E-Verify Working - Mississippi mentioned! (Lou Dobbs video (8.20 MB)
Mexican drug wars spill into the United States (Lou Dobbs video)
15 things you should know about "The Race"
McCain and Obama pander to Hispanics (Lou Dobbs videos)
click 1) here (6.5 MB) and 2) here (5.7 MB)
The Mexican Threat to our national security (Lou Dobbs video)
click here (6.6 MB)
Illegal Immigrant births mean automatic citizenship - AT OUR EXPENSE!
(includes video and photo of Illegal Alien mother and Anchor Baby )
SB 2988 now Mississippi law and in effect!
Mexican set free after killing Batrol Patrol Agent
Bush orders contractors to check legal status of employees!
"The most dangerous gang" in North America
For constantly updated Illegal Alien news, go to AmericanPatrol.com
SB 2988 is working: Illegal Aliens leaving Mississippi!
llegal Aliens arrested for selling phony IDs in Mississippi
Search warrants detail reasons for Iowa meatpacking plant raid
Federal agents arrest Illegal Aliens leaving U.S.
Immigration breaks backs of taxpaying U.S. citizens
by Phyllis Schlafly
Homeland Security official: Illegal Aliens' employers will be prosecuted
Bennie Thompson raked over the coals by Lou Dobbs
(video included - scroll down for transcript)
Supreme Court rules against Illegal Alien Mexican on Texas death row
4 children on school bus killed by drunk unlicensed Illegal Alien
click 1) here, 2) here and 3) here for more news on this tragedy
Other states cracking down on Illegal Aliens (see list below)

click image
click
here for more actions
Black Caucus leader launches national TV Ads
about Black workers victimized by immigration
click here for press release
click here for Frank L. Morris, Sr., Ph.D. biography
McClintObama Amnesty Plan: 20 million illegal alien voters by 2010
Middle-Eastern illegal aliens nabbed in Mississippi
Illegal Aliens invade deeper into Our Country
Illegal Aliens are not stakeholders in America
Montebello, California (photo below):
Note upside down American flag
beneath Mexican flag
Immigration (both legal and illegal) at record level
Rush Limbaugh Speaks Out On Illegal Alien Invaders (1.3 MB)
More Mexican meddling!
Mexican president lashes out at U.S. presidential candidates
Black Americans' vital stake in our immigration policy
by Terrance Lang of Choose Black America
Visit Choose Black America Website
Mississippi State Auditor's 2007 report:
"Crime and Illegal Immigration in Mississippi"
(3.95 MB)
Mississippi State Auditor's 2006 report:
"The Impact of Illegal Immigration on Mississippi:
Costs and Population Trends"
(1.80 MB)
American Hispanics Speak Out Against Illegal Immigration
click 1) here, 2) here
Listen to "Nuestro Himno" ("Our Anthem")....
....The Latino version of "The Star-Spangled Banner"
not only did they change the title, they also changed the lyrics -- click here for Spanish with English translation
Georgia's crackdown on Illegal Aliens
(note photo at bottom of article
showing insulting upside down American flag
displayed next to Mexican flag)
Illegal Alien Gang Violence in America Increasing
click 1) here, 2) here and 2) here

Mara Salvatrucha gang member

Culture Clashes Could Destroy America
Welcome to the
United States of America
Press "1" for English
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CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF SECTIONS ON THIS PAGE
Visit "Coalition For The Future American Worker" Website
An Amnesty By Any Other Name Is Still An Amnesty
Mississippi Has Highest Percentage Increase In Immigrants

Will The U.S. Be Merged With Mexico And Canada By 2010?
3 articles: click here, here, and here
Say Hello to the North American Union
* * * * *
The Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (MFIRE) has been formed to educate the citizens of Mississippi and our elected representatives at the national, state and local levels as to the direct cause and effect that exists between the rapid influx of illegal aliens into our state and the resulting problems that seriously threaten our national security, costs to taxpayers, environment and the quality of life for all Mississippians. We support the rule of law and take the position that all immigration laws must be strictly enforced, including the prohibition against hiring illegal aliens.
Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement
SB 2988 now law in Mississippi!
Georgia's Crackdown on Illegal Aliens: What Now, Mississippi?
Read the flawed provisions of the 2007 Senate amnesty bill
Mississippi Has Highest Percentage Increase in Immigrants
Amnesty Ruined Western Roman Empire
"Real 'Reform' Must End Illegal Immigration", by MFIRE President Rodney A. Hunt
How Many Illegal Aliens Are In The United States?
Mississippi Businesses That Support Illegal Aliens
First Person Account Of What Illegal Immigration Has Done to Morton (Scott County), Mississippi
Some Facts About Illegal Immigration
What Americans Think
Arizona Hispanic Backs Tough Stand On Illegal Immigration....
....Begins Forming 2 New Groups Specifically For American Hispanics
The New Latino South
Mississippi Jobs Stolen By Illegal Aliens
Anchor Babies
Diseases Brought To America By Illegal Aliens
The Illegal Alien Crime Wave
Smugglers Planning To Kill U.S. Border Agents, Federal Memo Warns
Cost of Educating The Children of Illegal Aliens in Mississippi
Free Medical Care For Illegal Aliens At Taxpayer Expense
In-State College Tuition For Illegal Aliens, But Not For Out-of-State Americans
Illegal Aliens To Lose College In-State Tuition In Georgia
How To Destroy America
Bush Doesn't Get It On Immigration
President's Amnesty/Guest Worker Proposals Are Failing To Win Public Support
What Can We Do In Mississippi?
Contact MFIRE If You Moved to Mississippi From California, Arizona, Or Other States
To Get Away From Illegal Immigration
Help Make A Difference In Mississippi
SB 2988 now law in Mississippi!
