A Class on Compassion

IS IGNORING ILLEGALS COMPASSIONATE?

By: Bob Lounsberry (Part I of II)

When you counsel someone to be compassionate, you make an assumption.
It is an assumption of moral superiority. You presume that they are, in fact, not already compassionate. You presume that their position is inherently one that lacks caring and human concern but that your position, on the other hand, is somehow morally superior and enlightened. And that's a pretty arrogant thing to do.

Because in presuming that others disagree with you because of some lack of intellect, understanding or humanity on their part, you run the very large risk of doing exactly what you accuse them of doing. You end up condemning people whose motives you fail to understand.
I'm talking about illegal immigration.

Specifically, I'm talking about the assertion that those who oppose illegal immigration somehow lack compassion, that they fail to see the human element of the issue, that they lose sight of the fact that illegal aliens are children of God, that if they only knew an illegal alien and his family their view on the issue would change.

I think that viewpoint represents both arrogance and ignorance. Specifically, it represents a failure to understand the people who oppose illegal immigration.
So let me explain.

People who oppose illegal immigration don't hate illegal aliens, they love America. And they understand America and its reliance on constitutional order and the rule of law. They know that liberty is rooted in and protected by law. They know that it is the moral duty of all Americans to uphold the law. In fact, they join with Abraham Lincoln in declaring obedience to law our “national religion.”

People who oppose illegal immigration have no objection to immigration, but they can never accept “illegal” as a way of doing things in this country. The Lord said that his house is a “house of order,” and so must the affairs of this nation be. Unchallenged illegality – of any nature – is a threat to our Constitution and – consequently – to our country.

When the laws do not matter, then the Congress that passed them does not matter and the executive who supposedly enforces them does not matter and the courts that interpret them do not matter and our entire Republic does not matter. When the laws do not matter; our Constitution twists in the wind, dangling by a thread.

It is the duty of Americans to defend the Constitution.
It is the duty of Americans to defend the law.
It is the duty of Americans to demand the enforcement of law.

It is traitorous of Americans to countenance, encourage, facilitate, induce or ignore the breaking of law.

People who oppose illegal immigration are not being bad Christians, they are being good Americans.

The law may change, we have a system for that, and the people through their representatives may choose new laws. But until that time, there is no excuse for ignoring, disobeying or skirting current law. Abraham Lincoln, again, in discussing the cursed Dred Scott decision said that though it was a noxious piece of case law, which he would never quit working to overturn, he was duty bound to obey it until it was changed.

That is the duty of any American.

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha Most Violent Gang in the U. S.

Latin American Gangs Are Taking Over Our Streets
By Dave Gibson (Part II of II)

The U.S. Justice Department now believes that many gangs never before associated with traditional Mexican gangs are now distributing drugs on behalf of Mexican drug cartels. These gangs include the Bloods, Crips, and even many Asian and white supremacist gangs.

The National Drug Intelligence Center recently reported that Mexican gangs now have drug distribution operations in North Carolina as well as Georgia to support drug sales along the East Coast.

In addition to the sale of illegal drugs, prostitution, assault, rape, and robbery, Latin American gangs are now apparently acting as paid assassins, with the target being U.S. law enforcement.

In 2007, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported that they had obtained a confidential Department of Homeland Security memo. The function of the document was to issue an Officer Safety alert to U.S. Border Patrol agents that human smugglers were bringing MS-13 gang members into the country for the sole purpose of murdering the agents.

The alert reads: “Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexican border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers.”

A Border Patrol agent speaking on the condition of anonymity said: “It’s not just people coming over here to pick lettuce. These gang members, criminals, are endangering American lives.” He went on: “Our vests won’t stop a rifle bullet, and many of us feel like sitting ducks.”

A few facts concerning the impact of illegal immigration on crime in this country:

-In 1995, a California Department of Justice study concluded that the 18th Street Gang works directly with the Mexican Mafia, and commits a robbery or an assault every day in Los Angeles alone.

-Two-thirds of fugitive felony warrants issued in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.

-95 percent of warrants issued for murder in L.A. are for illegal aliens.

-83 percent of warrants issued for murder in Phoenix, AZ are for illegal aliens.

-86 percent of warrants issued for murder in Albuquerque, NM are for illegal aliens.

-53 percent of burglaries in Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and Texas are committed by illegal aliens.

