Your Chance to Tell Them What the American People Really Want!

Last week FAIR alerted you to House Leadership's plan to hold field hearings on immigration reform throughout the summer. House Leadership hopes that by reaching out to the American people for their input on the Senate and House immigration bills, the voters will help them make critical choices on the issue of immigration reform. House Leadership has just announced the schedule for the first set of field hearings to be held this summer. Not to be outdone, the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee has announced he will hold his own field hearing on immigration reform. It is important to go to these meetings and show Congress that the American people want secure borders and enforcement of immigration - not amnesty - for millions of illegal aliens who have broken our laws. Read FAIR's update about the Field Hearings for times and locations.

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DHS Supervisor Charged With Immigration Fraud

"A Department of Homeland Security supervisor has been charged with falsifying immigration documents to help Asian immigrants obtain U.S. citizenship, officials said yesterday. Robert T. Schofield was arrested Wednesday afternoon at his Fairfax County office, where he is a supervisor for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which processes immigration applications," the Washington Post reports. "Over the past decade, the government investigated 'numerous allegations of bribery involving Schofield and Asian immigration applicants' when he worked at the former Immigration and Naturalization Service, according to court documents unsealed yesterday. Schofield was demoted at one point for 'conduct unbecoming a government employee,' the documents say, and had an 'inappropriate relationship' with a woman connected to an INS criminal probe."

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D.A. King: Bush Plan Goes Beyond Immigration Toward "North American Union"

"Those who study our national illegal immigration crisis watch with knowing sadness as millions of Americans outraged over our porous borders eventually get to the obvious question: Why has the president of the United States refused to secure American borders? Perhaps it is part of a larger plan. Without a vote in Congress, or consent of the American people, our intentionally unsecured borders and our government's deliberate lack of enforcement of our immigration and employment laws could be an essential step to a much larger goal: a 'North American Union,'" writes D.A. King. "The un-stated NAFTA-World Trade Organization-based theory is simple: Borders are geopolitical abstractions — barriers to increased profit — and have become obsolete in the global economy. At present, labor is overpriced in the United States. The middle-class American Dream, while charming, is outdated. If you like the idea of illegal, taxpayer-subsidized labor from Mexico, you will love the concept involved here: an unending flow of unskilled low-wage workers looking for a better life with no cumbersome immigration laws about which to be concerned."

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Senate Committee Votes to Again Delay Border Security Deadline

"A Senate panel voted on Thursday to delay a post-September 11 border security program requiring passports or other high-tech IDs for everyone entering the United States following concerns about lagging technology and poor coordination with Canada. The Senate Appropriations Committee unanimously approved the 17-month delay, until June 1, 2009, for fully implementing the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative," Reuters reports. "U.S. and Canadian citizens entering the United States by land can show passports, drivers' licenses, birth certificates and hundreds of other forms of identification that local jurisdictions issue. Security experts prefer the use of passports for fear that other documents are easily forged.were supposed to be shown by everyone entering the United States. But an aide to Leahy said that recent Bush administration briefings indicated those deadlines could not be met, as details about the security systems for identity cards and equipment to read those cards at border stations still had not been worked out."

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Medicaid Citizenship Rules Take Effect Tomorrow

"A Medicaid rule takes effect tomorrow that will require more than 50 million poor Americans to prove their citizenship or lose their medical benefits or long-term care. Under the rule, intended to curb fraud by illegal immigrants, such proof as a passport or a birth certificate must be offered at the time a person applies for Medicaid benefits or during annual reenrollment in the state-federal program for the poor and disabled," the Washington Post writes. "Until now, Medicaid recipients have declared their citizenship, under penalty of perjury, without having to show evidence of it. States have been able to demand substantiation in suspicious cases. No longer will that process suffice. New applicants will be affected immediately and will be denied benefits until they offer proof of citizenship. Current recipients will not have to back up their declarations until their first annual reenrollment, when they will have 45 to 90 days to do so, depending on their circumstances."

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Another Victory for Voting Reform as DOJ Approves Georgia Voting Rules

"Georgia's plans to require voters to show photo identification at the polls won federal approval Wednesday, clearing the way for officials to begin issuing free IDs to those who need them. But opponents of the law, who have sued in both state and federal court, are still hoping the courts will throw out the law before the primary election less than three weeks away," Cox News Service reports. "Approval by the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday allows the State Election Board to move ahead with its plans to implement the law approved by the Georgia Legislature earlier this year. It requires voters to show one of six forms of government-issued photo identification prior to casting a ballot. The election board has scheduled a meeting for 2 p.m. today, at which it is expected to put the voter ID requirement in motion in time for the July 18 primary. Georgia voters will select candidates in a variety of state and local races, including governor, lieutenant governor, representative and senator." [FAIR comment: Georgia becomes the second state to win approval for voter-ID reform measures. The Georgia law mirrors Prop. 200 in Arizona]

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Supreme Court Rules Against Alien Prisoners, Says Convention Doesn't Apply

"The U.S. Supreme Court brushed off appeals Thursday by foreign-born prisoners who said police had violated an international treaty by failing to tell them of their right to contact their consulate after being arrested. The court's 6-3 ruling is likely to affect thousands of inmates nationwide, particularly in states such as California with large immigrant populations. The majority, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, made it clear that they gave the Vienna Convention treaty and its interpretation by the World Court little weight in state criminal prosecutions," the San Francisco Chronicle writes. "Specifically, the court resolved two issues in prosecutors' favor Wednesday: -- If defendants give statements to police who have failed to notify them of their right to call their consulate, the statements can be used as evidence at their trials. -- If defendants fail to claim violations of the treaty before a deadline set by state law, they forfeit those claims."

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Spanish-Language News Agency Apologizes for Smear of Goldwater

"Spanish news agency EFE has apologized for its smear of Arizona gubanatorial candidate Don Goldwater. It said he wanted to hold illegal aliens in 'concentration camps'" writes the Lonewacko Blog. "Upon further reflection, our investigation has determined that your plan to house illegal prisoners in a tent city is consistent with accepted practices for nonviolent American prisoners in your area,"is how EFE phrased the apology. "Of course, on June 23 I pointed out that that claim was simply a smear and that the characterization of the camps was coming from the reporter and not from Goldwater."

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Dean Promises LULAC Convention: "Immigrant Bashing And Scapegoating Is Wrong In Order To Win Elections"

"The head of the Democratic Party told the nation's oldest Hispanic rights group on Wednesday that Democrats will not use immigration to divide the country and win in the upcoming midterm elections," the AP writes. "The Democratic National Committee chairman said Republicans have been in control of Congress and the White House for years and could have done something about immigration and border security, but they were waiting for the approaching elections."

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Immigration's Impact Felt in the Job Market as Wages Fall

"President George W. Bush, addressing the nation on his immigration-overhaul plan last month, declared that granting temporary visas to immigrants would merely give them a chance at 'jobs Americans are not doing.' A growing number of economists challenge the contention that Americans aren't willing to take on those low-end jobs; it's kitchen-table economics, not the sweat factor, that keeps them away. These economists' studies indicate many Americans want those jobs -- they just can't afford to take them because of declining pay and benefits. And they say the influx of immigrants has helped drive down compensation in occupations such as the needle trades, landscaping and restaurant help," Bloomberg News reports. "The disparity is greater over recent decades. The bottom 10 percent of wage-earners is the only group that has seen a decline in real wages -- 2.4 percent -- since 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank with ties to organized labor. The group's study was also based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics."

Economist Ediwn S. Rubenstein analyzes the latest numbers and says, "The (alleged) 14.7 percent gain in output per hour since 2001 is well above the historical average, and—if accurate—should by now have produced the best of all worlds for business and labor, as well as for Ben Bernanke. Profits have indeed risen sharply since 2001. But incomes are stagnant and inflation is higher than the Fed and most economists had anticipated . . . The illegal immigrant labor force may be the missing link between apparently strong economic data and weak economic reality—for American workers, if not for American capitalists."

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Mass. Dems Sign On to Bill Penalizing Illegal Employers

"At least four [Massachusetts] Democratic senators have signed onto a Republican bill to require employers with state contracts to verify the immigration status of their workers, giving a bipartisan boost to the attempt to crackdown on undocumented immigrants . . . Only a month remains in this year's legislative session, so the measure's prospects are uncertain. But with the influential Democratic senators lending their support as the debate in Massachusetts over illegal immigration reaches a fever pitch, the bill could be topical enough to get an airing on the Senate floor," the Boston Globe reports. "The bill would also require the state attorney general to work with the US attorney general to investigate possible violations of federal immigration law and enforce it. And it would impose a $5,000 fine or incarceration for up to five years for workers who use false identification documents to get state-funded jobs."

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Witnesses Set for First of Many House Field Hearings

"Border Patrol agents and law enforcement officials will testify here next week on border security at the first in a series of congressional field hearings on immigration reform. The House International Relations Committee will hold the hearing at a Border Patrol station in Imperial Beach, an oceanfront city sandwiched between San Diego's naval installations to the north and the Mexican border to the south," the San Diego Union Tribune reports. "Among the scheduled witnesses are Darryl Griffen, chief of the San Diego Border Patrol sector; T.J. Bonner, head of a union representing Border Patrol agents; and Andy Ramirez, a spokesman for Friends of the Border Patrol, a Covina, Calif.-based group that sends members to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico."

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California Employers of Illegal Aliens Will Soon Face Suits

"With the federal government's failure to curtail the onslaught of illegal aliens into the United States, coupled with the inaction of lawmakers in Washington, DC to pass real immigration reform, some Americans are looking at legal alternatives to thwart illegal immigration and those who facilitate it . . . As a result, dozens of scofflaw employers may soon find themselves in court as defendants. David Klehm, an Orange County attorney and founder of the IllegalEmployers.org website, together with the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), a Washington, DC-based public interest law center affiliated with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), are planning to file lawsuits against companies that knowingly hire illegal aliens. The lawsuits will be brought against businesses that hire illegals by a battery of lawyers who can best be described as Minutemen of the courts," writes Jim Kouri for the American Chronicle. "'Our alliance seeks companies that have lost business as the result of the illegal hiring practices of their competitors,' explained Mike Hethmon, an attorney for IRLI. 'We are working with David Klehm because we believe that removing the economic incentives to hire illegal aliens is a key to solving this national crisis. We see this alliance as a model for cooperation between citizens concerned about illegal immigration and the majority of American businesses that are concerned about the effects of illegal immigration on the US economy,' he said."