It is very exciting to give you good news! We have won a huge victory in Mississippi with the March 5th, 2008 overwhelming passage in the House of Representatives (112-8 with 2 absent or not voting) of Senate Bill 2988 (which passed the Senate 52-0 on February 26th) -- as originally written with no amendments! Governor Barbour signed the bill into law on March 17th and it took effect July 1st, 2008! Now Mississippi follows the lead of other states that have passed strict illegal immigration bills where illegal aliens are packing up and fleeing those states in droves. We can now see the same results in Mississippi! Below are the 8 Representatives who voted against SB 2988, who apparently represent Illegal Aliens rather than the Mississippians that elected them (click on their names for their bios): Jim Evans
Robert Huddleston
Roger Ishee
J
ohn Mayo
Willie Perkins
Ferr Smith
Rufus Straughter
Walter Robinson
Here is the complete text of SB 2988:
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2008 Regular Session
To: Judiciary, Division A
By: Senator(s) Watson, McDaniel, Yancey
AN ACT TO CREATE THE MISSISSIPPI EMPLOYMENT PROTECTION ACT; TO PROVIDE PROCEDURES FOR NEWLY HIRED EMPLOYEES AND THEIR EMPLOYERS; TO ENACT DEFINITIONS; TO REQUIRE EMPLOYEE VERIFICATION; TO PROVIDE EMPLOYER LIABILITY; TO SET UP EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE PROGRAMS; TO MAKE PROVISIONS FOR THIRD-PARTY EMPLOYERS; TO DEFER TO FEDERAL LAW IN STATE LAW; TO ENACT EXEMPTIONS; TO DESIGNATE ENFORCEMENT DUTIES UNDER THE ACT; TO PROVIDE PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS OF THIS ACT; AND FOR RELATED PURPOSES.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds that when illegal immigrants have been sheltered and harbored in this state and encouraged to reside in this state through the benefit of work without verifying immigration status, these practices impede and obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law, undermine the security of our borders, and impermissibly restrict the privileges and immunities of the citizens of Mississippi. The Legislature further finds that illegal immigration is encouraged when public agencies within this state provide public benefits without verifying immigration status. The Legislature further finds that the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution reserves to the states those powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Therefore, the Legislature declares that it is a compelling public interest of this state to discourage illegal immigration by requiring all agencies within this state to fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities in the enforcement of federal immigration laws. The Legislature also finds that other measures are necessary to ensure the integrity of various governmental programs and services.
SECTION 2. (1) This act shall be known as the "Mississippi Employment Protection Act."
(2) The provisions of this section shall be enforced without regard to race, gender, religion, ethnicity or national origin.
(3) For the purpose of this section only, the following words shall have the meanings ascribed herein unless the content clearly states otherwise:
(a) "Employer" is any person or business that is required by federal or state law to issue a United States Internal Revenue Service Form W-2 or Form 1099 to report income paid to employed or contracted personnel in Mississippi.
(b) "Employee" is any person or entity that is hired to perform work within the State of Mississippi and to whom a United States Internal Revenue Service Form W-2 or Form 1099 must be issued.
(c) "Third-party employer" is any person or company that provides workers for another person or company. This includes, but is not limited to, leasing companies and contract employers.
(d) "Status verification system" means the electronic verification of work authorization program of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996, Public Law 104-208, Division C, Section 403(a); 8 USC Section 1324a, and operated by the United States Department of Homeland Security, known as the E-Verify Program.
(e) "Unauthorized alien" means an alien as defined in Section 1324a(h)(3) of Title 8 of the United States Code.
(f) "Public employer" means every department, agency or instrumentality of the state or a political subdivision of the state.
(g) "Subcontractor" means a subcontractor, contract employee, staffing agency or any contractor regardless of its tier.
(4) (a) Employers in the State of Mississippi shall only hire employees who are legal citizens of the United States of America or are legal aliens. For purposes of this section, a legal alien is an individual who was lawfully present in the United States at the time of employment and for the duration of employment, or was permanently residing in the United States under color of law at the time of employment and for the duration of employment.
(b) (i) Every employer shall register with and utilize the status verification system to verify the federal employment authorization status of all newly hired employees.
(ii) No contractor or subcontractor shall hire any employee unless the contractor or subcontractor registers and participates in the status verification system to verify the work eligibility status of all newly hired employees.
(iii) No contractor or subcontractor who enters into a contract with a public employer shall enter into such a contract or subcontract unless the contractor or subcontractor registers and participates in the status verification system to verify information of all newly hired employees.
(c) The provision of this section shall not apply to any contracts entered into on or before July 1, 2008.
(d) It shall be a discriminatory practice for an employer to discharge an employee working in Mississippi who is a United States citizen or permanent resident alien while retaining an employee who the employing entity knows, or reasonably should have known, is an unauthorized alien hired after July 1, 2008, and who is working in Mississippi in a job category that requires equal skill, effort and responsibility, and which is performed under similar working conditions, as defined by 29 USC, Section 206(d)(1), as the job category held by the discharged employee.
(e) An employing entity which, on the date of the discharge in question, was enrolled in and used the status verification system to verify the employment eligibility of its employees in Mississippi hired after July 1, 2008, shall be exempt from liability, investigation or suit arising from any action under this section.
(f) No cause of action for a violation of this section shall lie under any other Mississippi law but shall arise solely from the provisions of this section.
(5) Any employer that complies with the requirements of this section shall be held harmless by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, provided the employer is not directly involved in the creation of any false documents, and provided that the employer did not knowingly and willfully accept false documents from the employee.
(6) (a) All third-party employers that conduct business in Mississippi shall register to do business in Mississippi with the Mississippi Department of Employment Security before placing employees into the workforce in Mississippi.
(b) Third-party employers shall provide proof of registration and any participation in the status verification system to any Mississippi employer with whom they do business.
(7) (a) State of Mississippi agencies and political subdivisions, public contractors and public subcontractors and private employers with two hundred fifty (250) or more employees shall meet verification requirements not later than July 1, 2008.
(b) Employers with at least one hundred (100) but less than two hundred fifty (250) employees shall meet verification requirements not later than July 1, 2009.
(c) Employers with at least thirty (30) but less than one hundred (100) employees shall meet verification requirements not later than July 1, 2010.
(d) All employers shall meet verification requirements not later than July 1, 2011.
