This isn’t a bad number of people to show up on a Thursday morning.

Brandishing American flags and signs reading “Stop the Invasion,” about 200 people showed up Thursday morning at De Anza Park to take part in a march against illegal immigration. [source]

As an American, I am proud of these folks getting out to march in support of enforcing immigration law and border security.

Across town, about 300 people showed up to march “for immigrant rights”.

A few miles away, another group - carrying images of the Virgin of Guadalupe and activist Cesar Chavez - promoted immigrant rights and condemned racism and the war.

Well that seems like a pretty wide range of things to march for in one shot, but God bless them for getting out to practice free speech. Somehow I don’t think they were marching on behalf of legal immigrants. I think they were probably marching to support people who break immigration law. They were trying to frame illegal immigration into an issue of race, which it is not. And they were throwing in the war protest part just because it’s in the liberal DNA and they can’t help it.

I think this quote from a ten-year illegal resident from Mexico at the pro-illegal rally is hilarious…

“I want to stay here,” she said in Spanish.

Honey, after ten years if you haven’t learned to say “I want to stay here” in English, you don’t seem committed to becoming a legal American citizen.

Read the full article here.

This is pretty regular news for the part of the country that I live in, but I think it’s important to bring it up from time to time so the rest of you don’t forget what’s happening along our southern border.

A Mexican teen found in the remote southern Arizona desert with extreme dehydration was rescued by U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Border Patrol spokesman Mike Scioli said the rescue was triggered by a resident who called Tohono O’odham police, who then called the Border Patrol.

Agents found the 17-year-old boy from Chiapas in a remote area of the desert where he had been reported missing. Scioli said the boy was unable to walk because he was suffering from exposure to the elements and extreme dehydration.

The teen was taken by helicopter to a Tucson hospital, where he is recovering.

Monday’s high temperature of 95 degrees was about 14 degrees above average for this time of year, according to the National Weather Service.

Border Patrol agents in the Tucson sector have rescued 96 people in life-threatening situations between Oct. 1 and March, Scioli said.

In that same time period, 55 illegal immigrants have been found dead, according to the Pima County and Cochise County medical examiners offices. [source]

For the sake of those 55 human beings, we need to get our border secured, and make it possible for migrant workers to come into the country legally. How many Mexicans have to die in the desert before people stop pretending there’s not a problem?

I think this might have been an assignment I actually turned in on time. Make a protest sign for an issue or against an issue, and bring it to school. This should end well:

It was an assignment for history class–to make a protest sign for or against an issue, and Melanie said she chose illegal immigration. Her sign read, “If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.” Somehow, Melanie said the sign got passed around lunch and angered a group of Latino students.

Don’t these students know that Latinos getting angry at an illegal immigration sign is, like, reverse racism or something. I think they are stereotyping themselves somehow.

So, in the spirit of academia and free speech, they decided to not only beat the crap out of Melanie, but threaten to rape her also:

“I didn’t know any of these people,” she said. One young, she claimed, jumped on her back and he put her in a choke hold. “We have brick walls in the middle school and he slammed my face on the bricks.”

Melanie said a group of boys also threatened to rape and kill her.

Of course, since a high school is filled with people trained to teach your children better than you, and since we know that schools are there to protect children, you can rest assured in the knowledge that the school would handle this situation.

Eventually, the boys let her go and when she went for help, she was ordered back to class, and told she could not call her parents, she said.

Well, yeah. Isn’t that what you would do? If not, you are obviously not educated enough to handle complex issues like this. (Is my sarcasm coming across thick enough? This is print, so I have to lay it on pretty thick…)

So, here’s my questions? Will these kids be brought up on hate crime charges? This was obviously racially motivated.

And have the students been suspended pending review? Will Al Sharpton march for young Melanie, or the Latinos who assaulted her?

And why would you assign such a stupid assignment for history class?

Hat Tip: Wizbang

UPDATE:

Via KLTV 7:

Charges are being filed against 13 year old Melanie Bowers by Athens ISD through the Henderson County District Attorney’s office for filing a false report, said AISD officials today.

Bowers claimed earlier this week that she was beaten and threatened - with killing and rape, no less - by a group of students at Athens ISD last Friday, for creating a protest sign saying, “If you love our nation, stop illegal immigration.”

After Melanie’s accusations, administrators reviewed school survellience videotape of the incident - which, instead of showing students beating or attacking her, showed Bowers scratching herself on her arms, face, and neck, and walking through the halls of the school calmly long after she claimed the incident happened.

After Melanie’s parents were presented with that information and the video, the school confronted Melanie, and she admitted that she made the story up.

What a stupid thing to do. This girl needs to be severely punished.

With the borders as open as ever, the federal government has decided to pull the National Guard from the southern border in New Mexico, without explaining why:

Sate [sic] homeland security said the National Guard on the border will leave in July, six months earlier than expected. Officials said border agents won’t take over until December at the earliest, leaving more than 180 miles of border virtually unwatched.