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Senate Amnesty Supporters Moderate Opposition to Enforcement First?

"Key backers of the Senate immigration bill said yesterday they are willing to consider a compromise that would delay the guest-worker program and "amnesty" portions until the borders have been secured. The proposal was floated by Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter in an interview Monday with editors and reporters at The Washington Times," the Washington Times reports. "Reaction at the other end of the Capitol was more muted, with at least one key House leader continuing yesterday to point out flaws in the Senate bill. The House and Senate approved very different immigration bills, with the House focusing on building 700 miles of fence on the U.S.-Mexico border, boosting enforcement and requiring employers to verify that their workers are here legally. The Senate bill boosts enforcement, too, but also creates a program for future immigrant workers and a path to citizenship for many current illegal aliens."

"We must understand that any 'concession' that may be forthcoming from the open-borders people—Specter, McCain, and so on—that they are willing to secure the borders before implementing the guestworker/citizenship program will be nothing but a variation on Sen. Frist’s palpably fraudulent proposal,'" writes Lawrence Auster.

More commentary from Slate's Mickey Kaus

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New Tancredo Book Highlights Immigration, Fight for American Freedom

"[Rep. Tom] Tancredo has become the 'lightning rod' in the Congress on the issue of borders and illegal immigration. But 'In Mortal Danger' shows he is hardly a one-dimensional, one-issue, predictable Johnny-one-note. Yes, Tancredo is passionate about borders, passionate about enforcing duly enacted laws of Congress as they apply to immigration matters. But it's all part of a much bigger picture for Tancredo – a picture for which he is willing to make personal sacrifices and take political risks," writes Worldnetdaily. ''The battle to hold a diverse nation together by a common adherence to the American creed – which is most easily defined by our Constitution and our founders' Declaration of Independence as opposed to a creed exemplified by an almost religious devotion to diversity – seems worth the effort,' he writes."

Also see: Gang expert says Tancredo correct about drug-cartel corruption in America and Tancredo interview on Hannity and Colmes

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Mexico's Missing Prosperity

"The subtext for the United States' immigration debate is Mexico. certificate Why doesn't its economy grow faster, creating more jobs and higher living standards? That's the question that inevitably confronts the winner of this Sunday's Mexican presidential election, but it is also a critical question for Americans. A more prosperous country would not be sending so many of its poorest citizens north. Since 1990 about 20 to 25 percent of U.S. immigrants have come from Mexico," says Robert Samuelson. "Here is an illuminating comparison. In 1970 average incomes in South Korea were about half those in Mexico. By 2004 Korean incomes were more than twice Mexico's. During those decades, reports the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), average Mexican incomes rose 57 percent, to $9,178 (expressed in constant '2000 dollars'); the comparable Korean gain was 574 percent, to $19,148."

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FAIR Op-Ed: Time for the Public to Have Its Say on Immigration

"While the White House and the Senate have been applying pressure to the House of Representatives to negotiate an immigration bill that includes a de facto amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens, a massive new guest worker program and huge increases in legal immigration, House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) affirmed that there is an important voice in this debate that still needs to be heard: the American people," says FAIR president Dan Stein in an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Thanks to Hastert and other House leaders, the American people will get their say in August at a series of field hearings around the country. With anger growing over unchecked illegal immigration and the prospect of amnesty for tens of millions of immigration lawbreakers, these hearings should reaffirm the public's overwhelming support for the enforcement-only approach of the bill passed by the House last December."

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DNA Tests Help Combat Immigration Fraud

When Scarlett Simonian petitioned in 2004 for her Honduran mother to immigrate to the U.S., she was asked to provide a birth certificate and other documents to prove they were blood relatives. But recently Simonian was told she needed more proof. The consular officer in Honduras suggested a DNA test . . . 'We will consider all other documentation first,' said Martin Handman of Citizenship and Immigration Services in Los Angeles. 'It's more of a last resort when other documentation is missing,'" the LA Times reports. Indeed, some companies are actively pursuing the market, attending conferences with immigration attorneys, hiring staff fluent in foreign languages and forging relationships with U.S. consulates and embassies. . If either Citizenship and Immigration Services or the State Department requires more evidence or suspects fraud, it may request DNA testing. In some cases, a federal immigration judge also can request a test. The tests are voluntary, but applicants risk having their petition rejected if they don't comply. Several immigration attorneys said they advise their clients to cooperate."

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Fast Food Trade Mag Tells Readers to Cut Down on Illegal Hiring

"On April 26, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could make businesses think long and hard about how they hire hourly workers. Like most cases that make the Supreme Court’s docket, the question posed in Mohawk Industries v. Williams, et al is a smaller piece needed to complete the puzzle in a much larger legal battle," says Quick Service Restaurant (aka fast food) Online. "The restaurant industry could potentially be a gold mine for RICO claims due to the large number of undocumented workers in the ranks of its employees. Of the estimated 7.2 million unauthorized migrant workers in the United States, as many as one in six (17 percent) are thought to be employed in the leisure and hospitality industry, according to a recent study conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center. Unauthorized migrants represent 23 percent of dishwashers, 20 percent of cooks, and 17 percent of food preparation workers in the United States."

"[FAIR counsel] Hethmon says cutting out the hiring middleman also provides a defense. 'They can avoid the practice of using temporary labor agencies or temporary hiring agencies to provide them with a workforce that they know - or should have known - was largely undocumented,' he says, adding that participating in the Basic Pilot program could serve as a mitigating factor in favor of the employer if something does come up."

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Scuffle Breaks Out As Judge Rules Immigration Reform Petition Needs More Signatures

"A Superior Court judge ruled Monday that a voter initiative to crack thousands down on illegal immigrants in San Bernardino needed more signatures to qualify for the ballot, a decision that could quash a measure that has divided city leaders and added fuel to the nationwide immigration debate. Judge A. Rex Victor said the city used a flawed formula when it determined how many signatures the petitions needed. Joseph Turner, the author of the measure, will have 10 days to submit about 2,500 additional signatures, and on Monday he conceded that collecting them would be next to impossible," the LA Times reports. "Turner's ballot measure turned San Bernardino into a flash point on the immigration debate, similar to Costa Mesa, where city officials were criticized and lauded for allowing police officers to check suspected felons' immigration status. In Highland, which borders San Bernardino, the City Council recently strengthened language in municipal contracts that bans use of undocumented workers." NBC-TV captured video of one pro-illegal alien protester taking a swing at Turner while the judge was deciding the case.

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Roger Barnett Wins Lawsuit Against Him

"An anti-illegal immigrant activist, his wife and brother have been cleared in a lawsuit alleging they trespassed on a monastery's ranch to detain immigrants. Roger, Barbara and Donald Barnett were sued by the caretaker of the ranch for a 2003 incident where they detained 30 men, women and children immigrants at a well," the AP reports. In the case that ended Friday, the Barnetts argued they had been welcome guests on the monastery property, wore civilian clothing, and led the migrants to the well because they were dehydrated and needed water. 'It turned out the way I thought it would, although sometimes there are doubts when a jury is involved,' said Roger Barnett, 63. 'But our attorneys did a really good job.'"

[FAIR comment: IRLI (Immigration Reform Law Institute) FAIR's public interest litigation group is providing legal support for the Roger Barnett (who is a FAIR member) in this and several other cases]

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Open Borders Supporters Upset With Detention Plan

"The sweeping immigration bills in Congress would add many thousands of beds to the patchwork network of detention facilities that hold illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers _ places that critics say are over-costly and under-regulated. Already, activists say, far too many nonthreatening people are held for too long in demoralizing conditions," the AP wrote. "The Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, says it needs 35,000 more detention beds to hold all the illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. As of Dec. 30, there were 544,000 such people who had absconded; ICE blamed the bed shortage for fueling 'an unofficial mini-amnesty' for high-risk aliens. Detainees, as non-citizens, have no automatic right to legal counsel. The majority, who are indigent and without local connections, depend on scarce pro bono assistance or do without, reducing their odds of winning appeals."

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"Temporarily" Permanent: Teachers Use J-1 Visa, Try to Stay in U.S. Permanently

The Washington Post has a story about one foreign teacher who came to the U.S. on a J-1 "cultural exchange" visa and now expects to jump to the head of the line for residency. "Most foreigners who marry U.S. citizens while on a visitor visa can adjust their status without leaving the country. But if they overstay a J-1 visa -- the three-year kind Chamorro has -- they must leave the United States to apply for a family member visa even if they marry a citizen, said Michael Defensor, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services," the paper says. "Chamorro came to the United States through the North Carolina-based Visiting International Faculty Program, which brings teachers from around the world to work in U.S. schools for up to three years. Teachers with the program sign a pledge to return to their country for at least two years afterward."

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AZ Gov. Tries to Straddle the Fence on Immigration

"Two decades ago, lawyer Janet Napolitano represented a Tucson church battling an investigation into whether it smuggled illegal immigrants into the United States from Central America. In 1990, a federal appeals court ruled the Immigration and Naturalization Service could not send undercover informants into the Southside Presbyterian Church services on mere fishing expeditions to try to gather intelligence," the Washington Post reports. "Over the next 20 years, Napolitano served as U.S. attorney for Arizona, as the state's attorney general and, since 2002, as governor. Now Napolitano's old clients view her as a defector, in the words of John Fife, the former pastor of Southside Presbyterian, who led what was called the sanctuary movement for illegal immigrants." According to the paper, "Among the nation's top Democrats, Napolitano has developed some of the toughest policies against illegal immigration. She was one of the first major politicians to call for deployment of the National Guard along the border and declared a state of emergency in her state's counties nearest Mexico . . . Her Republican critics here, however, say she has not gone nearly far enough and has routinely blocked legislative efforts against illegal immigration."