(e) (i) Any employer violating the provisions of this section shall be subject to the cancellation of any state or public contract, resulting in ineligibility for any state or public contract for up to three (3) years, the loss of any license, permit, certificate or other document granted to the employer by any agency, department or government entity in the State of Mississippi for the right to do business in Mississippi for up to one (1) year, or both.
(ii) The contractor or employer shall be liable for any additional costs incurred by the agencies and institutions of the State of Mississippi, or any of its political subdivisions, because of the cancellation of the contract or the loss of any license or permit to do business in the state.
(iii) Any person or entity penalized under this section shall have the right to appeal to the appropriate entity bringing charges or to the circuit court of competent jurisdiction.
(f) The Department of Employment Security, State Tax commission, Secretary of State, Department of Human Services and the Attorney General shall have the authority to seek penalties under this section and to bring charges for noncompliance against any employer or employee.
(8) (a) There shall be no liability under this section in the following circumstances:
(i) An employer who hires an employee through a state or federal work program that requires verification of the employee's social security number and provides for verification of the employee's lawful presence in the United States in an employment-authorized immigration status;
(ii) Any candidate for employment referred by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security, if the Mississippi Department of Employment Security has verified the social security number and provides for verification of the candidate's lawful presence in the United States in an employment-authorized immigration status; or
(iii) Individual homeowners who hire workers on their private property for noncommercial purposes, unless required by federal law to do so.
(b) (i) Compliance with the sections of this statute shall not exempt the employer from regulations and requirements related to any federal laws or procedures related to employers.
(ii) This section shall not be construed as an attempt to preempt federal law.
(c) (i) It shall be a felony for any person to accept or perform employment for compensation knowing or in reckless disregard that the person is an unauthorized alien with respect to employment during the period which the unauthorized employment occurred. Upon conviction, a violator shall be subject to imprisonment in the custody of the Department of Corrections for not less than one (1) year nor more than five (5) years, a fine of not less than One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) nor more than Ten Thousand Dollars ($10,000.00), or both.
(ii) For purposes of determining bail for persons who are charged under this section, it shall be a rebuttable presumption that a defendant who has entered and remains in the United States unlawfully is deemed at risk of flight for purposes of bail determination.
SECTION 3. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after July 1, 2008, for all state agencies, departments, and political subdivisions, all employers who have contracts with the State of Mississippi, or with its departments, agencies, political subdivisions, all third-party employers, and any person or company using a third-party employer.
This act shall take effect and be in force from and after January 1, 2009, for all other employers who do business in Mississippi.
Georgia's Crackdown on Illegal Aliens
Note insulting upside down American flag displayed next to Mexican flag
in photo at bottom
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Hispanic businesses feel the squeeze
Crackdown on illegal immigration partly blamed for sudden halt in sales
By AIXA M. PASCUAL
09/14/07
Customers at Valeria Espinosa's variety store just browse the CD racks and the T-shirts on the wall. More and more, they decide against an impulse purchase.
They are wiring money home to Mexico and Central America less often, too.
Her sales are down by about 40 percent for the past two months.
"They don't splurge on themselves," Espinosa, who emigrated from Argentina six years ago, says in Spanish.
Espinosa's shop on Powder Springs Road in Marietta is not the only one hurting. Many businesses that cater to Hispanics are seeing a slowdown in sales. The crackdown on illegal immigrants, Espinosa says, "also hurts those of us who have papers."
And the fallout has spread far beyond car dealers, which immediately felt the impact from a law that went into effect on July 1 requiring a Georgia driver's license or ID card to get a car tag. It's affecting bakeries, insurance peddlers, banks, food manufacturers, supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses.
Why the slowdown in spending?
Tougher state and local laws that affect illegal immigrants and the lack of resolution over their status after the proposed immigration reform collapsed in Washington earlier this year have left many saving money, spending less and wondering what will happen next.
Add to this a slowdown in the housing market, which affects the job stability of a portion of the Hispanic work force in Georgia.
"This is like a double whammy," says UGA demographer Douglas Bachtel, who studies the Hispanic population. "Whenever there's anything new, there's fear and uncertainty, especially with the immigration status."
Nearly half of the Hispanic population in Georgia is undocumented, Bachtel explains. The census estimates there are 700,000 Hispanics in Georgia, but Bachtel says Hispanics are way undercounted.
"It's affecting all businesses," says Neil Moreno, who sells car insurance in a storefront next to Espinosa.
His business, which dropped by about 30 percent in July and August, now consists mostly of renewing auto insurance policies, not selling new ones. He can't afford to replace his assistant. On a recent morning, close to noon, he sat at his desk waiting for clients.
"This is dead," says Moreno, who is from Puerto Rico. "It's terrible. The phone's not ringing."
Just talking to a sampling of merchants suggests many definitely are feeling the pain:
• Banuestra, a Roswell-based bank with 12 branches in metro Atlanta, has seen its monthly revenue growth slow down to 10 percent from 35 percent earlier in the year, says chairman and CEO Drew Edwards. His clientele consists of about 23,000 Hispanic customers.
• Food manufacturer La Preferida, whose clients are predominantly small grocery stores that target Hispanic consumers, is having a tougher time selling its products. "[Consumers] get the basic stuff, like black beans and rice," says merchandiser Victor Ramirez, who drives across the state, offering more attractive sales promotions nowadays on his merchandise. "But they are buying less and not purchasing non-essentials like cookies and candy."
• Mexican restaurant Mexico Lindo in Smyrna has seen a big decline in business during the weekends, when the clientele is mostly Hispanic, says owner Jorge Echeverry. He's also seen a decline in the non-Hispanic customers. To attract business, he's offering specials and fixing up the bar, upgrading it with 42-inch TV screens.
Spending by Hispanics will grow at a slower rate in the next five years, says Jeffrey Humphreys, a University of Georgia economist. In 2006, Georgia Hispanics spent $12.4 billion, 10th in the nation, according to his research.
A study released last month by the Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank found that the percentage of Mexicans in "new destination" states who send remittances regularly to their homeland declined from an average of 80 percent in 2006 to 56 percent this year. "New destination states" are those where immigration from Latin America is most recent, such as Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.
