I believe in American Exceptionalism. I believe that God has blessed this nation, above all others, with more Freedom and Liberty than any other place on the planet. I also believe that I am very, very lucky to have been born here and have been able to enjoy this Freedom and Liberty my entire life. Therefore, it does not surprise me one bit that people who live elsewhere want to come to America to enjoy those same things. The American People know this, so they have created laws and procedures for immigrants to follow to allow them to do just that. So far, so good.

The problem comes when people who want to immigrate to America ignore these laws and procedures, and decide that they have a right to be here and enjoy the benefits of citizenship without bothering to shoulder any of the responsibility. When I was growing up, people like this (people who shirk responsibility and live off of someone else’s work) were called bums. It didn’t matter where they came from or what they looked like; I called them bums because of the way they acted. Today, people are crossing the border into America and shirking their responsibility to follow the law to allow them to stay here. They also use a myriad of public services (medical, welfare, education) while mostly failing to contribute to the upkeep of these services. I call these people Illegal Aliens. Again, it doesn’t matter where they came from or what they look like; if they didn’t follow the law to get here, they are an Illegal Alien.

In the United States, the vast majority of Illegal Aliens enter from the country of Mexico, and the vast majority of the people who stay illegally are Mexican. This is not some conspiracy thought up by a group of old white guys who hate brown people, as the liberals would have you believe. Rather, this is the result of geographic location and economic opportunity. The Mexican government, for whatever reason, has never been able to offer its citizens an economy which would allow them to grow and prosper to the best of their ability. Good jobs are hard to come by, wages are low, and education is not a priority. The natural result of this is that the people who live there are looking for a better life for themselves and their families. Totally understandable by any rational mind.

Canada, on the other hand, has a much better, more robust economy and makes education a larger priority, therefore wages are much better than in Mexico. Canadian citizens are not, for the most part, in a position where they have to relocate to do better for their families. Therefore, the natural result is that absent a reason to leave, they tend to stay put. And that is all there is to it; it is a natural result that more Mexicans have crossed into the United States illegally because it is a natural result that more Mexicans are looking to come here. There is no conspiracy or racism involved here, again despite what the liberals will tell you.

Now, with regard to Illegal Aliens, if their first action upon entering this country is to break the law, why should we let them stay? Why should we allow them to consume medical, educational, and welfare services others have supported for free? The answer is, of course, we shouldn’t. The way to enforce this is to have people who are requesting one of these services prove they are here legally. If they can’t, except in a genuine medical emergency, they should be denied these services.

Another thing that has to go is Birthright Citizenship; the concept that if someone is born on US soil they are automatically an American citizen, regardless of the citizenship of the parents. Rather, citizenship for a new born should only be granted if one of the parents is already a citizen (natural or otherwise) at the time of the birth. “In the process” doesn’t count; you’ll need to apply for the new born’s citizenship after you have received yours. This of course will end the phenomenon of “Anchor Babies.”

Domestic changes would also have to be made to stem the tide of illegal immigration. Huge, huge financial and regulatory penalties must be assessed against those employers who continue to hire Illegal Aliens. The government needs to come up with a quick, low cost way for employers to check on the citizenship status of anyone who applies for a job. Would this mean some sort of National ID Card? Maybe, maybe not. Let loose the intellectual beast of the free market to create and design the best way to do this. I hear that smart people with incentive can do miracles.

Finally, if a so-called “Coyote” is caught, the penalty should be a federal felony with heavy fines and a long, mandatory jail sentence, after which comes deportation. Also, any assets used in the smuggling of Illegal Aliens across the border should be subject to seizure by the authorities.

Implementing these common sense measures will:

1. Prevent the closure of institutions which are being bankrupted by excessive misuse by Illegal Aliens.
2. Remove the incentive for Illegal Aliens to cross the border just to get citizenship for the baby, so they can mooch off of him/her.
3. Remove the number one reason Illegal Aliens cross the border in the first place: paid jobs.
4. Make it unprofitable to be in the people-smuggling business.
5. Go a long ways towards securing the Southern Border of our country.