-According to police, there are at least 53,000 Latino gang members in Los Angeles (that is the equivalent of three Airborne Divisions).

-Mexican drug cartels produce 80 percent of the methamphetamine sold on U.S. streets.

-In 2007 alone, U.S. Customs agents confiscated over 2,000 lbs of methamphetamine at the six official border crossing stations in California.

Latin American gangs are just another reason to vigorously defend our all too porous border. If our government does not soon become serious about border enforcement, we can expect our nation's streets to run red with blood.

MS-13 Mara Salvatrucha Most Violent Gang in The U. S.

Latin American Gangs Are Taking Over Our Streets
By Dave Gibson (Part I of II)
At one time, violent crimes attributed to Mexican and Central American gangs were largely confined to the American Southwest. However, just as illegal aliens have spread across this country, so too has a veritable crime wave. Large cities and small towns across the country are now experiencing the early stages of the most violent gang epidemic we have ever seen.

One of the most violent gangs is known as MS-13 The gang perpetuating the death and destruction is known as MS-13. Mara Salvatrucha or MS-13 is based in El Salvador.

According to the FBI's National Gang Task Force Director Robert Clifford, MS-13 is following the same paths as do Mexican illegal workers. Clifford said: "The migrant moves and the gang follows. If you follow the construction trade, that is where a lot of these immigrants go."

A March 2005 nation-wide sting operation which targeted members of the notoriously violent MS-13, nabbed 103 gang members. All 103 were in this country illegally. The arrests were made in Baltimore, New York, Newark, Dallas, Los Angeles, as well as the District of Columbia. The arrests made clear the fact that illegal immigration is no longer simply a regional crisis.

In 2005, two MS-13 members were convicted in an Alexandria, Va. United States District Court for killing a 17-year-old pregnant girl. A rope was placed around the neck of Brenda Paz, she was then stabbed repeatedly. Her body was then left along the muddy banks of Virginia’s Shenandoah River. The murder was retribution for the girl’s cooperation with a federal investigation into the gang’s activities.

The FBI now estimates that there are between 8,000 to 10,000 MS-13 gang members inside the United States. The Salvadoran gang is infamous for machete and grenade attacks. They have also been known to behead their enemies.

On January 3, 2008, police in Fort Worth, TX arrested several members of the Latino gang known as Varrio Central for forcing young girls into prostitution. Some of the girls being victimized were as young as 12 years old.

Diego Rodriguez, 19, and Martin Reyes, 17, with aggravated kidnapping, trafficking of a person, and engaging in organized criminal activity. The names of three minors arrested were not released

Varrio Central members would typically befriend the girls, get them high, and then take them to their regular customers. They would also drive them through apartment complexes, approaching men with the offer of sex with a teenaged or pre-teen girl for a fee of $50.

According to Fort Worth Police, if a girl refused to comply, gang members would beat and sexually assault her and threaten her family with violence.

Fort Worth Police Lt. Ken Dean told the Associated Press: “The age of the victims and suspects is the surprising part of it. To have such young individuals in a somewhat organized business, a forced prostitution ring, is somewhat alarming and such a horrendous crime against the 12 to 16 year old girls.”

As I stated earlier, Latin American gang activity is no longer isolated to large cities. A look at one relatively small city reveals the severity of the problem.

According to 2007 U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the city of Porterville located in central California has a population of 51,467. While reporting a rather modest population, Porterville police report the existence of no less than 23 active gangs in the city.

The known gangs in Porterville, CA are as follows:

-Brown Pride Surenos            -Barrio Sur Trece                                -Court Stret Locos

-Mexican Gang Bangers         -North Side Varrio Boys

-Tierras-Terra Bella                -Tiny Maltido Surenos                         -Varrio Central Poros

-Wicked Ass Surenos             -Young Mexican Gang Bangers          -Barrio “H” street

-Big Time Locos                     -North Side Varrio Youngsters            -Sultra 14

-Varrio Campo Linnel              -West Side Poros                               -Catela Norte

-East Side Poros                    -East Side Varrio                                 -Sureno Life Style

-Richgrove Varrio Trece

(Stay Tuned For Part II)

Once Again Washington County Takes The Lead!

Another E-Verfy Local Ordinance

By Ronald W. Mortensen, October 23, 2011

On October 18, 2011, the Washington County (Utah) Commission passed an ordinance that requires "businesses that receive a business license from the county to use E-Verify…."