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Sen. Frist: Senate Amnesty Bill A Good Start, Needs Improvement

"The immigration bill I voted for in the Senate started the United States down the road to a much better immigration system. But it's not finished. In its broad outlines, I support the comprehensive approach that the Senate bill takes. History has taught us that immigration reform measures cannot work in isolation. Simply strengthening physical border security or beginning a guest worker program will not fix the deep, underlying problems in America's immigration system," says Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) in an op-ed. "As the House of Representatives conducts public hearings on immigration this summer, I believe it should aim to produce legislation that preserves the Senate's comprehensive approach while remedying certain flaws in the Senate bill. The Senate's legislation, I believe, is a mixed bag: It contains some good provisions, some that need work and some that have no place in a final bill."

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U.S. Population Nears 300 Million

"The U.S. population is on target to hit 300 million this fall and it's a good bet the milestone baby _ or immigrant _ will be Hispanic. No one will know for sure because the date and time will be just an estimate. But Latinos _ immigrants and those born in this country _ are driving the population growth. They accounted for almost half the increase last year, more than any other ethnic or racial group. White non-Hispanics, who make up about two-thirds of the population, accounted for less than one-fifth of the increase," the AP reports. "When the population reached 200 million in 1967, there was no accurate tally of U.S. Hispanics. The first effort to count Hispanics came in the 1970 census, and the results were dubious. The Census Bureau counted about 9.6 million Latinos, a little less than 5 percent of the population. The bureau acknowledged that the figure was inflated in the Midwest and South because some people who checked the box saying they were 'Central or South American' thought that designation meant they were from the central or southern United States."

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House Leaders Announce More Details on Hearings

Plus Sen. Specter Plans His Own Hearing

"House Republican leaders on Thursday scheduled five new hearings on immigration and said they still hope to send a border security bill to President Bush before 2007. We want to make sure the Congress gets this done the right way and not be rushed just because its an election year,' said Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois. For many Republicans as well as some Democrats sensitive about public opinion in an election year, the right way is without provisions in a Senate-passed bill that would bestow legal status on millions of illegal immigrants," the AP reports. "Supporters of the Senate bill also plan hearings. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., scheduled a hearing in his state July 5 looking at the need for more foreign guest workers."

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Fire Crew Bosses Demoted Because Agencies Are Hiring Illegal Aliens

"With 24 major wildfires burning across the southwestern United States, fire officials need every firefighter they can get. They've done that in Oregon, but it's created another problem. Officials are now having to lay off some of the bosses who manage those firefighting crews because the bosses are not bilingual. Many of the newer hires in Oregon only speak Spanish. 'What we do know is 85 percent of the crew makeup is of Hispanic descent,' said Jim Walker, with the Oregon Department of Forestry," ABC 7 News in Denver reports. "Both Oregon state officials and those in the firefighting business say they do not think there are 'that many' illegal immigrant workers in the fire crews," KATU-TV reported. Also see this PBS report from 2002 on the use of illegal aliens to fight fires.

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Arrests Derail Sears Tower Plot

"Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Friday that seven young men arrested in Miami were part of a group of 'homegrown terrorists' who sought to work with al-Qaida but ended up consorting instead with a law enforcement informant. Outlining an alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and a federal building in Miami, Gonzales told a Justice Department news conference: 'They were persons who for whatever reason came to view their home country as the enemy,'" the AP writes. "The alleged terrorists - five U.S. citizens, a legal immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian national who was in this country illegally - were expected to appear in federal court in Miami later Friday. They had taken an oath to al-Qaida and sought help from someone they believed was a member of the terrorist organization, the indictment alleged."

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Catholic Diocese in L.A. Drops Anti-Molester Background Checks . . . Because They Would Catch Illegal Aliens

"Not wanting to lose illegal immigrant volunteers, the Los Angeles and Orange Roman Catholic dioceses have quietly backed away from a pledge to root out pedophiles by running fingerprint background checks on anyone who works with children. The revamped policy in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles allows church volunteer candidates without government-issue identification to give instead a sworn affidavit stating that they have not been convicted of any crime. In Orange, potential volunteers without photo IDs can submit a sworn affidavit and two letters of reference attesting to their character," the LA Times reports. "'It's scary. I didn't know they were doing this,' said Rita Milla, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles-area Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. 'They are just trying to be too politically correct, even though it means putting the kids at risk. If someone can't prove who they are, they shouldn't be volunteering.'"

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Supreme Court Rules Against Illegal Alien, Upholds IIRIRA Deportations

"The Supreme Court on Thursday dealt a blow to some longtime illegal residents, upholding the deportation of a Mexican man who lived in the United States for 20 years. By an 8-1 vote, justices said that Humberto Fernandez-Vargas, who was deported several times from the 1970s to 1981, is subject to a 1996 law Congress passed to streamline the legal process for expelling aliens who have been deported at least once before and returned," the AP reports. "Fernandez-Vargas was sent back to Mexico in 2004, and wanted to return to his family in the United States. He argued that the 1996 law should not be applied to him because he last entered America more than a decade before Congress passed the statute. 'Fernandez-Vargas continued to violate the law by remaining in this country day after day and ... the United States was entitled to bring that continuing violation to an end,' Justice David Souter wrote in the decision."

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GAO Faults Dept. of Labor Oversight of the H-1B Visa Program

The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a new report on . the H-1B visa approval and oversight process. The report notes that the Department of Labor has a very restricted role that is largely rubber-stamping the applications – if filled out correctly – but it also found that the DOL doesn’t even do that effectively. It found more that 3,200 applications that were certified even though the wage rate on the application was lower than the prevailing wage for that occupation. Another problem identified is the inability of Homeland Security to identify the number of workers originally requested in an application approved by the DOL. Furthermore, DHS has no formal means to advise DOL if it finds employers paying lower wages than in the petition approved by DOL, and DOL is precluded by law from using such information – if it receives it – from launching an investigation. The GAO called on Congress to consider removing the barrier on DOL use of non-compliance information supplied by DHS.

Read the full report (PDF)

FAIR Testifies on Capitol Hill

FAIR president Dan Stein testified before the House Committee on Administration [on Thursday, June 22] regarding voter ID requirements. With judicial opinions favoring voter ID requirements, the House is considering legislation by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-IL) that would take the proof of citizenship and other ID requirements pioneered by Proposition 200 in Arizona nationwide, in an effort to clamp down on vote fraud by immigrants, legal and illegal.

"Protecting our election process against fraud is vital to assuring the American public that their interest in our democratic form of government is protected. It undermines the principle of the rule of law to allow the opportunity to vote on people who are not legally entitled to have it. The size of the illegal alien population has become so large and the impediments to illegal voting are so few that this issue should no longer be ignored by this nation's policymakers," Stein said in his testimony.

Others testifying included election officials from around the U.S. who told the committee that fraudulent voting by immigrants was a serious problem and one that Congress should act on.

Read Dan Stein's full testimony

Federal Court Again Upholds Prop. 200, Rejects Poll Tax Argument

"The US District Court for the District of Arizona has rejected a bid by Latino and voter-advocacy groups to temporarily halt a requirement that voters show government-issued identification to prove that they are US citizens when they register to vote. The measure, which was approved in 2004 in an effort to stop voter fraud, is part of Arizona's Proposition 200, which also denies some state public benefits to illegal immigrants and makes it a crime for public employees to fail to report undocumented immigrants who seek benefits outlined in the legislation," the Jurist site at Pitt reports. "Judge Roslyn Silver sided with the government, writing that 'determining whether an individual is a United States citizen is of paramount importance when determining his or her eligibility to vote.'"

Also see: Arizona Republic coverage

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Republican Challenger in Utah Says Cannon is Pro-Amnesty

"So what do you do if you're John Jacob, a Republican running against a five-term incumbent from your own party, Chris Cannon, and you learn the Republican White House has endorsed Cannon? On Monday, a day after learning first lady Laura Bush is endorsing Cannon in a recorded phone message to voters in Utah's 3rd Congressional District, Jacob decided to criticize President Bush, saying the president supports illegal immigration and painting Cannon as Bush's water boy," the Deseret News reports. "The tougher talk about Bush is a calculated gamble by Jacob, who has been painted into a corner by Laura Bush's endorsement, said an elections analyst at Brigham Young University. 'What Mr. Jacob needs to do is make this calculation about who his supporters are, and that's a very active and vocal contingent on this issue who have criticized the president and who have shown in previous election cycles they're willing to put resources behind rhetoric,' said Kelly Patterson, director of BYU's Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy."

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Minutemen Billboards Target McCain

"One of the leading groups advocating tougher border and immigration controls is going after Arizona Sen. John McCain for his support of more moderate border polices including a business-backed guest worker program. The Minuteman Project is launching a billboard campaign in various markets criticizing McCain for his support of a guest worker program and legal path for some undocumented immigrants in the U.S." the Phoenix Business Journal reports. "McCain, a Republican considering a second White House run in 2008, supports a measure that allows illegals already in the U.S. to apply for legal status if they pay a fine and pass background checks. The Arizona Republican's stance on immigration is similar to that of President Bush and Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano."

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Programmers Guild Files 300 H-1B Complaints

"The Programmers Guild has filed employment discrimination complaints against over 300 employers this year. These actions, including case number 197-19-120, are being filed with the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related discrimination. The complaints allege that the companies have discriminated against U.S. workers in job postings that express preference towards hiring foreign workers on H-1B visas," the group said in a news release. "Toni Chester, an American computer programmer in New Jersey with two BS degrees and 17 years of experience has been unable to find work in that state since she was replaced by an H-1B teammate in August 2001. When she responded to a 'foreign worker' ad for free training, she was told that the training had been cancelled, but observed that the ads for jobs and training continued to run. In spite of follow-up emails and phone calls, she was denied the same training placement assistance, and jobs that are afforded to H-1B holders," the group says.