As for the millions of Illegal Aliens already in the country, mass deportation is simply not an option. As much as I would like to simply send them all back to wherever they came from, it just isn’t feasible or possible. So what becomes of them?

Most of these Illegal Aliens will be caught during the enforcement of the new hiring regulations on employers. So, since it is likely that the company would keep the worker if the illegality were cleared up, these workers should be given a choice: Deportation or

1. Payment of a huge fine.
2. Must begin the citizenship process immediately, AT THE END OF THE LINE.
3. Must not commit any crimes during the citizenship process. If they do, they’re out.
4. Must file and pay all income taxes in full during the citizenship process. Failure equals deportation.
5. Must remain gainfully employed during the citizenship process.
6. Must take the final citizenship test in English.

Certainly, this is not a perfect solution, but it is a common sense solution. No doubt those on the left who live in fear of losing the Hispanic Vote in upcoming elections will call me a racist and accuse me of hating brown people. Oh, well. I’m not really concerned with them because they made up their minds a long time ago that anyone who doesn’t believe the way they do is automatically a racist and a hater. I could cure cancer, and they would blame me for killing an innocent biological entity. These people don’t think, so nothing I or anyone else says will matter to them.

Lastly, let’s mention the 800 pound gorilla in the room. I believe a vast majority of Hispanic American citizens are just as fed up with illegal immigration as everyone else. They work just as hard as anyone else to pay their taxes and support their families. Illegal immigration is screwing them just as bad as anyone else.

Now you understand why this article from the Chicago Tribune has enraged me:

As he pushes his cart around the Southwest Side selling steamed ears of corn, sliced cucumbers and other street food, Omar Castillo embodies a potential life-and-death issue that has become the third rail in the debate over health-care reform.

Peddling snacks — doused with lime and chili powder and priced at $1.50 each — is how Castillo, 19, is trying to pay for expensive medication he needs to stay healthy after receiving a kidney transplant last year.

Because he is in the U.S. illegally, he has no ready access to aid for such long-term medical expenses. To cover such needs for an estimated 6.8 million undocumented and uninsured immigrants in the country, some health-care advocates have proposed broadening the health-care proposals before Congress. But fierce opposition has kept the idea off the table.

Boo freaking who! Cry me a river. While Americans like me, who have been waiting for years, have not received transplants, illegal aliens who can not pay for medical care and who pay little or no taxes are being escorted to the front of the line. There is no excuse for bypassing law-abiding sick Americans to give a donated American kidney to an illegal alien.

None whatsoever.

You know what, let this guy go back to Mexico and get his transplant there. Oh, wait…

Asked about returning to Mexico or other homelands to receive more comprehensive care, the group broke into laughter.

“Over there, it’s a thousand times worse,” said Juan Zavala, a legal immigrant from Mexico and a transplant recipient who started the informal network. “Here, you may get treated poorly by some nurse or doctor. There? They’ll give you a kick and tell you you’re out of luck.”

Of course they laughed! Why should they get their medical care in Mexico when they can get it for free here?

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about the liberal bleeding hearts, always ready ready to spend everyone else’s money on charity:

Concerns over the financial burden have led other hospitals to make similar decisions denying treatment, said Julie Contreras, an organizer in Chicago for the League of United Latin American Citizens.

“These people, some of them are going to die,” Contreras said. “When a hospital denies treatment to any human being … this is flat-out immoral.”

Actually, what’s immoral is letting those of us who play by the rules, suffer the pain, uncertainty and financial strain wait for years to even be considered for a transplant, while people who are here illegally are sent to the front of the line and treated at the taxpayers’ expense. It’s not only immoral, it’s disgusting!

“I just want a normal life,” said Cruz, during a recent round of kidney dialysis paid for by the state. “Right now, this machine is my life.”

Gee, what do you think the rest of us want? You’re not special lady, you’re simply one of hundreds of thousands of people with ESRD on dialysis. Hell, you’re not even working when you’re not being dialyzed. Try working a full 40 hour work-week while on dialysis. When you start falling asleep in your chair half an hour after getting home from work each night, and then sleeping until noon on the weekends to catch up, then come and talk to me.