States that have long had Hispanic communities, such as New York, Florida and California, showed a tinier fall, from 68 percent last year to 66 percent this year.
In the "new destination" states, about half a million migrants have stopped sending money home, according to the IDB study.
Miami-based public opinion researcher Sergio Bendixen, who carried out the survey, says that the Mexicans in states such as Georgia don't feel welcome and face an uncertain future.
"They feel alienated. They feel unprotected," Bendixen says.
His sample of 900 subjects included 100 from Georgia. Interview subjects said they felt abused, exploited and discriminated against. "People in states like Georgia don't want them there," Bendixen says.
"They'd never tried to close the doors so much, [as] in the case of the car tag, as they have now," said Zayda Zavala, 26, as she worked at La Suprema Bakery in Marietta. "People don't want to drive."
In Georgia, a new law calls for verification of the status of applicants for public jobs and public benefits and to those thrown in jail for a felony or DUI.
Many people interviewed say fewer illegal immigrants are driving because of fear.
These restrictions come on top of the proposed federal immigration reform — which attempted to offer legal status to most of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. — that stalled earlier this year.
Cobb County has gone further than other municipalities in Georgia in cracking down on illegal immigration. The county sheriff has an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows specially trained local jail officers to initiate deportation proceedings for illegal immigrants who are arrested.
"Cobb County has the most anti-immigrant policies in the state right now," says Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials, or GALEO. "Cobb County is going above and beyond to make itself an unfriendly place for immigrants."
Some illegal immigrants are afraid to drive for fear of being stopped for offenses such as reckless driving and DUI and eventually end up deported.
Some drive back and forth to work, but are afraid to drive to the store.
"If they bring you to jail, we're going to check your immigration status," says Col. Don Barlett of the Cobb County Sheriff's Office.
Of the 198 inmates at the Cobb County Jail interviewed to determine their status through Aug. 31, 142 have detainers which can subject them to deportation. ICE has taken custody of 32 illegal immigrants since the program went into effect at the end of June, says Maj. Janet Prince, one of the program's supervisors.
Sam Olens, chairman of the Cobb County Commission, says that the county has made efforts to include Hispanics in boards and in the community.
"Our Police Department is strictly enforcing the law," he says.
Cesar Jimenez, owner of Mercado Real de la Villa grocery store in Marietta, last month bought a used Honda Accord station wagon for $3,500. He's driving customers from their nearby homes to his store and back. Uncertainty, he says, makes people not buy "homes, cars or travel."
More people are translating their documents, such as birth certificates issued in their country of birth into English, and applying for passports for their children, says Lorena Beltran, who works at the Cobb office of the Latin American Association.
"The fear is: What happens if I get arrested?" she says at her office inside the Las Colinas apartment complex on Franklin Road in Marietta. "They want to have their documents in order in case anything happens."
Espinosa, the variety shop owner in Marietta, owns two stores but is thinking of selling the one on Powder Springs Road to make ends meet.
"I want to get ahead, and I can't."

Valeria Espinosa, who operates CD Mas Musica y Videos in the Bellmeade Shopping Center
on Powder Springs Road in Marietta, said she's seen business dip in recent months.
The Flawed Provisions of the 2007 Senate Amnesty Bill
(on the web: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Immigration/wm1468.cfm)
Rewarding Illegal Aliens:
Senate Bill Undermines The Rule of Law
by Kris W. Kobach, D.Phil., J.D. and Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.
WebMemo #1468
The most controversial component of the Senate's Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 is Title VI, euphemistically entitled "Nonimmigrants in the United States Previously in Unlawful Status." It would create a new "Z" visa exclusively for illegal aliens. This title would change the status of those who are here illegally to legal, essentially granting amnesty to those "previously in unlawful status." This seriously flawed proposal would undermine the rule of law by granting massive benefits to those who have willfully violated U.S. laws, while denying those benefits to those who have played by the rules and sometimes even to U.S. citizens.
Flawed Provisions
The following are ten of the worst provisions—by no means an exhaustive list—of Title VI of the bill:
A Massive Amnesty: Title VI of the bill grants amnesty to virtually all of the 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens in the country today. This amnesty would dwarf the amnesty that the United States granted—with disastrous consequences—in 1986 to 2.7 million illegal aliens. It is also a larger amnesty than that proposed in last year's ill-fated Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act. Indeed, the Senate's bill imposes no cap on the total number of individuals who could receive Z-visa status.
To initially qualify for a Z visa, an illegal alien need only have a job (or be the parent, spouse, or child of someone with a job) and provide two documents suggesting that he or she was in the country before January 1, 2007, and has remained in the country since then. A bank statement, pay stub, or similarly forgeable record will do. Also acceptable under the legislation is a sworn affidavit from a non-relative (see Section 601(i)(2)).
The price of a Z visa is $3,000 for individuals—only slightly more than the going rate to hire a coyote to smuggle a person across the border. A family of five could purchase visas for the bargain price of $5,000—some $20,000 short of the net cost that household is likely to impose on local, state, and federal government each year, according to Heritage Foundation calculations.
Expect a mass influx unlike anything this country has ever seen once the 12-month period for accepting Z visa applications begins. These provisions are an open invitation for those intent on U.S. residence to sneak in and present two fraudulent pieces of paper indicating that they were here before the beginning of the year.
That is precisely what happened in the 1986 amnesty, during which Immigration and Naturalization Services discovered 398,000 cases of fraud. Expect the number of fraudulent applications to be at least four times larger this time, given the much larger applicant pool.
The Permanent "Temporary" Visa: Supporters of the bill call the Z visa a "temporary" visa. However, they neglect to mention that it can be renewed every four years until the visa holder dies, according to Section 601(k)(2) of the legislation. This would be the country's first permanent temporary visa. On top of that, it is a "super-visa," allowing the holder to work, attend college, or travel abroad and reenter. These permissible uses are found in Section 602(m).
A law-abiding alien with a normal nonimmigrant visa would surely desire this privileged status. Unfortunately for him, only illegal aliens can qualify, according Section 601(c)(1).