The ordinance was crafted based on a recent Supreme Court decision, Chamber of Commerce v. Whiting, 131 S. Ct. 1968 (2011). In that case, the Court declared that states may require businesses to use E-Verify and that the states can use their licensing authority to enforce employment verification requirements.

According to the Findings section of the Washington County ordinance, illegal aliens are working in the Washington County in violation of federal law, taxes paid by American citizens are used to provide benefits to illegal aliens thereby depriving citizens of Washington County who pay the taxes of the intended benefits of their tax dollars, and that steps to ensure that businesses hire only authorized workers are an important part of resolving the negative effects of illegal immigration.

The ordinance, therefore, requires each place of business covered by the ordinance to verify the employment eligibility of all new hires by using the federal government's E-Verify system. If a place of business fails to comply, it shall be ordered to comply and its business license shall be suspended for up to 10 days for the first instance, 10-20 days for the second instance, and 30 days to permanent suspension for a third instance.

Each time a person applies for a county business license, the person shall certify that the business is operating in compliance with the ordinance. The Clerk/Auditor's office may request that a place of business show compliance and the certification of compliance must be made on a form provided by the Clerk/Auditor's office.

If there is reasonable suspicion that the place of business is not complying with the ordinance, the Clerk/Auditor shall conduct an investigation and when sufficient evidence of non-compliance is found, the evidence shall be turned over to the county attorney's office for action.

In addition, citizens may submit complaints which will be the basis for Clerk/Auditor beginning an investigation. It is a Class C Misdemeanor to file a frivolous complaint and complaints cannot be based solely on an employee or employer's race, religion, gender, ethnicity, and/or national origin.

The County Commission shall appoint a member of the community to act as a hearing officer for complaints. The hearing officer determines whether the county attorney has met its burden of proof. If a business license is suspended, the written decision of the hearing officer shall clearly state the dates the suspension begins and ends.

Appeals of the hearing officer's decisions may be heard by the Washington County Commission. The County Commission will only overturn the hearing officer's decision if it finds that the hearing officer abused his/her discretion or made a clear error in reaching a conclusion.

The ordinance takes effect 60 days from the date it was enacted and is a direct benefit of the legal challenge brought by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and civil rights groups to state E-Verify requirements. That challenge resulted in the Court determining that state and local governments can require employers to use E-Verify and that they can use their licensing authority to ensure that employers comply with the law without the fear of being sued.

The Washington County ordinance may provide the impetus for other Utah counties to enact similar ordinances, especially since there are ongoing efforts in a number of other counties to enact E-Verify ordinances through the citizen initiative process.

As California Goes, So Goes America

California, Here We Come!

By Patrick J. Buchanan Part II of II  California, Here We Come!

Under George W. Bush and Obama, the U.S. government has undertaken huge new responsibilities: No Child Left Behind, Medicare prescription drug benefits, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the takeovers of banks and auto companies, bailouts without end and national health insurance.

California, too, spent lavishly in the fat years and issued bonds when state revenues did not cover the costs, bringing its once-sterling credit rating down to the nation’s lowest. So, too, U.S. Treasury bonds, T-bills and the American dollar are now increasingly suspect.
Demographically, California is where America will be in 2040.

White folks, who are leaving California as they did in the millions in the 1990s, are below half the population. Hispanics, their numbers surging due to legal and illegal immigration, are well over a third of the population. The African-American share of California’s population is also falling, as the Asian share is rising, again from immigration.

Los Angeles, which is what most large American cities will look like, is the most diverse city on earth. Has diversity been a strength?  In the prisons and jails, and among the scores of thousands in street gangs and the underclass, a black-brown civil war is underway.
In October 2006, the Financial Times reported the findings of the famed author of “Bowling Alone” on what diversity has wrought:

“A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists. His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone — from their next-door neighbor to the mayor.”

“In the presence of diversity, we hunker down,” said Putnam. “We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”  “Professor Putnam,” said the Financial Times, “found trust was lowest in Los Angeles, ‘the most diverse human habitation in human history.’”

Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan carried California nine times. But the state is now a fiefdom of liberalism. John McCain’s share of the vote was smaller than Barry Goldwater’s. California today believes in Big Government, open borders, diversity, multiculturalism and the politics of compassion. But what liberalism has wrought in California, its native-born are fleeing.
Still, where California is at, America is headed.

