These are Not Your Father's Cages!

Quote du jour

Civilized countries should promote immigration of those who seek to assimilate with western culture. At the very least, they should try to screen out the barbarians.

-Mike B

Quote du jour

"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American.
If he tries to separate from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns out people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

― Theodore Roosevelt

"Give us Your Tired, Poor Teeming Masses, No Huddle, Fourth and Long"

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

-Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus

"We can't turn them away! That's not who we are!" Maybe we are, but even if so, I suspect that's not how we always were. But, before we move to make "The New Colossus" our 28th Amendment, let's parse it a bit and apply it to our present situation. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." I think that's an important qualifier right there: "yearning to breathe free". People came to America, come to America, because it is a land of freedom and opportunity. People who love freedom and desire it for themselves and others should always be welcome here.

The irony of so many people quoting the Emma Lazarus poem, ensconced on a bronze plaque on Ellis Island, is that while most of our European immigrants came through Ellis Island, it was also a point to turn some away. If you were healthy and could support yourself, Step this way! Right over here! If you were too sick to work, you were invited to go back wherever you came from, regardless of race, creed or color. I guess that was 'who we were'?

I was reading in my dead tree paper the other day, an account of a man who was seven years old in 1939, on a ship of about 800 Jewish refugees, being turned away from Florida ports. Was FDR afraid of seven year olds, Mr. Obama? They were fleeing the advent of the Third Reich, and unbeknownst to them at the time, the gas chambers of concentration camps. FDR must not have thought "That's not who we are" at the time when he turned them away.

Do we want to emulate Mr. Roosevelt? I don't think so. It does give a little historic perspective: just because you are needy, even fleeing a war zone, does not entitle you automatic entrance into the US.  (This also includes our southern border) I don't think FDR feared the potential presence of a jihadist among the Jewish refugees. Nor do we want to emulate Bill Clinton, whose jack booted thugs grabbed little Elian Gonzalez at gunpoint to forcibly remove him back to Cuba.

Seems to me, there must be a path between the two extremes of let everybody in and let no one in. I do believe though, that as we did once on Ellis Island, we should try to vet those immigrants who are yearning to breathe free and would be a good fit in our country. Despite President Stompy Foot's assertion that "Republicans fear 3 year olds", there is a real concern that an influx of single males, of military age, could contain ISIS sleepers, or yet more malcontents like the Tsarnaev brothers of Boston Marathon bombing fame and their dear sweet mother!

Our immigration policy ought not to be a suicide pact. Obama beclowns himself when he tries to minimize the genuine concerns over letting potential terrorists into the heartland, by his use of ridicule and scorn. Care should be taken to screen those coming into the country, not just for terrorist ties, but for their ability to assimilate and to keep the American dream alive for yet another generation.

Good people can differ on exactly how they might accomplish that, though I suspect the answer lies somewhere between the two extremes.


Original art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

A Tale of Two Immigrants

One of the canards tossed about about Conservatives is that conservatives somehow oppose immigration and immigrants. Must be because we're bigots or something, according to the brain dead left (but I repeat myself!) So, a couple of things came together this AM. I happened to see the obituary of a man who had immigrated here in the fifties and a man who came more recently, in a story over at Maggie's Notebook. These two gentlemen here:

The man on the left (on the page, anyway) is Morris "Brocky" Brockman. On the right, Sergio Martinez-Perez. There is a disparity in their ages, race and probably religion. Brocky Brockman was Jewish, in case anyone cares. Another major difference, is that Brocky Brockman and his wife came to the States legally. And I shall use the less than politically correct terms to refer to young Sergio, because, he came here illegally.

I have a small confession to make. I Photoshopped Sergio's picture. I lightened it up a little, because it was dark, and therefore a little more sinister (think: George Zimmerman), and I shifted the color just a touch, to try to disguise the fact that he's wearing an orange jumpsuit. I wanted you to have an unbiased first impression. (I tried to get a photo of Sergio as a twelve year old, cherubic choir boy, but the MSM said they were all Trayvon'ed out.)

Morris Brockman was the kind of immigrant almost any country would love to have. (I had to add "almost" because some people have an irrational, knee jerk hatred of Jews). He was born in Britain. He served six years in the RAF during WWII. He joined in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. Brocky, we salute you for your service. His obituary is here. Brocky, along with a number of other senior citizen veterans, participated in an oral history project about his experiences in WWII. You can read about that here.

Morris moved to California in 1953, with his wife, Rene. They were married for 71 years. Remember 71. That comes up in Sergio's story, too. The sweet love story of Morris and Rene can be found here. Brocky and his family started their own businesses, so that they were gainfully employed, productive members of their community. Brocky was a credit to both his native and adopted countries. He will be sorely missed.

On the other hand, we turn to Sergio. He's nineteen, so, using the Trayvon Martin standard, he is a "teenager". A youth. A young man if you want to be perfectly honest. Old enough to fight for his country, or fight for this country, if he wanted to use that as a "path to citizenship". The story that brought him to my attention:

Louise Sollowin, 93 years old, died after illegal alien Sergio Martinez-Perez broke into her home where she had lived for 71 years, raped her and beat her to death... Martinez-Perez (is) being charged with first degree murder, first degree burglary and first degree assault.

