11yr Old Girl Kills 2 Armed Illegal Alien Home Invaders

Here's an excerpt from the Libertypost.org story apparently borrowed from the NRA Files:

Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington...
It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine.

You've got to read this full story. You'll enjoy where this little girl shot the first of her attackers :)

Unfortunately, I couldn't find main stream news sites discussing this story in more detail. From what I can tell, it may have appeared in a November 2006 printed copy of an NRA publication, as this is how have I seen it posted as on various gun friendly discussion boards and forums.

House Bill to Require English Proficiency Before Citizenship

According to CNSNews.com:

A bill introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives this week would designate English as the country's official language and require immigrants to learn English before becoming naturalized citizens.

This is good news! We are a nation, and to exist as a united and functional society we must all be able to communicate with each other. If someone screams "Help!", "Fire!" or "Rape!", everyone in earshot should be able to understand and respond accordingly. If a police officer yells "Freeze!" or "Drop your weapon!" or "Put your hands up!", the person hearing this command should know how to react in order to avoid being shot. If a citizen is selected for jury duty, they should be capable of doing their civic duty, hearing out the case, understanding it fully and then rendering a verdict.

I would take the bill one step further and require people to demonstrate considerable English proficiency before granting them permanent residency/green cards. Permanent residents are by definition people who have the right to spend the rest of their lives here. They will be subject to numerous laws written in English, and will most likely have to work in an English dominant society. Workers should be able to understand customer complaints, requests from colleagues, tax laws, employment laws, etc. Drivers should be able to read traffic signs, parking restrictions, maps and more. How can they do any of this if they don't speak the common language of the land?

My belief that Americans should be able to speak and understand English is not racist. I don't care if the person applying for a green card or citizenship is a blond blue-eyed European, an Asian, Hispanic, Black or whatever. They shouldn't be granted the privilege of permanent residency or citizenship until they can speak our common language well enough to understand and be understood by others.

B of A: Bank of Aliens

Here are some quotes from LATimes.com:

Bank of America said Tuesday that it was issuing credit cards to Spanish-speaking immigrants who may not have Social Security numbers, triggering complaints that the nation's largest retail bank is tacitly endorsing illegal immigration.

The bank described the program as a pilot, limited for now to 51 branches in Los Angeles County, and said it could go national this year.

...

Despite Bank of America's compelling interest in Latino markets, it was arch-rival Wells Fargo that kicked off the competition in 2001, when it became the first U.S. bank to accept identification cards from Mexican consulates to open an account.

Since then, Wells has opened more than 1 million accounts for Mexicans using the consular card. It also accepts Guatemalan, Argentine and Colombian identity cards. The assumption is that most immigrants using the cards to identify themselves are here illegally, Wells Fargo spokeswoman Trigg said, but the bank doesn't ask.

This is an area where my fellow Libertarians may disagree with me, but I'm against making it easier for people to conduct business in this country when they can't produce identification issued by this country. In a Utopian world, all countries should be equally great and people should be free to roam across borders and conduct their business however they please without having to present papers to every authority and business that demands them. In the real world, however, the United States of America is one of the best places on earth to live and illegal aliens are coming here because their native countries don't offer them a decent quality of life. Sadly, we can't afford to welcome hordes of impoverished people who break our laws to get here, consume more tax based resources than they contribute and who send much of their income back to a foreign nation rather use it to support our national economy.

If we were a truly Libertarian society where everyone was expected to fend for themselves, I wouldn't mind it as much. Instead, we have tax funded schools that can't turn away students, hospitals that are required to treat people even if they can't afford the treatment, and various other programs that are being completely overwhelmed by illegal immigrants. We have a very different country today than we did back when we used immigrant labor to create our infrastructure and build our fledgling nation without offering much in the way of tax based social, educational and medical services.

I understand that banks are businesses and have a duty to seek out customers and increase profits, but this method of doing so is distasteful to me. While I am not calling for legislation to stop this, I will do my best to restrict my banking business to companies that do not go out of their way to encourage illegal immigration. Apparently The Freeholder feels even stronger about this than I, as he calls it a "national disaster in-the-making".

Click here for more news stories on this issue.

The Ugly Side of Illegal Immigration

I've written numerous articles about the problems of illegal immigration. One of the things I've lamented is the lack of respect many illegal aliens have for our nation and our culture. In the past, immigrants tended to come from far away places with the intent of becoming Americans and participating in the American dream. These immigrants made difficult journeys that took weeks or even months of continuous travel to get here. When they arrived, that often lacked the money to go back home if things didn't work out. Since their homelands where overseas in Europe and Asia, they were pretty much stuck here and had to make the best of it as they couldn’t simply walk home if things didn’t work out. As a result, they were highly motivated to succeed and to become accepted as Americans.

The illegal immigration that takes place today is often very different. Many of the people who come here have no interest in assimilating or permanently joining our society. Quite often, people come here to make money to send out of the country, or to save up money that will let them return home one day and start their own business or retire in style. School teachers in Southern California talk of families that come here to get free education and medical care for their children while they work and save as much money as possible. They then return to Mexico after fully exploiting our tax based system and extracting money from our economy.

Others that come here feel that they are re-conquering the land that once supposedly belonged to their ancestors. Political activists and illegal alien leaders tell them that they are the rightful owners of this land, everyone else here are white racist oppressors, and that they should cling to their Mexican heritage rather than assimilate with us "gringos".