Californians who are running away from the communities and towns in which they were raised have Arizona, Idaho, Colorado, Utah and Nevada to head to. But when all of America arrives at where California is at today, where do the Americans run to?

As California Goes, So Goes America

California, Here We Come

By Patrick J. Buchanan Part I of II 
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — In just a few weeks time, California hits the wall.  And Americans should take a good, long look at the fiscal and social wreck of the Golden Land, because California is at a place to which all of America is heading.

In May, when five fund-raising proposals were put on the ballot, Gov. Schwarzenegger pleaded with the overtaxed Californians not to make their state “the poster child for dysfunction.”
As The Economist writes, “On May 18th, they did exactly that.”

Arnold went to the White House for U.S. loan guarantees for new state bonds. But with the president’s approval rating wilting because of a belief he is spending too much, the Obama-ites slammed the door.

In Sacramento, a Republican blocking force is resisting any new tax revenue. And with the state under a constitutional mandate to balance its budget, yet facing a $24 billion deficit this July, a chainsaw is about to be taken to state government.

Some 38,000 of 168,000 state prisoners may be released. As Barack Obama is pushing universal health insurance, California will cut Medi-Cal for the poor. Education will be slashed, resulting in a shortened school year, thousands of laid-off teachers, school closings and an end to summer programs in a system that has plummeted from the nation’s best to one of its worst, as measured by dropout rates and academic achievement.  The 10 campuses of the University of California face cuts that may result in 50,000 fewer students and 5,000 fewer teachers.

What makes her fiscal crisis relevant to us all is not only that California is our most populous state, with one in eight Americans living there, but California has a gross domestic product larger than Canada’s.

Moreover, the demography of California today is the demography of America tomorrow, just as the social and fiscal policies of California in the last decade mirror those of the U.S. government today.

One-third of all U.S. wage-earners today have been amnestied from paying U.S. income taxes, as the top 1 percent haul fully 40 percent of that huge load. So, too, in California, the well-to-do and the wealthy are hammered, which is why many have quietly closed their businesses, packed and gone back over the mountains whence their fathers came.

3 Part Study on Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration, Liberal Elites, and Obama

By David Paulin - Part III of III

Ah yes, "breaking up families:" It's a familiar complaint among open-borders liberals. Yet oddly, they never seem to decry anti-family polices in places like Castro's Cuba. It's a regime that's broken up countless families -- either by tossing family members in jail for political reasons, or by even killing them on occasion.

The Times belittles Irving's lower crime statistics, suggesting immigration checks and deportations are mostly rounding up illegals guilty of minor offenses such as identify theft. A closer look at those statistics reveals much about the Times biases and values. As the Times itself notes:

As of early March, of the 4,074 people whose arrest led to their being handed over to immigration officials, 129 had been charged with violent crimes or illegal possession of weapons, and 714 with other types of serious felonies. In addition, 579 had been charged with driving while intoxicated. The other 2,625 had been arrested for lesser offenses; the largest categories were public intoxication and not having a driver's license or insurance.

All in all, the immigration checks are producing some terrific results. Yet the Times portrays Mayor Gears as being a conflicted man for having imposed such a morally problematic policy as immigration checks. "I'm the hero of every redneck in America," the Times quotes him as saying, while noting he speaks only "scant Spanish." It's interesting that the Times used that "redneck" quote in what must have been a lengthy and wide-ranging interview, one filled with lots of good quotes.

You have to wonder how liberal elites at the Times would feel if such problems suddenly visited their neighborhoods -- drunken illegal aliens stumbling about in the street. Driving without a license and insurance. Or contemplating their next violent crime?

Interestingly, the Times notes that many of Irving's "Hispanics" don't vote. Well, so much for their civic engagement values, a hallmark of Americans whose self-reliant European ancestors immigrated to America, learned English and reinvented themselves as Americans. Today, these folks are not hyphenated Americans, as are the Hispanic-Americans to which the Times refers; they're just Americans.

Along similar lines, it's interesting that the Times does not interview one group of Texans in Irving -- Americans of Mexican ancestry whose roots go back for generations in Texas; people who are members of the solid middle-class and who do not reflexively think of themselves as hyphenated Americans. There are plenty of people like that in Texas.