“I just want a normal life.” Call the wahmbulance, will ya?

Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking federal officials to rethink their policy on workplace immigration crackdowns that involve established businesses and to focus on employers that mistreat workers instead.

The mayor said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that work-site raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement could have “severe and long-lasting effects” on the local economy, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

ICE made more than 4,900 work-site arrests nationwide in fiscal 2007, a 45-fold increase over the number in 2001, authorities said.

So, in an effort to increase border security, ICE has been going after businesses which hire illegal aliens. Sounds like a good start on removing the incentive for illegal aliens to cross the border. Why would Villraigosa want ICE to stop doing these raids? Oh yeah, the area is heavily Hispanic and he doesn’t want to lose any votes in the next election. Also, he probably feels he can do this since Los Angeles is a so-called “sanctuary city.” I mean, even he knows that these workers are more than likely illegal aliens:

Villaraigosa accused federal officials of targeting “established, responsible employers” in industries that rely on “workforces that include undocumented immigrants.”

“In these industries, including most areas of manufacturing, even the most scrupulous and responsible employers have no choice but to rely on workers whose documentation, while facially valid, may raise questions about their lawful presence,” he wrote in the March 27 letter.

No business has to rely on an illegal workforce; they do it by choice so that they can lower their overhead to compete with other businesses. Villaraigosa is simply making excuses for people who have broken the law, which unfortunately results in our borders being less secure. Also, if ICE were to back off enforcement, the job incentive for Mexicans to cross the border illegally would remain intact.

If we as a country are at all serious about securing our borders, we need to do two things. First, we must end access to those services, such as non-emergency medical care, which draw people across the border illegally. That includes citizenship for any child born on U.S. soil. Citizenship for a new-born child should be available only to those children who have at least one parent who is already a U.S. citizen. Secondly, we must eradicate the job opportunities which lure the illegal aliens into our country in the first place. Most, if not all, illegal aliens come here to find work; it is therefore logical to assume that if there were no work for them, they will stop crossing the border. The best way to do this is to make the fines for hiring illegal aliens extremely expensive, thus doing significant financial damage to those companies who engage in this practice. Once businesses figure out that hiring illegal aliens can put them out of business financially, they’ll stop doing it.

For now, at least, ICE will continue doing what they have been doing, which is a good thing as far as border security is concerned.

TUCSON, Ariz. — About a hundred students demonstrated outside a Tucson high school Tuesday, then marched five miles downtown to protest the arrest and removal to Mexico of a classmate and his family.

….

School officials searched the backpack of a 17-year-old freshman who was incoherent, and when they found a substance that looked like marijuana, called police — standard procedure.

“Police were called in because there was marijuana found in a student’s backpack,” Lander said. “Administrators have the right to go through a backpack when the situation warrants, and the student was acting strangely, was incoherent. He wasn’t able to talk and make complete sentences,” she said.

Police called the boy’s parents and asked them to come to the school. When they arrived, police asked to see their drivers’ licenses.

The parents acknowledged living in the United States illegally with their two sons, including a sixth-grader, for a half-dozen years.

Police in turn notified the Border Patrol, who took all four people into custody.

Usually when we hear about a school administrator taking action against a student these days, the administrator is failing to apply common sense to some zero-tolerance policy. This time, its an administrator who has done exactly the right thing, and his students are protesting him anyway.

Immigration advocates think that allowing Border Patrol Agents onto school grounds will keep illegal aliens from sending their kids to school.

Jennifer Allen, director of the Border Action Network, said allowing immigration agents into schools could create more mistrust and fear in the immigrant community.

Let’s see: Border Patrol Agents enter school grounds, so illegal aliens keep their kids out of schools they’re not paying for, resulting in no tax dollars being spent educating people who shouldn’t be here. Exactly what is the problem here?

What these border activists don’t realize is that there should be fear in the illegal alien community. These people have broken the law to enter this country, and they continue to break the law by staying here. These people should be scared to death that at any minute the Border Patrol is going to find them and have them deported. Maybe if illegal aliens were more fearful of being deported, they would either immigrate legally or stay out of the country altogether. Either of these choices is preferable to what they are doing now.

