Below is a guest column published today by the Gainesville Times . I have added some hyperlinks to further educate the reader. We thank the Gainesville Times for the space.
Column also posted here.
Illegal alien lobby resists enforcement of law
By D.A. King
In 21st century America, many who make their living from illegal immigration howl that vocal opposition to that organized crime is somehow “extreme”or “hateful.”
Absent the tools of convention, logic, the rule of law upon which our nation was founded or any supporting majority public opinion, the prosperous open borders/illegal alien lobby uses the only tool it can: name-calling.
The tireless attempts to label as “hate groups” organizations that advocate for controlled and reasonable immigration levels, secure borders and equal enforcement of the law are not working any longer. Panic has set in.
Witness remarks at a press conference held under the Gold Dome last week aimed at Gov. Sonny Perdue’s recent crackdown on fraudulent documents used by illegals to obtain Georgia driver’s licenses: “Unmitigated racism,” declared one “civil rights activist.”
It appears that some who profit by an enabled illegal population do not welcome the governor’s SecureID initiative.
At the same press conference, concerning recent federal immigration law enforcement actions in Stillmore, where more than 100 illegal aliens were arrested for using fraudulent and stolen Social Security numbers, “acts of law enforcement terrorism” and “attacks on immigrants” were the shameless descriptions of justice finding a tiny fraction of Georgia’s illegal population.
Recognizing a goldmine when they see it, immigration lawyers, ethnic-based separatist groups, bankers and willing employers are not eager to tolerate actual enforcement of existing American laws in what they have labeled an “immigration debate.”
Their enemy? Facts.
Here’s one: The same federal government charged with protecting our borders and enforcing our laws defines “immigrants” as “persons lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States” and “aliens who are granted permanent legal residence.”
A person who is not a citizen and is present in the United States in violation of our laws is an illegal alien.
On these pages last week, Gainesville immigration lawyer David Kennedy explained at length that the Washington D.C-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal and massive immigration, was a past grantee of the Pioneer Fund, and declared that group to be a “white-supremacist outfit.” The illegal alien lobby is very fond of that term. No word yet on what they label the majority of black Americans who have the same objections.
The fact that the Pioneer Fund also counts as grantees Johns Hopkins University, Cornell Medical School, Brandeis University, University of California-Berkeley, the University of London and the University of Tel Aviv, among others doesn’t seem to prove the writers’ mindless and self-serving accusation.
At more than a million each year, the United States takes in more real immigrants than any nation on the planet. Because wealthy corporate campaign donors have been allowed to take charge of American border and law enforcement policy, we also suffer the world’s highest level of illegal immigration. Arizona Sen. John McCain put illegal entries at “almost 4 million” in 2002.
Most who study the issue understand the Census estimates that we now have 11 million illegals in the nation to be inaccurate by half. Illegal aliens not being all that willing to answer a Census seems to be a very sensible truth.
In a 2004 independent study of the black market created by illegal immigration, the Wall Street financial firm of Bear Stearns estimated the illegal population at 20 million, as did state Sen. Sam Zamarripa to the Georgia Senate in 2003.
Bear Stearns estimated the IRS loss of income taxes to be $35 billion a year to off-the-books payment of wages, with health care, retirement funding, law enforcement and education losses coming in at another $30 billion annually. Two years later, these are now considered very low and conservative estimates.
Bear Stearns made no effort to estimate the cost, financial or cultural, of forcibly instituting an optional language to English in the United States.
Kind of makes one wonder about the entire concept of “cheap labor” doesn’t it? Or is Bear Stearns being hateful and extreme?
In 1995, the Bill Clinton-appointed chairwoman of the Commission on Immigration Reform was the late Barbara Jordan, D-Texas, the first black woman elected to Congress from the South. She testified to Congress on immigration reform nine years after the “one-time amnesty” that was to solve our illegal immigration crisis forever.
Jordan was clear on what it would take to gain credibility on immigration policy: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave — deportation is crucial.”
On the criminal employers who lure illegals into our republic, Jordan recommended mandatory electronic verification of legal employment eligibility. “Employer sanctions can work,” she said.
Fortunately for Jordan, a 1994 Presidential Medal of Freedom award winner, 21st century immigration lawyers in Georgia weren’t there to attack her “extremism.” Si?
D.A. King is a columnist for the Marietta Daily Journal and president of the Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta-based coalition actively opposed to illegal immigration. He was a witness at the recent Congressional Field Hearings held in Gainesville on illegal immigration. On the Web: www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org.
Originally published Sunday, September 24, 2006