Free Republic

So much virtue signaling. So little truth. For three years now we’ve endured a deluge of media stories and Democrats on high horses hrumph-hrumphing us that limiting immigration is “not who we are” — which ignores the first half of the 20th century. “Trump has waged an unrelenting assault on our values and our history as a nation of immigrants,” said Joe Biden, unveiling his plan on far more open immigration if he is elected. “It’s wrong, and it stops when Joe Biden is elected president.” Not a word of what Biden said was true. And now we can see...

In 2008, Mark Krikorian published an important new book arguing against permissive immigration. The book's central idea: what has changed since Ellis Island days is not the immigrants; it's the society they are immigrating to. In 1913, a Sicilian who migrated to New York City to do manual labor would discover a society willing to pay a high wage for his effort. In 2013 … not so. Yesterday's New York Times reports on a new study confirming Krikorian's insight. People of Mexican descent in New York City are far more likely to be living in poor or near-poor households than...

The Obama administration is moving to shut down nine Border Patrol stations across four states, triggering a backlash from local law enforcement, members of Congress and Border Patrol agents themselves. Critics of the move warn the closures will undercut efforts to intercept drug and human traffickers in well-traveled corridors north of the U.S.-Mexico border. Though the affected stations are scattered throughout northern and central Texas, and three other states, the coverage areas still see plenty of illegal immigrant activity -- one soon-to-be-shuttered station in Amarillo, Texas, is right in the middle of the I-40 corridor; another in Riverside, Calif., is...

First Lady Michelle Obama called on the Latino community to put pressure on Republicans to support comprehensive immigration legislation. In an interview with Univision, the first lady said President Obama wanted to pass immigration legislation, but could not find enough support among Republicans to move a bill. The DREAM Act, a bill to give undocumented immigrants who came to the country as children and are pursuing higher education an opportunity to become U.S. citizens, had little support among Republicans, she said. The latest attempt to pass the legislation failed in December. “So I urge the Latino community, he needs help,...

SEATTLE – When Maria Gianni is knocking on voters' doors, she's not bashful about telling people she is in the country illegally. She knows it's a risk to advertise to strangers that she's here illegally — but one worth taking in what she sees as a crucial election. The 42-year-old is one of dozens of volunteers — many of them illegal immigrants — canvassing neighborhoods in the Seattle area trying to get naturalized citizens to cast a ballot for candidates like Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, who is in a neck-to-neck race with Republican Dino Rossi. Pramila Jayapal, head of OneAmerica...

On Sept. 29, just before Congress recessed for the midterm elections, Democratic Senators Robert Menendez (New Jersey) and Patrick Leahy (Vermont) introduced a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the Senate. Although to some this seems to be an odd moment to be introducing such a thing, Menendez, Leahy and some immigrant rights activists think there is a chance of getting it passed during the lame duck session, between the election and the inauguration of the new Congress in January 2011. The bill, S 3932, has no cosponsors as yet. It is pitched to the right of the main comprehensive immigration...

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) said Sunday that he introduced an immigration bill just before Congress’ midterm elections break so he could get “lame-duck movement” on the legislation after Nov. 2. “A lot of senators are retiring and might be willing to look at the issue,” Menendez said...“We need something to jump off from if we’re going to go into it in the early part of the next Congress.” He said his bill has Republican proposals in it to entice GOP senators...But Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas)...suggested that GOP support will be difficult to get. “I hope to work with Sen. Menendez...

President Barack Obama referred to illegal aliens in the United States as “us” on Tuesday while renewing his call for giving them a “pathway to citizenship”—an amnesty--and castigating opponents of such an amnesty as demagogues. Obama’s made the statement at what the White House billed as a “backyard discussion” at a private home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It came in the midst of a 754-word answer he gave in response to a woman who asked: “How do you envision a comprehensive immigration reform as one measure towards America’s economic recovery and long-term vitality?” “Let’s provide a pathway to citizenship for...

“The first thing we started to do was look at houses with more than six voters in them" Engelbrecht said, because those houses were the most likely to have fraudulent registrations attached to them. "Most voting districts had 1,800 if they were Republican and 2,400 of these houses if they were Democratic . . .