And contrary to popular misconception, illegal aliens need not return to their home countries to apply for the Z visa. That's only necessary if and when an alien decides to adjust from Z visa status to lawful permanent resident ("green card") status under Section 602(a)(1). And even then, it's not really the country of origin; any consulate outside the United States can take applications at its discretion or the direction of the Secretary of State.
Hobbled Background Checks: The bill would make it extremely difficult for the federal government to prevent criminals and terrorists from obtaining legal status. Under Section 601(h)(1), the bill would allow the government only one business day to conduct a background check to determine whether an applicant is a criminal or terrorist. Unless the government can find a reason not to grant it by the end of the next business day after the alien applies, the alien receives a probationary Z visa (good from the time of approval until six months after the date Z visas begin to be approved, however long that may be) that lets him roam throughout the country and seek employment legally.
The problem is that there is no single, readily searchable database of all of the dangerous people in the world. While the federal government does have computer databases of known criminals and terrorists, these databases are far from comprehensive. Much of this kind of information exists in paper records that cannot be searched within 24 hours. Other information is maintained by foreign governments.
The need for effective background checks is real. During the 1986 amnesty, the United States granted legal status to Mahmoud "The Red" Abouhalima, who fraudulently sought and obtained the amnesty intended for seasonal agricultural workers (even though he was actually employed as a cab driver in New York City). But his real work was in the field of terrorism. He went on to become a ringleader in the 1993 terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center. Using his new legal status after the amnesty, he was able to travel abroad for terrorist training.
Amnesty for "Absconders": Title VI's amnesty extends even to fugitives who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge but chose to ignore their removal orders. More than 636,000 absconders are now present in the country, having defied the law twice: once when they broke U.S. immigration laws and again when they ignored the orders of the immigration courts.
The Senate's bill allows the government to grant Z visas to absconders. Though the bill appears to deny the visa to absconders in Section 601(d)(1)(B), Section 601(d)(1)(I) allows U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services officials to give an absconder the Z visa anyway if the absconder can demonstrate that departure from the United States "would result in extreme hardship to the alien or the alien's spouse, parent or child."
This is a massive loophole because so many things can be construed to constitute "extreme hardship." This might include removing a child from an American school and placing him in a school in an impoverished country, or deporting a person with any chronic illness. Attorneys representing aliens would also argue that if any member of an absconder's family is a U.S. citizen, then the other members must remain in the United States, because the separation of family members would constitute extreme hardship.
This would also be a reward to those who have defied U.S. immigration courts. Those who have successfully fled justice could receive the most generous visa ever created, but those who complied with the law and have waited years to enter legally would have to wait longer still. (Indeed, the massive bureaucratic load caused by processing Z visas would undoubtedly mean longer waits for those who have played by the rules.) Further, those who have obeyed the law and complied with deportation orders would not be eligible for Z visas.
The effect of this provision may already be felt today. Why would an illegal alien obey a deportation order while this bill is even pending in Congress? If the alien ignores the deportation order, he may be able to qualify for the amnesty; but if he obeys the order, he has no possibility of gaining the amnesty.
Reverse Justice: The bill would effectively shut down the immigration court system. Under Section 601(h)(6), if an alien in the removal process is "prima facie eligible" for the Z visa, an immigration judge must close any proceedings against the alien and offer the alien an opportunity to apply for amnesty.
Enforcement of Amnesty, Not Laws: The bill would transform Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from a law enforcement agency into an amnesty distribution center. Under Sections 601(h)(1, 5) if an ICE agent apprehends aliens who appear to be eligible for the Z visa (in other words, just about any illegal alien), the agent cannot detain them. Instead, ICE must provide them a reasonable opportunity to apply for the Z visa. Instead of initiating removal proceedings, ICE will be initiating amnesty applications. This is the equivalent of turning the Drug Enforcement Agency into a needle-distribution network.
Amnesty for Gang Members: Under Section 601(g)(2) of the bill, gang members would be eligible to receive amnesty. This comes at a time when violent international gangs, such as Mara Salvatrucha 13 (or "MS-13") , have brought mayhem to U.S. cities. More than 30,000 illegal-alien gang members operate in 33 states, trafficking in drugs, arms, and people. Deporting illegal-alien gang members has been a top ICE priority. The Senate bill would end that. To qualify for amnesty, all a gang member would need to do is note his gang membership and sign a "renunciation of gang affiliation."
Tuition Subsidies for Illegal Aliens: The Senate bill incorporates the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act). The DREAM Act effectively repeals a 1996 federal law (8 U.S.C. § 1623) that prohibits any state from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens unless the state also offers in-state tuition rates to all U.S. citizens. Ten states are currently defying this federal law. Section 616 would allow these and all other states to offer in-state tuition rates to any illegal alien who obtains the Z visa and attends college.
The injustice of this provision is obvious. Illegal aliens would receive a taxpayer subsidy worth tens of thousands of dollars and would be treated better than U.S. citizens from out of state, who must pay three to four times as much to attend college. In an era of limited educational resources and rising tuitions, U.S. citizens, not aliens openly violating federal law, should be first in line to receive education subsidies.
Further, legal aliens who possess an appropriate F, J, or M student visa would not receive this valuable benefit. Nor would they be eligible for the federal student loans that illegal aliens could obtain by this provision.
Taxpayer-Funded Lawyers for Illegal Aliens: The Senate's bill would force taxpayers to foot the bill for many illegal aliens' lawyers. Under current law, illegal aliens are not eligible for federally funded legal services. Section 622(m) of the bill would allow millions of illegal aliens who work in agriculture to receive free legal services. Every illegal alien working in the agricultural sector would have access to an immigration attorney to argue his case through the immigration courts and federal courts of appeals—all at taxpayer expense. This provision alone could cost hundreds of millions of dollars each year.
Amnesty Before Enforcement Triggers: Proponents of the Senate approach have consistently claimed that it would allow delayed amnesty only after certain law enforcement goals are met. The text of the bill, however, tells a different story. Section 1(a) allows probationary Z visas to be issued immediately after enactment, and Section 601(f)(2) prohibits the federal government from waiting more than 180 days after enactment to begin issuing probationary Z visas.
