One of the biggest slanders leveled against the Tea Party Movement is that they are “anti-immigrant.” That’s nonsense, and everyone knows it. We Conservatives are not “anti-immigration” — we are anti-ILLEGAL immigration, and for a large number of very good reasons; not the least of which is that it makes fools out of the thousands and millions of honest, hard-working and patient LEGAL immigrants who are playing by the rules and doing the right thing by their new home.

There’s a pretty handy response to the whole “we didn’t cross the border; the border crossed us” nonsense you hear from racist groups like La Raza (The Race!) Once you get the issue away from being for or against immigration, versus being for or against illegal immigration, well… we can win all across the board on that ground.

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I guess Mexico ’s President Calderon forgot to mention what happens to illegal immigrants on his southern border when he came to Congress to scold us for “discriminatory” treatment in Arizona.

They are summarily raped or killed and commonly stripped of every meager possession they carry by soldiers and policemen. Arizona ’s new law is downright humane compared to Mexico ’s brutal treatment of illegal immigrants and his false indignation was the height of hypocrisy.

Neither he nor Mr. Obama nor a lot of other holier-than-thou liberals ever want to talk about the central issue—we’re having a hard enough time paying for our own schools, healthcare, roads, and law enforcement without having to pick up the tab for millions of people here illegally.

Yes, President Calderon, the good people of Arizona got so tired waiting for our national government to do its job, they took it on themselves. Yes, they have decided to discriminate– between tax paying citizens and illegal beneficiaries of our own hard work and tax dollars. They decided that the rule of law, ignored by our federal government, would be enforced by state and local government.

I don’t begrudge illegal immigrants doing what they have to do to take care of their families but I have a family, too, and immigration laws are supposed to protect us from unrestricted access to the infrastructure that comes out of my family’s pocket. Social costs, jobs, security of our borders against criminals and terrorists and the rule of law are all at stake here. Every citizen knows that a primary responsibility of our government is to protect and secure our borders for all these reasons. The concern by the public in Arizona and elsewhere is entirely legitimate but, as usual, the response from Washington is anything but.

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The recent law passed in Arizona raises some tough questions.  How does one respond to a state law that enforces federal law?  Our President said it was “misguided.” Many state and city politicians in California have said it is time to boycott Arizona for its “harsh” immigration policy.  One Los Angeles Councilmen said that Arizona is acting like it is its own country.  One Texas Congressman said that the law is something he wants in his state.  A city councilman in Costa Mesa, CA said that the city is going to copy it and make it an ordinance.  Many activist groups have now filed legal suits against Arizona’s newest law, but many experts say that the law will stand.

Having grown up the son of an immigrant, I know firsthand the hardship of having no roots and being in a strange place.  I was born in New York and moved to the San Fernando Valley.  My father struggled to put food on the table, and I had to work as a young man.  I had my own paper route and worked hard.  When I graduated high school, I received a scholarship to USC.  This is the dream that most immigrants have for their children.

California became the place where dreams came true for my parents and me.  My father taught me that to be a good citizen you have to follow the laws.  I believe that still today.  I am successful because I have followed the laws of this great nation.  I believe, to find success in this country it must first start there.  I have driven past Home Depots, like many of you.  I think about the lives those men are living and my heart hurts for them.  I know they struggle to put food on the table just like my father did.  I know they came here seeking a better life for their children.  I understand their plight, but their method in achieving that goal is what I cannot understand.

Our current system has moved beyond common sense.  Our President has failed to uphold the laws set out by Congress and states are not allowed to enforce the federal laws.  Immigration and Customs Enforcement lack funding and staff to handle the current situation.  We have judges and district attorneys that are more dedicated to sentencing ICE agents then to enforcing our immigration laws.

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Under a bombardment of condemnation, Arizona has taken action to address illegal immigration and is fighting back by telling Washington to “do your job.” Meanwhile, on Sunday President Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder said that the Justice Department was “considering” a federal lawsuit against Arizona’s new immigration law.

How did the immigration crisis occur? It happened because Washington didn’t do their job and secure the borders — and because under both Republican and Democratic leadership, the United States Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS), formerly the Immigration Naturalization Services (INS), ran amok.

If Americans want to see how broken and incompetent America’s immigration agency is, and get a glimpse of their future in the hands of bureaucrats, be it in healthcare or elsewhere as government takeovers persists, take a look at what legal immigration looks like. This could be your future at the mercy of big government.

The first step towards legalization typically begins at the USCIS’ mail room when lawful immigrants mail their application and filing fees with the reasonable expectation that it will be processed only to discover that is not always the case. Why? Because at the USCIS, the basic task of processing mail can be like spinning the roulette wheel in Las Vegas.

According to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), January 2009, report entitled Federal User Fees: Additional Analysis and Timely Reviews Could Improve Immigration and Naturalization User Fee Design and USCIS Operations, “Contractors perform all operations for incoming and outgoing mail at the [USCIS]… they are paid according to a fixed unit price for each piece of mail processed… and the USCIS has not developed an agency wide standard operating procedure for validating the contractors’ count… In most cases…USCIS cannot verify that it is receiving the services that it is paying for…”

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Drudge linked to two stories related to the Arizona immigration law recently signed into law.

Headline #1 – Illegals plan to leave AZ over law… Success! People who are here illegally are going to leave in a way that won’t cost the government money in deportation costs. How can anyone argue that people leaving, who have broken the law and are here illegally, is a bad thing. Let them all get in line and come in the legal way like others are expected to. Or are certain classes of people simply not expected to obey immigration laws?

Headline #2 – Bloomberg: ‘We are committing national suicide’…

Bloomberg says:

“This is not good for the country. I don’t agree with it,” he said. “We love immigrants here.”

Mike is half right. We do love immigrants here. Very very much. One way to show respect to those who have respected our laws and traveled here legally, in a documented way, is to be sure and not give a free pass to people who sneak in illegally. If the cost of labor goes up and jobs go to Americans instead of cheap undocumented workers, then that sounds like something the party of labor unions would be for. Or are they for something else entirely?

The sad truth is that so called Progressives are full of crap on this issue.

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It’s common knowledge that our immigration system is broken. What follows is an example of how broken it is.

A couple of years ago, I wrote about the case of 41-year-old Anatolie Vartosu. Born and raised in Moldova, Vartosu was required to serve for two years in the former Soviet army. He went on to graduate from Romania’s Sport University with a Master in Sport and went on to teach physical education, ballet and track.

Anatolie Vartosu

A former Olympic marathon qualifier, Vartosu was invited to the US in 2003 to compete in a marathon in Clearwater, Florida and arrived on a six-month tourist visa. Later that same year he ended up in Stamford, Connecticut, where he received immigration sponsorship and a job working for Jack Rabbits Gym in nearby Greenwich. Fellow Romanian immigrant Nicolae Piperea and his business partner, John Schwartz, the owners of Jack Rabbits, were looking to build their gymnastics program to an elite level, making the addition of Vartosu to the staff a natural fit. He received a three-year H1B working visa and his wife, Maria (also from Romania) opened in 2007 what has become a very successful day care program with a business partner.

In March 2006, when he and his employers went to renew his visa, Vartosu was told that he had to wait until October, when he would have to file additional documentation to justify the renewal, which he did. At that point, the 60 days he was told he’d have to wait turned into six months. After placing a call to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in April 2007, he was instructed to further file the I-29 (an internal status query) and told to wait another 60 days, which turned into yet another filing of the I-29 and a further 60 day wait.

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