In the scenarios I describe, there is no reason for the illegal immigrants to learn English or better their community. The first group I mentioned literally is here to take as much as they can from our country and then use it to better themselves in their home country. If you are only here for a few years or a decade, why bother learning English or helping to build our nation when they won't be here later to enjoy it? In the second case, political activism has taught the illegals that American citizens are their enemy.

For those who doubt me, follow the link below to a web site that has created a flash video of the worst type of illegal aliens possible. I warn you now, this video contains obscenities, flag desecration and other highly offensive things that are directed at us Americans. It is a compilation of various illegal alien protestors showing contempt for our flag, our people and our culture. If we allow this crowd to increase its numbers and gain influence in this country, we will see race wars within our lifetimes. Look at what is still happening in France as they battle both their legal and illegal alien communities that keep rioting, burning and looting. Any group that deliberately increases racial tensions should be nipped in the bud. Every time an illegal alien burns the U.S. flag, yells "Viva la Raza" or "brown power", some other equally racist group will respond with "White Power!" etc. We don't need this sort of problem in our country. Many big cities in this country have already burned because of racial tensions in the past 50 years. Our prisons frequently break out into Black vs. Hispanic riots. Violence will come to this country if we don't prevent these tensions from building up and stop illegal alien activism from inciting hate.

I fully admit that there are many illegal aliens who come here desperately wanting to build a new life and hoping to some day fully join our society. I have known such people, and often they are good people who really make an effort to join our society and respect our nation and culture. Nevertheless, we cannot afford to look the other way and assume that all illegal aliens are of this benevolent type. We must control our borders and prevent employers from attracting illegal aliens in order to ensure that the bad type of illegals I described do not grow in numbers or influence. Even if 90% of the illegal aliens who come here were beneficial (which I doubt), and only 10% of them are harmful, we still have a serious problem. Since we currently have between 12 and 20 MILLION illegal aliens in this country (and about 3,000 new ones arriving every day), that would mean we have between 1.2 and 2 million people who are here to either suck our nation dry or to re-conquer our land. This is a very dangerous situation that must be reversed for the survival our school system, medical care system, economy, standard of living and national culture.

Where Are the Unions on Illegal Immigration?

I've often wondered how labor unions and union members feel about the issue of illegal immigration. Unions constantly badger non-union mega-employers such as Wal-Mart about how they don't pay a fair working wage (which I actually think is true). Unions are some of the largest, wealthiest and most influential political entities in our country and are adversely affected by illegal immigration every day. After all, every employer that hires an illegal alien for skilled manual labor is in effect reducing opportunities and wages for union workers. Construction, in particular, is turning more and more to illegal alien laborers and away from more costly union workers. This is why it puzzles me that unions seem to be quiet on this issue.

The title link is to a humaneventsonline.com story about how the Bush administration supposedly plans to put in a super highway to connect Mexico and Canada. Though I've never heard this reported elsewhere and can't vouch for the veracity of the story, here are some quotes that should make union workers angry:

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America.

...

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

Since the unions have tremendous influence over national politics, and the Democratic party in particular, I would think that now is the time for them to clamor for pro-border security and anti-illegal immigration candidates and policies. The Bush administration has engendered a lot of outrage, and is at risk of a national anti-Republican backlash at the polls that could potentially cost them control of congress. In this climate, it should be pretty easy for a Democrat to get elected this November. If unions use their vast political influence, they could see to it that illegal immigration is greatly reduced. (Don’t get me wrong, as a neo-libertarian I’m no more in favor of Democrats than Republicans, but I like the idea of anyone who will actually do something to stem illegal immigration.)

Readers of my blog and web site know very well that I'm not a big fan of unions, but it just seems like the illegal alien issue would be the perfect rallying cry for them. Given our current political climate I would think their influence could be used to great affect for the benefit of all legal workers, and in particular, union workers.

Woman's SS# Used By 81+ Illegal Aliens

This NFDailyNews.com story is yet another reason why we should crack down on illegal immigration and require employers to verify social security numbers before hiring employees. Here are some excerpts:

DUBLIN, Calif. (AP) - Audra Schmierer's Social Security number really gets around. It has been used by at least 81 people in 17 states, most of them probably illegal immigrants trying to get work.

...

"They knew what was happening but wouldn't do anything," said Schmierer, 33, a housewife in this affluent San Francisco suburb. "One name, one number, why can't they just match it up?"

...

Schmierer realized she had a problem in February 2005, when she got a statement from the IRS saying she owed $15,813 in back taxes _ even though she had not worked since her son was born in 2000.

...

What started as a hassle turned into a major headache earlier this year when she sought work through a temporary agency that learned her Social Security number had been used by a woman in Texas two years earlier. The agency could not hire Schmierer for more than a month while the situation was clarified.

Stolen or fabricated Social Security numbers are frequently used by illegal aliens in order to obtain employment. As you can see from this story, this often harms the people who were really issued those numbers. Since the purpose of a Social Security number is to track taxation, Social Security contributions and Social Security benefits, it is ridiculous that employers are not required to check the validity of these numbers before hiring new staff. Keep in mind that employers must contribute money into Social Security for each employee, issue tax statements to each employee and the IRS based on these numbers. Thus, if they have the wrong number, they effectively are providing bogus information to the Federal Government and in my opinion are either aiding and abetting a crime or at the very east are being very negligent.

The government either needs to stop forcing employers to contribute tax and Social Security money for their employees, or they need to create a fast and easy way to verify Social Security numbers and require employers to use it. Right now, employers are required to contribute money based on these numbers, regardless if the numbers actually mean anything. This is stupid.

