Immigration
Posted at 6:20pm on Jul. 2, 2008 Mercosur Demands Lebensraum
By Neil Stevens
The South American trade union demands that its people know no boundaries, according to the BBC:
The EU laws, due to come into force in 2010, could see illegal immigrants held for up to 18 months and face a five-year ban on re-entry if expelled.
....In a joint declaration, [Mercosur leaders] rejected "every effort to criminalise irregular migration and the adoption of restrictive immigration policies, in particular against the most vulnerable sectors of society, women and children".
They used to call this sort of thing an invasion, sending your people across national boundaries and demanding full rights to that territory. If the EU caves on this, I bet Hitler would be kicking himself right now. He might have had Poland without a fight had he just demanded an end to "restrictive immigration policies."
Posted in European Union | Foreign Affairs | Godwin's Law | illegal immigration | Immigration | Lebensraum | Mercosur — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 8:17pm on Jun. 25, 2008 Lou Barletta for Congress
By Paul J Cella
Lou Barletta is one of the good guys. An unsuccessful baseball player but very successful businessman, he entered local politics in his hometown of Hazelton, PA, as a Republican in a very Democratic place. Then in 2000 he was elected mayor, above all on his commitment to bring prosperity to his town, which he did, earning several state-wide awards in the process.
Mayor Barletta came to national prominence when he shepherded through a series of city ordinances designed to resist the mischievous and impoverishing effects of illegal immigration. These ordinances included provisions imposing a $1,000-per-day fine on landlords who rent to illegals, revoking the business license of any employer who hires them, declaring English as the official language and barring city employees from translating documents to another language without approval.
A federal judge overturned most of these ordinances in 2007, on the grounds that immigration is a federal matter. The ordinances, he wrote, “disrupt a well-established federal scheme for regulating the presence and employment of immigrants in the United States.” Whether the judge was aware of the bitter irony that the ordinances would be quite unnecessary if the federal government was not itself “disrupting” the “well-established” “scheme” of federal maintenance of America sovereignty, namely by its studious neglect of immigration law, is a question that remains unanswered.
Read on and contribute here.
Posted in 2008 | congressional races | Immigration | Lou Barletta | Paul Kanjorski — Comments (6)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:20am on May 6, 2008 Too large to see.
By Paul J Cella
There is a famous crack by Chesterton to the effect that it is possible for things to be too large to see. The huge and obvious becomes invisible under certain pressures. Take, for instance, this very useful, if dispiriting catalog of capitulation, presented ably by Mr. Bruce Bawer in City Journal. His thesis is simple enough: “Motivated variously, and doubtless sometimes simultaneously, by fear, misguided sympathy, and multicultural ideology,” he writes, “people at every level of Western society, but especially elites, have allowed concerns about what fundamentalist Muslims will feel, think, or do to influence their actions and expressions.” Dhimmitude. “Westerners have begun, in other words, to internalize the strictures of sharia, and thus implicitly to accept the deferential status of dhimmis — infidels living in Muslim societies.” Bawer goes on to detail at length the many ways in which Liberalism is capitulating to an armed doctrine that, in most of its specifics, is implacably hostile to Liberalism.
Well and good. Mr. Bawer has proven himself in many respects a careful and daring observer. He is several steps ahead of most people in his appraisal of the problem. Yet the curiosity, the frustration, is how blind he is to some elementary observations. In this he is hardly alone. There is in fact a whole cottage industry of writing like this, where the huge and obvious has become invisible.
In the course of a 4000-word essay, Mr. Bawer makes use of variations on the word “immigration” exactly twice, by my count; and both times it is used descriptively, rather than analytically. It seems that this whole surrender of the West to the rigid code of sharia, this forfeiture of our freedom to an alien tyranny, is going on, right under our noses, in perfect innocence of Western immigration policy. Islam is a kind of force of nature, against which Liberalism, lacking certain qualities of heroism, is impotent. Jihad is not so much an armed doctrine, held or freely adopted by living men, as a contagion.