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FLASH: HOUSE GOP WILL HOLD NATIONWIDE AMNESTY HEARINGS THIS AUGUST

"In a move that probably will delay passage of an immigration bill until after the August recess and darken its prospects for the year, House Republican leaders today announced a plan to hold field hearings around the country to solicit opinions on border security and immigration issues. GOP leaders said the hearings, which would mostly take place in August, would allow them to hear from constituents before negotiating with the Senate, which adopted an immigration bill much broader than the House's border-security measure," Congress Daily reported this afternoon.

Update: Read FAIR's press release in reaction to the hearings

Update 6/21: More coverage from: Washington Times, New York Times, LA Times

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Senate Amnesty Bill Won't Stop Illegal Aliens from Getting Jobs

"Senate Republicans warned yesterday that the immigration bill approved by the Senate last month won't stop companies from hiring illegal aliens -- the very magnet that has drawn some 12 million illegals to the United States," the Washington Times reports. 'I am concerned that the worker verification title passed in the current Senate immigration bill only takes us halfway there, and will not eliminate the activity that currently allows millions of illegal immigrants to steal Social Security numbers and obtain work fraudulently,' [Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)] said. 'It's important not only to stop illegal immigration, but to stop identity theft; there must be safeguards to ensure that someone is actually who he claims to be.'"

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Saudi Government Funds Aviation Scholarships for Students to Study in U.S.

"Gee, it wasn't bad enough that several of the 15 of 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis who studied aviation here in the U.S. Now, Saudi Arabia, our "ally on the War on Terror" (the "ally" which is actually fomenting the Terror), is sponsoring AVIATION SCHOLARSHIPS for Saudis to study in the U.S. Hello? . . . . Haven't we been there, done that? Isn't it about time that we restrict aviation training in the U.S. to nationals of non-terrorist-linked nations? And shouldn't the Saudis still be ashamed (not that they ever were) of their U.S.-aviation-educated countrymen who murdered nearly 3,000 Americans? Well, why should they be--with the way the Bush Administration panders to them?!" says Debbie Schlussel. "And, by the way, we've already written about Mana Saleh Almanajam and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, two of the Saudi men already here 'learning English' on similar Saudi scholarships. They're the two men who went on the 'joy ride' on a Tampa school bus, one in a trench coat on a hot Florida day, in an apparent dry run for a terrorist attack."

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Georgia Law "Chills" Illegal Alien Activity

"Many real estate agents and mortgage providers who cater to Spanish-speaking [illegal] immigrants across Georgia say that the flourishing Latino home buying market has faltered since April, when Gov. Sonny Perdue signed the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. Almost immediately, Latino home buyers pulled out of contracts. Some who had already bought, put their homes on the market. And many prospective buyers stopped searching for homes," the LA Times writes. "State Sen. Chip Rogers, a Republican who represents some of Atlanta's northern suburbs and who sponsored the legislation, said he was 'very satisfied' that the law seemed to be prompting some illegal immigrants to consider leaving Georgia."

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Denial is a River In North Carolina

"Early one morning recently, Michael Donnell was standing outside a temporary employment agency on South Elm-Eugene Street, waiting for it to open so he could get work for the day. It's been almost a year since the Greensboro resident held a permanent job, and he blames low-paid immigrant workers as part of the reason. 'Cheaper pay for them, less work for us,' he said," the Greensboro News-Record reports. "There's no question illegal immigrants are receiving jobs that Work First clients could be doing, said [Vanessa] Smith, whose agency helps welfare recipients find jobs to get them off public assistance. But U.S.-born clients fail to land a job most often because of a glitch in their background, such as a felony conviction or their refusal to work long hours at relatively low pay, Smith said."

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Pennsylvania Town Promises Immigration Crackdown

"With tensions rising and its police department and municipal budget stretched thin, this small northeastern Pennsylvania city is about to begin what the mayor calls one of the toughest crackdowns on illegal immigrants in the United States. 'Illegal immigrants are destroying the city,' said Mayor Lou Barletta, a Republican. 'I don't want them here, period,'" the AP writes. "Last week Barletta introduced, and the City Council tentatively approved, a measure that would revoke the business licenses of companies that employ illegal immigrants; impose $1,000 fines on landlords who rent to illegal immigrants; and make English the city's official language."

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Jobs That Americans Won't Do?

The New York Times has a front page story today about the ease with which illegal aliens can find employment. "Starting about 30 years ago, as illegal immigration began to swell, building maintenance contractors in big immigrant hubs like Los Angeles started hiring the new immigrant workers as part of a broader effort to drive down labor costs. Unions for janitors fell apart as landlords shifted to cheaper nonunion contractors to clean their buildings. Wages fell and many American-born workers left the industry," the paper says. "Between 1970 and 2000, the share of Hispanic immigrants among janitors in Los Angeles jumped from 10 percent to more than 60 percent, according to a forthcoming book by Ruth Milkman, a sociologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, titled 'L.A. Story: Work, Immigration and Unionism in America's Second City.' (Russell Sage Foundation, August 2006.) "

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Conservative Heavyweights Sign "Enforcement First" Letter

"Leading conservatives and civic leaders have signed an 'open letter' on immigration declaring that 'border and interior enforcement must be funded, operational, implemented, and proven successful — and only then can we debate the status of current illegal immigrants, or the need for new guest worker programs,'" says John Fonte of the Hudson Institute, which released the letter. "The signers include William Bennett, Robert Bork, William F Buckley, Ward Connerly, Newt Gingrich, David Horowitz, David Keene, John Leo, Herbert London, Rich Lowry, Daniel Pipes, Phyllis Schlafly, and Thomas Sowell among others." via View from the Right.

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Texas Experiment in "Catch and Remove" Shows Results

"[T]his year, a 190-mile stretch of riverbank that includes the small border cities of Eagle Pass and Del Rio became a 'zero-tolerance zone.' If apprehended by the U.S. Border Patrol, illegal immigrants are prosecuted by federal authorities for a misdemeanor, sent to jail for 15 to 180 days and then deported," the Washington Post reports. "'We would be processing [paperwork] all day,' [one agent] said. Then we'd watch them walk out,' [agent] Malacara said. 'Do all that work, watch them walk out and never see them again.' 'Now we're holding them back,' [agent] Mata said. 'It's a drastic change, drastic.' They are, said Randy Clark, the agent in charge of field operations in the Eagle Pass Border Patrol office, 'the most dynamic results I've seen in my 19 years in the Border Patrol.'"

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National Parks Pay the Price of Mass Illegal Immigration

"Drug smugglers fleeing Mexican police crossed into this desert park and fatally shot a ranger four years ago, prompting officials to build a 30-mile vehicle barrier. That steel-and-concrete wall stops most cars from speeding in from Mexico. But drug and human traffickers have switched to rural entryways into Arizona," the AP reports. "Park workers spend most of their time backing up Border Patrol officers and dealing with border issues. 'This tears my heart out, seeing the impacts on this place,' Organ Pipe superintendent Kathy Billings said as she surveyed a fresh track through coarse sand."

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Illegal Hiring Rarely Caught, Fined

"The Bush administration, which is vowing to crack down on U.S. companies that hire illegal workers, virtually abandoned such employer sanctions before it began pushing to overhaul U.S. immigration laws last year, government statistics show. Between 1999 and 2003, work-site enforcement operations were scaled back 95 percent by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which subsequently was merged into the Homeland Security Department. The number of employers prosecuted for unlawfully employing immigrants dropped from 182 in 1999 to four in 2003, and fines collected declined from $3.6 million to $212,000, according to federal statistics," the Washington Post reports in a Page 1 story. "In 1999, the United States initiated fines against 417 companies. In 2004, it issued fine notices to three. The government's steady retreat from workplace enforcement in the 20 years since it became illegal to hire undocumented workers is the result of fierce political pressure from business lobbies, immigrant rights groups and members of Congress, according to law enforcement veterans."

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Misleading Polls Part of the Pro-Amnesty Agenda

The Lonewacko Blog takes a critical look at the latest "push poll" attempt by the Wall Street Journal to show public support for amnesty. "The House version does a bit more than the description provided [in the poll], and so does the Senate bill. However, the description of the Senate bill is so misleading that I'm forced to conclude it's an outright attempt to deceive. The 'guest' worker component is separate from the legalization component; the latter would grant amnesty to several million current illegal aliens and that amnesty isn't tied to the 'guest' worker scheme. And, the question doesn't mention the endless chain migration that would be allowed, nor does it mention the doubling of legal immigration in the Senate bill. Nor does it mention the tremendous amount of illegal immigration that would result from the amnesty. Yes, Americans are indeed warming up to the Bush/Fox/WSJ/Teddy Kennedy/McCain massive illegal alien amnesty. Just as long as you don't tell them what it actually involves."

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Illegal Alien March Organizers Really Do Drink the Reconquista Kool-Aid

"While cruising the media circuit organizers of illegal alien protests and lobbyists for legislation in favor of amnesty say one thing, but behind closed doors they are talking Reconquista -- or the overthrow of the state governments of the southwest of the United States and their return to Mexico. School children in Mexico are taught from grade school that the southwest states are part of Mexico and not the United States. James Pinkerton at Newsday attended a recent panel discussion," says Digger's Realm. He quotes from Pinkerton, who wrote about the panel, "Consider the words of Roberto Lovato, identified as a writer for New American Media, describing itself as 'the country's first and largest national collaboration of ethnic news organizations.' Speaking first, Lovato declared that he had problems with the words 'civil rights.' Why? In part because that phrase had been used by black Americans half a century ago - it was their term. But mostly, he continued, the term is inapt because today 'a lot of the members of the movement were political revolutionaries in countries such as Nicaragua and El Salvador.' And that's why, he concluded, 'this is not just a civil rights movement - this is the northernmost expression of a continental rights movement.'"