Social Class -- not race

Why do liberal elites at the New York Times find it so much easier to identify with illegal immigrants than with middle-class Americans? Two things obsess them: race and ethnicity; so that's how they define the immigration debate. Accordingly, ordinary Americans upset over illegal Hispanic immigrants must be "racist" and "xenophobic." Indeed, that's how former Mexico president Vincente Fox, during a visit to this country, described Americans opposing illegal immigration from Mexico. Fox got away with that remark until he went head-to-head with Fox's Bill O'Reilly on the national airwaves.

What in fact upsets residents in Irving and other communities are issues revolving around social class, bad behavior, and quality-of-life considerations. Like most Americans, they expect the law to be obeyed. Illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America would be a non-issue if it consisted of an orderly flow of immigrants with middle-class backgrounds; people settling in the country legally and learning to speak English. Asian immigrants have this sort of background, and there is no backlash against them -- and no wonder. Their children do well in school. They Anglicize their names and learn English.

President Obama, for his part, seems determined to give 11 million illegal immigrants, mostly poor and uneducated Hispanics, a path to citizenship. No doubt, he believes this will again demonstrate America's "moral authority" to an audience whose opinions matter to him: anti-Americans elites in Mexico, Europe, and the Third World. And no matter if his immigration plan changes the nation's culture for the worse for ordinary Americans; or at least for ordinary Americans who don't holler and applaud at Sunday church services when their minister yells, "God damn America!"

On his recent visit to Mexico, President Obama spent much time hobnobbing with that country's elites. He also should talk with ordinary middle-class people in Latin America, outside of Mexico, to get their opinion on illegal immigration. Most have no sympathy for gate-crashing Mexicans and other illegal Hispanic immigrants.

The President will have no trouble finding these folks who are solidly middle-class. They form long lines starting early in the morning outside the gates of U.S. Embassies across Latin America. They're eyes are pensive as they clutch carefully prepared applications for visas and work permits. They wait patently in the hot sun. Most will be disappointed by the decision of the Embassy official behind the glass window. But those whom I've met vow to try their luck again some other day.

To them, America is about more than economic opportunities and social programs. They admire America's culture: believe it's a place with a rule of law that applies to everybody, whether you're Kenneth Lay or Martha Stewart. And they believe it's a place in which ordinary people obey little social courtesies, like going to the back of a line at a bank, rather than bribing a security guard to let them go to the front; that's how it's done in parts of Latin America I've visited.

In America, you stop your car at a red light, even when no cops are around; that's the sort of civic culture that foreigners admire who are from dysfunctional countries without a civic culture. Accordingly, gate-crashing Mexicans who are deported get little sympathy from them.

The impact of uncontrolled immigration, especially from Mexico, promoted the late Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington to pose a troubling question:

"Will the United States remain a country with a single national language and a core Anglo-Protestant culture? By ignoring this question, Americans acquiesce to their eventual transformation into two peoples with two cultures (Anglo and Hispanic) and two languages (English and Spanish)."

3 Part Study on Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration, Liberal Elites, and Obama

By David Paulin - Part II of III

In the suburbs outside New York City, there are lots of towns like Westport, situated within an hour's train ride from the heart of New York City. They're popular abodes for well-to-do liberals, people who earn six figure salaries in business and finance, and even in big-time journalism. This is not to say that there are not some open-borders Republican elites living in these places, too.

Memories of Westport and its affluent and civic-minded residents drifted back to me while reading an article in the New York Times: "Texas Mayor Caught in Deportation Furor."  The article was part of the Times' ongoing "Remade in America" series on immigration, and it focused on efforts in Irving, a Dallas suburb, to crack down on illegal immigration.

Spinning its story around an open-borders agenda, the Times portrays Irving's residents (its white residents) as narrow-minded hicks. Yet even the Times cannot ignore some of the changes that have happened in Irving due to illegal immigration, primarily from Mexico. Residents of Danbury should pay close attention.

Back in 1970, Irving had a population of 100,000; 95 percent of its residents were white. Now, whites are a minority, as they are in Texas.  Hispanics comprise 45 percent or more of the population of 200,000 - and according to city officials, 20 percent of them may be illegal immigrants, noted the Times.

Hispanic birthrates have been explosive in Irving and across the nation. Many of these children are the offspring from millions of illegal immigrants whom Congress allowed to stay under an amnesty in the 1990s.  Today, Irving's future may be found in its public schools: 70 percent of kids enrolled in kindergarten through fifth grade are Hispanic, notes the Times. More than a few experts on immigration have expressed concern that the sons and daughters of these immigrants tend to do poorly in school, and dropout up until the fourth generation.  Indeed, compared to other immigrant groups, the children of Hispanic immigrant groups have the highest dropout rates, say experts. 