Border Patrol Against Guest Worker Program

(photo from of msnbc.com)

According to the Detroit Free Press story in the title link, the Border patrol agents:

welcome proposals to clamp down on illegal immigration, but they also want a crackdown on employers who hire undocumented immigrants

support President George W. Bush's call to raise the total number of agents protecting the southern border by 6,000 to 18,000

support Thursday's Senate action to extend barriers erected along the border with Mexico and to deploy more vehicles and technologies to frustrate illegal entry

part ways with Bush on his guest worker program, a centerpiece of the Senate's immigration legislation. And they believe that without cracking down on employers, higher-paying U.S. jobs will remain a magnet for down-and-out people in Mexico

So there you have it: the professionals who are charged with the duty of securing our border want employers punished for hiring illegal aliens, want more man power, barriers and enforcement technology and are against the guest worker program.

Here are some more quotes:

On the Web site of U.S. Border Patrol Local 2544, the union that represents agents along much of the Arizona border with Mexico, there's contempt for Bush and Democrats as they work on immigration law.

"Every day that President Bush and the Senate hold real border security hostage to their misguided amnesty program, thousands upon thousands of illegal aliens continue to flood into the country," reads the chapter's home page. "Make no mistake, most of them get by us. We are losing this war, and it's not even close."

"The interior enforcement has taken a backseat to border enforcement. So once they get past the border, they're home free," said Albon. "If they don't have jobs that they can come to, then there's no reason for them to come, and they would stay where they are."

Xenophobic Mexico's Hypocrisy

Mexico and Mexican's often decry our desire to stop illegal immigration as racist and xenophobic. In their opinion, any attempt on our part to secure the U.S. borders and limit who is allowed to immigrate here is immoral. Take a look at these excerpts from a DetNews.com story and see how they do things in Mexico:

In Mexico, non-natives are banned from those and thousands of other jobs, even if they are legal, naturalized citizens.

Foreign-born Mexicans can't hold seats in either house of the congress. They're also banned from state legislatures, the Supreme Court and all governorships. Many states ban foreign-born Mexicans from spots on town councils. And Mexico's Constitution reserves almost all federal posts, and any position in the military and merchant marine, for "native-born Mexicans."

Recently the Mexican government has gone even further. Since at least 2003, it has encouraged cities to ban non-natives from such local jobs as firefighters, police and judges.

How can Mexico and Mexican immigrants be so hypocritical as to protest against our efforts to protect our borders? Just about the only job barred to non-natives in our country is President of the United States. Whenever I learn more about Mexico's immigration laws, I find it tempting to build walls and mine fields along the border just to spite them. If we passed half of the restrictions on foreigners that Mexico uses, there would be rioting and bloodshed all over our nation.

The foreign-born make up just 0.5 percent of Mexico's 105 million people, compared with about 13 percent in the United States, which has a total population of 299 million. Mexico grants citizenship to about 3,000 people a year, compared to the U.S. average of almost a half million.

Can you believe this? We should tell Vincente Fox and his corrupt henchmen to go suck eggs the next time they drag their hypocritical butts in front of a microphone to complain about U.S. border security and immigration policy.

Some Facts About Illegal Immigration

Here are some excerpts from a recent San Francisco Chronicle article. Although I am including some of the highlights below, I strongly suggest you click on the title link and read the full story.

Mexico is literally moving here:

Washington -- The current migration of Mexicans and Central Americans to the United States is one of the largest diasporas in modern history, experts say.

Roughly 10 percent of Mexico's population of about 107 million is now living in the United States, estimates show. About 15 percent of Mexico's labor force is working in the United States. One in every 7 Mexican workers migrates to the United States.

Illegal Immigration to the U.S. is Hurting Mexico too:

Migration is profoundly altering Mexico and Central America. Entire rural communities are nearly bereft of working-age men. The town of Tendeparacua, in the Mexican state of Michoacan, had 6,000 residents in 1985, and now has 600, according to news reports. In five Mexican states, the money migrants send home exceeds locally generated income, one study found.

Mexico has become financially dependent upon illegal immigrants in the U.S.:

Last year, Mexico received a record $20 billion in remittances from migrant workers. That is equal to Mexico's 2004 income from oil exports and dwarfing tourism revenue.

The money Mexican migrants send home almost equals the U.S. foreign aid budget for the entire world, said Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University and former head of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.

Most illegal immigrants are not educated; how does importing millions of them help the U.S.?

Most illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America have not completed high school, although education levels are rising. Harvard economist George Borjas found that in 2000, 63 percent of Mexican immigrants had not finished high school.

BS from Bush on Immigration Reform

Here are some highlights from President’s Bush’s Monday night speech and my responses to him. (Click on the title link if you'd like to read the entire transcript at businessweek.com.)

For decades, the United States has not been in complete control of its borders. As a result, many who want to work in our economy have been able to sneak across our border -- and millions have stayed.

Once here, illegal immigrants live in the shadows of our society. Many use forged documents to get jobs, and that makes it difficult for employers to verify that the workers they hire are legal. Illegal immigration puts pressure on public schools and hospitals...strains state and local budgets...and brings crime to our communities.

Yep, this is all true. Unfortunately, Bush, you have no credibility on this topic because you have done absolutely nothing to resolve this problem. On the contrary, you have condemned the people of the Minutemen Project as vigilantes, and have spent far more effort comforting and placating Mexico's president rather than securing our porous borders. According to some reports, your administration even hampered the Border Patrol for political reasons. With this as your background, why should anyone look to you for a solution?