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Immigration Reform Caucus Tops 100 in House

"Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO), Chairman of the House Immigration Reform Caucus, announced that the Caucus passed the 100-member mark this week. On Wednesday, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) became the 100th member of the Caucus; today, Rep. Charlie Bass (R-NH) joined as its 101st member," notes the office of Rep. Tom Tancredo. “As the IRC has grown so has the illegal immigration issue grown in Americans’ consciousness. When I started the Caucus in 1999, we had few friend and allies in Congress. Today, the IRC is one of the largest and most active caucuses in the House. Our size and the force of our arguments dictate that we have a seat at the table.” said Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). “The IRC includes Republicans and Democrats from California to New Hampshire. We represent the vast majority of Americans who want our borders secured and illegal immigration stopped.”

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DHS Official Caught in Underage Sex Sting Blabbed Job, Security Info

"When the story of Homeland Security official Brian J. Doyle broke, we warned that he and other DHS officials with predilections for sex crimes are incredibly vulnerable to terrorist blackmail. We said it would be a great plot device for next season's "24" (Attention, Joel Surnow). Well, it is even more like "24" than we thought. Today's Tampa Trib has more details on frightening antics of Doyle, who solicited what he thought was a 14-year-old girl on the Net (it was actually a Polk County, FL Deputy Sheriff)," says Debbie Schlussel. "Doyle's job-related conversations with the fictional girl are 'careless,' but do not have national security ramifications because he did not divulge operational techniques, said Larry Johnson, a former CIA employee who also worked at the U.S. State Department's Office of Counter Terrorism. Even so, Johnson noted, 'It is remarkable he'd be that open and forward with a 14-year-old girl about these things,'" the Tampa Tribune writes.

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Federal Judge Backs Detention of Illegal Aliens in Important Ruling

"A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled yesterday that the government has wide latitude under immigration law to detain noncitizens on the basis of religion, race or national origin, and to hold them indefinitely without explanation. The ruling came in a class-action lawsuit by Muslim immigrants detained after 9/11, and it dismissed several key claims the detainees had made against the government. But the judge, John Gleeson of United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, allowed the lawsuit to continue on other claims, mostly that the conditions of confinement were abusive and unconstitutional. Judge Gleeson's decision requires top federal officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft and Robert S. Mueller III, the F.B.I. director, to answer to those accusations under oath," the New York Times reports. "In his 99-page ruling, Judge Gleeson rejected the government's argument that the events of Sept. 11 justified extraordinary measures to confine noncitizens who fell under suspicion, or that the attacks heightened top officials' need for government immunity to combat future threats to national security without fear of being sued. But his interpretation of immigration law gave the government broad discretion to enforce the law selectively against noncitizens of a particular religion, race or national origin, and to detain them indefinitely, for any unspecified reason, after an immigration judge had ordered them removed from the country."

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New York City Considers Tax Funded Hiring Halls

"A New York City panel is examining whether the city should subsidize job centers for day laborers to link this overwhelmingly immigrant work force to prospective employers and curb wage and workplace abuses. The job centers would bring a measure of regulation to an informal economy that involves throngs of immigrants gathering on curbsides and in parking lots each morning waiting to be hired for work doing light construction, landscaping or domestic chores," the New York Times writes. "A handful of other major cities, including Los Angeles, Denver and Phoenix, have given public funds to day labor centers, but efforts in other locales have drawn fierce opposition from groups that favor tighter immigration controls. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn, appointed the commission, which held its first public hearing on Wednesday evening. Its goal is to evaluate the legal issues surrounding the job centers and determine whether public financing and oversight would be feasible."

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"Operation Return to Sender" Nets Thousands of Arrests

"A blitz by federal agents during the last three weeks captured nearly 2,100 illegal immigrants across the country in raids targeting child molesters, violent gang members and past deportees who re-entered the country. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials credited the roundup to a network of 35 fugitive apprehension teams," the AP reports.

"Many readers have written asking my opinion on the latest spate of mass arrests of illegal aliens, nationwide. In case you didn't figure it out, these latest 2,000-plus illegal alien arrests are yet more fakery in the Bush Administration's propaganda war to get amnesty for illegals. Amnesty, not protecting our borders, is the Holy Grail for W & The ICE Princess," says Debbie Schlussel in reaction to yesterday's raids.

FAIR issued a press release today warning that the raids were part of the administration's amnesty agenda. “It is sad at best and cynical at worst that the White House is trying to use the arrest of vicious gang members, child molesters and other criminals to leverage amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. These steps should have been taken long ago because it is their responsibility to protect public safety. What we saw yesterday was welcome, but it still does not demonstrate a commitment on the part of the government to engage in serious and comprehensive immigration enforcement and it certainly does not justify granting amnesty to tens of millions of illegal aliens,” FAIR president Dan Stein said in the release.

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DHS Whistleblower says Agency Corrupt, Foreign Governments Have Operatives There

"The U.S. immigration system is so broken that it can't be fixed, a former top security official at the Department of Homeland Security's Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) told NewsMax in an exclusive interview. 'Internal corruption at CIS is so pervasive that hostile foreign governments have penetrated the agency,' said Michael J. Maxwell, who was forced to resign as chief of the CIS Office of Security and Investigation earlier this year," Newsmax reports. "In sworn testimony before House International Relations subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation on April 6, 2006, Maxwell said that his office had received complaints of 'USCIS employees providing material support to known terrorists or being influenced by foreign intelligence services.' One USCIS employee, 'co-opted by a foreign intelligence entity,' had 'the ability to grant the immigration [benefit] of their choosing to the person or persons of their choosing,' Maxwell said in his sworn testimony."

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Pete Wilson: GOP Too Timid on Immigration

"The political godfather of California's initiatives against illegal immigrants in the 1990s said Monday that lawmakers who favor citizenship opportunities for such workers do so only because they are afraid of being labeled racists and nativists. 'I think a great many Republicans have been intimidated, and I, frankly, am quite disappointed,' former California Gov. Pete Wilson said during a speech at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank,'" the Houston Chronicle reports. "Calling illegal immigration a threat to the nation's security and culture, the Republican also called for a fence to be built along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border before a path to citizenship is offered to the 12 million illegal immigrants in the country."

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Bush Administration Helping Illegal Aliens Get Medicaid

"It's no secret that illegal aliens have long been getting billions on Medicaid healthcare coverage, courtesy of your tax dollar. But it's illegal. Medicaid is reserved for low-income U.S. citizens and legal residents. That hasn't stopped many, many doctors, hospitals, and other medical facilities from ripping you off to pay for the care of illegal aliens," says Debbie Schlussel. "But President Bush didn't like that. So, on Friday, he and his Administration moved to 'soften' (ie., castrate) the law, and allow states to accept sworn affidavits from Medicaid seekers (stating they are U.S. citizens), when these documents are 'unavailable.' Yes, 'honest, law abiding' illegal aliens--who are already breaking the law by being here--are going to be honest and never falsely sign a document saying they are U.S. citizens. Right? They'd never do such a thing."

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National Flag Day

"Why pledge loyalty to a Flag? Because it symbolizes liberty - the divine right of liberty granted to man. Unique in history, our nation was founded as a shining city on a hill pointing the way to liberty for all mankind. Our Republic was an example for all nations, not a mere sanctuary for the disenfranchised. In addressing the challenging issue of immigration, we should remember that the primary purpose of immigration policy has always been to advance the interests and security of the United States. In solving the current illegal immigration crisis, we would do well to follow the standard that Dwight Eisenhower set for dealing with major problems, 'Is it good for America?'"

-- Tina J. Benkiser, Chairman of the Republican Party of Texas (link via Free Republic)

Also worth a viewing: Red Skelton on the Pledge of Allegiance

Visit the National Flag Day site; National Pause for the Pledge of Allegiance - 7:00 PM Eastern

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Senate H-1B Plan Has Tech Workers Up in Arms

"The Senate’s recent expansion of the controversial H-1B visa program is shaping up as one of the big political mosh pits of the IT world. Squaring off are corporate bosses and computer worker bees; high-flying Internet entrepreneurs and low-paid programmers; Bill Gates and newly graduated computer scientists who think the IT job market stinks. IT companies are strongly promoting expansion of the 16-year-old H-1B visa program, which lets them offer temporary work visas to specially skilled foreign workers," Washington Technology reports. "As in past years, however, proposals to increase the number of available H-1B visas this year have been accompanied by protests from American IT employees, who said the program floods the IT job market with foreign workers and reduces salaries, especially for entry level and older workers. 'We think expansion of the H-1B would devastate our careers,' said Kim Berry, a Web site developer in Sacramento, Calif., and president of American Programmers Guild, a professional group. When many foreign workers take jobs, they displace American workers, as well as work for lower wages, he said."

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700 More Guard Troops Ready to Arrive At Border Tomorrow

"More than 1,000 National Guard troops will be working at the U.S.-Mexico border by Thursday under President Bush's plan to free up immigration agents, officials said. Three hundred National Guard troops were already along the border, and the remaining 700 set to arrive by Thursday will be divided among the four southern border states, said Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for Homeland Defense," the AP reports. "Bush's plan calls for up to troops to perform support duties that will allow federal authorities to focus on border security. They wouldn't perform significant law enforcement duties. The goal is to have the troops at the border until new Border Patrol agents are trained. The total number of troops at the 2,000-mile border would rise to 2,500 by month's end and would meet Bush's goal of 6,000 by Aug. 1, McHale said."

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House Speaker Hastert Deals Amnesty Bill a Setback

"Hopes for a quick compromise on immigration were dealt a blowTuesday after House Speaker Dennis Hastert said he wanted to take a 'long look' at a Senate bill offering possible citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants. Hastert said hearings on the Senate bill should be held before appointing anyone to a House-Senate committee to negotiate a compromise immigration bill. Later, he said he was unsure what the House's next move would be," the AP reports. "Sending a bill that has already passed the Senate to hearings would be a highly unusual move and make completing a final bill before Congress goes on its summer recess in August far less likely. Disagreement on procedural issue has kept negotiations from starting, but there were hopes that could be resolved this week. 'It's an obvious retreat from where we are,' said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev."