All of which underscores that culture is a powerful thing: It does not change easily, especially in sanctuary cities where "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are presumed to be virtues. "The people who come here illegally across the border are not educated people. They don't have any culture or any respect for ours," Sue Richardson, vice president of the Greater Irving Republican Club, tells the Times.

America is experiencing massive levels of immigration that are unprecedented in scale and fact that many of the newcomers are from the Third World, not Europe as in the past. The impact of this flood of immigrants is the subject of the Times series "Remade in America." Its underlying theme is that America is remaking the immigrants. But that's certainly not the case in Irving, parts of which now have the shabby look of Mexico.

Residents Fight Back

Two years ago, Irving's residents decided enough was enough; they demanded that America's immigration laws be upheld. Naturally, the Times is outraged.

So what did all those rubes in Irving do that was so shocking? Did they give the KKK a permit to march through town or ban people who look Hispanic from sitting at lunch counters? Have the city's rednecks and "white trash" been racing around in pick-ups? Shouting lewd insults at hapless Mexican women? Roughing up shabby-looking Mexicans? Or torching Mexican-American business?

No, it's much worse.

Irving Mayor Herbert A. Gears --  a well-known supporter of Hispanic groups and causes in the past -- did something truly despicable in what the Times calls a "once welcoming" city. The formerly "immigrant friendly Democrat" ordered Irving's police to start running "immigration checks" on everybody whom they arrested and tossed into Irving's lockup. Suspects found to be in the country illegally were turned over to immigration authorities and deported.

What's the upshot of all this? Last year, Irving's crime last dropped to a record-low level. And illegal immigrants appear to be steering clear of Irving. Following the immigration checks, Mexico's council in Dallas issued a warning advising its citizens to avoid Irving.

Yet to Irving's "Hispanic leaders" and open-borders defenders with whom the Times sympathizes, the immigration checks are unconscionable. Irving has abrogated a federal responsibility, they complain. Even worse, the deportations are "breaking up families." It's an argument the Times highlights by focusing sympathetically on the plight of a hapless 35-year-old Mexican, Oscar Urbina.

Last summer, Urbina's life as an allegedly model citizen unraveled when he ran into what the Times called "paperwork" problems when buying a Dodge Ram pickup. Urbina, it turns out, had been using a false Social Security number since immigrating illegally to America in 1993. Until then, he'd been a "portrait of domestic stability" -- a man "with a nice home, a thriving family and a steady contracting job," the Times claims.

Now, he faces deportation.

3 Part Study on Illegal Immigration

Illegal immigration, Liberal Elites, and Obama

By David Paulin - Part I of III

Millions of Hispanics, mostly poor and uneducated, have immigrated to America illegally since the early 1990s. Most are Mexicans and most of them are high school dropouts.  Compared to what they might have had in a slum or impoverished rural area of Mexico or Central America, these immigrants have done well here.

It has been different story for their neighbors -- middle-class Americans. For them, illegal immigration has often meant a deterioration of their neighborhoods, public schools, and their quality of life -- especially across America's southwest.

Some have watched their culture erode: It's not uncommon to see Mexican flags flying in Spanish-speaking enclaves in towns and cities from Texas to California. This includes "sanctuary cities" like Austin, the Texas state capital, where until recently I'd lived for the past few years.

Most middle-class Americans are fed up with illegal immigration. They get no sympathy from liberal elites, however, including the open-borders elites at that lofty bastion of American journalism, the agenda-setting New York Times.

There is some amusing liberal hypocrisy going on here when you consider where top editorial staffers and executives at the Times and many of their affluent readers live. It's in trendy parts of New York City: places like gentrified Brooklyn and SoHo and Manhattan's posh Upper East Side. You definitely won't find any Mexicans crowding into low-rent apartments in those areas, creating Spanish-speaking enclaves resembling shabby parts of Mexico.

Some Times readers and top staffers don't live in the city but in the suburbs -- in pleasant "bedroom communities" boasting first-rate public schools, safe neighborhoods, and a high quality of life. In exclusive towns like Westport, Connecticut (pop. 27,000), a place I'm familiar with. It's composed almost entirely of very expensive single-family houses. Oh, and something else about Westport: It's overwhelmingly white. 