The measure was the product of a liberal-to-conservative alliance led by Kennedy and Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that forged an immigration compromise designed to withstand challenges from the left and right.

They advocated the resulting measure as an imperfect but necessary fix to the current system, in which millions of illegal immigrants use forged documents or lapsed visas to live and work in the United States. It paired the Democratic goal of legalizing those millions with the Republican desire to fortify the border and prevent undocumented workers from getting jobs.

Ultimately, though, what came to be known as their “grand bargain” commanded only lukewarm support among key constituencies in both parties, which was no match for the vehement and vocal opposition of Republican conservatives who derided it as amnesty.

Everyone who has been paying attention to the public with regards to this bill knows that a full 50% of voters opposed it, and 49% of voters prefer no bill at all over this bill. Simply put, nobody inside the Beltway was listening to the public when it came to this bill. The Senate, along with the President, was trying to shove this version of Immigration Reform down the voters’ collective throats. Thankfully, a totally natural reaction to this occurred: The voters puked all over them.

Right on cue, the Immigration Lobby plays the victim card on behalf of the illegal aliens:

“Immigrant workers and families will continue to live in fear, die in the desert, and be subject to exploitation. Local communities will continue to be roiled by federal inaction and local ordinances. Voters will continue to ask why their elected leaders seem incapable of solving tough problems,” said Frank Sharry, the executive director of the National Immigration Forum, one of several liberal groups that was pushing hard for passage of the measure despite misgivings about key elements of the bill.

Oh, cry me a river (the Rio Grande?)! Illegal aliens can protect both themselves and every member of their family by doing one of two simple things: either stay in Mexico or immigrate legally. It is very unlikely that anyone would die in the desert if they were not breaking the law by sneaking over the border. The reason they live in fear is because they are breaking the law; they should be afraid. Finally, the only reason they are subject to exploitation is because they are here illegally and cannot depend on law enforcement to protect them. If they were here legally, they could rightfully expect the justice system to protect them from exploitation.

Just think: if only the Senate and the President had listened to the people they represent; they would all be celebrating the passage of a historic piece of legislation. Instead, they’re wiping puke off of their $1,000 suits.

Edited to correct spelling.

The proposed agreement would allow illegal immigrants to come forward and obtain a “Z visa” and – after paying fees and a $5,000 fine – ultimately get on track for permanent residency, which could take between eight and 13 years. Heads of households would have to return to their home countries first.

They could come forward right away to claim a probationary card that would let them live and work legally in the U.S., but could not begin the path to permanent residency or citizenship until border security improvements and the high-tech worker identification program were completed.

A new crop of low-skilled guest workers would have to return home after stints of two years. They could renew their visas twice, but would be required to leave for a year in between each time. If they wanted to stay in the U.S. permanently, they would have to apply under the point system for a limited pool of green cards.

Regardless of whether or not they pay a fine, I’ve always believed that anyone who crossed the border illegally and then proceeded to live and work here for any significant length of time should go to the back of the line when it comes to permanent residency. And by back of the line, I mean behind each and every immigrant who is respectful enough of US law to enter our country legally. Anything else would be rewarding them for having broken our laws. I realize that this means that with the number of people who are going to flood in here now that this proposal makes it easier to get in that these people will probably never get a chance at permanent residency. and that’s perfectly fine with me. These illegal aliens have been sucking up our welfare, medical and educational benefits free of charge for years and years; if as a result of that they have to go home and stay there that is thier problem.

“This is a bill where people who live here in our country will be treated without amnesty but without animosity,” Bush said.

Unfortunately, this is nothing more than spin by the President. For all intents and purposes, these illegal aliens are getting amnesty because under this proposal they are getting a fast track to what they want without having to suffer any significant repercussions for breaking our laws and driving our medical, educational, and welfare programs into bankruptcy. As for not treating them with animosity, why shouldn’t we be hard on these criminals? The goal here is not to make friends, it is to enforce the laws of this country and punish those who ignore and break them.