First, the United States must secure its borders. This is a basic responsibility of a sovereign Nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security.

This hasn't happened throughout nearly two full terms of you in power. Why should we believe you will do anything now?

Since I became President, we have increased funding for border security by 66 percent, and expanded the Border Patrol from about 9,000 to 12,000 agents. The men and women of our Border Patrol are doing a fine job in difficult circumstances - and over the past five years, we have apprehended and sent home about six million people entering America illegally.

According to anti-illegal immigration experts, we need roughly 36,000 Border Patrol agents, and in merely upped the number to a third of this. While you are rattling off numbers, why not tell us how many of those 6 million people that were deported returned here within 30 days of being caught?

By the end of 2008, we will increase the number of Border Patrol officers by an additional 6,000. When these new agents are deployed, we will have more than doubled the size of the Border Patrol during my Presidency.

Should we believe you this time, Bush? Last time you promised two thousand additional agents every year, and then delivered only 200. Even if you aren’t lying this time, you are talking about upping their manpower to only half of what is necessary to secure the border.

One way to help during this transition is to use the National Guard. So in coordination with governors, up to 6,000 Guard members will be deployed to our southern border ... This initial commitment of Guard members would last for a period of one year. After that, the number of Guard forces will be reduced as new Border Patrol agents and new technologies come online.

So basically, these troops will start arriving just in time for the next election, with a reasonable chance that they will never even reach full capacity before you reneg and/or decide these troops are needed more in Iraq or Iran. This is too little, too late.

We have expanded the number of beds in our detention facilities, and we will continue to add more.

How about giving us the numbers? The last time you promised to increase the capacity of detention centers, it ended up being by a negligible amount. We have between 12 and 20 million illegal immigrants here right now, with more pouring in every day. Did you fund a few hundred extra beds so you could sound like you were doing something, or are you actually doing something meaningful like doubling our detention capacity?

Second, to secure our border, we must create a temporary worker program. ... I support a temporary worker program that would create a legal path for foreign workers to enter our country in an orderly way, for a limited period of time. ... And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.

BS! How does this secure our borders? It simply brings more people here who will encourage their family to do whatever it takes to join them here, including sneaking across our borders illegally. What will the mechanism be for expelling "guest workers" when they overstay their welcome? How will having guest workers here earning minimum wage discourage more illegals from coming here to take those same jobs for cheaper wages? How does it help our country if we import people who will send most of their wages to their home countries rather than participate in our economy?

This program would match willing foreign workers with willing American employers for jobs Americans are not doing.

Oh goody! Just what the American worker wants: Another path for employers to find people who will work for substandard wages so that low-wage Americans will either have to accept less pay and less benefits or go unemployed. Why not just encourage employers to outsource and send our jobs overseas if you don’t want them to be filled by Americans? Are you trying to see how many citizens you can get to draw unemployment, welfare and other tax based aid? This concept of illegals "doing the jobs Americans won't do" is complete and utter bull excrement. We have American workers in coal mines, chemical production plants and all kinds of other horrific jobs. Americans will do ANY job if they receive just compensation. What about the THOUSANDS of black Americans who can’t get jobs repairing the Katrina damage because FEMA contractors are importing illegals to work for less? There are numerous stories that blacks were offered $10/hr for these reconstruction jobs, and then were terminated once the illegal aliens arrived to work for half of that. Are these jobs you claim Americans won’t do?

Third, we need to hold employers to account for the workers they hire. It is against the law to hire someone who is in this country illegally.

You've had many years to do this and chose not to. Why haven't you made this a priority a long time ago? Why did only 3 employers in the entire country face fines for employing illegal aliens in 2004? I could find 10 employers who hire illegals within walking distance of my home. Your people couldn't find more than 3? In the whole country? Over an entire year? And now you want to convince us that you care? You should be going after THOUSANDS of employers every year until the problem stops.

Yet businesses often cannot verify the legal status of their employees, because of the widespread problem of document fraud. Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform must include a better system for verifying documents and work eligibility.

This is just a pathetic way to promote your concept of national id cards. There are already programs in place to verify the social security number of an employee and their right to work. Put the money into enforcing the existing program before you throw money at another program that will not be enforced. Illegal aliens often use invented/random social security numbers. We already have the ability to check if a social security number is valid; just compare it against the records to see that it matches the name and age of the correct living person. We can also quickly determine if multiple employers are contributing too much money into the same Social Security and tax accounts so that one number doesn't get used by multiple people. The truth is, the government likes the Social Security card fraud because it means those illegals who use fake numbers are putting money into the Social Security and tax funds that they will never be able to withdraw or get refunded. It's free money! The government doesn't want to stop this. I heard on the radio a couple of weeks ago that there are illegal aliens who used the Social Security number 000-00-0000 when they obtained jobs. Do you really mean to tell me that the government can't catch that as fraudulent without a costly new identification system?

Some in this country argue that the solution is to deport every illegal immigrant -- and that any proposal short of this amounts to amnesty. I disagree. It is neither wise nor realistic to round up millions of people

This statement is a diversion. Nobody really expects an army to forcibly scour the nation and deport all illegal aliens instantaneously. We expect you to enforce the existing laws and secure the border so that it is no longer desirable to be here illegally. If you find someone, throw them out. If not, make things difficult enough for them so that they don't want to be here so that they go home of their own volition. If employers don’t dare hire them, if schools don’t educate their children for free, if hospitals don’t treat them for free, they will stop coming and start leaving. After a few years of this, the illegal alien problem will go away.