President Obama's Aunt Zeituni Onyango lived in public housing as an illegal immigrant for a time because the "system" took advantage of her, she said in a recent interview. "I didn't ask for it; they gave it to me," Onyango said in an interview with CBS affiliate WBZ-TV, scheduled to air tonight and Tuesday night. "Ask your system," she continued, unapologetically, when asked about the situation. "I didn't create it or vote for it. Go and ask your system." Onyango, the half-sister of Mr. Obama's late father, moved from Kenya to the United States in 2000. She first applied for...

PHOENIX — Amid stacks of voter-registration pamphlets and reminder mailers, three pairs of volunteers hunch over tables in Mi Familia Vota’s Arizona headquarters, assembling voter-information packets and tallying registration numbers. The nonpartisan activist group has already registered 14,000 Latinos since June for Arizona’s Permanent Early Voting List and expects to register about 11,000 more by October, according to state director Francisco Heredia. Heredia said this will be the year Latinos, feeling the pressure of the recession and concerned about the effects of SB 1070, will flock to the polls and wield the influence of their numbers. “SB 1070 is definitely...

OMAHA — Federal officials say a JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant should give Muslim employees prayer time and not retaliate against workers who ask to pray. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit Monday on behalf of more than 80 Somali Muslims. A message left at JBS Swift's U.S. headquarters in Greeley wasn't immediately returned. Hundreds of Muslim workers walked off the job at the Grand Island, Neb., plant during Ramadan in 2008, saying they needed time to pray at sunset and break a day-long fast. Management adjusted the work schedule the next day. Non-Muslims protested and the...

Drug-trade violence in Mexico that has left more than 28,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands more terrorized during the past four years has made an imprint on Mexican expatriates living in the Rogue Valley. "People are scared so they want to leave the country to find another place to live more freely and not be scared to go out." "When people get together, they're telling each other they are scared and hope nothing happens to their family members," Perez said through an interpreter. "The cartels have more power than the government," she said. "Everyone knows the drug cartels have...

Just shown on Fox. Obama is sending 35 additional border guards a week to the US-Mexican border. Comment in The Boston Globe here.

Congressman Steve King (R-IA), Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, issued the following statement after reading remarks made by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack to the Capitol Hill newspaper, Politico. In his remarks, Secretary Vilsack claimed that food prices would be “three, four or five times more” were it not for the presence of illegal immigrants working in rural America. Vilsack then used this claim as evidence to support his call for amnesty via “comprehensive immigration reform.” “Today, Secretary Vilsack made an unfounded claim that without illegal labor, Americans would be spending...

Immigration enforcement officials have started to cancel the deportations of thousands of immigrants they have detained, a policy they said would pare huge case backlogs in the immigration courts. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said the new approach was part of a broad shift in priorities at the agency, to focus its efforts on catching and deporting immigrants who have been convicted of crimes or pose a national security threat. The policy — announced in an Aug. 20 memorandum from John Morton, the head of the agency — drew praise from immigrant advocates, who called it a common-sense strategy, and...

Obama is allowing masses of illegal foriegners free access to our country. He has know intentions of upholding out constitution which guarantees protection from invasion.

GLENN: Let me give you the latest from the billboard setup in Phoenix, Arizona. An immigration an anti immigration law billboard on Third Street and Camelback warns: Have your papers ready. Racial profiling just ahead. It was purchased by a California organization, Brave New Foundation. They organized the money to be able to do this, they say, through a Facebook page. ... Now, who are the partners of brave new world or brave new what is it? Brave New Foundation? On the on the board is Robert Greenwald. Partners, Color For Change. That's Van Jones' organization. That's the one that...

U.S. students had a much harder time getting into American graduate schools this past year than did their peers from China and the rest of the world. And while 1 year is far from a trend, a new report by the Council of Graduate Schools raises the question of how well Americans stack up against international students. Overall, the report says, 3% more international students received offers of admission for the 2010–11 academic year than in the previous year. That's the fifth increase in the past 6 years. But the survey from the Washington, D.C.,–based organization also found that 1%...

Slamming the critics of H-1B, a US think-tank and corporate America have suggested removal of Congressional cap on this popular work visa programme and allow markets to determine number of skilled foreign workers eligible to work in the country. "The best policy for the United States is one that sides with freedom and innovation, not restriction. It is a policy where the H-1B cap is either eliminated or set high enough that we can let the market decide on the number of new skilled foreign nationals who work in America each year," a report said. The 81-page report titled "Regaining...