The original plan was to have the National Guard watch the border until 6,000 new agents could be properly trained.

Border patrol officials said that won’t happen until December, but state officials said that’s not stopping the feds from pulling the plug early.

New Mexico’s Homeland Security, uh, person, says he is worried about a six-month “gap” on the border. Since I am a problem solver, I have three solutions to your problem.

1. New Mexico Minuteman Rough Riders
2. New Mexico Constitutional Militia
3. New Mexico National Guard

I say, “DAMN THE FEDS! WE’LL DO IT OURSELVES!” I’m sure you could find 6,000 volunteers. Why does the federal government have to do it? They are obviously not interested. Do it yourself. Your citizens will love you for it.

Wow. Thanks for finally noticing:

This video was added to Live Leak today, but this story might be a older than that. Still, good to see this topic is finally getting some mainstream attention.

Warren Meyer over at Coyote Blog comments on using E-Verify for the first time:

After some research, it is becoming clear to me that the federal government’s official position and the one that companies must agree to adopt when using e-verify is this: When using e-Verify, it is against the law to screen out anyone in the hiring process based on immigration status. Even if a company were to develop very strong evidence in the hiring process that a person is not a legal worker, that worker must still be hired (or at least not not-hired based on immigration status, if that makes sense). Then, and only then, after the person is on the payroll, may the company begin the process of checking to see if that person is legal. After weeks of various government steps, it may be required that the company fire that person, but apparently it could bring strong penalties to fire the person before the process has played out.

Is this nuts or what?

He is dealing with the federal government so it is almost expected. This is where the immigration issue is today because the federal government won’t pull its weight. Employers like Warren are now dealing with the federal government and all the B.S. that comes with it.

Meanwhile, the government can’t even build a fence, even a virtual one, in the same amount of time it took FDR to win World War II. One might wonder if they even want the border secured.

Over four days and six states, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents picked up 52 fugitive illegal aliens. A fugitive illegal alien is someone who has been ordered out of the country by a judge.

The multi-day operation took place in New York, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Missouri. The Syracuse arrests included a man with a conviction for aggravated assault for stabbing a man during a fight and an individual who is a registered sex offender and has a conviction for third-degree rape, officials said.

The aliens arrested came from the following countries: Mexico, Guatemala, Jamaica, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Cuba, El Salvador, India, Iraq, Iran, Kenya, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Trinidad, officials said.

Hypothetically, let’s say the borders are secure. There is a fence and drones and technology and people in uniforms ensuring that no one is getting into the country illegally. The only people immigrating here are coming in through the front door.

Now what?

We still have ten to twenty million illegal immigrants in the country. Some studies have the number as high as forty million. What is going to be done with them?

If laws like those passed in Arizona catch on, many will self-deport.

After just six weeks, Arizona’s system is already working: Newspapers in the state report that illegals are self-deporting by the thousands. Apartment complexes in Phoenix and Tucson confirm that thousands of tenants have skipped town. Many are returning across the border to Mexico.

This success is proof that attrition through enforcement works. The premise is straightforward: The way to solve our illegal-immigration problem is to ratchet up enforcement while making it more difficult for employers to hire illegals.

Illegal aliens are rational people. If their chance of being able to work illegally goes down, while the chance of getting detained goes up, at some point the only sensible thing to do is go home.

The same thing is happening in Oklahoma. Those in the country for work, but here illegally are simply going back home. If this trend continues, and the law is enacted by other states, there could be a mass exodus of illegal immigrants out of the country.

But what about those who don’t self-deport? Well, hard core criminals need to go. They get deported without question. I don’t think anyone would argue with that. But what about the folks who have been here for years. I don’t mean, like, three years. I’m talking about illegal immigrants that were carried across the border as babies and are now driving age. Should we just deport them?

Some would say yes. They are in the country illegally, so they should go. Others say that there should be a “path to citizenship.” I can see the point in that also. But I have to wonder how many would self-deport if there were such a path.

It is a complex issue with no simple solution. But the first step is simple. Secure the border. Once we stem the flow of illegal immigrants into the country, then we can look at solutions for those who are already here. But until the border is secure, any solution is moot. Reagan proved that with his amnesty bill. It was dependent on border enforcement. There was none and look at where we are today.

I am interested in what everyone else thinks. How are we going to correct the situation?

This is part 5 of a 5 part series on Illegal Immigration
Part 1: Illegal Immigration and National Security - It Is Worse Than You Know
Part 2: The Human Cost - Part 1: Coming to America
Part 3: The Human Cost - Part 2: Out of the Shadows, Into the Morgue
Part 4: The Human Cost - Part 3: Importing Pedophelia
Part 5: Secure The Border. Then What?