…we must honor the great American tradition of the melting pot, which has made us one Nation out of many peoples. The success of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans. Americans are bound together by our shared ideals, an appreciation of our history, respect for the flag we fly, and an ability to speak and write the English language. English is also the key to unlocking the opportunity of America.

If we are a melting pot, then let’s turn up the heat and make them melt. If you really want them to assimilate, make it happen. Don't let them in unless they speak passable English. Make English our national language. Stop printing government forms in 20+ languages. Require immigrants to pass a simple English test to get residency and a more difficult one to become citizens. How can we be a united nation if our people can't even talk to each other?

Bottom line:
Don’t give us any more of your disingenuous posturing designed to trick us into thinking you are helping. Enforce our existing laws, secure the borders and do your sworn duty to safeguard our nation. So far you have dropped the ball and betrayed our entire nation, and your recent speech did little to improve upon your gastly track record.

How the U.S. Acquired the SW from Mexico: #1

The supporters of Mexican illegal aliens often like to claim “We were here first” as justification for ignoring U.S. immigration laws and illegally entering our country. In truth, they were not here first, or they would not have needed to cross the border to get here. Interestingly, even their ancestors were not here first. Here’s a brief history of who was here first and how this region came to be part of the United States of America. For the sake of brevity, this article will focus on Texas (the first area to fall under American control), and future articles will cover the other areas.

This map, courtesy of the Smithsonian, shows the portion of the United States that was originally claimed by Mexico:

Note that the current U.S. states of California, Nevada Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are fully contained in this area, along with bits of other states.

In the late 1600’s, what is modern day Texas was mostly populated by Apaches, Comanches and other Native American tribes. Those few Spanish settlements that were attempted in this region generally failed, or barely managed to survive. Over the next 100 years or so, Spain gradually established isolated footholds and tiny communities in the area, but did little to physically "possess" this area other than by drawing lines on maps.

In 1821, American Moses Austin received a colonization grant from the Spanish authorities in San Antonio. His son, with legal permission from Spain, brought in hundreds of American families to form what is now Austin, Texas. In this same year, Mexico finally won it’s independence from Spain, and assumed nominal control of this region after having defeated Spain. They were impressed with Austin’s success and prosperity and offered huge tracts of land to other American promoters with the caveat that the settlers they import must become Catholic.

By 1830, legal American immigrants greatly outnumbered Spanish/Mexican immigrants. This worried Mexico, and Mexican troops were sent in to patrol the border, prevent more American immigrants from coming, and levy taxes against the legal and invited American settlers. The people of Texas chafed under these restrictions, and when General Antonio López de Santa Anna declared himself dictator, Texas petitioned for independent statehood (i.e. they wanted to become a separate Mexican state to gain more autonomy rather than remain a part of the Mexican state of Coahuila; they weren’t trying to leave Mexico altogether). Santa Anna responded by imprisoning the petitioner (Austin) for 18 months.

In 1835 Mexico tried to disarm the American settlers of Texas. This was the last straw for the American Texans, and they promptly and forcibly expelled the Mexican Army and declared their independence. Santa Ana led troops back into Texas in an attempt to retake it, and was eventually captured by American/Texans and was then forced to acknowledge Texas as an independent entity.

Texas then asked to become a member state in the United States of America. Texas was admitted into the U.S.A. in 1845.

There a several very important lessons here:

1. The first people here were sparse Native American Tribes, though Spain eventually claimed to posses this land
   
2. Spain and later Mexico Invited U.S. citizens to settle Texas, who established the first large scale semi-modern cities
3. Mexico REQUIRED American settlers to assimilate by forcing them to convert to Catholicism. (Imagine what would happen if the U.S. tried to tell Mexican immigrants they must convert to Protestantism or some other non-Catholic faith!)
4. When Mexico felt that too many American immigrants were entering Texas, they responded by using the military to close the border (something Mexico is vehemently against us doing to keep out illegal Mexican immigrants)
5. The first large settlement to thrive in Texas were American
6. The mostly-American Texas seceded from Mexico AFTER being cutoff by the Mexican Army, AFTER increased taxation by the Mexican government, AFTER Santa Anna jailed their most prominent resident and AFTER the Mexican Army tried to render them helpless by disarming them.

Illegal Alien Problem Not Limited By Race

The article in the title link might be of interest to those who incorrectly think that the illegal alien problem is about race, or is limited to Mexicans/Latinos. Here are some excerpts from the MecuryNews.com story:

But whether or not they join the debate, Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans stand to be greatly affected by the proposed legislation now making its way through Congress. Some proposals would create a path to citizenship for an estimated 1 million undocumented Asians while others would criminalize them, or curb the protections of those who are legal residents or U.S. citizens.

Of the 11.1 million who are in the country illegally, 13 percent are Asian and 78 percent Latino, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. While Mexican protesters at the May 1 marches proudly wore T-shirts and held signs that defiantly proclaimed they were in the United States illegally, most undocumented Asians choose to remain invisible, even within their own ethnic communities.

...

Roughly 10 percent of America's Asian population is here illegally, experts say. In the Bay Area, as many as 180,000 Asians are undocumented, estimates the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.

...

