together with the claims that have been made that Barack Obama was born on foreign soil.
It should be added that “Obama’s top terrorism and intelligence adviser, John O. Brennan, heads a firm that was cited in March for breaching sensitive files in the State Department’s passport office, according to a State Department Inspector General’s report released this past July.
“The security breach, first reported by the Washington Times and later confirmed by State Department spokesman Sean McCormack, involved a contract employee of Brennan’s firm, The Analysis Corp., which has earned millions of dollars providing intelligence-related consulting services to federal agencies and private companies.
“During a State Department briefing on March 21, 2008, McCormack confirmed that the contractor had accessed the passport files of presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and John McCain, and that the inspector general had launched an investigation.
“Sources who tracked the investigation tell Newsmax that the main target of the breach was the Obama passport file, and that the contractor accessed the file in order to ‘cauterize’ the records of potentially embarrassing information.
“ ‘They looked at the McCain and Clinton files as well to create confusion,’ one knowledgeable source told Newsmax. ‘But this was basically an attempt to cauterize the Obama file.’
“At the time of the breach, Brennan was working as an unpaid adviser to the Obama campaign.
” ‘This individual’s actions were taken without the knowledge or direction of anyone at The Analysis Corp. and are wholly inconsistent with our professional and ethical standards,’ Brennan’s company said in a statement sent to reporters after the passport breach was made public.
“The passport files include ‘personally identifiable information such as the applicant’s name, gender, social security number, date and place of birth, and passport number,’ according to the inspector general report.
“The files may contain additional information including ‘original copies of the associated documents,’ the report added. Such documents include birth certificates, naturalization certificates, or oaths of allegiance for U.S.-born persons who adopted the citizenship of a foreign country as minors.”
“The State Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) issued a 104-page report on the breach last July. Although it is stamped ‘Sensitive but Unclassified,’ the report was heavily redacted in the version released to the public, with page after page blacked out entirely.”
http://www.newsmax.com/timmerman/brennan_passport_breach/2009/01/12/170430.html
The following may be relevant:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/apr/19/key-witness-in-passport-fraud-case-fatally-shot/
Key witness in passport fraud case fatally shot
Saturday, April 19, 2008
“A key witness in a federal probe into passport information stolen from the State Department was fatally shot in front of a District church, the Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday.
“Lt. Quarles Harris Jr., 24, who had been cooperating with a federal investigators, was found late Thursday night slumped dead inside a car, in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in Northeast, said Cmdr. Michael Anzallo, head of the department’s Criminal Investigations Division.
“Cmdr. Anzallo said a police officer was patrolling the neighborhood when gunshots were heard, then Lt. Harris was found dead inside the vehicle, which investigators would describe only as a blue car.
“Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene.
“City police said they do not know whether his death was a direct result of his cooperation with federal investigators.
“We don’t have any information right now that connects his murder to that case,” Cmdr. Anzallo said.
“Police say a “shot spotter” device helped an officer locate Lt. Harris.
“A State Department spokeswoman yesterday declined to comment, saying the investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing.
“The Washington Times reported April 5 that contractors for the State Department had improperly accessed passport information for presidential candidates Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain, which resulted in a series of firings that reached into the agency’s top ranks.
“One agency employee, who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after Lt. Harris told federal authorities he obtained “passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State.” “
There is a possibility that the breaches of the passport files associated with the “credit-card fraud scheme” were a cover for or associated with the breaches of the passport files by the employee of Brennan’s Analysis Corp. This certainly at least should be looked into.
July 11th Addendum to Report
1. Until June 2009, the reasonable doubts about where Obama was born could have quickly and finally been resolved if he had authorized the release by the Hawaiian Dept of Health of his original birth certificate or else applied for it himself and released it to the media. But as these doubts have increased and reached the point where they are no longer a “fringe” phenomenon, the Hawaiian state govt has recently taken certain steps that would create procedural and possibly legal barriers to a resolution of the controversy. Given the slipperiness that characterized the statements of Chiyome Fukino, the Dept’s Director, and Janice Okubo, the Dept’s spokesperson, to the media on this issue, it is, I think, also reasonable to regard these steps with suspicion.
A family that I am acquainted with has a child who was born in Hawaii 6 months ago. They filled out and mailed in a form to the Dept of Health, as did their doctor. In return the Dept sent them in the first week of June, 2009, the same abbreviated computer-generated form that last year on the Daily Kos and subsequently on the Obama campaign web site was called a “Certification of Live Birth”. The form that this family received this year is identical in format to the Certification of Live Birth on the Daily Kos web site with one exception: the title at the top of the form.
On June 12, 2008 the title for this abbreviated form was Certification of Live Birth. The title for the form that this family received in the first week of June 2009 is Certificate of Live Birth. I called The Dept of Health and confirmed that the title of the form had been changed. The bureaucrat that I spoke to said the change had been made “recently”, but could not or would not tell me when. Sometime between June 12, 2008 and the first week of June 2009 the Hawaiian Dept of Health changed the title of this abbreviated form from “Certification of Live Birth” to “Certificate of Live Birth“. Why?
The use of the word “Certificate” rather than “Certification” makes the form feel somewhat more like a traditional birth certificate than the “Certification of Live Birth” that the Daily Kos website and subsequently the Obama campaign posted on the Internet even though, like the “Certification“, it also lacks any information about the hospital, doctor, or midwife. There is no footprint etc. This renaming of the document will be very convenient for the Hawaiian Dept of Health in future stonewalling should any legal pressure be brought against them to produce Obama’s “Certificate of Live Birth”. Instead of producing the original “Certificate of Live Birth”, they will produce the abbreviated “Certification of Live Birth” form that the Dept of Health has now renamed a “Certificate of Live Birth” and claim that they are doing so “in accordance with state policies and procedures” in the words of the Dept’s Director, Dr. Chiyome Fukino.
