Awesome new stats coming out of LA Times, and Derek Thompson at The Atlantic does a fabulous cut and paste job:

While they make up only 15% of the country’s workforce, Latinos have racked up half the employment gains posted since the economy began adding jobs in early 2010, Labor Department data showed.

Why?

As a group, Hispanics have low employment in local, state, and federal governments, which lost about 300,000 jobs in 2011, the vast majority of net job losses last year. The upshot is that Hispanics are growing as a population faster than other groups; more likely to work in states with growing jobs, such as Texas; more likely to seek out low-wage positions in health care and hospitality that are fast-growing industries; and less likely to be sitting in the way of the austerity bulldozer that took down total government in 2011.

The one thing George Bush truly did wrong as our first MBA President was allow public unions to mutate into Andre the Giant.

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In an absolutely shocking scandal at Miramonte Elementary school in Los Angeles, California, two teachers were arrested for lewdness involving their students.  One of the teachers taught third grade, where he allegedly forced children to eat his semen from a spoon over the course of five years.  The case widened yesterday when the police found 200 more photos of the teacher committing lewd acts, bringing the grand total to around 600.  The teacher also sent notes and CDs to students, who were all of nine or ten years old.

So what took so long for this pervert to be caught?  According to the Contra Costa Times, the school is heavily attended by illegal immigrants.  Their parents were afraid to report the situation to the authorities for fear of being arrested and sent back to their home countries.  Manuel Flores, one parent at the school, told the Times that he wouldn’t attend a parents’ meeting, since the school “was full of police.”  Said a lawyer for some of the victims’ families, “One little girl told me she doesn’t want to come forward because she’s afraid her parents will be deported.”

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In a time when America’s immigration system is swamped – when illegal immigrants are routinely caught and released, many of whom are dangerous – it seems that one of ICE’s top priorities is public relations with illegal immigration advocates.  Yesterday, Andrew Lorenzen-Strait announced via the Department of Homeland Security website that he had been named ICE’s “first-ever public advocate.”

Lorenzen-Strait

His job will be to “serve as a point of contact for individuals, including those in immigration proceedings, NGOs, and other community and advocacy groups, who have concerns, questions, recommendations or important issues they would like to raise.” This new role, says Lorenzen-Strait, will help ICE “focus the agency’s immigration enforcement resources on sensible priorities” – code for doing less, since the Obama Administration consistently makes a big deal out of the notion that most illegal immigrants aren’t dangerous and therefore should be left to their own devices – and “implement policies and processes that priorities the health and safety of detainees in our custody.” And he has one more job, according to ICE Enforcement Director John Morton: he’ll have to explain to all of us why ICE lets illegal immigrants off the hook.

What did Lorenzen-Strait used to do? He’s been with ICE since 2008. Before that, he was a pro bono attorney in Maryland, doing child advocacy and divorce work via Community Legal Services. How does that qualify you for working in immigration, exactly? And then there’s the question of money spent. It’s more and more obvious these days that working for the government is the quickest road to a healthy paycheck – and Lorenzen-Strait’s salary proves it. In 2010, he was paid $112,224 by the feds. We can only imagine that the salary has risen since then. Not bad for being a public relations officer who does nothing to actually enforce immigration law.

We’re constantly hearing that the government has trouble finding places to cut spending. This seems like a good place to start.

World Net Daily is citing an outdated post-Revolutionary War act repealed by Congress that only recognized “free white persons” as citizens to make its case that Miami born Marco Rubio is not a “natural born citizen.”

WND’s argument comes in the wake of several 2011 articles, which make a birther argument that recently elected U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida is not natural born because his parents were alien residents at the time he was born in Miami in 1971.

WND’s editor Joseph Farah pushed that theory on FOX News with Sean Hannity last week,  an interview that was quickly picked up by The Hill and the Daily Caller. The birther movement’s attention turned to Rubio last year when rumors began surfacing that he was a potential candidate for the vice-presidential position on the 2012 Republican ticket, despite his assertion that he was not interested in the position. Since the 12^th Amendment requires that the vice-president possess all the necessary constitutional requirements to serve as president, Rubio’s citizenship came into play.