What is huge and obvious is that our immigration policy exposes us to the Jihad. What is huge and obvious is that continuing to increase the number of Muslims entering our country, and other Western nations, will increase our exposure to this armed doctrine; will increase the strength of those whose position is already strong enough to impose upon our Leftists and Liberals the surrender that Bawer describes so vividly.
Posted in dhimmitude | Immigration | the Jihad | War — Comments (11)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 9:11pm on Apr. 3, 2008 Chertoff Won't Let Enviros Stop Border Fence
670 miles to be completed by end of year
By Bluey
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff is taking heat from liberals and winning praise from conservatives for standing up to environmentalists who want to halt construction of the fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.
In a wide-ranging interview a handful of bloggers yesterday, Chertoff said his department was on target to build the congressionally mandated 670 miles of fence by the end of the year -- 370 pedestrian and 300 vehicle. Doing so would ensure that the next administration won't be able to derail the plan.
This week Chertoff announced he would bypass the National Environmental Policy Act and 30 other laws that could have delayed construction. Environmentalists managed to bring construction to a crawl during a previous fence project -- it took 14 years to build 11 miles of fence near San Diego. "That's basically a mile a year," Chertoff said. "At that rate if we were going to cover what we need to cover at the border it would be seven centuries. We do not have that long to wait."
Chertoff's promise to complete the fence comes at a time when Congress is considering a new round of immigration legislation. Chertoff appeared unconvinced that anything substantive would pass this year, but he indicated the ball would be in Congress' court.
During yesterday's interview, Chertoff also spoke about implementing Real ID and dispelling myths about a national ID card. Earlier this week, Chertoff's department secured a promise from one final holdout, Maine, to enact tougher licensing requirements in exchange for a waiver on Real ID compliance.
Posted in Border Fence | Immigration | Immigration | Michael Chertoff | Real ID — Comments (17)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:24pm on Feb. 18, 2008 Some good news
By Paul J Cella
Two pieces of good news:
(1) Phoenix, Arizona, has repudiated its “sanctuary city” policy and is now authorizing the police to inquire into the immigration status on anyone arrested. Moreover, “Police Chief Jack F. Harris, who has been outspoken in warning of the dangers of major police involvement in immigration enforcement, said he endorsed the policy, would write regulations for it and put it into place within three months.” This latter fact is important because occasionally we hear arguments from immigration enthusiasts to the effect that the local police oppose measures to involve them in immigration enforcement.
(2) At least someone in Europe has got some guts. And yes, yes: I know there have been long and tedious arraignments, generally cobbled together with the ever-expedient adhesive of guilt-by-association, laid out against European politicians who oppose the Islamization of Europe. If only the same industry were evident in the press for investigating the history of prominent Islamic spokesman.
In my judgment the history of the Jihad offers a certain banality in its malignity on this point. So wicked an institution and doctrine as this, is bound to corrupt even those who oppose it. Putting down the revolts of the Moriscos in early modern Spain was a crucial component to the expansion of the Inquisition as an agency of the Spainish monarchy. The intrigues of the Byzantines were made more brutal and treacherous by the participation of the Turks. Even in our country, the mere beginnings of our struggle with the Jihad have augmented the security apparatus of the state, usually in sensible ways, but also in perverse ways. Once the Jihad has a foothold in your country, you will not escape its depredations without dirtying your hands.
Which is why, of course, our policy should be strictly tailored toward minimizing our exposure to its depredations. Jihad, Sharia and Dhimmia — all three doctrines should be summarily proscribed from promulgation; to promote any should be made legally tantamount to sedition. Immigration from Muslim nations should end, virtually without exception. In sum, we the people of the United States should make plain our republican judgment that until Islamdom ceases churning out terrorists, subversives and brigands, we will (so far as possible) cease interaction with it.
The alternative is the continued expansion of the Security State, the diminution of privacy and personal liberty, and the corruption of our security agencies under constant strain; not to mention gradual increase in Jihadist aggression and agitation.
Posted in Immigration | the Jihad | War — Comments (22)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:05pm on Feb. 7, 2008 I Welcome Our McCainiac Overlords (consider this your open thread to vent. Put it all here and then be done with it)
By Erick
En la luz del poste de Byron York, justo como decir hola y bienvenidos a nuestros nuevos jefes supremos McCainian.