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Bilbray Sworn In, Says Immigration Provided Needed Boost to Win

"The newest member of the House of Representatives said today that illegal immigration was the sole issue that brought him victory in last week's special election in California. Republican Brian P. Bilbray took his oath of office for his seat in California's 50th District, one of the closest congressional districts to the border," the Washington Times reports. "'There was one issue and only one issue that allowed me to be elected,' Mr. Bilbray said. 'It was not my experience, it was not my hard work, and God knows it wasn't my intellect. It was the fact the people in the 50th District wanted something done, they wanted a job and a message sent to Washington that now and here is the time to address illegal immigration.' Republicans in the chamber applauded, while Democrats, who had held high hopes for winning the seat, hissed."

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"Blue Slip" Dispute Grounds Amnesty Bill This Week

"A Republican-suggested solution to a potential procedural problem in the Senate’s immigration bill blocked any movement toward conference on the legislation last week. The Senate bill (S 2611), passed May 25, contains a provision that would require illegal immigrants to pay back taxes. But that provision could be interpreted in a way that would allow House leaders to use a parliamentary objection known as a 'blue slip' on the immigration bill, claiming it makes the measure a revenue-raising bill and thus must originate in the House. (Senate bill, CQ Weekly, p. 1473)," Congressional Quarterly reports. "Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., suggested getting around that by using a House-passed tax bill (HR 4096) as the starting point - stripping out the contents, inserting the Senate-passed immigration language and taking that to conference . . . Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., initially had been resistant to Frist’s proposal but signaled on June 6 that he might be willing to drop those objections if he could receive assurances from Frist and House Republican leaders that the move is simply a formality and not a way to attach non-immigration-related tax provisions to the bill during conference."

D.A. King - Don't Call Our Border Security Mickey Mouse

Because it uses its military to secure its own borders and charges people entering its nation illegally with a felony, we have only to look to Mexico to see that regarding borders and illegal immigration, enforcement works. Mexico enforces its immigration laws and deports more people per year than we do. How xenophobic," writes D.A. King of the Dustin Inman Society. "And then there is Disney World. Try jumping the fence into the Magic Kingdom and demanding to ride the rides 'because I am here and we are all human beings.' Try overstaying your day pass on Uncle Walt's Main Street USA - whatever your ethnicity or national origin. Enforcement works there, too. I could go on. I keep asking myself how long CEO George W. Bush would last with the stockholders of the Walt Disney Co."

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Colorado Supreme Court Won't Let Immigration Initiative on the Ballot

"The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that a proposal to deny most state services to illegal immigrants cannot appear on the November ballot. The proposed constitutional amendment, promoted by Defend Colorado Now, violated a state constitutional requirement that initiatives deal with only one subject, the court said in a 5-2 opinion," the Houston Chronicle reports. "According to the ruling, Defend Colorado Now touted the possibility of reducing taxpayer expenditures by restricting illegal immigrants' access to services, as well as the goal of restricting access to services."

Eugene Volokh weighs in on the decision: "This strikes me as quite misguided. All constitutional provisions -- the freedom of speech, equal rights for women, a restriction on unreasonable searches and seizures, and the like -- have multiple effects, and serve multiple purposes. The single-subject rule may itself be unnecessary and unadministrable, as my colleague Dan Lowenstein has in the past argued; but to the extent that it's the law, it surely shouldn't be used to set aside proposals that are as coherent (whether or not sound) as the one proposed by Article 55, just because they have multiple effects and multiple purposes."

Update: Lonewacko blog points to the Rocky Mountain News editorial critical of the decision.

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Criminal Aliens Not Caught, Paper Realizes

"An Englishman commits crimes for nearly two decades in Colorado - drug offenses, assault, child neglect, theft - before he is ordered deported. He gets the order overturned, then later rams a police officer's car. A Mexican man goes to jail 13 times, prison once, and registers in Weld County as a sex offender nine times before he is finally picked up by immigration officials to be sent back to his home country," reports the Rocky Mountain News. "In a yearlong investigation, the Rocky Mountain News has found that for years criminal immigrants have gone free, while precious time and resources are spent on deporting people who are living in the country without permission but have no criminal record." [FAIR comment: While it's good to see the media acknowledge the criminal behavior of illegal aliens, this story is nevertheless biased in favor of "non-criminal" illegal aliens, who are here "without permission."]

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Fake Matricula With "123 Fraud Blvd." Good Enough to Get Into DHS Building

"President Bush likes to talk tough about how he supports the use of a "tamper-proof ID card" as part of his "comprehensive immigration reform plan" . to ensure that illegal aliens are who they say they are. Ha ha ha," says Michelle Malkin. She quotes from a Washington Times story that says, "The Department of Homeland Security allowed a man to enter its headquarters last week using a fake Matricula Consular card as identification, despite federal rules that say the Mexican-issued card is not valid ID at government buildings. Bruce DeCell, a retired New York City police officer, used his phony card -- which lists his place of birth as 'Tijuana, B.C.' and his address as '123 Fraud Blvd.' on an incorrectly spelled 'Staton Island, N.Y.' -- to enter the building Wednesday for a meeting with DHS officials."

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Immigration Key Issue in Hayworth Race

"The Republican in the race is a firebrand by disposition and design. The Democrat is so low-key his advisers make a point of saying he really is energetic. The Republican is an immigration hawk who favors cracking down on illegal immigrants and wrote a book called 'Whatever It Takes.' The Democrat calls himself an immigration realist who would combine tighter border controls with a path toward legal status," says the Washington Post of the Arizona House election featuring Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R). "Amy Walter, who follows House races for the Cook Political Report, believes Hayworth has the edge in a district that has eight registered Republicans for every five registered Democrats. But the district's substantial slice of independents complicates the picture, as does the image of local Republicans as more moderate and temperate than their congressman."

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Angry Mob Carjacks BP Truck, Tries to Run Over Canadian Officer

"A mob of Canadian Indian protesters hijacked a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle over the weekend and tried to run down a Canadian police officer, police said Saturday. The hijacking Friday night was near the site of a 3-month standoff between Mohawk protesters who claim the land and police under orders to remove them," the AP reported. The Indians surrounded the U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and dragged out its three occupants. They then drove the vehicle toward a Canadian police officer, but he was pulled out of the way and suffered minor injuries, Ontario Provincial Police Constable Doug Graham said . . . U.S. Border Patrol officers were in Caledonia to observe how provincial police were handling the standoff 70 miles west of Toronto."

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AZ Judge Gives OK to State Prosecution of Illegal Aliens

"A Maricopa County Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the County Attorney's Office can indeed charge undocumented immigrants with conspiracy to commit human smuggling. The Arizona Human Smuggling law went into effect last August and was aimed at human smugglers, or 'coyotes,' but Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas argued that people being smuggled could be charged with conspiracy," the Arizona Republic reports. "I am pleased that the Superior Court has rejected the attempt by the Mexican government and their allied attorneys to overturn Arizona's Human Smuggling Law, and that the court has upheld this office's attempt to prosecute those who traffic in illegal immigration," Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said.

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Colorado Gov. Signs "Immigration Patrol" Measure into Law

"Gov. Bill Owens on Tuesday signed into law bills that will create an immigration unit in the Colorado State Patrol and require state contractors to sign up for an online federal program that checks a worker's immigration status. Senate Bill 225, sponsored by Sen. Peter Groff, D-Denver, pays for the state trooper unit of 12 officers this year and 24 next year. They will receive training on human trafficking, the crime of sneaking an illegal immigrant into the country for the purposes of forced labor or prostitution," the Rocky Mountain News writes. "Owens also signed House Bill 1343, sponsored by Rep. Bill Crane, R-Arvada. That measure requires state contractors to verify the immigration status of workers and allows the state to cancel contracts with employers who are found to knowingly hire illegal immigrants. The law takes effect in August."

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Citizenship Applications Jump

"Driven by the fierce congressional debate over immigration, immigrants nationwide are applying for U.S. citizenship in record numbers or seeking to solidify their legal status in a move to protect themselves at a time of political uncertainty. Many fear that laws could toughen, preventing them from becoming naturalized or from bringing relatives into the United States; others appear to be motivated by the chance to obtain more rights and boost their political clout through voting," the Washington Post reports. "Between January and April, immigrants filed 251,385 applications, an 18 percent increase from the same period last year, immigration officials said yesterday. They also report a record surge in petitions to sponsor relatives for residency, also up 18 percent for the time period."

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"They Hit and Run Like Guerilla Fighters"

"Shocking. Horrifying. A 9-year-old boy is axed in the head on a beautiful summer evening just blocks from where I grew up in Sandy Springs. Police believe they shot and killed the perpetrator of this atrocity after a chase and a fight, but they're still looking for a 'red car with a wobbly wheel' whose passengers also may be involved. What really happened and why a child would be the target of such ruthlessness is still speculation at the time of my deadline," says Laura Armstrong of the Marrietta Daily Journal. "Add up all of these recent news stories and more, and the common denominator among them is that the bad guys are routinely able to find a safe haven among illegal immigrant communities surging in metro Atlanta. Conversations I've had recently with law enforcement officials point to this being one of their biggest frustrations on the job - one felt for years."

Brenda Walker has more details. And Lawrence Auster adds, "Already I can hear the Alan Colmeses of the world say that I’m saying that all immigrants are murderers. Of course not. But I am saying that our present immigration is the murder/suicide of our country. Which is a fact. And that murder/suicide of our country, because it involves the systematic breakdown of everything we are, of our borders, our laws, our national identity, of our ability to define and enforce any limits, also happens to involve lots of individual murders as well."

Bush: Deportation "Ain't Gonna Work"

"Rejecting an argument being made by some conservatives in his own party, President Bush said Thursday that the idea that the United States could force millions of illegal immigrants to return home 'ain't gonna work.' . . . 'There are those here in Washington who say, `Why don't we just find the folks and send them home,' Bush said. 'That ain't gonna work,'" the AP reports. "Bush defined amnesty as allowing those immigrants to automatically become citizens. He said instead they first should be required to prove that they have been working and abiding the law, pay a fine, learn English and wait behind those who have been in the country legally."