Throughout their reporting, WND has relied on three major arguments: the first being the treatise “The Law of Nations” by Swiss philosopher Emer de Vattel, which they argue was an influence on our forefathers. Vattel wrote, “The natives, or natural-born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” They also cite a U.S. Supreme Court case from 1875, Minor vs. Happersett, alleging that the case only uses the term “natural born citizen” by referring to persons born in the United States of U.S. citizen parents. Finally, they rely on the Naturalization Act of 1790, which defined a natural-born citizen as: “The children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States shall be considered as natural born citizens: Provided, that the right of citizenship shall not descend to persons whose fathers have never been resident in the United States.”

There are significant problems which each one of these three flawed arguments.

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Florida Communist Party USA leader Josh LeClair interviews Scott Douglas , executive director of Alabama’s Greater Birmingham Ministries. Douglas is leading the charge against Alabama’s comparatively tough new anti illegal immigration laws.

Douglas poses as a man of faith, a religious leader of Birmingham’s black community.

In reality, Douglas was a long time Communist Party USA member, from at least 1972 to 1991. He was a member, at one point of the Party’s Religious Commission, the body charged with expanding communist influence in the churches. In 1991 Douglas left the Party to support the breakaway Committees of Correspondence.

Douglas, like many former CoC members appears to have returned to the Communist Party orbit.

Fighting for Immigrant Rights in Alabama from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

Scott Douglas on the Colbert Report:

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It seems a foregone conclusion that Mitt Romney will win the Republican primary in Florida.

This is good news for those of us that support Mitt Romney, as it means he will have won (or effectively tied) three Republican primaries in swing states (Iowa, New Hampshire, and Florida) and is one step closer to winning the nomination.

Still, there are a few questions I’ll have as the numbers roll in.

Let’s call them the seven “Ms” of Mitt Romney.

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Big Government has obtained exclusive excerpts of a book scheduled to be released next month, which outline problems with the federal government’s handling of the drug war.

The book, The Border Challenge, authored by T. Michael Andrews, a former adviser at the Dept. of Homeland Security’s counternarcotics office, is scheduled to be released in bookstores in early February.

Andrews has suggestions for how federal drug enforcement agencies can reshape their strategies along America’s northern and southern borders, and he explains how government bureaucracy and shifting goals have made winning the drug war impossible thus far.

“One of the problems with having so many offices in the federal government directed at a common cause is direction and leadership,” Andrews wrote. “The scope of bureaucracy can be overwhelming. If one department wants to take a different policy direction from another, this could lead to an immediate bureaucratic tie-up and in some cases pushback among the many agencies.”

According to Andrews, bureaucracy comes from partisan politics, lack of consistent focus, and jurisdictional conflicts within competing law enforcement agencies that are not working together.

“One of the problems we always had–even today, I’m sad to say, are that there are still problems between the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and ICE (Immigration Customs Enforcement),” he said during an exclusive interview conducted from his home in northern Virginia.

“Those are really the two agencies that have drug enforcement power. ICE is charged with stopping any and all contraband coming into the United States under Title 18, and the DEA is charged with both domestic and international drug enforcement under Title 21.”

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President Obama has picked a strong advocate of immigration reform to head his Domestic Policy Council.

The White House announced Tuesday that Cecilia Muñoz, a former senior vice president of the National Council of La Raza, would replace Melody Barnes at the top of the council. White House press secretary Jay Carney announced the appointment during his press briefing.

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Sobriety checkpoints have become big business for California law enforcement agencies over the last decade. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration paid for 2,553 checkpoints last year, resulting in hundreds of arrests for driving under the influence. Authorities say the checkpoints explain why deaths caused by drunken drivers have dropped to an all-time low in the golden state.

Since 1995 the checkpoints have also resulted in the seizures and impoundment of thousands of vehicles driven by sober motorists who just happened to have no drivers license. The 30 day impounds cost unlicensed drivers well over $1,000 on average. Large numbers of the non-DUI impounds have involved cars driven by illegal immigrants.

Enter California Democrat Assemblyman Gil Cedillo. The lawmaker, who is a member in good standing of the National Council on La Raza, has tried unsuccessfully nine different times since 1998 to get bills passed in the California State Legislature that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses. “One Bill Gil”, as he is referred to by some because of his repeated efforts legalize illegal drivers, has now managed to get through the back door what he could not get through the front door.