Yo apreciaría un trabajo en la sombra y sólo preguntaría que ellos usen la fusta frugalmente en mí. También, si ellos consideran posiciones para campos de reeducación, sé este lugar agradable en las montañas de Carolina esto tiene temperaturas agradables y clima.
El senador McCain habla a las 15h00 hoy en CPAC.
[By the way, lighten up people. Just trying some light hearted humor here.]
--------------------------------------
In all seriousness, despite the light hearted humor that will no doubt rub the humorless the wrong way, it is now time to rally behind McCain.
I will have more on my thoughts later.
The big question is how far McCain will go today to patch up ties with conservatives today.
Stay tuned . . .
Posted in 2008 | always look on the bright side of life | Immigration | McCain — Comments (170) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:13am on Feb. 4, 2008 Against America the abstraction.
By Paul J Cella
I welcome absentee’s recent contribution to the immigration-and-American-culture debate. It’s a fine diary, well worth reading with care. In response to it I will present an observation, and upon it ground an argument.
I have been arguing about immigration on Redstate from essentially the same position for three and half years. My interlocutors have induced me to some adjustment and recapitulations, but I must confess that their arguments, even the most eloquent and emphatic of them, have more often than not reinforced the firmness of my opposition to our immigration regime.
Read on.
Posted in Culture | Immigration | patriotism | philosophy — Comments (54)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 11:22am on Jan. 29, 2008 McCain's dubious adviser.
By Paul J Cella
Just when I had started to warm back up to John McCain, whom I strongly supported in 2000, along comes a story that is a vivid reminder of what makes him untrustworthy: for all his sacrifice and service to the country, his ideology aims at its dissolution.
The story this time is that John McCain employs as a “Hispanic outreach director” a man who is, in essence, the agent of a foreign power. He is on-record in implacable opposition to assimilation: “I want the third generation [of immigrants], the seventh generation, I want them all to think ‘Mexico first.’ ” He ran an organization which held a cute contest: artistically depict the border fence like Berlin Wall and win a prize! His career, as an oath-bound agent of the government Mexico, consisted of the kind of sanctioned sedition that has grown up all around the pro-immigration faction.
John McCain’s strongest appeal is his patriotism: a love of country that exacted a severe price. But what kind of patriotism can countenance the affront represented by men like Mr. Juan Hernandez? What kind of patriotism can embrace men like him, who make it their business to agitate among foreign-born populations against the sovereignty, the laws, the authority of our country?
To destructive policy (his Comprehensive Dispossess America bill), McCain has added insult. He has crowned folly with subversion. Mark Kirkorian rightly notes that before the Judicial Usurpation of Politics under the Warren Court, McCain’s adviser would be stripped of his citizenship for having accomplished an “expatriating act” by his oath to another government. Let that sink in. For nearly two centuries, before the advent of the tyranny of the Robed Masters of the Supreme Court, American law would have regarded Candidate McCain’s adviser as unworthy of citizenship, on grounds of disloyalty.
So what kind of patriotism countenances this treachery? Patriotism of abstraction, that’s what kind. When America becomes merely a convenient label with which to bundle one’s ideological enthusiasms, merely a shell into which one may pour whatever political content one likes — why, then real existing America may be trampled on with impunity. Actual laws, actual property, actual communities, actual culture: all these return void before the might of America the Abstraction. Cracked eggs for the omelet.
Juan Hernandez should be fired forthwith.
Posted in 2008 | Immigration | John McCain | subversion — Comments (112)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 3:34pm on Jan. 14, 2008 Is Senator McCain Serious About Border Enforcement?
By Dan McLaughlin
Mark Krikorian, one of the leading immigration hardliners and the man whose immigration plan Mike Huckabee has adopted, asks the following:
Does Anyone Believe McCain's Change of Heart?
Posted in 2008 | Immigration | John McCain — Comments (19) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 12:27pm on Jan. 8, 2008 Suffer Not the Little Children-Huckabee Panders on Illegal Immigration [UPDATE] Huck Flops Back
By Mark I
UPDATE: Huck flops, or is it flips, back again. Read through for the full story.