These probationary Z visas could be valid for years, depending on when the government begins issuing non-probationary Z visas, according to Section 601(h)(4). Moreover, the "probationary" designation means little. These visas are nearly as good as non-probationary Z visas, giving the alien immediate lawful status, protection from deportation, authorization to work, and the ability to exit and reenter the country (with advance permission). These privileges are listed in Section 601(h)(1).
Conclusion
What becomes unmistakably clear from the details of the Senate's bill is that it is not a "compromise" in any meaningful sense. Indeed, the sweeping amnesty provisions of Title VI cripple law enforcement and undermine the rule of law.
Kris W. Kobach, D.Phil, J.D., professor of law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, served as counsel to the U.S. Attorney General in 2001-2003 and was the attorney general's chief adviser on immigration law. Matthew Spalding, Ph.D. , is the director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
click here to read the entire bill in its current form.
Mississippi Has Highest Percentage Increase in Immigrants
The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson)
October 25, 2006
By Sid Salter
If anyone thinks immigration is going away as a political issue on the federal or the state level anytime soon, he or she obviously hasn't been watching the numbers.
The Center for Immigration Studies has produced a study that puts a clearer perspective on the genesis of immigration as a major political issue both in Congress and the state Legislature.
From 2000 to 2005, the nation's immigrant population increased by 5.1 million from 29.9 million to 35.2 million - an increase of 17.2 percent.
In the aggregate, Mississippi isn't a major player in immigration growth. California and Texas continue to see the highest aggregate growth in immigration with some 931,000 new immigrants in California (10.3 percent growth) and 788,000 new immigrants in Texas (30.4 percent growth) between 2000 and 2005.
But in terms of the percentage of immigrant population growth, Mississippi led the nation with an increase between 2000 and 2005 from 29,000 to 72,000 immigrants or 148.7 percent, according to the center's study. That's the highest rate of immigrant population growth in the nation and over eight times the national average.
For those who would assign that extremely high rate of growth to the crying need for laborers on the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it's important to note that the study was done in March of 2005, some six months before the largest natural disaster in American history dismantled coastal Mississippi.
Given the magnitude of the recovery and rebuilding efforts in south Mississippi, the notion that Mississippi's immigrant population hasn't increased significantly over pre-Katrina levels would seem absurd.
The study, titled Immigrants at Mid-Decade: A Snapshot of America's Foreign-Born Population in 2005, was authored by CIS director of research Steven A. Camorota. Key findings of the study include:
The Washington-based CIS is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit research organization founded in 1985 that is the nation's only think tank devoted exclusively to research and policy analysis of immigration on the U.S.
With Mississippi scrambling for public education and Medicaid dollars and rebuilding from Katrina, immigration looms as a hot political issue from the statehouse to the courthouses.
State legislative races certainly won't escape voter inquiries about immigration fears.
Meanwhile, Mississippi's immigrant population keeps growing.
Amnesty Ruined Western Roman Empire
Human Events Online
by Larry Kelley
Posted Apr 07, 2006
(click here to read article on the web)
Congress now piously debates an amnesty bill, U.S. cities brace for more marches promoted by Spanish-language radio stations, and Marxists and anarchists wish to see more and more illegals have a claim on your family assets.
It's chilling to remember that it was our ancestors' embrace of amnesty that served to bring down the Western Roman Empire. On August 24, 410 A.D., the Roman general, Alaric, and his collection of German tribesmen, Herulians, Rugians, and Gepidae, sacked Rome for the first time in 800 years. The event shocked the civilized world. These very same Goths had previously destroyed a whole legion, killing the Emperor Valens at Adrianople but were given amnesty, were hired and armed as Roman mercenaries, their families given lands inside the empire, and their general/king awarded Rome's highest citizen status, patrician.
As did the Roman emperors of the 5th century A.D., our current invasion has been encouraged by both our political parties. Estimates range from 11 million to 20 million illegals are now here residing inside our borders. And like the Roman world's reaction to Alaric's sack of Rome, we too are shocked to find not all illegals are here to cut grass or make beds.
Heather MacDonald reports that In Los Angeles alone, 95% of the 1,300 outstanding warrants for homicides and two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens. In 1980, U.S. federal and state prisons housed fewer than 9,000 criminal aliens. By the end of 1999, these same prisons housed over 68,000 criminal aliens. Nationwide, criminal aliens account for more than 29% of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities -- and the numbers are vastly higher now.
Edward Gibbon believed that the primal cause for Rome's fall in the West was its “loss of martial spirit,” which in turn forced it to import vast numbers of unassimilated German tribesmen to fight its wars. Today the Mexican military has become more and more emboldened with 216 documented armed incursions into U.S. territory since 1996. Our Border Patrol agents, forced to back off, are being trained to “hide, escape, and avoid counter ambush.” Rick Glancey of the El Paso sheriff's office stated that 10 heavily armed uniformed Mexican soldiers squared off against two lightly-armed American deputies. The Mexicans were escorting the smugglers of 3 tons of marijuana. Mike Doyal, one of the cowed deputies stated, “When you're up against mounted machine guns, what can we do? Who wants to pull the trigger first? Certainly not us.”
As was the case in the 5th century Roman provinces, the current invasion of the U.S. is also draining Western States treasuries. The Federation of American Reform, FAIR, has determined the total cost to native Californians for services provided to illegals is $10.5 billion or $1,183 per household. Our infrastructure in the West is collapsing. New roads and bridges are deferred; scores of hospitals and public schools are closing due to the costs of serving non-paying illegals; (15% of California's K-12 public school students are children of illegals) and worst of all, Southwest border areas are becoming lawless no-man lands where American are vacating.
It requires a very dangerous naivety to believe in open borders and that all of our Hispanic illegals are just innocently seeking the American dream. All too many are either the witting or unwitting agents of hostile foreign powers. One of those hostile powers is Mexico. To understand how Mexico, an insignificant military power can become hostile to the U.S, allowing rogue military units to attack us, it's essential to understand how that nation and its illegal migrants are afflicted with more than it's share of collective neurosis.