Here is another example of why our borders should be secured.

Mexican officials said the are investigating “a network that could be made up of Mexicans operating in Greece who are selling false Bulgarian passports for $10,000 to European and Middle Eastern citizens.”

Earlier this month, El Universal, a daily in Mexico City, reported two other Iraqis, Markos Ramy, a 25-year-old man, and Sollem Pate, a 20-year-old woman, presented Bulgarian passports upon arrival at the Monterrey airport after a flight from Spain.

They told customs officials they came as tourists for a couple days. But because they spoke no Bulgarian, their passports were determined to be fraudulent. The Bulgarian consulate did not acknowledge them as citizens and their hotel reservations proved to be phony. [World Net Daily]

Every time I have someone tell me I’m being a racist or that I don’t like Mexicans because I believe we should secure the border, I think of things like this. Immigration: yes. Iraqis trying to sneak into the United States through Mexico with phony Bulgarian passports… hell no.

Illegal immigration is more than getting enough people in America to pick lettuce or roof houses. While the people who crash the border to do those jobs take jobs from legal citizens, it is far from the most damaging of issues. Not everyone who comes to America is here to do jobs Americans won’t do.

Some are here doing things too many Americans are already doing.

Virginia’s Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced yesterday that the state police, along with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), identified one hundred seventy-one members of the state’s sex offender registry that are in the country illegally. These were criminals who were already convicted on sexual assault charges and were on the state’s registry.

“Operation Cold Play” began when the Virginia State Police checked the Sex Offender Registry and submitted a list of more than 500 foreign born criminals to immigration.

More than half of those offenders were in this country illegally. Eighty-four of them have already left the country or been deported and 135 are in jail and now being processed for removal. But, 36 were out on the streets.

Thirty-six sex offenders back on the streets is bad enough, but it is compounded when the child rapist is not even supposed to be in the country. (more…)

There is an aspect of illegal immigration I have not touched on yet this week, and Ron Paul, who no doubt reads this blog daily, saw an opening and went for it. He details the toll illegal immigration is taking on America from a financial point of view:

Costs of social services for the estimated 21 million illegal immigrants in this country are approaching $400 billion. We educate 4.2 million children of illegals at a cost of $13.8 billion. There have been almost 2 million anchor babies born in this country since 2002, with labor and delivery costs of between $3 and 6 billion.

There are currently 360,000 illegals in our prisons and we have spent $1.4 billion to incarcerate them since 2001. In Prince William County near DC, ICE can’t deport criminal illegals fast enough and has actually asked its local jails to slow down on referring them. Jurisdiction over illegal immigration lies at the federal level, yet many municipalities are struggling with the compounding problems of mandated costs and tied hands.

My office has heard from at least one sheriff in my district considering seeking compensation from the Federal government for the cost of so many illegal immigrant inmates that wouldn’t be here if the Federal government was doing its job and protecting our borders. The problems are widespread.

One thing is certain: If we subsidize them, they will come.

He nails it here.

Ever talk to a knucklehead about securing the border? Let me give you a taste of what you can expect:

“Oh, you can’t deport at 12-20 million. What are you going to do with all of the illegals? Hmm? Hmm? Hmm?”

And then you would be accosted with the same attitude when you said that if the opportunities for illegal immigrants were not there, they would just leave. And Arizona is proving that idea right:

Arizona is seeing signs of a flight by Mexican immigrants out of the state and back across the border. Local reformers credit the state’s recent crackdown on illegal immigration. Indeed, sanctions against employers are playing a key role.

The new state law — which goes into effect March 1 — punishes employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants by suspending their business license for 10 days on the first violation and revoking it for a second offense.

At the same time, the county sheriff in Phoenix has been helping enforce federal immigration laws by rounding up people living there illegally.

How many people are trying to get back into Mexico? “The consulate is reporting an “unusual” 400% increase in parents applying for Mexican birth certificates for their anchor babies and other documents they need to return to Mexico.” Seems to me that if you enforce the laws, illegals will go back home.

Fact is, some 30,000 illegal immigrants plan to leave Arizona sometime before March 1, when the state’s tough new immigration laws kick in, according to a survey conducted earlier this month by Chicanos Por La Causa. And CPLC can hardly be accused of anti-immigrant bias — it’s a nonprofit immigrant-support group.

If an illegal immigrant manages to live through the trip across the border without dying from exposure, drowning or being gang raped, they are then free to move about the country.
While a majority of illegal immigrants can count the actual border crossing as their only crime here, there are far too many who cannot. The cost of their being here weighs heavy on the victims of their crimes.

MS-13

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13 is one of the most violent gangs in the world. In fact, Lisa Ling from National Geographic called them the “World’s Most Dangerous Gang.” Ling details her trip to El Salvador and the effects MS-13 is having there. (more…)