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More States Say Feds Should Pay for Costs Of Illegal Immigration

"States are raising their voices in the Capitol Hill debate over immigration reform, telling Congress they have a financial stake in how the United States deals with those here illegally. States specifically are lobbying for two sources of federal funding that would help them cover the cost of services they provide to the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country," Stateline.org reports. "Any immigration reform plan that emerges from Congress “must include a funding stream to address the fiscal impacts on state and local governments,” Georgia state Sen. Don Balfour (R) wrote in a recent letter to the U.S. Senate. Balfour sits on an immigration task force with the National Conference of State Legislatures, a bipartisan organization that lobbies the federal government on behalf of the nation’s 7,382 state lawmakers."

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New Study: Illegal Aliens Benefiting from Katrina Rebuilding

A new study reveals that illegal aliens endure harsher working conditions and get lower wages than other workers rebuilding New Orleans. "The illegal immigrants often work in hazardous conditions without protective gear and earn far less than their legal counterparts, the study said. Nearly one-third of the illegal immigrants interviewed by researchers reported working with harmful substances and in dangerous conditions, while 19 percent said they were not given any protective equipment. Illegal immigrants also were paid significantly less—if at all—earning on average $10 per hour, compared with $16.50 for documented workers, the study said," CNN reports.

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Arizona Governor Vetoes Another Immigration Enforcement Bill

"Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a $160 million legislative package on Tuesday that would have made illegal immigration a state crime, saying it was unconstitutional and 'offers no constructive new ideas.' As expected, the Democratic governor opposed an anti-immigration bill that would have been one of the toughest in the nation, increasing money for border enforcement and making it a felony to be an illegal immigrant in Arizona," Reuters reported. "'Shame on her,' said state Rep. Russell Pearce, an outspoken anti-immigration legislator. 'She is proving to be the illegal alien governor. Her motto is 'leave no alien behind.'"

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CIS Head Agilar Cuts Short Church Briefing; Cites Churchgoers Anger over Amnesty

Today in Washington D.C. Alfonso Aguilar, Chief of Citizenship Office in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) held forth at a local Catholic church. "Please join us for the next installment of our Catholicism and Culture series as Alfonso Aguilar joins us to speak on Immigration and Catholic Church Teaching," said the Catholic Information Center in an announcement about the talk.

Unfortunately for Aguilar, the crowd proved a tough sell for his open-borders amnesty agenda. Once his presentation ended, the floor was open for questions. An alert Stein Report correspondent was there and noted, "After about 3 or 4 very hostile questions, the priest who was acting as 'facilitator' got up and said the session was over."

Bush Visits Border: "We Got To Do Something About A System That Isn't Working"

"President Bush returned to the U.S.-Mexico border region Tuesday to tout what he described as a growing consensus around proposed immigration reforms and see firsthand how new border agents are being taught to keep people from entering the country illegally," the Washington Post writes. "In Washington, House Republicans are showing little sign of meeting the president's demands on a comprehensive immigration plan. But appearing at the training facility here for border agents, Bush sounded an optimistic note that agreement is possible on plans to increase border security, crack down on employers hiring illegal immigrants and help immigrants assimilate into U.S. society."

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Mexican Presidential Candidates Range from Bad to Worse

"Mexico's three major presidential candidates each pledged Tuesday during a nationally televised debate to seek an immigration accord with the United States . . . Both López Obrador and Calderón promised to fight for the human rights of Mexicans living illegally in the United States. But López Obrador went one step further, saying he would convert all 45 Mexican consulates in the United States into branches of the Mexican attorney general's office to protect Mexicans from discrimination," the Washington Post reports. "The debate unfurled after a tumultuous day in which gunmen tried to kill the wife of a jailed businessman who had threatened to release potentially damaging corruption tapes just hours before the candidates appeared."

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Illegal Aliens From Mexico Seek More Money, Leave Existing Jobs

"Like the weather in this booming resort, Mexico's economy is hot. The government is awash in oil profits. Exports are at record levels. The stock market index has almost doubled in the last two years. Unemployment is at 3.3 percent. So why do thousands of Mexicans, such as beachwear vendor Cristina Vargas, risk their lives crossing into the U.S.? And why is the practice expected to continue despite rising prosperity at home and tough border legislation pending in the U.S. Congress?" asks the Dallas Morning News. ''The money is just better over there,' said Ms. Vargas, who swam across the Rio Grande in 1999, worked various jobs in the U.S., and returned to Acapulco last year. The 40-year-old single mother did not leave Mexico out of economic desperation. She left simply to improve her family's future."

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Bilbray Wins California House Election

"Republican Brian Bilbray beat Democrat Francine Busby after an combative and expensive race that centered on issues of government corruption and illegal immigration. With 90 percent of precincts reporting, Bilbray had 56,016 votes or 49.5 percent, the Associated Press reported, and Busby trailed with 51,202 votes or 45 percent," the Washington Post reports. "Busby, who criticized Bilbray's work as a Washington lobbyist, hurt her own cause with a verbal blunder last week when she told a largely Latino audience, 'You don't need papers for voting.' The former school board member quickly followed that slip by saying, 'You don't need to be a registered voter to help' the campaign, but conservative talk show hosts burned up Southern California airwaves this week with charges that Busby was encouraging illegal immigrants to vote."

See FAIR's press release for more information

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Bush Plan: Replace the Dollar With the "Amero"?

"Jerome is probably best known to all of you as the author of "Unfit for Command" the Swift Boat vet book that exposed John Kerry during the 2004 election. Jerome was kind enough to join me on Tammy Radio today to discuss his Human Events article about the secret North American Union plan devised by Bush, Fox and Harper, which includes the creation of a singular currency called the 'Amero,' a unified court system, etc," says Tammy Bruce. "This is not a paranoid theoretical musing. Jerome has the facts and the links. In a day when the president's actions regarding illegal aliens seem wholly inexplicable, this expose helps to make sense of it all. In other words, the president is a Globalist and means to erase North American borders. Of course, it also means we have to stop him."

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Debbie Schlussel: Bush Administration Hiring Hundreds of Amnesty 'Adjudicators'

"Our Homeland Security federal agent tipsters are very angry. And we should be, too.They point out that new hiring and job openings at Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) have suddenly ballooned (here and here). The ONLY reason that would happen is to hire new workers to administer the new Guest Workers program (a/k/a ShAmnesty)," says Debbie Schlussel. She quotes one DHS officer, who says, "Take a peek at the job listings at the govt. site. It is at http://www.usajobs.opm.gov (from there prompt to DHS/CIS). Normally they have 20 to 30+ various positions open at any given time within CIS. This week, however, there is over 100. Interesting that they are seeking massive quantities of Adjudication Officers GS-9/12, all over the country. Some areas don't even specify how many openings are available. I haven't seen this since pre-IRCA of 1986...AKA 'AMNESTY'. It is no secret now. the decision has already been made. It WILL happen."

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U.S. Journalist Faces Jail . . . For Writing the Truth About Mexico

"Publisher Nancy Conroy has created a niche for her twice-monthly newspaper by printing the kind of real estate information you won't find in glossy brochures. Readers of the English-language Gringo Gazette have learned about time-share hucksters, stolen deposits, flimsy contracts and other pitfalls that have tripped up Americans racing to grab a piece of Mexico's fast-growing Baja peninsula . . . Conroy, 41, faces as much as two years in prison stemming from criminal defamation and calumny charges related to articles she wrote about a Rosarito condominium development," the L.A. Times reports. "Still, Conroy said her experience might make other scribes in Mexico wary about taking on tough topics and powerful people. In addition to racking up thousands of dollars in legal fees, Conroy said, she has become the target of an investigation into her immigration status that Mexican officials launched at the behest of the developers, a fact that Mendivil confirmed. She said she received an anonymous e-mail death threat and has had her newspapers stolen from racks."

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Another Illegal Alien Arrested for Murder

"A man charged with first-degree murder for allegedly stabbing his girlfriend in Rockville on Sunday night had previously been accused of trying to kill her and was ordered deported last year, according to court records and other sources. Nicolas Serrano, 33, also may have been released early from custody in exchange for cooperating with the FBI after his arrest in 2000 in a federal drug case, according to his probation records," the Washington Post reported. "Serrano, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who has used the aliases Juan Santana and Papinu, has faced attempted murder, assault, battery and state and federal drug charges, court records show."

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Employment Data Show Immigrants Taking More Jobs From Americans

"While headlines focused on a surprisingly weak May jobs figure, the 'other' employment survey—based on households rather than businesses—recorded a whopping 288,000 gain in total employment. Ethnic Hispanics received nearly one-quarter of the total, or nearly twice their labor force share. Because so many Hispanics are immigrants or children of immigrants, Hispanic employment is the best proxy we have for the impact of immigration on employment," says Edwin S. Rubenstein. "In percentage terms, Hispanic job growth was more than six-times that of whites and twice that of Blacks. This is happening, or course, because Hispanic immigrants are cheaper than U.S.-born workers. Many are paid 'off the books' -- freeing their employers of the onerous burden of payroll taxes and unemployment compensation."

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Clarence Page: One Man's Amnesty is Another's Disaster

"A group of black leaders vigorously opposed to anything resembling amnesty for illegal immigrants unveiled themselves at the National Press Club in late May. The most notable quality that I noticed about the group of educators, organizers and commentators was how unknown they probably are to most other black Americans," says Clarence Page. "Instead of high-profile civil rights establishmentarians such as Rev. Jesse Jackson, for example, the group included Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, conservative author of the 2003 book 'Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America.' Yet, although they are only beginning, at best, their arc upward in national prominence, the group called Choose Black America expresses an opposition to illegal immigrants that is hardly unfamiliar in black barbershop and hair salon conversations that I have heard. They see President Bush's plan for amnesty and guest workers as 'a disaster for all Americans that will hit black citizens the hardest.'"