Ninety three year old Louise Sollowin had lived in her home for as many years as Brocky and Rene had been married. There's a solid, quiet comfort in spending that much time in one place or with one person. Perhaps, even a sense of security, ripped away in a single night by a savage predator who had been in our country for only four months. But, because he'd crossed the border in advance of any Gang of Eight amnesty program, he would have been eligible for a "Don't ask, don't tell" jump up the ladder to legal citizenship. Sergio is one of the "Dreamers" that Obama and his friends are touting. Fresh young faces just looking for an education, or for a job, or for a better life. The very idea that a person's moral character might have been impaired by at least one illegal act in illegally crossing our border and not taking the legally proscribed methods, and that that compromised moral character might manifest itself in other ways deleterious to our society is simply not brought up in mixed company.

And there's a long list of crimes that will be or could be overlooked in considering the path to citizenship of any of these Dreamers, as Obama likes to dreamily call them. Did you know that under proposed "immigration bill", you can forge up to three passports and it won't be held against you? My friend, I suspect if you or I were to forge so much as a single passport, we would see the inside of a Graybar Hotel faster than you can say Homeland Security. And yet, why should we let a few felonies get in the way of their "dream"?

I'm tempted to mount a 14th Amendment objection to the proposed immigration act. It provides for separate treatment of two different groups of people based on race and nationality. If dreamers get a pass on all manner of legal trespass and even felony violations, based on their race and nationality, I'm sure it would violate the 14th Amendment. (Well, maybe not in the view of the currently constituted court!)

I'd like Sergio to become the poster boy for "Dreamers". A nation has the right to control its own borders, north, south, east and west. The problem isn't the color of his skin, it's the content of his character. A large number of my co-workers are Hispanic. At least one was born in Columbia. Nothing at all wrong with people who want to come to this country to work, to go to school, to improve their lives, so long as they do it legally. Period. It's not about race. It's about the Dreamers of any race not turning into nightmares.

Cross posted at LCR.

Iroquois Passports Won't Cut Red Tape

About 00:33 into the tape: "Passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy". Six words you don't hear used together every day!

NEW YORK — An American Indian lacrosse team will not be allowed entry into England for the world championship of the sport the Iroquois helped invent unless members accept U.S. or Canadian passports, the British government said Wednesday.

The Iroquois Nationals team won't be attending the tournament in Manchester unless the British government reverses its decision and allows them to use passports issued by the Iroquois Confederacy, said Tonya Gonnella Frichner, a lawyer for the team.

"They're telling us: 'Go get U.S. passports or Canadian passports,'" Frichner said Wednesday shortly after getting the news. "It's pretty devastating."

Imagine that! A group of people that live inside the United States required to have a US passport to travel to and from other countries! Who woulda thunk it?

...U.S. authorities had said the issue was a matter of border security rather than Iroquois sovereignty.

"For other countries, including the United States, that is not a travel document that is on par with a U.S. passport," Crowley said of the Iroquois documents. He noted that the Iroquois have had similar problems with their passports in foreign countries before.

How's that whole "nation within a nation" thing working out for you?

The Iroquois Nationals Lacrosse team illustrates that "liberty and equality for all" means different things to different people. IMHO, tribal sovereignty is a legal fiction that should be abolished and every American should be subject to the same laws and assimilated into the melting pot that is the United States.

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel, Say Anything

Tom McClintock Responds to Felipe Calderon

A breath of fresh air over the fetid swamp of Washington.

Update: Welcome to all of you coming here from Pajamas Media. And thanks to Roger Kimball for the link!

H/T Weasel Zippers

"They didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them"

The Audacity of Ignorance strikes again!

Barack Obama was asked about immigration at a high school in New Mexico:

“We are a nation of immigrants. The only people can say that they aren’t immigrants are the people sitting right here,” the Presidential candidate says and points to the tribal leaders.

“There are some families who have been here for 4 or 500 years. They didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them.”

Senator O'blurry seems to be confused between who is an immigrant and who is descended from immigrants! While you can say "We are a nation of immigrants" in speaking of our nation's origins, to say that the only people who can say they aren't immigrants, present tense, is aboriginal Americans is

a) folly
b) false
c) stupid
d) all of the above

I am not an immigrant, Mr. Obama! I "immigrated" from nowhere! I was born here. My father was born here. My mother was born here. Her parents were immigrants, but I am two generations removed on my mother's side and seven or eight generations removed on my father's side. It is disturbing the frequency of times that you misuse our language or twist it to mean something it was never intended to mean! Are you this careless with language all the time?

May we assume that your were sans teleprompter at this event? Heh.

Hat tip Stop the ACLU
Cross posted at Say Anything

Obama Compares Immigration Agents to Terrorists

Over at Say Anything, a would be comedian for the Left says there are so few jokes about Obama because:

Obama doesn’t do stupid things on a regular basis

If the grain of truth to that is he hasn't done anything of significance as a politician, then that might be true!

But, when it comes to saying stupid things, it's hard to keep track of them all! Case in point:



Transcript:

When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it.

According to O'blurry, Immigration officials are the terrorists! He then goes on to detail Gestapo like-tactics of families being torn apart by zealous ICE agents. Would you care to back up any of these outrageous allegations with some particulars, Senator O'blurry? "Nursing mothers (plural) torn from their babies (plural)"? I'm sure if it happens that often, you can provide us with lots of details, no? I'm not aware of any particularly aggressive enforcement by ICE agents for as long as I can remember.

I will await for Senator O'blurry to either provide us with details or change his opinion, depending on which way the wind is blowing. Until then, file this one under "Pandering Politicians".

Hat tip Gateway Pundit
Cross Posted at Say Anything