Yesterday's twice-delayed White House pep rally for amnesty offered no surprises, other than the exclusion of Steve King, who's just, you know, the ranking Republican on the House immigration subcommittee. In fact, despite the meeting's billing as broadly inclusive, only three of the 30 members of Congress there were opposed to amnesty: Sen. Jeff Sessions and Reps. Lamar Smith and Heath Shuler.

But a couple things were notable: Read more »

The president this morning spoke at a Hispanic prayer breakfast and reiterated his support for amnesty, but again offered no timeline. One interesting twist is that he endorsed the bogus "touchback" gimmick that was floated during the last round of the amnesty debate, wherein illegal aliens would go home to apply for amnesty, have lunch, then come back legally, thus "rebooting" their status. As the L.A. Times writes: Read more »

From a Washington Post story on foreign workers in Iraq:

Jasim al-Dulaimy, another tribal leader in Anbar who brought in Bangladeshis, said the workers had adapted well to desert life, adding that he had made them adopt the long, loose dishdashas traditionally worn in the province. Read more »

From the LA Times:

No immigration agents descended on Overhill Farms, a major food-processing plant in Vernon. No one was arrested or deported. There were no frantic scenes of desperate workers fleeing la migra through the gritty streets of the industrial suburb southeast of downtown Los Angeles. Read more »

Address by Mark Krikorian to 972 new citizens on Wednesday, June 3, 2009, at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Calif.

Welcome to America!

That may sound a little funny, since you all have lived here for many years already; you can't become a citizen until living here for at least five years, and for most of you, it’s probably been longer than that.

But until two minutes ago, you were in America, but not of America – that's what changed with the oath you've just taken. Read more »

Michael Barone has a posting at the Examiner site mulling over the implications of the drop in immigration from Mexico:

Both advocates and opponents of comprehensive bills have based their arguments on the assumption that large-scale immigration from Latin America and parts of Asia will continue indefinitely. But what if that assumption is false? Yes, our current recession is presumably temporary. But there is at least one other reason to assume that immigration from Latin America may not resume at previous levels: birth rates in Mexico and other Latin countries fell sharply around 1990. Read more »

You mean Americans will do farm work?:

Colorado farmers have applied for 13 percent fewer foreign worker visas this year and state labor officials believe the cause is the lagging U.S. economy and the thousands of Coloradans looking for work. Read more »

One of the reasons ongoing mass immigration is a security problem for a modern society is that it creates and constantly refreshes unassimilated immigrant communities that serve as cover for bad guys, whether transnational terrorists or transnational criminals, whose access to modern technologies of communications, transportation, and weaponry makes the threat different in kind from anything we faced in earlier eras.

An illustration from Sunday's Washington Times: Read more »

I was the keynote speaker at a big naturalization ceremony yesterday at the Paramount Theater in Oakland, Calif. (a really cool art-deco building, at least on the inside; maybe there is some there there after all). I gave a version of my naturalization speech to the nearly 1,000 new citizens, plus maybe 1,500 friends and family, who greeted it with pretty boisterous applause, much more so than at the more sedate ceremonies I've addressed in D.C. and Baltimore. Read more »

Chuck Schumer is making a big show of (the Bush administration's!) immigration enforcement successes, arguing, in the words of the Washington Times story, that "lawmakers have proved to the nation that they are serious about security. Now, he said, voters should be ready to accept a law that legalizes illegal immigrants and rewrites immigration rules."

Uh, not yet. First of all, this is a man who tried to filibuster the Secure Fence Act, so the only thing he's serious about is making a political feint to dupe enough of his fellow congressmen into voting for amnesty. Read more »

I agree with Heather Mac Donald that the administration's decision to expand immigration checks to all jails is a positive development that needs watching. But I have two concerns that Heather didn't touch on. Read more »

"India Sends the Foreign Pilots Back Home" — but at the same time their government has temerity to insist that we keep taking more of their entry-level computer programmers? I'm not even arguing the merits of the case (for more on that, see here and here) — but the hypocrisy is interesting. Read more »

I've mentioned before (most recently here) the use of Temporary Protected Status as a way for the president to unilaterally give what amounts to permanent amnesty to illegal aliens, granting them work authorization and Social Security numbers. Read more »

The five Muslim immigrants who'd plotted to kill American soldiers at Ft. Dix in New Jersey have been sentenced, four to life and one to 33 years. I wrote a while back on how the many weaknesses in our immigration system contributed to this conspiracy. Read more »

From earlier this month, here's some real extremism in the immigration debate:

A bomb threat demanding the release of immigrants being held for deportation was received by the Weld County [Colorado] Sheriff 's Office on Thursday.