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National Guard Units Deploying At Border

"The first National Guard troops sent to assist immigration agents prepared Sunday to work on projects near a fortified stretch of desert along the U.S.-Mexico border. The 55 Utah National Guard members on Monday plan to begin extending fences, improving gravel roads and working on border lighting near the town of San Luis, Ariz., which is part of the nation's busiest U.S. Border Patrol station," the AP reported. "The troops are part of President Bush's plan to send up to 6,000 National Guard members to the four border states to perform support duties that will allow immigration agents to focus on border security. The Guard members won't perform significant law enforcement duties."

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Millions of Overstays Part of the Enforcement Problem

"Millions of illegal immigrants in the United States never jumped the U.S.-Mexico border where Congress wants to erect impenetrable walls and President Bush is sending National Guard troops to patrol. They never sneaked in at all. The little-acknowledged reality is that nearly half the estimated 12 million undocumented foreigners in the United States entered on bona fide U.S. visas _ and simply never left," the AP writes. "Confirming those findings or knowing the home country of those who overstay their visas is tricky because U.S. authorities don't track the problem. Immigration authorities also generally don't compare entry and exit information to see who should have left the country." [FAIR comment: almost 5 years after 9/11 the U.S. is still not doing entry/exit tracking - and several of the 9/11 hijackers were able to move freely in and out of the U.S. despite overstaying their visas.]

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Open-Borders House Candidate: "You Don't Need Papers for Voting"

"Francine Busby, the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s CA-50 special election has been caught on tape telling a Spanish-speaking audience 'You don’t need papers for voting.' Responding to a question from a translator about how to help her campaign, Francine Busby also told non-English-speaking volunteers that they don’t need to be registered voters to help the campaign," says Michelle Malkin. "Take a listen right here. Ian Schwartz also has audio and a photo of the candidate."

Wizbang says it's not such a big deal.

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Rep. Tancredo: It's Up to the House to Stop Amnesty

"The United States Congress stands at a historic crossroads on immigration policy. Two roads diverge. Will the nation get another amnesty program or will it get secure borders to halt illegal entry into our country? House Republicans must choose, because they can’t have both," says Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO). "A few Republicans in the House have called for compromise by suggesting clever plans that amount to 'amnesty lite.' Down that path lies disaster because 'enforcement first' cannot be compromised: Either Congress secures the borders before considering new guest-worker plans or we create a guest-worker program on the mere promise of border security. Genuine enforcement cannot be a mere part of a 'comprehensive bill,' it must precede any other reform. House Republicans who break ranks with HR 4437 are choosing a path of certain catastrophe—for the nation in the long run and for our party in November."

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Immigration Bill Hits Constitutional Obstacle

"As if the overhaul of the nation's immigration system isn't a monumental enough task. Now it looks as if the Senate bill may have run afoul of the United States Constitution. No kidding," says the Orange County Register. "Well, it seems the Senate's 700-plus-page immigration bill raises taxes. That would be the clause that says illegal immigrants have to pay back taxes as one of the requirements for getting on the citizenship track . . . Frist wants to take the Senate-passed immigration bill and attach it to a completely unrelated bill that the House passed and sent over to the Senate . . . If the immigration bill were attached, the new merged document would have a House number. Numbers here are important. House bills start with HR and Senate bills with S. The letters refer to where the bill started. Remember, tax-related bills have to start in the House. That would make the immigration bill constitutional - procedurally, that is," reporter Dena Bunis says.

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San Diego Congressional Race Highlights Immigration Issue

"To Brian Bilbray, the 'greatest ethics scandal in America' isn't about Washington lobbyists or the bribery conviction of Randy 'Duke' Cunningham, . formerly this area's unbeatable congressman. Mr. Bilbray, a former Republican House member seeking Mr. Cunningham's vacant seat, is fighting what he calls the scandal of illegal immigration. He hopes that tough talk on the campaign trail about securing borders and cracking down on employers who hire illegal workers will bring enough supporters to the polls on June 6 to help him defeat a challenge from Democrat Francine Busby. A local school-board member, she takes a softer line on the issue, supporting proposals to allow illegal immigrants to become citizens and create new guest-worker programs," writes the Wall Street Journal. "The race also is shaping up as an early test for how immigration and scandal could play out this year in the polls, and which issue may get greater traction with voters."

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James Edwards: Time for the House to Stop the Senate Amnesty

"The Republican House of Representatives should tell the U.S. Senate -- and the Bush White House -- to take a hike on immigration. The GOP-led House has been handed a skunk wrapped in a bow. That stinking varmint, S. 2611, amounts to a liberal, Democrat bill. Instead of obliging the cynical pansies of the Senate and the administration who keep pushing open-borders policies, the House should simply refuse to name conferees. That is, House Republicans should boldly snub their noses -- very publicly -- at their party's turncoats," says James R. Edwards, author of the Congressional Politics of Immigration Reform. "In the end, [having] no immigration bill is better -- for the country, for conservatives and for the Republican Party -- than anything that could possibly emanate from a conference committee trying to marry up H.R. 4437 and S. 2611."

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Schwarzenegger Agrees to Send Guard to the Border; Won't Make Arrests

"California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has reached an agreement with the Bush administration on a plan to send the state's National Guard troops to help patrol the Mexican border. Schwarzenegger says he will send 1,000 Guardsmen to assist U.S. Border Patrol agents in halting the flow of illegal immigrants. In exchange, the Bush administration has agreed to pay the full cost of the mission," VOA News writes. "The agreement also stipulates that National Guard troops will not arrest and detain illegal immigrants, but handle logistical duties. This will free Border Patrol agents to take care of the law enforcement activities."

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Minor League Baseball: Another Game Americans Won't Play?

"What is the most important, most pressing area of immigration that should be addressed in immigration legislation? Is it baseball or hockey? Does America need more minor league athletes from other countries? The Senate apparently thinks so. Buried in the Senate Immigration Bill, passed last week, are increased numbers of visas for minor league athletes from other countries," writes Debbie Schlussel. "Well, at least, this tells us where the Senate's (and the White House's) mind is at. Minor league priorities for minor league patriots with major league egos and zero accountability . . . Thanks, U.S. Senate, for 'protecting' our borders."

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Bush Pushes House To Compromise on Amnesty

"President Bush pressed a passionately divided Congress on Thursday to reach election-year compromise on immigration legislation that provides a chance at citizenship for millions of illegal immigrants already in the country. With his speech before business leaders and members of a government-sponsored civilian volunteer group, Bush hoped to build momentum for Senate and House negotiators to resolve difficult disputes. The two houses have passed sharply different versions of the legislation. To achieve one of his top domestic priorities of the year, Bush will have to bring around conservatives in his own party," the Washington Post reports. "The House bill generally is limited to border enforcement, making all illegal immigrants subject to felony charges and cracking down on employers who hire illegals."

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Dan Stein on MSNBC: We Need to Control the Border

FAIR President Dan Stein appeared on MSNBC today. Watch the video here.

KABC Reporter Attacked at MeCHA Charter School in Los Angeles

KABC Sandy Wells was almost run over today outside at La Raza/MeCHA charter school in Los Angeles. "Wells, equipped with a KABC mic and recorder, said that when he inquired at the school’s office about interviewing [principal] Aguilar, he was told the principal was not in and did not want to talk. The reporter asked the four or five black-garbed guards stationed outside for permission to interview parents as they arrived at the school with their children but was denied," WorldNetDaily reports. "Then, according to Wells, the lady at the front desk came running out, angry, and a Dodge Magnum abruptly pulled up on the sidewalk just short of the reporter. A large Hispanic man with a shaved head, about 25, leaped out of the vehicle and chased Wells down the street, tackled him and demanded the tape."

Read more at Michelle Malkin's site

Study: 100 Sex Criminals Cross from Mexico Each Day

"Based on a one-year in-depth study, a researcher estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute in Atlanta analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants," WorldNetDaily reports. "Schurman-Kauflin concluded that, based on a figure of 12 million illegal immigrants and the fact that more of this population is male than average, sex offenders among illegals make up a higher percentage than offenders in the general population. In 82 percent of the cases, she noted, the victims were known to their attackers. 'In those instances, the illegal immigrants typically gained access to the victims after having worked as a day laborer at or near the victims' homes,' she says. "

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DHS Officials "Concerned" Because Not Enough Illegal Aliens Renewing Temporary Permits

"Tens of thousands of Honduran and Nicaraguan immigrants nationwide risk losing their legal status in the United States today because they have not renewed their temporary work permits under a program to help victims of natural disasters, some in the mistaken belief that they will soon be on the path to becoming U.S. citizens," the Washington Post reports. "According to the latest numbers available as of Friday, only 37,870 Hondurans and 1,778 Nicaraguans nationwide have renewed, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said. 'We feel that these numbers are very low,' [DHS spokesman] Saucier said. 'We're very concerned.'"

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Man Offers "Cheeky" Take on Amnesty

"A south Toledo man is using a replica of the Statue of Liberty to let the world know his thoughts on illegal immigration. Art Bollinger says he got this idea from an e-mail he received, and decided to duplicate the picture. From the front, you can see the Statue of Liberty. From behind, it shows Lady Liberty's behind, in a thong bikini. The nearby sign says 'Kiss my American Ass,'" WTOL - TV reported. "Bollinger tells News 11 he will accept anyone into this country as long as they come here legally, but he has no patience for those who sneak in. 'You don't have rights. You are here illegally,' said Bollinger of the people who cross the border without permission. 'If I break the law, I go to prison. You break the law and the American government says they'll kiss your behind. No. That's ridiculous.'

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DHS Official: Senate Amnesty Bill Provides Protection for Terrorists, Criminals

"The Senate immigration bill makes the same mistake as the 1986 amnesty by restricting the ability of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to share information on illegal alien guest-worker applicants who are criminals and terrorists, the agency's director said yesterday. Emilio T. Gonzalez, whose agency would have to administer a guest-worker program, said not allowing the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to share information on someone who applies means they cannot begin the process of removing criminals and national security threats, even after they are rejected from the guest-worker program," the Washington Times writes.

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