Stroll down Westport's boutique-lined Main Street, and you'll see mostly well-to-do white folks and maybe a few Asians. There are plenty of Mercedes and BMWs on

Main Street

. But you won't see any pick-ups racing about with an illegal alien at the wheel, driving without a license and liability insurance -- a common problem in Texas. In Westport, homes have not become flop houses for large numbers of illegal immigrants. There are no menacing Hispanic gangs. In Austin, which prides itself on being inclusive, multicultural and diverse, gang activity is surging, say police. However, Austin's politically correct media tiptoes around the Hispanic character of gang violence.

It's not as if Connecticut has no illegal immigrants; it does. The working-class city of Danbury just north of Westport -- a 40-minute drive away -- is home to thousands of illegal immigrants from Ecuador and Brazil. They comprise an estimated 20 percent of the 80,000 population.

Angry residents blame the invasion for straining the city's schools and social services and lowering its quality of life. Above all, homeowners are outraged at seeing their property values decline. "They're blue-collar workers and their whole life savings is tied up in their house and they're seeing their neighborhood being destroyed," homeowner Peter Gadiel told Fox News. 

Zoning Wall of Exclusion

So why has nothing like this happened in Westport? It's thanks to draconian zoning rules. In Westport, apartments are all but prohibited;  there are only a handful of them. Overwhelmingly, Westport consists of very expensive single-family houses; the medium sale price is $1.2 million. Accordingly, housing is too expensive for middle-class Americans to buy or rent and it's too expensive for unskilled immigrants, too. This prevents them from gaining a foothold in Westport. Instead, they go to working-class and inclusive places like Danbury or to "sanctuary cities" like New Haven, Conn., home to Yale University.

Back in the mid-1980s, before illegal immigration was a problem, critics of Westport's zoning policies accused the town of creating a "zoning wall of exclusion." As a consequence, middle-class people working in one of Westport's many office complexes couldn't afford to live in town; they had to commute from less affluent towns and cities in the region. Westport's homes also were too expensive for policemen and firemen, school teachers, and social workers.

Yet that's exactly what Westporters wanted: exclusivity. Accordingly, they created a Planning & Zoning Commission, hired a town planner, and elected fellow Westporters to that body to enforce their will: maintain the town's character, property values, and resist calls to allow "affordable" apartments and even condominiums.

In other affluent bedroom communities in the northeast's blue states, that's how they do things. "Nobody has the right to live anywhere. They have a right to earn the right to live anywhere," an influential member of Westport's powerful Planning & Zoning Commission, a Democrat, told me in June, 1985.

I was a young journalist at the time, writing a freelance piece about Westport's lack of "affordable" housing for the Connecticut section of the Sunday New York Times. I was a Democrat back then, and affordable housing seemed like a darn good idea to me, one everybody would surely rally behind.

Yet at spirited town meetings, I was shocked to see red-faced Westporters shout and hiss at proposals to allow affordable housing and even rent-controlled condos. Now, I think I understand: People change a lot when they get married, buy houses, and put down stakes in their communities. Some Democrats even become Republicans. I've known at least two Times staffers who lived in Westport. (Stay tuned for Part II)

Illegal Immigration - Democrat Votes, Republican Cheap Labor

How to Fix Our Illegal Immigration Problem In 5 Steps

By John Hawkins 9/20/2011

Illegal immigration has become a heads-we-win / tails-you-lose proposition in this country. If the supporters of amnesty and open borders could get that codified into law, they would. Since they can't, they support comprehensive illegal immigration reform, with the idea being that the amnesty will occur, but they'll stall and slow-walk the security measures into oblivion. Since the people are onto that ploy and have demanded security first, the latest tactic is just to refuse to enforce the law. We can pass a bill that says we're putting a fence on our southern border, but we can't get the fence built. We can catch illegal aliens, but then ICE just releases them. Meanwhile, both parties talk about how important securing the border is, even as they deliberately take steps to make sure it never gets secured.

Why does this happen? Democrats believe, correctly, that illegal aliens would vote heavily Democratic if they become American citizens. So, the more illegal aliens that become American citizens, the more votes Democrats get. Many establishment Republicans foolishly believe that they need to be soft on illegal aliens to bring in more Hispanic voters. How bringing in millions of new votes for the other party -- so you can lose by a smaller margin with a block of voters who are already here -- makes sense as a winning electoral strategy is hard to figure. Additionally, both parties, but particularly the Republicans, have been influenced by sleazy businessmen who want to benefit from cheap illegal labor, while foisting all the costs on the rest of society.

