National Review
November 2009

Victo Davis Hanson

Tarnished state: but California can shine again

California is the nation’s most populous state, at nearly 37 million, and if it were a country, it would have the world’s eighth-largest economy. Yet there is still room for growth: Two-thirds of the area north of San Francisco remains sparsely inhabited and rich in minerals, farmland, and timber, and billions of barrels of untapped oil lie off the coast and in the southern interior. Meanwhile, the harbors at San Diego and San Francisco Bay are among the world’s finest and busiest. California is the nation’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer. Tourists flock to Disneyland, the Napa Valley vineyards, and Yosemite, Kings Canyon, Sequoia, and Death Valley national parks. Despite the inroads of globalization, Silicon Valley still leads the world in computer innovation, and Hollywood still reigns as the moviemaking capital. Universities such as Stanford, Berkeley, USC, and UCLA continue to rank among the nation’s finest.

How, then, has everything gone so wrong so fast? The state is in a mess far worse than its 1992-93 and 2002-03 financial crises, or the periodic natural calamities of earthquake, drought, mudslide, and wildfire. Odder still, most residents well understand the current symptoms, the underlying disease that accounts for them, and why the state is so susceptible to this self-induced malady in the first place; yet no cure is in sight.

…

Anywhere from 3 to 6 million illegal aliens burden the state’s health, welfare, and criminal-justice systems. (No one knows the exact size of the undocumented population–either in California or in the nation at large–since vastly different measures are employed by supporters and opponents to either emphasize or downplay the problem.) In performance reviews of the nation’s public schools, California ranks between 47th and 49th. California also runs the largest, most expensive, and most recidivism-prone state prison system in the country: Half of all parolees will end up back in prison within two years. Locking up 173,000 inmates–over 20 percent of them illegal aliens–costs taxpayers more than $8 billion a year. Though the system was recently expanded at great cost, it still is designed to hold only half of its present population. More HERE from Bnet

Bruce Schneier

Using fake documents to get a valid U.S. passport

I missed this story: Since 2007, the U.S. State Department has been issuing high-tech “e-passports,” which contain computer chips carrying biometric data to prevent forgery. Unfortunately, according to a March report from the Government Accountability Office…

HERE

KTRE-TV — Lufkin, Texas sc

Mexican National arrested in Nacogdoches for kidnapping

NACOGDOCHES, TX (KTRE) – Her identity is being protected. The young woman, in her 20’s, was found packing up her belongings. She’s escaping frequent abuse from a common law husband.

“I got hit probably three months every day. Every day,” she shared.

Sergio Sanchez, the woman’s common law husband is charged with unlawful restraint and resisting arrest. Sexual assault charges are pending. His brother in law, Santo Sanchez is charged with hindering apprehension of the felon. They are in the Nacogdoches County Jail and on hold by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The two families lived on a poultry farm in northern Nacogdoches County. Several weeks before, the couple abruptly left a trailer park on South Street in Nacogdoches. Before that they were in Center where the woman was hospitalized for a brutal beating which lasted for hours.

HERE

Dave Gibson — The Examiner

Illegal alien arrested for hitting and killing little girl

On Sunday afternoon, Boynton Beach police arrested Leticia Flores, 28, for the hit-and-run killing of 10-year-old Darness Brown. The girl’s 13-year-old sister, Darneisha Ellis, was also injured when Flores allegedly hit their scooter…

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Redlands (Calif.) Daily Facts

Report blasts Obama’s record on immigration

The Obama Administration has failed in its efforts to secure the border and enforce immigration laws, an anti-illegal immigration group said in a report released Wednesday. — The Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington D.C.-based group, says the administration “has systemically dismantled” immigration enforcement since the beginning of the year…

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Lakeland (Fla.) Ledger

Mexican teen suspect’s immigration status eluded feds

Through nine arrests, no one questioned whether 14-year-old Noel Cruz-Diego was in the U.S. legally until he was charged with burglary, robbery and stabbing a Lakeland man 43 times last month. — Juvenile arrest reports obtained by The Ledger this week detail charges against him during 2 1/2 years and show

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New York Times

ACLU loses major donor

A longtime anonymous donor to the American Civil Liberties Union has withdrawn his annual gift of more than $20 million, punching a 25% hole in its annual operating budget and forcing cutbacks in operations. — A.C.L.U. board members, who insisted on anonymity because the loss of the gift was reported in an executive session of their meeting, identified the donor as David Gelbaum…

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Gwinnett Daily Post

Letters to the editor
December 9, 2009

LETTERS: Racial profiling not apparent in 287(g) program

I take issue with the statements of almost everyone in Sunday’s article “Forum decries 287(g),” (Dec. 6 Page 1A).

As an attorney who represents clients of every racial background, I would love to be able to go to court and prove that my client was a victim of racial profiling. However, I do not see anything racial about the 287(g) program.

The cop first has to charge the defendant with a valid offense — speeding, DUI or whatever. Then, and only then, when the defendant is booked into the jail, does the sheriff’s staff enter his or her information into the computer so that the federal authorities are alerted that Joe Schmoe has been arrested.

It is my opinion that those claiming “racial profiling” are doing a tremendous disservice to the public at large by offering them the hope of using “racial profiling” as a potential defense when his or her case goes to court.

— Charles W. Field

Attorney at Law

Lawrenceville

Our laws aren’t made for select enforcement

I read the article in Sunday’s paper concerning Gwinnett’s 287(g) program (“Forum decries 287(g),” Dec. 6, Page 1A). What is it that some people, including the ACLU, don’t understand about the word “illegal?”

A person in this great country illegally needs to be “justly booted” from the United States and either apply to enter legally if this is where he or she wants to live and raise a family or stay in his or her homeland.

Thank you, Sheriff Butch Conway, for assuring that Gwinnett County enforces immigration laws.

It seems to me that some folks along with the ACLU are saying it is OK to break laws as long as it is one they agree with.

— Kurt Wegener
Lawrenceville

HERE

Original news report:

Gwinnett Daily Post — Lawrenceville, Ga.

Forum decries 287(g)

Azadeh Shahshahani roused a crowd to chanting anti-racist slogans in the gymnasium of Saint Lawrence Catholic Church on Saturday, an interpreter at her side. — The American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia leader blasted racial profiling against all races. She called the 287(g) program, initiated three weeks ago in Gwinnett…

HERE

Patrick J. Buchanan

Why import workers now?

At last week’s Job Summit, there was talk of a second stimulus package, of tax credits for small businesses that hire new workers, of an Infrastructure Bank to select national priority pubic works projects like the Hoover Dam and TVA of yesteryear…

Federation for American Immigration Reform

Latest Legislative Update

FAIR’s Government Relations team has just finalized a Legislative Analysis of the Senate health care reform bill (H.R. 3590) and its impact on immigration. As with FAIR’s previous analysis of the House health care bill, FAIR’s analysis of the Senate bill discussed three key immigration related issues…

HERE