Starting January 1st a new law, authored by Cedillo, will prohibit cops from impounding the cars of drivers who have no license as long as another licensed driver can drive it away. Presumably the unlicensed driver will shortly thereafter resume driving their car, illegally.

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During a trip to India a few years ago and after observing the New Delhi traffic, I devised a great idea for Tata, the Indian car maker: manufacture the cars so that once the car is started the horn turns on and stays on until the car is turned off.  I was sure the drivers in New Delhi would appreciate such a feature, seeing that they drive with the horn on most of the time anyway.

Kind of like the way that politicians of Indian descent are making their presence known in the American political scene, except maybe not as noisy.  While there are others, two prominent Indian-American politicians stand out: Louisiana Governor Piyush “Bobby” Jindal and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Following two terms in Congress representing Louisiana’s 1st congressional district in the House, and having been the Congress’ second Indian-American, Republican Bobby Jindal was first elected governor of Lousiana in 2007 and re-elected earlier this year in a landslide.  Throughout his term as governor he has become known as a fiscal conservative who refused to raise taxes.  After the BP Oil Spill of April-July, 2010, Jindal loudly criticized Obama administration’s response and eventually persuaded the administration into lifting a permit moratorium on oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich has come under fire for his amnesty plan. Most Americans cringe at the word “amnesty.” After all, most citizens view it as government acquiescence for political expediency, and, of course, they are right to feel that way. Amnesty is nothing more than to say that elected officials do not possess the will to enforce federal laws — the very thing they take an oath on before assuming their congressional duties.

With that being said, the details for amnesty make the whole gimmick all the more preposterous. Take Newt Gingrich’s plan, the Pew Hispanic Center concluded in their research that an estimated 3.5 million illegal aliens would qualify for amnesty under Gingrich’s plan. That means roughly 30% of the estimated 11 million illegal aliens would be “graced” into society after arriving here illegally. If the number is much higher than 11 million, which many experts say is very likely, then the prospects of amnesty will never really reveal the actual problem and will offer no incentive to fix it.

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Following a tip from a reader, Big Government has discovered that a radical immigration group, Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), has infiltrated the public school system in Racine, Wisconsin by working with an approved student group.

School Officials in the Racine Unified School District tell Big Government that they had no idea that the approved group, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES), had become the youth arm of Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), a well-financed leftist movement with a membership of several thousand, headquartered in Milwaukee with two satellite offices in Racine and Kenosha.

According to sources within the school district, several hundred students have joined YES and affiliated themselves with VDLF, an organization that has also recruited some of the teachers–who apparently promote the group’s agenda in their classrooms.

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Against the expressed wishes of Obama White House lawyers, the United States Supreme Court has agreed to resolve the Obama Department of Justice’s lawsuit against the State of Arizona over its get-tough illegal immigration law (SB 1070). The decision comes just weeks after the High Court announced it would take on a lawsuit over the constitutionality of Obamacare, setting the stage for two extremely contentious legal battles in the middle of a heated presidential election year.

According to Bloomberg:

The U.S. Supreme Court said it will consider reviving the trailblazing Arizona law that would use local police and prosecutors to crack down on illegal immigration.

Already set to rule on President Barack Obama’s health-care law by the middle of next year, the justices today added another high-profile case that has implications for similar laws around the country and for the 2012 elections.

On April 11, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction against the enforcement of some of the law’s provisions, prompting the State of Arizona to petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.

Back in September, Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of our client, the Arizona State Legislature, which is now a defendant in the lawsuit in support of the Supreme Court petition. And as I said in a press statement at the time, “We hope the Supreme Court accepts the State of Arizona’s petition, protects the rule of law and upholds the rights of the States to protect its citizens.”

Well, we’re one step closer. (more…)

From AFP:

The US Supreme Court on Monday agreed to review a controversial immigration law which has been challenged by President Barack Obama’s administration.

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Illegal alien amnesty is no longer the theoretical consideration of federal immigration officials inside the Obama administration. No more musings by Obama administration bureaucrats on how best to bypass Congress and implement illegal alien amnesty in stealth.

The secret is now out. And, as reported by The New York Times, illegal alien amnesty is now the official policy of the United States of America, courtesy of the Obama administration:

The Department of Homeland Security will begin a review on Thursday (November 17) of all deportation cases before the immigration courts and start a nationwide training program for enforcement agents and prosecuting lawyers, with the goal of speeding deportations of convicted criminals and halting those of many illegal immigrants with no criminal record.