This is the one policy of the Bush Administration that I have never agreed with and never had a good word to say about. I believe that this one issue will prevent President Bush from being remembered in the future as a truly great President. I fully support his policy on Iraq and the War on Terror. and his efforts regarding North Lorea and Iran, but I just can’t back him on this issue.

Oakland city officials today announced two new resolutions condemning recent federal immigration raids and formalizing the city’s intention not to cooperate with the U.S. government effort to deport undocumented residents.

The resolutions, one by Mayor Ron Dellums and the other by Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, both condemn the recent raids, which included one on Friday at an East Oakland manufacturer.

Both resolutions are also an effort to update Oakland’s 1986 “City of Refuge” ordinance which only applies to refugees fleeing political violence in Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua and South Africa, De La Fuente said. His proposed ordinance would give refuge to any undocumented immigrant regardless of national origin.

The council president, Dellums, Police Chief Wayne Tucker, City Councilwomen Jean Quan and Jane Brunner, and other city officials appeared at a City Hall news conference to support both resolutions.

The measure by De La Fuente and co-sponsors Quan and Brunner would direct city departments and staff not to cooperate with any federal immigration investigation, detention, or arrest procedures. They will introduce the measure Thursday to the City Council Rules Committee, De La Fuente said.

This means that Oakland is joining cities such as San Francisco, Virginia Beach, and others in allowing illegal aliens to come to their town, settle in, get a job, and suck up all the welfare benefits, education benefits, and free medical care they can.

Here’s an idea: If these cities really want to pay for all of the welfare benefits, education benefits, and medical care these illegal aliens are going to use, the Federal Government should let them. That is to say, the Federal Government should immediately stop any federal funds which are being sent to these cities for such services and let the local taxpayers foot the bill. As a taxpayer who lives in Texas, there is no reason I should have to pay for education, medical care and welfare for illegal aliens in California, so stop using federal money in these cities to pay for these things.

The wack-jobs in these so-called “sanctuary cities” are awfully loose with other people’s money; let’s see how loose they are with their own money.

Mexico’s Congress has condemned what it says is a border violation by US workers building a controversial barrier between the two countries.

Legislators say workers and equipment building a section of the barrier have gone 10 metres (yards) into Mexico.

The alleged border violation comes ahead of a high-level meeting in the Canadian capital Ottawa.

US, Mexican and Canadian foreign ministers are to discuss border security and trade issues.

Remember, this is the same Mexican government that is printing comic books instructing Mexicans on how to illegally cross the U.S. – Mexico border.

Pardon the language, but screw them.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) – U.S. Hispanic groups and activists on Thursday called for a moratorium on workplace raids to round up illegal immigrants, saying they were reminiscent of Nazi crackdowns on Jews in the 1930s.

They accused the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement of “racial profiling,” or selective enforcement against Hispanics, for arresting 1,300 workers on immigration violations in December 12 raids at meatpacking plants in six states.

“We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated,” said Rosa Rosales, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens, at a news conference.

“This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up,” Democratic Party activist Carla Vela said. “Now they’re coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?”

The groups, which included LULAC, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Hispanic National Bar Association, and the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, sent letters to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, urging a halt to the raids.

They also called on Congress to quickly to approve immigration legislation that would allow for “guest workers” to remain in the United States.

Have you noticed that for the last six years or so, everything the Bush Administration does is compared to what the Nazis did by the Democrats? The holes in their arguments are so self-apparent that I shouldn’t have to refute them, but here we go:

1. “We are demanding an end to these immigration raids, where they are targeting brown faces. That is major, major racial profiling, and that cannot be tolerated” – It isn’t racial profiling, its called being mildly observant. As much as you try to deny it, the vast majority of illegal aliens in this country are Hispanic, and come from either Mexico or some other South American country. You can cry “racial profiling” all you want, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Ignoring an entire class of people to avoid offending them, when that class of people are, in fact, the ones who are causing the problems is stupid. I’d be angry if they didn’t profile these people.
2. “This unfortunately reminds me of when Hitler began rounding up the Jews for no reason and locking them up” – Sorry Ms. Vela, you are incorrect. As everyone in this country, except for you apparently, knows these people were rounded up because they broke the law by entering the country illegally. Also, in a lot of cases, these people were also rounded up for identity theft because they had stolen someone else’s social security number in order to get a job.
3. “Now they’re coming for the Latinos, who will they come for next?” – This one is easy to answer: they’re coming for whomever crossed the border illegally next. If you are Hispanic and are in this country legally, you have nothing to worry about. If, on the other hand, you are Hispanic or Asian or European and you are here illegally, we’ll get to you as soon as possible.