In 2000, the largest group of undocumented Asians were Chinese (23 percent), followed by Filipinos (17 percent), Indians (14 percent) and Koreans (11 percent), according to a study by the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Although Latinos make up the majority of our illegal alien population, I want to go on the record that I have nothing against Hispanics in particular. I am an Equal Opportunity Deporter, and believe in deporting all illegal aliens, regardless of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation or whatever. What matters to me is whether or not an immigrant respected the laws and people of this nation enough to wait their turn and go through the appropriate legal process before coming here. I am also heavily influenced by how much effort an immigrant makes to assimilate into mainstream American culture. I'll cheer on the deportation of Caucasian European illegal aliens just as loudly as I will those of any other race or cultural background, especially if they refuse to learn English and hold themselves seperate from the rest of American society.

Thankfully, I am not alone in these thoughts as even some Latino Groups are protesting against illegal immigration.

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

Although many people think Cinco De Mayo is Mexico's Independence Day, it actually commemorates Mexico defeating the French at the Battle Of Puebla on May 5, 1862. In short, the Mexican government was just as inept with money then as they are now, and they defaulted on loans to various foreign countries. France, never one to pass up a chance for defeat, attacked Mexico in retaliation for them defaulting on a loan. As with most French wars, France suffered a major defeat and this defeat led to the Cinco De Mayo Holiday.

Given Mexico's success at beating the French and in overthrowing their own government during the Mexican revolution, one can only hope that the people of Mexico might one day gain the courage to rise up and overthrow their corrupt and incompetent government. Perhaps if they start over once again, they will finally manage to fix their economy and make their country a place where all of their people can make a decent wage and receive a good education so that they no longer need to illegally sneak into our country and cause problems for the United States of America.

A Day Without Illegal Aliens

For those of you who wonder what it was like in Southern California on our day without illegal aliens, here's a picture of tonight’s rush hour traffic on the major Southern California freeways:

The above image is a screenshot of SIGALERT.com's traffic website taken at 6PM today. Note that each colored dot represents a traffic sensor that is reporting the average speed of traffic passing over that part of the freeway. As you can see, nearly everything is green, which means traffic was traveling over 55 miles per hour. Usually at this same time on a normal weekday, this traffic map shows lots of yellow and red dots, meaning traffic is crawling along at stop and go speeds. My commute to and from work today were both amazingly stress-free and fast. Most traffic was doing well above the speed limit, and I didn't notice the typical stalled cars in the middle of the road, broken-down junkers on the shoulder nor any dilapidated vehicles spewing clouds of oily smoke. Radio traffic reporters and radio talk show callers all reported terrific traffic conditions. My coworkers, friends and relatives reported the same thing. In short, a day on the road without illegal aliens was fantastic.

According to the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) measurements, today's air quality compared to Sunday’s in terms of several key air pollutants (amazing given that few people drive to work on Sundays and emit vehicular air pollution). Thus, it looks like Southern Californian's can literally breathe easier without illegal aliens.

The Los Angeles Unified School District reported that 72,000 children were absent from school today. Since schools get paid by the state based on the number of students attending on any given day, tax payers presumably saved a bundle because of the absence of illegal aliens. The Santa Ana Unified School District reported that 3,000 secondary school students did not show up today, though I couldn't find a total number for all grade levels to compare to Los Angeles.

Although this is purely anecdotal, I heard several teachers call a local radio talk show and rave about how great it was to have a day in which they could teach uninterrupted in English, without having to slow down, repeat and explain things to Spanish speaking children.

Other talk radio callers (both patients and employees) mentioned how few people were at the local emergency trauma centers and emergency rooms (though again, these are unsubstantiated anecdotal claims).

Yet more talk callers also reported firing a number of people who didn't show up to work today, and in many cases quickly replaced their illegal alien workers with legitimate employees, which is another positive. The morning news reported Mexican protesters linked hands across the I-5 freeway at the Tijuana border crossing to try and prevent Mexican's from entering our country so that they couldn't spend money here or support our economy.

From what I could gather from radio news, the protests were all peaceful, and the worst that happened was some localized traffic disruption and lots of U.S. flags getting dragged on the ground during demonstrations before being tossed in garbage cans and the repeated playing of a new Spanish version of our national anthem. As annoying as it was to see our flag being treated disdainfully, this should serve as a wake up call to the voting population when they see just how little respect these illegal aliens have for our society, laws and customs.

I was in such a good mood about the temporary withdrawal from society of illegal aliens that I bought a few hundred dollars worth of ammunition and firearms related supplies to help our local economy and to help counteract whatever minimal damage the illegal alien boycott might possibly have done today.

In light of all of these pleasant experiences, I sincerely hope they decide to keep the boycott going a little longer, at least for a few more decades.

(Disclaimer: I am aware that talk radio callers do not constitute scientific data, and often are politically motivated people. Nevertheless, this was a consistent trend amongst English speaking radio programs today, and was the only metric available to me as I worked all day and could not actually visit schools, hospitals and the various other locations that the callers reported on. Some of these calls were corroborated by legitimate news stories, so one can only assume there is at least some truth to all of this.)

Today Is the Illegal Alien Boycott Day

Don't forget:
If you are an illegal alien, today is the day to boycott American goods and services, stay home from work, keep your kids out of schools and/or go somewhere and protest. According to illegal alien activists, this is how you will put pressure on our nation to let you stay here. It is more likely that such actions will simply show the nation how big of a problem you have become, but by all means give it a shot and see what happens. :)


If you are against illegal immigration and want to combat the effects of the boycott, spend some money. If you get lucky, you might even get reimbursed for up to $640 of your purchases if you send your receipts to the John and Ken show today. Also consider writing the people on this list and let them know you are against amnesty for illegal aliens.