The accelerated triage of the court docket — about 300,000 cases — is intended to allow severely overburdened immigration judges to focus on deporting foreigners who committed serious crimes or pose national security risks, Homeland Security officials said. Taken together, the review and the training, which will instruct immigration agents on closing deportations that fall outside the department’s priorities, are designed to bring sweeping changes to the immigration courts and to enforcement strategies of field agents nationwide.

First off, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) should have but one priority: Protect American citizens by enforcing the law. The vast majority of American citizens believe if a law’s worth having it’s worth enforcing, including laws that prohibit people from sneaking across the border and living in the shadows, often on the taxpayer’s dime! But not this White House. This White House simply picks and chooses which laws it wishes to enforce based on its own whims and political and election needs. And that is a sure path to chaos, confusion and discontent.

And don’t believe for a second the Obama administration’s line that criminal illegal aliens won’t find themselves “outside the department’s priorities.”

Judicial Watch uncovered documents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) proving that immigration officials were urged to use “prosecutorial discretion” to dismiss deportation proceedings against a wide variety of illegal alien criminals — including those convicted of serious crimes such as sexual assault, solicitation of murder, aggravated assault, assaulting a police officer, and kidnapping, as well as numerous drug charges.

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Following a tip from a reader, Big Government has discovered that a radical immigration group, Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), has infiltrated the public school system in Racine, Wisconsin by working with an approved student group.

School Officials in the Racine Unified School District tell Big Government that they had no idea that the approved group, Youth Empowered in the Struggle (YES) had become the youth arm of Voces De La Frontera (Voices of the Frontier/VDLF), a well financed leftist movement with a membership of several thousand, headquarters based in Milwaukee and two satellite offices in Racine and Kenosha.

According to sources within the school district, several hundred students have joined YES and affiliated themselves with VDLF, an organization that has also recruited some of the teachers and who openly promote the group’s agenda in their classrooms.

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Listening to the current debate on immigration within the Republican ranks, one would think that demons occupy either side. Proponents of amnesty or quasi-amnesty (or anything that could even marginally be construed as any form of amnesty) are targeted with insults challenging their conservative credentials and sense of justice. On the opposite extreme, hard-liners are labeled “haters”, “heartless”, and anti-immigration, their compassion questioned and grotesquely distorted.

Both of these extremes do great disservice to the party. Conservatives need to avoid painting caricatures of each other. These insults weaken the party, prevent reasoned debate, and offer Democrats potential talking points like Christmas presents wrapped with silver bows.

The immigration debate involves many principles worthy of serious discussion. The two most important—often exaggerated or underestimated by opponents and the media—are justice and compassion.

The principle of justice is intimately connection to the rule of law. Those who prioritize justice above all focus on the following question: Does a sovereign nation like the United States have the right to set immigration policy and, as a result, remove any and all breakers of immigration law, even if certain persons have lived in the United States for decades, have contributed to society, and attend church? Hardline conservatives answer with an impassioned and simple “yes”.

Many conservatives, on the other hand, believe that the primary concern in the immigration issue should be compassion. Presumably, many consider it immoral to deport whole swaths of people from their homes, especially those hardworking and otherwise moral people who have resided here for decades and who have contributed something important to society. Many undoubtedly are interested in garnering support specifically from the Latino community, hoping that the fastest growing minority voting bloc could be swayed by compassionate immigration policy.

The crucial point here is that for those whose number one priority is justice, compassion is not unimportant. Conversely, those who emphasize compassion generally do not dismiss the rule of law. It appears that Newt Gingrich, for example, seeks to prioritize both. Many hardline conservatives appeared crestfallen by their interpretation of his immigration policy, which equated a plea for compassion with amnesty. But Gingrich never suggested that compassion should trump justice—only that it should be a crucial consideration.

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If I were living in Mexico I would do everything in my power to get myself and my wife across the border to America, and that would include breaking immigration laws. There’s no way I could live with myself if I didn’t do everything a husband should to get his wife out of the poverty, corruption and hopelessness that represents too much of Latin America. Knowing this about myself makes it hard for me to condemn others who actually  are in that situation and have decided to do the same.