LULAC, the oldest and largest Hispanic group in the country with 115,000 members, said workplace raids would cause families to be separated if the arrested immigrants were deported and also would hurt the U.S. economy.

“Every labor-intensive industry including the hospitality, construction, agriculture and restaurant industries will be adversely impacted if these raids continue,” Rosales said.

Apparently, Ms. Rosales either can’t read or refuses the recognize the reality of the situation:

GREELEY – The line of applicants hoping to fill jobs vacated by undocumented workers taken away by immigration agents at the Swift & Co. meat-processing plant earlier this week was out the door Thursday.

Remember when the Democrats said that we couldn’t deport these illegal aliens because they do the work that Americans refuse to do, and our economy was going to collapse? This is what happened at just one of the plants that was included in the raids. Americans lining up out the door to fill the same jobs which were being performed by these illegal aliens.

The ugly truth in this entire situation is this: business owners hire illegal aliens to reduce their labor costs, because illegal aliens can’t complain or demand higher wages. Hiring for these reasons has created the perception that illegal aliens are doing work that American refuse to do, because Americans probably are not even being looked at for these jobs. Correcting this problem will take a two-pronged attack: you have to heavily fine the businesses who hire illegal aliens and you have to deport the illegal aliens when you find them. Unless the government hurts these business people in the wallet, they will continue to hire illegal aliens. However, if these businesses are fined, say from $100,000 to $500,000 per illegal alien hired, the market for these workers would dry up quickly. Further, once the market for illegal alien labor drys up, the torrent of illegal aliens coming across the border will slow to a trickle because there won’t be any incentive for them to cross the border.

What Ms. Vela and her ilk need to remember is this: If the Bush Administration were truly acting like the Nazis, they would simply have gassed the illegal aliens after rounding them up. She knows this, of course, but she still uses the Nazi comparison because it makes the Bush Administration look evil. What Democrats are overlooking is that the more they keep comparing Bush to Hitler, the more people see the comparison as nonsense. What are they going to do then?

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico pleaded with President Bush on Monday to veto a Senate proposal to build a fence to keep illegal immigrants out, saying it could backfire by making the border less secure.

The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly backed a bill on Friday to put up about 700 miles of fence, a project Republicans hope will impress voters calling for tougher immigration control ahead of November 7 congressional elections.

“The Mexican government strongly opposes the building of walls in the border area between Mexico and the United States,” President Vicente Fox’s spokesman Ruben Aguilar told reporters.

“This decision hurts bilateral relations, goes against the spirit of cooperation needed to guarantee security on the common border, creates a climate of tension in border communities,” he said.

All I can say is: Of course they want Bush to veto this bill! If this fence goes up and illegal immigration is reduced, Mexico’s economy will crumble. Mexico’s economy could not sustain the loss of all of the American dollars illegal immigrants are sending back to relatives in Mexico. As for the rest of Fox’s argument, that tensions will rise and security will be endangered, these are more of a threat than a result of the fence. The “spirit of cooperation” Fox talks about is this Administration’s willingness to give in to their every demand when it comes to allowing illegal aliens into America. If there were actual cooperation, Mexico would be patrolling the border as well to keep their citizens from illegally jumping the fence.

Mexicans are livid about the fence plan, which is seen as a slap in the face to efforts during Fox’s near-completed six-year term to come to an agreement with Washington on immigration.

Boo-hoo! All Fox has done for six years is to plead with Bush to allow the illegals to continue to cross the border unfettered. As long as the cash keeps rolling into Mexico there will never be an agreement on immigration between the U.S. and Mexico.

Build the fence. Enforce the border. Protect U.S. citizens. I thought I read somewhere that this was the mission of our government.