But whether it is called (as it was last year) a Certification or (as it is now) a Certificate of Live Birth this abbreviated document provides none of the probative information that was or wasn’t on Barack Obama’s original Certificate of Live Birth. Unlike the Certificate of Live Birth of the time when Barack Obama was born, this new Certificate of Live Birth provides no real evidence of where a child was born or indication of where such evidence might be found. It provides no information that would demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat. (As is permitted under Section 57-40 of the Territorial Public Health Statistics Act in the 1955 Revised Laws of Hawaii.)
2. On June 7, 2009, a spokeswoman for the Hawaii Department of Health told a rather obvious lie (or engaged in a pretty transparent verbal deception) in another attempt to discourage further investigation into the issue of whether Barack Obama was born on Oahu. “The state Department of Health no longer issues copies of paper birth certificates as was done in the past”, said spokeswoman Janice Okubo. “The department only issues ‘certifications’ of live births, and that is the ‘official birth certificate’ issued by the state of Hawaii, she said. ” [Honolulu Star Bulletin] http://www.starbulletin.com/columnists/kokualine/20090606_kokua_line.html
This statement was false or deliberately very misleading. Here, from a Hawaii state document that was posted on June 10, 2009, is a description of how to apply for “the original Certificate of Live Birth” (the original birth certificate) as opposed to the Certification of Live Birth:
“In order to process your application [to prove native Hawaiian ancestry], DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Homelands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.
“Please note that DOH [Department of Health] no longer offers same day service. If you plan on picking up your certified DOH document(s), you should allow at least 10 working days for DOH to process your request(s), OR four to six weeks if you want your certified certificate(s) mailed to you.”
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl
Ms. Okubo’s statement gave the false impression that Obama could not gain access to or release “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, and that it was the DOH’s policy rather than his own reluctance that was responsible for the holding back of this Certificate. This was an obvious deception. The document at the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands website indicates that at the time she made this statement it was false, and that a procedure was in place for application for “the original Certificate of Live Birth.”
Only the information on the original birth certificate, “the original Certificate of Live Birth”, can demonstrate to the people of the United States whether there is convincing evidence that he was actually born here or whether a relative or two (or possibly even Barack Obama himself) just made a statement to that effect to a low level bureaucrat.
3. On July 8, 2009 the web site World Net Daily reported that “The state, which had excluded the controversial document [the Certification of Live Birth] as proof of native Hawaiian status, has changed its policy and now makes a point of including it.”
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=103408
Here is the new statement on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands web site [July 8, 2009]. “The Department of Hawaiian Home Lands accepts both Certificates of Live Birth [original birth certificates and the recently renamed abbreviated computer printouts] and Certifications of Live Birth [as the abbreviated computer printouts were up till recently called] because they are official government records documenting an individual’s birth… Although original birth certificates (Certificates of Live Birth) are preferred for their greater detail, the State Department of Health (DOH) no longer issues Certificates of Live Birth. When a request is made for a copy of a birth certificate, the DOH issues a Certification of Live Birth.”
http://hawaii.gov/dhhl/applicants/appforms/applyhhl
The web site theobamafile.com picked up this significant change in procedure on the Dept of Hawaiian Homelands website on June 18, 2009. http://www.theobamafile.com/_BogusPOTUS/20090608.htm#HawaiiRuleChange
Sometime between June 10, 2009 and June 18, 2009 the State of Hawaii changed its rule on what documents and data were necessary to prove Hawaiian ancestry, thereby upgrading the apparent status of the abbreviated Certification of Live Birth which it had formerly regarded as insufficiently probative. Why?
4. On June 6, Janice Okubo, the Dept of Health spokeswoman, also told the Star Bulletin that “The electronic record of the birth is what (the Health Department) now keeps on file in order to provide same-day certified copies at our help window for most requests.” There is a troubling ambiguity in this statement. A sophisticated forensic investigation would probably be able to determine whether the original paper Certificate of Live Birth was forged, altered, or authentic. But if the data from the original paper Certificates of Live Birth has been transferred to an electronic record and then the original documents were discarded, part of the data could easily have been changed in the transfer or subsequently altered.
On July 23, 2009 Jon Klein, the president of CNN-US told staffers that political researchers at CNN had discovered that “*In 2001 – the state of Hawaii Health Department went paperless. *Paper documents were discarded*”.
On July 27, 2009 Janice Okubo told WorldNetDaily, “I am not aware of any birth certificate records that have been destroyed by the department. When the department went electronic in 2001, vital records, whether in paper form or any other form, [were] maintained. We don’t destroy records. Any records that we had in paper or any other form before 2001 are still in file within the department. We have not destroyed any vital statistics records that we have.”
What is going on here? Either the political research department at CNN is a complete joke or the Hawaiian Dept of Health has been changing its story.
We know from a document posted on June 10, 2009 on the Department of Hawaiian Homelands website that, up until very recently, either the original paper Certificates of Live Birth and/or scanned images of those paper certificates were maintained by the Dept of Health, and copies of them were provided to confirm claims of Hawaiian ancestry. But if in June 2009 the Department of Hawaiian Homelands has decided that it will no longer require the original Certificate of Live Birth as proof for special privileges and the Department of Health spokesman says firmly that they will no longer provide copies of these original certificates, is it possible that, in the midst of the controversy over where Barack Obama was born, the Hawaiian state govt has destroyed the original paper certificate of live birth? This seems almost incredible to me, but the authorities have been so deceptive and evasive on this issue, that it cannot be dismissed as impossible.