The threat was a handwritten letter in Spanish threatening judicial and law enforcement officers with the bombs with the "intent to kill the most number of Americans," according to a press release. Read more »

You know how realtors always say it's a great time to buy a house? — good times or bad, summer or winter, old or young, none of it matters. (Here are some links to realtor ads like this over the past several years). I can't imagine anyone pays any attention to the spin, because everyone understands they're just salesmen making a pitch for their 6 percent commission.

Well, that's what I thought of when I read the recent Wall Street Journal column, "We Need an Immigration Stimulus" Read more »

The administration has delayed, yet again, the implementation of the rule that would require most federal contractors to use the E-Verify system when hiring to screen out illegal aliens. Here's the announcement:

Applicability Date for E-Verify Federal Contractor Rule Extended Read more »

It's hilarious when the open-borders side complains about "deep-pocketed restrictionists" (see this example -- from the Wall Street Journal, no less!) given the almost unbelievable disparity in funding between the two sides. Read more »

In the NYT's latest front-page story pushing amnesty, it reports that the AFL-CIO and the breakaway Change to Win coaltion (basically the Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters) have agreed on a common approach to amnesty. Read more »

Steinitz: Deport 100,000 illegal workers

New finance minister teams up with Immigration Authority to deal with problem 'threatening Israeli workers'; comprehensive plan includes increased fines and indictments against employers

So, the Atlanta paper has selected its new conservative editorial columnist, the result of a contest to fill the affirmative-action position. I'm sure Kyle Wingfield is a prince of a man and an engaging writer — but it's no accident that he supports open borders: "I have seen the segregation and inhumanity that result from being unable to stop immigrants from coming to your country, but managing to stop them from working in your country and integrating into your society." (And yes, he does write editorials for the Wall Street Journal, thanks for asking.) From his brief intro piece (his column won't start til next month), he seems to be against cap and trade, Card Check, and the nanny state in general — all sound views the liberals at the AJC editorial page would recoil from. But he can get away with all that because, like I always say, open borders is the immutable value of the Left. Read more »

Here's an e-mail alert about the upcoming May Day amnesty parades (no word on whether the Politburo will be in the viewing stands):

This May 1st, millions of immigrants and their allies will march in the streets of small towns and big cities across America to call for justice. Every day, immigrants work side-by-side with citizens to strengthen our economy and rebuild our communities. It's time we join the fight for comprehensive immigration reform and help create a path to citizenship for undocumented Americans.

[emphasis in the original] Read more »

Now that Passover (Pesach) has started, it's worth looking at the results of Jewish pro-amnesty groups' campaign called Progress by Pesach, to light a fire under Congress and the White House to get moving on "comprehensive immigration reform." This is of more than parochial interest because the effort was led by HIAS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, whose president, Gideon Aronoff, is now chairman of the National Immi Read more »

Sen. Claire McCaskill, the rare Democratic immigration hawk, is apparently growing in office — she's said she'll likely vote for the DREAM Act amnesty if it comes up this year. Read more »

Over at National Review Online, pro-amnesty activist Richard Nadler finds my numbers about the rapid spread of E-Verify "puzzling." It's not clear why. Read more »

No, I don't mean avoiding profiling of people at the border. Instead, the Obama administration is avoiding profiling of borders themselves. The kind of camera towers that are part of the "virtual fence" along segments of the Mexican border are now planned for the northern border as well. Read more »

This just in: 1.1 million people got green cards last year through the federal immigration program. (pdf)

Hezbollah uses Mexican drug routes into U.S.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Maine legislature is considering a bill to allow non-citizens to vote in municipal elections. Stanley Renshon, a CUNY political scientist and CIS Fellow, wrote last year on why this is a bad idea. (Takoma Park is the D.C. area's own little Berkeley/Madison/Cambridge, and allows non-citizen voting, as Renshon discusses.)

But we need to protect ourselves now.

Mexico is in trouble. The drug wars there have claimed more than 7,000 lives since President Calderón took office in late 2007. Police are being beheaded, politicians are being assassinated, and pundits are talking of Mexico’s becoming a “failed state.” Read more »