This is why the problem doesn't get solved. The reality is that if the people in D.C. actually want to put an end to illegal immigration, they could do it within a year or two without resorting to the open borders and amnesty crowd's favorite imaginary bugaboo: rounding up millions of people, one by one, and deporting them.

How do we do it?

1) E-verify: This is the single most important thing we can do to combat illegal immigration because it gets to the root of why most illegal aliens are coming here and staying here: jobs. If we mandate E-Verify -- which is really just a way to check the validity of Social Security numbers -- and the government puts the resources into the program, it will lock illegal aliens out of the overwhelming majority of jobs in America. Once we get to that point, there's no reason for most illegal aliens to come here or for most of the illegal aliens that are already here to stay here. So, if the flow of illegal aliens into the country dramatically slows and the illegal aliens that are already here begin to self-deport because they have no work, the biggest part of the problem is solved.

2) Finish the fence: The standard line from the open borders and amnesty crowd about the fence is, "If you build a thirty foot fence, somebody will just grab a forty foot ladder." However, we have built the fence out in a few places on our border and what we've found is that it actually works extremely well.
You've got to understand the purpose of the fence. It's not the end-all and be-all in border security; it's just a force multiplier. Illegal aliens avoid areas where there's a fence and you don't need as much manpower there. That enables you to concentrate your manpower in other areas where it's impractical to build a fence (and there are some of those, such as where the border is a river and you'd be cutting off American livestock from their water supply).

We've already passed a law to build a fence on the border and it was supposed to be done in 2009. All we have to do is get the government to stop deliberately dragging its feet and finish the job.

3) More resources: The agencies that enforce our immigration laws may be the only thing in the entire federal government that's being deliberately underfunded. We don't have enough border patrol agents, we don't have enough agents enforcing the law internally, we don't have enough resources to detain the illegal aliens we catch, we don't put the money that's needed in E-Verify and for that matter, we don't even have enough resources to adequately handle legal immigration. Again, this is all by design. Heads, we win / Tails, you lose. You can pass any law you want, but if the government won't fund the people needed to enforce it and it won't put the resources needed to make sure that if we capture someone, we can hold onto him until he’s deported, then the law isn't going to be effective.

4) An effective visa program: One of the dirty legal secrets of illegal immigration is that as many as half of the illegal aliens didn't sneak over the border. Instead, they came here legally with a visa and just didn't leave.

That's actually pretty easy for people to do since, believe it or not, the United States doesn't have an effective system for telling whether visa holders leave the country. If you come here on a visa and choose not to leave when it expires, chances are that the government has no idea you're still here. Technically, I-94 forms are supposed to be presented when visa holders leave the country, but there's minimal enforcement, people from 36 countries are exempt, and very little money and manpower are put into tracking down people who overstay their visas – like, for example, 4 of the 9/11 hijackers.

Unless we insist on having these forms filled out and start making a real attempt to track down more than a tiny fraction of the people who overstay their visas, we're not going to fix our illegal immigration problem.

5) Anyone caught doesn't ever come back legally: We've set up a system where there's no permanent penalty for being an illegal. If you try to cross the border and get caught, we send you back. If you do manage to make it across, you probably won't get caught. However, if you do, we may just let you go. Even if you do get deported, well, no big deal. You just try to creep back in and the cycle starts all over again. In theory, the penalties for "illegal re-entry" into the U.S. are harsh, but in practice they're often non-existent. Just ask Obama's Auntie Zeituni who was instructed to leave the country, didn't do it, got caught again and was allowed to stay here, in public housing, on the dole.

Here's an alternate idea. If you get caught in the United States illegally, we fingerprint you, take a DNA sample, and you are NEVER allowed to become a citizen or enter the United States legally again. That means if you have relatives here, you will NEVER be able to legally visit them. If we ever do create a guest worker program that you could potentially participate in, you'll be locked out. If you ever hope to be an American citizen, that will be off the table.

Some illegal aliens won't care at all about this penalty, but for many illegal aliens, this would be a tremendous disincentive to enter or stay in the United States illegally. You want to see illegal aliens "self-deport?" This one change would drive millions of them out of the country.