The protestors have marched beneath a sea of Mexican flags, which is the banner of radicalized American Latinos who disavow loyalty to the U.S. and refer to the American Southwest as Aztlan, Mexico's former Northern provinces ceded to the U.S. in 1848 after the Mexican-American War. It can only be seen as highly neurotic for Latinos to believe that the American lands where they live now are lands they wish repatriated back to the country from which they fled. But this aspiration for the “reconquista” (reconquest) of the Southwest is openly espoused by prominent Mexican and even Latino American politicians. Moreover, it is endemic, from the radicalized Chicano studies professor, to the unassimilated illegal dishwasher, and even extends to the elite intelligencia inside Mexico.
Speaking of redemography, there is an official website for the repatriation movement, La Voz de Aztlan, (www.aztlan.com) which contains stories that refer to anyone involved in immigration reform such as Rep. Tom Tancredo, as “nativists” and “anti-Latino bigots.” It aligns strongly with the Palestinians who are, of course, very much involved in armed terrorist operations aimed at the reconquest of Israel and the repatriating those lands back to Arab rule. The site is also filled with an unabashed, Nazi-like, anti-Semitic hash. The message to Latino readers is plain -- rip off the Zionist Yanqui while setting up a foreign, hostile Latino state inside the lands stolen from Mexico.
I spoke also to Tancredo, the Republican from Colorado, the leading congressional advocate for immigration reform, and rumor has it, the leading congressional recipient of death threats, and asked him, “So what does Vicente Fox want: War, a repatriation of the American southwest to Mexico, or does he just intend to sack Phoenix or L.A.? What's his endgame?”
“I've spoken to President Fox and believe that he would like to see the drug trafficking ended,” Tancredo replied. “However, I do not believe he is control of his own military. The level of corruption in Mexico is so great that, if they are controlled by anybody, it's the drug cartel. … I told President Fox that, when you have the lowest cop on the beat all the way to the highest public officials corrupted, it is impossible to create a viable economy. Everybody is on the take…”
“Are the incursions conducted by Mexican military or American gangsters disguised as Mexicans?” I asked him.
“I spoke to INS officials who told me that it is common knowledge that there are Mexican generals, people who have responsibility for whole sectors of the border regions, who are considered to be dirty. So its not just rogue platoons on the border, it's coming from the top…There was a Mexican police chief in Nuevo Laredo, just across the river from Laredo, Texas, who vowed to clean up the drug trafficking into the U.S. and he was dead an hour and a half after taking office,” Congressman Tancredo said.
This modern invasion of the U.S. has also created a potential conduit for an American-wide sack perpetrated by WMD armed terrorists. The Washington Times reported that last September, Adnan El Shukrijumah, a top al Qaeda aide with a $5million bounty on his head, was spotted in Honduras meeting with key figures of the massive Central American crime syndicate, MS-13, which “controls alien-smuggling routes through Mexico and into the U.S.”
Time magazine reported late last year that U.S. intelligence officials are admitting that, based on intercepted communiqués, Zarqawi has been directed by bin Laden to begin plans for hitting "soft targets" in the United States. Intelligence officials tell the magazine that the interrogation of a top aide to the al-Zarqawi organization, taken into U.S. custody last year, indicates that al-Zarqawi has given ample consideration to assaults on the American homeland. A restricted bulletin that circulated among U.S. security agencies noted that al-Zarqawi apparently believes that "if an individual has enough money, he can bribe his way into the U.S.," specifically by obtaining a "visa to Honduras" and then traveling across Mexico and the southern U.S. border.”
And for those who can't believe that Mexico is repatriating territory from the U.S. right now, they need to visit the border area around southeastern Arizona to witness it first hand.
Chris Simcox is the editor in chief of the Tombstone Tumbleweed newspaper and the organizer of the Minuteman Project, where volunteers aid and assist the Border Patrol and points out, “People who have owned property in the region for generations are leaving because they can't get protection from the local or federal government. They're basically being run off their land. They're property is almost of no value except for some Mexican citizens. And now these abandoned properties are being bought up by Mexican nationals. This leads you to believe that there are much greater implications to what is going on here. … What we are facing is not a crisis due to intrinsic American racism. … Arizonans of Hispanic descent who own property are as adamantly against the illegal invasion as are any other residents of the area.”
If it is true that there are upwards of 20 million illegal aliens here now, (no one knows how many are here) that represents 1 out of 14 persons in the U.S. While our obsequious Nero-like Congress openly debates the merits of amnesty programs, they dramatically amplify the invasion, undermine the prevailing American culture, and threaten American security and sovereignty.
"Real 'Reform' Must End Illegal Immigration"
by MFIRE President Rodney A. Hunt
Special to The Clarion-Ledger (Jackson, Mississippi),
February 18, 2006
Why do 75 percent of Americans want illegal immigration stopped? Because they realize that their physical and economic security and our American way of life are threatened.
We have a shrinking middle class and a widening gap between rich and poor Americans due to loss of our manufacturing base and the influx of cheap illegal foreign labor. Democracy cannot survive without a strong middle class.
Estimates of the illegal population are now between 11 million and 20 million. In 2004, Time magazine said it's fair to estimate that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. that year would total 3 million.
Illegal workers are depressing wages and taking jobs that Americans always did before the illegal alien invasion of our country. Citizens and legal immigrants earn 11 percent less when in competition with illegal aliens.
Additionally, for each 10 percent increase in the immigrant work force, American wages decrease by 3.5 percent. This directly correlates with the dependence of some Americans upon welfare.
Illegal immigration places a great burden on our working citizens. The Internal Revenue Service estimates that $400 billion in uncollected taxes are lost each year, representing a figure equal to our total federal deficit in 2005.
Meantime, $70 billion is spent each year for education, health care, welfare and incarceration of illegal aliens. Adding to this cost are the 363,000 children born to illegal aliens this past year, as estimated by the Center for Immigration Studies. This represents 10 percent of all births and 40 percent of all indigent births in the U.S.