Those of you living, working or passing through areas with large populations of illegal aliens might want to allow some extra time for your commutes as past demonstrations have targeted freeways and other areas for maximum disruption. If you do get caught in a traffic mess, don't get frustrated as this sort of disruption is a great sign for those of us who are against illegal immigration. The more of a nuissance the illegal alien movement makes of themselves, the more the rest of America will be inclined to support tougher immigration reforms.

Colorado Schools Ban U.S. Flag and Patriotic Clothing

Fox News reports that a Colorado middle school has banned patriotic clothing, including clothing depicting the U.S. flag. Similarly, a Colorado high school banned all flags, including the United States flag. Both of these bans were supposedly enacted to ease tensions over the current illegal alien and illegal immigration issues.

As far as I'm concerned, this is a new American low. If anyone at all, be them citizens, illegal aliens, school administrators, or whomever, is offended by the United States Flag, they can leave this country. I am relieved that the Colorado Attorney General has declared that the U.S. Flag cannot be banned. Likewise, the Colorado legislature passed a law that will deny funding to any school that attempts to ban respectful displays of the U.S. flag.

For more information, click on the title link or go here to see the video. The video is currently a java link (this is why I can't link directly to it) on the lower right hand side of the Foxnews.com page, and will probably scroll off or disappear soon, but the title link is to a news story and interview covering this issue.

Support the May 1st Boycott

AmericanPatrol has posted this CNN footage about the supposedly upcoming May 1 Boycott. In short, the idea is for Illegal Aliens and their sympathizers to boycott America that day. The boycott consists of not going to work, preventing their children from going to school, not buying or selling anything and avoiding all forms of business. The idea behind this is to shock the nation with the amount of economic damage that they can cause in order to convince us how important they are to us all.

I'd like to formally announce my support of this boycott. I hope as many illegal aliens participate in this event as possible. I hope the boycott is a wild success and that they manage to keep it going indefinitely. As a supporter of this boycott, I would like to offer the illegal aliens some friendly reminders to help them do a proper job of boycotting America:

• Don't forget to avoid our hospital emergency rooms and trauma centers
• Really stick it to us citizens by not drawing upon any tax funded assistance programs that day
• Hit us where it hurts by keeping your vehicles off of American roads and freeways
• Guarantee us further generations of underpaid housekeepers, gardeners and car wash attendants by keeping your kids out of school and making sure they don't participate in education programs
• Really make an impact by not sending any of our racist American dollars to your home countries so that your homeland doesn't profit from our evil
• Express your anger by not loitering in front of home improvement stores
• Tear up your fake Social Security cards and burn the false identification documents that the racist oppressors of this nation have driven you to acquire in order to obtain employment

For those of you who don't speak English, I'll provide you some of these same tips in your native tongue:

En el primero de Mayo, los delincuentes y criminales que viven en Los Estados Unidos sin autorización deben quedarse en sus casas. Eso es para mostrar los gringos la importancia de los inmigrantes. Los jovenes no deben ir al las escuelas, y los trabajadores no deben ir a sus trabajos. Tambien, nadie debe manejar en los calles. Por favor, quema sus papeles de identificacion y sus tarjetas de Seguridad Social falsos y no emvie dinero a Mexico en el primero de Mayo.

Those of you who sympathize with illegal immigrants and haven't yet come to this country can also help support the boycott:

• Don't sneak across our borders illegally on May 1
• Don't give out border crossing maps, pamphlets on how to apply for US government aid and the various other things that the Mexican government has been providing to would-be invaders

Keep on Protesting, Illegal Alien Criminals

According to WorldnetDaily.com, a recent Zogby poll confirmed the obvious:

Recent images of seas of illegal aliens marching in cities across the U.S. are having a far greater negative than positive impact on the foreigners' cause, according to a new poll.
...
Asked whether the protests have made likely voters more or less sympathetic toward undocumented workers, 61 percent said they're less likely to be sympathetic to the plight of illegals as a result of the protests, while only 32 percent of respondents said they're now more sympathetic.

I actually found the protests quite amusing. These people actually think that entering our country illegally, ignoring our employment and taxation laws, and waiving the Mexican flag, chanting in Spanish and disrupting traffic is somehow going to endear them to us. They claim they want to be a part of our country, yet do everything in their power to demonstrate that they are trying to conquer us for Mexico rather than join us through assimilation. Not only are many of these protestors criminals, but apparently they are also stupid.

Those that have been following these protests from the beginning will recall that at the early spontaneous demonstrations, the protesting illegal aliens carried Mexican flag while defacing or disrespecting the U.S. flag. Here's an example that was emailed to me a couple of weeks ago:

Note how the Mexican flag flies ABOVE the U.S. flag, and how our national symbol flies upside down, a mark of extreme disrespect when not used as a symbol to indicate a serious emergency. Television footage of these demonstrations initially showed veritable seas of Mexican flags. Now, over the last few days, educated activists and political organizers finally realized that this wasn't going over well with the American public. Recent highly organized protests have now featured Spanish speaking illegals waiving the American flag. Investigative reporting revealed that the politically savvy organizers brought large numbers of U.S. flags and tried to talk the protestors in to trading their Mexican flags in for free American flags in the hope that this trick would convince the voting public to support an amnesty for these falsely patriotic people.

If these people truly were respectful of our nation and wanted to join us, they would have come here legally, learned our language, culture and customs, and not been inclined to waive the banners of foreign nations on our soil and form anti-American groups like this one. Fortunately, it looks like the majority of registered voters already realize this, and about half of them are have come to understand what a huge problem illegal immigration is creating.