Though he’s taken it back enough times for me to believe him, Governor Rick Perry was wrong to question the “hearts” of those who disagreed with his decision to offer in-state tuition to the children of illegal immigrants, and he was even more wrong to create a magnet that uses taxpayer dollars to incentivize even more illegal to cross the border and burden our system.

But Newt Gingrich is absolutely right that of the 11 or 12 million illegals currently living in this country, many have lived here for years and are a part of a community and a part of a family that deportation would tear apart.

Are we really prepared to do that?

Talk radio host Dennis Prager once made a point about this issue that’s worth repeating: Every day throughout Southern California thousands of illegals gather outside Home Depots everywhere (this is a fact) looking for someone to pick them up and give them day labor. Every day, who knows how many housewives pick up these illegals and take them home alone to do that day labor. And yet you never hear about a rape or robbery or murder in these circumstances. Never.

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Is it possible to be pro-immigration in this country and still support the principles of the State of Alabama’s immigration laws, dubbed some of the strictest in the nation? Absolutely. Sound paradoxical?

Not at all.

Being pro-immigration shouldn’t mean that you are an advocate of illegal immigration. It just means that you are sympathetic to the needs, dreams, and goals of those who come to our country to make better lives for themselves and their families. Try looking at it from their perspective; imagine if all you were trying to do was make a better life for you and your family. You too would do whatever it takes to make that a reality, and that’s all they wish to achieve. People can have these dreams and come into our country the right way, coming up with solutions to stop or slow the influx of illegal’s will help allay the belief that illegal immigrants are stealing American jobs and degrading our society.

Yes, the state’s laws are tough, and in some cases, questionable, as in one provision that requires students to document their immigration status before enrolling in school. The fact that less than 10% of Hispanics failed to do so in recent weeks shouldn’t come as any surprise, if you believe that close to 10% of Alabama’s Hispanic population is here illegally. I don’t know the exact number in the state, but it’s not as if no one of Hispanic origin showed up to school that day.

I hate to continue laying America’s toughest social problems – the economy, moral compass, immigration, etc. – at the feet of this President and Congress, but it’s ultimately their fault. (more…)

There are certain “types” of people who are just not allowed to be conservative. You know what I’m talking about. For example, a certain African American Supreme Court Justice will always be the subject of bilious contempt because he holds legal and constitutional views that differ from what a black public servant is expected to hold.

We saw this dynamic play out recently in the Washington Post’s vicious and sloppy attack on Sen. Marco Rubio. Rubio is, of course, a quickly rising star in the Republican Party; one with broad – even national – appeal. Clearly the left knows the threat Sen. Rubio presents to its grip on Hispanic voters, so they felt it necessary to muddy him up with a shoddy news story questioning his family story.

Now come the attacks on New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez. The attacks on Martinez are much subtler than those on Sen. Rubio, but no less dangerous if left unanswered. They come in the form of a pervasive rumor about her family origins; a rumor that has been reported uncritically by the mainstream media, including the New York Times.

Here we have a popular and successful Latina politician with a bold, conservative agenda in an important swing state. As far as the mainstream media is concerned, there has to be a catch.

“Ms. Martinez, who grew up along the border, is also Mexican-American, with news reports since her election revealing that her paternal grandfather came to the United States as an illegal immigrant,” wrote Marc Lacey in a New York Times profile three months ago.

“…The New Mexican’s Sandra Baltazar Martínez reported recently, at least two of the governor’s grandparents also were [undocumented immigrants],” wrote the Santa Fe New Mexican in a recent editorial.

Lest you be under any illusions about the nature and motives of these news items, bear in mind that Gov. Martinez wants to roll back certain of her predecessor’s policies regarding illegal immigration in New Mexico, most notably, a policy that allows illegal immigrants to secure drivers licenses. “The governor’s opponents have pointed to her immigrant grandparents as an example of why New Mexico should welcome illegal immigrants and continue to allow them to get a driver’s license,” reports the Associated Press.

Obviously, the stage is set for the media and her political rivals to paint Gov. Martinez as a hypocrite and a traitor to her people.

There’s only one problem: The story about Martinez’s grandparents is junk. The Governor’s grandparents were not U.S. citizens, but they were most certainly not illegal immigrants.

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