Gov. Mike Huckabee curiously won the endorsement of Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist right before the Iowa primaries. At the time, some questioned how a former governor with a soft record on illegal immigration could win the backing of a grass roots organization dedicated to stopping the flow of illegals into the country. Today the answer became clear: shameless pandering.
Posted in 2008 | birthright citizenship | Fred Thompson | illegal immigration | Immigration | Mike Huckabee — Comments (23) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 2:31pm on Dec. 29, 2007 Bhutto Assassination Renews Concern About Huckabee's Foreign Policy
By California Yankee
Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's first reaction to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto was a diplomatic blunder. Huckabee expressed "our sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan." After criticism, Huckabee's campaign said he meant to say "sympathies" not "apologies." In the same statement, Huckabee revealed that he was unaware that martial law was lifted in Pakistan about two weeks ago.
Posted in 2008 | Bhutto Assassination | foreign policy | Immigration | Mike Huckabee | National Security | Pakistan — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 6:02pm on Dec. 22, 2007 Tancredo Endorsed Romney To Stop Hucakbee
By California Yankee
Former Republican presidential candidate, Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, said he withdrew from the presidential campaign because he feared Mike Huckabee might win in Iowa and New Hampshire.
On Fox News Channel's "The Big Story," Tancredo further explained why he endorsed Romney:
I had an interesting and lengthy discussion with him this morning about his plan. I believe it's viable. I believe he'll stick with it, and he's got the best shot.
Posted in 2008 | Fred Thompson | Immigration | John McCain | Mike Huckabee | Mitt Romney | Tom Tancredo — Comments (7) / Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 5:36pm on Dec. 22, 2007 Leaving Arizona
Attrition By Enforcement
By California Yankee
Illegal Aliens are packing up and leaving Arizona.
Arizona enacted a new law in an attempt to lessen economic incentives for illegal aliens. Under the new law, which takes effect January 1, businesses found to have knowingly hired illegal workers will be subject to sanctions from probation to a 10-day suspension of their business licenses. A second violation would bring permanent revocation of the license.
Arizona employers have started to fire workers who can't prove they are in the country legally. As a result illegal aliens are returning to their home countries or moving other states.
The departure of the illegals from Arizona proves that attrition by enforcement works. When illegal aliens don't have jobs, they don't stick around.
Posted in Arizona | Attrition By Enforcement | Fred Thompson | Immigration | Immigration — Comments (71)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:49pm on Dec. 13, 2007 Still standing athwart.
By Paul J Cella
We’re coming up on two full years of wrestling with the immigration question in a highly public way. The striking fact is this: catastrophe has been averted. We have, admittedly, made precious few positive steps toward improvement; but fewer still have been the advances of that plutocracy which conspires to subjugate the Republic on this issue. A stubborn, noble resistance endures. I find this remarkable. 
The weight of elite opinion — business, government, media, intelligentsia, ecclesiastic — is quite overwhelming. In virtually every field of affairs, the elite wants “comprehensive” reform and will not compromise toward an incremental policy of enforcement by attrition. Its failure bespeaks the lasting vitality of American democracy.
Read on.
Posted in 2008 | Immigration — Comments (25)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 1:58pm on Dec. 11, 2007 Huckabee Kerries Cuba
By California Yankee
Huckabee Was For Trade With Cuba Before He Was Against It.
Now that he is running for president and is no longer governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee has decided to change his mind about the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba:
As governor of Arkansas five years ago, Mike Huckabee joined a bipartisan chorus of politicians who concluded that the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba was bad for businesses. Now that he's a top-tier candidate for president, Huckabee has decided he favors the embargo -- so much so that he vowed Monday to outdo even President Bush in strangling the regime of Cuban President Fidel Castro and punishing those who do business there.
Huckabee admits his Kerry -like flip-flop on Cuba is all about political expediency:
Posted in 2008 | 2008 Presidential Campaign | Cuba | Immigration | Mike Huckabee — Comments (6) / Email this page » / Read More »