Likely voters said their biggest concern about illegal immigration is the burden it places on government social services at all levels. While 27 percent said the increased burden was their top concern, another 22 percent said they hold a companion worry – that illegals will trigger an increase in the cost of government services.

The Flames of France: Coming Soon to a City Near You

By now, everyone must have heard that there has been rioting in France for the past 15 days and it is still in progress. More than 300 cities have had outbreaks of violence. Police have been repeatedly attacked and thousands of cars have been firebombed. Schools, post offices and police stations and innocent bystanders have been set on fire. (Committee of Correspondence has a map showing the most affected areas.) Here’s my understanding of why this is happening:

France let in a large number of legal immigrants from their previously occupied territories in Northern Africa so that they could use them as a cheap source of labor. These immigrants were different from the average Frenchman in a number of ways:

• they looked, dressed and spoke differently
• they were poor, uneducated and thus slated to be an underclass
• they felt stronger cultural ties to their past and to their fellow immigrants than France, and they did little to assimilate into French culture
• they tended to be Muslim instead of Protestant or Catholic

The established citizens of France looked down on these immigrants. While they were happy to hire them for menial low-wage jobs, for the most part they preferred them to stay in their gang infested, crime-ridden ghetto-like communities and out of mainstream French society. Over time, these immigrants had children who became citizens, yet retained the stigma of being different and grew up as poor, dissatisfied 2^nd class citizens with few economic opportunities. Eventually, France ended up with 5.5 million of these people and they now make up about 10% of the national population.

The traditional Caucasian French (both Christian and secular) saw these people multiplying and noticed North-African Muslim culture was gaining influence and decided to put a stop to it. They passed a law forbidding the display of religious symbols in public schools, which was taken as an attack on Islam since Muslims have more strict dress codes than the average Christian or secularist (i.e. head coverings, etc.). This added fuel to the fire and made this semi-permanent underclass feel under attack. When a couple of teenagers were accidentally killed, their resentment turned into violence.

Here’s why this is important to us in America:
There are many similarities between what is happening in France and our own situation with illegal immigrants from Mexico. Our illegal immigrants meet nearly all the same criteria. They are poor, uneducated, don’t speak English, don’t assimilate into our culture and tend to collect in poor urban areas. Both the French and the United States’ governments more or less welcome poor immigrants because they are a source of cheap labor and are willing to do menial jobs that citizens supposedly aren’t willing to do. (In reality, there is no such thing as a job citizens won’t do as long as the correct compensation is offered.) The catch is that we already have roughly 3 times the 5.5 million people France is struggling with in this situation. How long will it be before our illegal immigrant population and their citizen offspring decide that they are tired of their lot in life and also decide to express their discontent via rioting and violence when some small spark sets them off?

I believe what is happening in France is likely to happen here if we don’t change our current system. We tacitly encourage illegal immigration by not enforcing our borders, by not enforcing our employment laws and by offering tax based services such as education, health care and other benefits to illegal immigrants. I don’t blame the immigrants for coming, as frankly they would be stupid NOT to come given our lack of vigilance and the poor conditions in Mexico. I instead blame our government for attracting and maintaining a permanent class of serfs for selfish reasons. The Republicans want them here so that the business community can have cheap labor. The Democrats want them because it is easy to buy their vote if they become citizens or have citizen children. They give them just enough tax based aid to encourage them to remain downtrodden and dependent.

This is amoral. If we stopped illegal immigration, both the people of the US and Mexico would be better off. Minimum wage laws here would be utterly obsolete as employers would have to offer whatever wage is necessary to attract American employees. Employers would more easily afford these higher wages if more US dollars would stay in our economy rather than be used to fuel the Mexican economy. Meanwhile, misery in Mexico would probably reach a boiling point as there would no longer be illegal workers in the US sending money back home. The able-bodied workers who are currently coming here would HAVE to fix their nation or live in utter misery. Historically when offered that choice, people replace or fix their government and improve their living conditions rather than tolerate misery indefinitely.

Instead of these improvements, we continue to attract and exploit immigrants from Mexico. Our money, in the form of illegal wages, pours into Mexico to stimulate their economy (Mexico’s third largest source of revenue, according to Time) and is used by Mexicans to buy Mexican goods and services. Illegal immigration provides just enough of a safety valve to let Mexico remain at a threshold of misery so that the lower class isn’t quite motivated to forcibly demand change. Our immigrants are just illegal enough to remain subservient and not demand better working arrangements. They try to avoid conflicts with both law enforcement and their employers for fear of deportation. This situation reminds me more of the Confederate slave owner phrase “my n*ggers know their place and don’t act uppity” rather than “all men are created equal” or “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. Far better that we don’t let them come here at all rather than duplicitously let them live here as serfs.

One day our cities will also burn if things do not change. Look at the history of race riots throughout the world and in our country, in addition to what is currently happening in France. As I see it we have three choices for our country:

1. Learn to speak Spanish, abandon our culture and sacrifice our standard of living until it is low enough that illegal immigrants won’t want to come here any more.

2. Continue as we are now, allowing illegal aliens to come serve as our underclass and continue to exploit them until they are frustrated enough to make the riots in France look like youthful pranks

3. Take control of immigration, secure our borders and promote a common national culture where we can all speak the same language and understand each other. Let Mexico deal with their own problems while we build a nation of citizens and legal residents in which everyone is treated equally.

I prefer option #3. Which one do you prefer?

For more information on illegal immigration, see my article “Stop Illegal Immigration!” at LestDarknessFall.com

(Updated Sun 11/13/05 to include new links)