These "anchor babies" are granted citizenship at birth and immediately become eligible for publicly funded education, health care and other social programs. At age 21, they are entitled to sponsor other family members to migrate to the United States.
Last December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Sensenbrenner/King Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. The bill represents a good start in real immigration reform. This bill is now awaiting Senate action.
President Bush's idea of immigration reform includes a thinly disguised guest worker amnesty which will be introduced in the Senate in February. The president's tough talk on border security is a public relations ploy intended to pacify unhappy Americans, but his guest worker amnesty would guarantee an unlimited supply of cheap labor for big business.
Amnesty in any form encourages more illegal immigration and will make our current situation even worse.
American taxpayers will continue to pay the costs of illegal immigration while big business reaps profits. The median family income has decreased each year for the past five years when adjusted for inflation, with illegal immigration being a major factor. This decrease is seen more in African-American families than in any other ethnic group.
All across our country, grassroots efforts and pressure from citizens have resulted in numerous state legislatures tackling the illegal alien problem in their states. Some 16 pieces of legislation with bipartisan support have been introduced in Mississippi this session.
I ask citizens to get involved! Call or email your congressman and state legislators and demand that they protect American citizens and not bow to the illegal alien activists and big business.
Estimates vary from a low of 8 million to as high as 20 million. (Click here to read the Bear Stearns report, “The Underground Labor Force is Rising to the Surface”, January 3, 2005.) In the September 20, 2004 issue of Time magazine, the Special Investigation cover story is entitled, “America’s Border: Even After 9/11, It’s Outrageously Easy to Sneak In”. This report states it can be estimated that the number of illegal aliens flooding into the U.S. in 2004 would total 3 million—more than the population of the State of Mississippi – and enough to fill 22,000 Boeing 737-700 airliners, or 60 flights every day for a year. It would be the largest illegal alien wave since 2001 and roughly triple the number of immigrants who would come to the U.S. by legal means. The truth is no one knows exactly how many illegal aliens are invading our nation, but thousands continue to pour in every single day that the border is unsealed.
Mississippi Businesses That Support Illegal Aliens
We will be adding to this list as necessary. We encourage you to contact each business to express your anger.
First Person Account Of What Illegal Immigration
Has Done
To Morton (Scott County) Mississippi
I am a native of Scott County - Morton, MS to be exact (Little Mexico) as it is referred to.
Growing up in Morton, we (school kids) knew that not all of us were going to go to college, but we also knew, though it was hard work, that we could make an honest living and gain a living wage by working at the chicken plant "B.C. Rogers".
It seemed like over night our town was being over-run with Latinos, Cubans, Dominicans etc.... Over time they took all the jobs at the chicken plant and there were no rental houses available. Then the starting wage at the chicken plant went from about 8.00 per hour to minimum wage. (late 80's early 90's).
Later, my family took a trip to San Antonio to attend a weeding. While we were there we went to Mexico (entering in Laredo). In Laredo we bought a newspaper and in the newspaper was an ad for B.C. Rogers, Morton, MS open to anyone - it stated that a bus would be at a certain place at a certain time ..... to pick up anyone who wanted a "job" with free housing.
What B.C. Rogers was doing basically was bussing in the illegals, giving them a job, and putting them in shot-gun style house's, the houses were/are "full" past capacity...... B.C. Rogers would then take the "rent" from their "paychecks" along with other incidentals they would deduct...food, lights, water etc... These people were put in basically huts and made to work like slaves. (I do not feel sorry for them).
Now we have "Little Mexico"... formally known as Morton, MS. I have been in stores and watched the owners chase them down for stealing... and then hear the sad story of the store owner ... because he has been robbed to the point he can't make it anymore. Outside his store you can see an Amigo with his own version of a store (a piece of plywood on top of a milk crate) set up outside on the street selling vegetables and tall glass candles. Every store has the word "HOT" in 3-4 different language to accommodate the different ethnic groups represented in the community and because they claimed not to speak the language... (a lie in most cases).
So in a "nut" shell we can blame B.C. Rogers now Koch Foods for the invasion of Mississippi....
Respectfully,
Jennive Ramsey
(posted with Ms. Ramsey's permission)
Some Facts About Illegal Immigration
Frank Alvarez of Phoenix, a Hispanic and an activist,
is a supporter of Rep. Russell Pearce's immigration stance.
Saul Loeb For the Tribune
EastValleyTribune.com (Arizona)
Hispanic backs tough Pearce stand
By Sarah N. Lynch, Tribune
December 20, 2006
(click here to read article at EastValleyTribune.com)
The next time you see Rep. Russell Pearce on television, don't be surprised if you catch a glimpse of Frank Alvarez standing nearby. Alvarez's proximity to Pearce, R-Mesa, is no accident.
The Mexican-American wants to be sure that viewers notice his jet black hair and olive complexion.
He wants his presence to make a clear point: There are Hispanics like him who support Pearce and share the Mesa lawmaker's tough stance on immigration.
The 45-year-old cannot vote for Pearce because he resides in Phoenix. But when Pearce came under fire earlier this year after voicing support for the 1950s' “Operation Wetback” deportation program on a local radio station, Alvarez could not sit still.
He picked up the phone, called Pearce's office, and volunteered to help with Pearce's re-election campaign.
“I decided I was going to get out there. I was going to put my face out there and I was going to put it to good use,” Alvarez said. “I knew a lie was being told. ... There are so many of us (Latinos) out there who just remain in the shadows and go to the polls and vote. I thought I will lend my skin tone and my ethnicity toward this issue.”
On Election Day, Alvarez stood outside a polling place in Mesa, passing out literature on Pearce's campaign. Most recently, Alvarez was a co-host for Pearce's first political fundraiser, held in Phoenix last week. He also plans to make an appearance at Pearce's upcoming swearing-in ceremony.
“In general, people assume that if you are Hispanic, you are a Democrat. You vote with the Democratic Party. You are probably in favor of more immigration or in favor of illegal immigration,” Alvarez said. “There is a stereotype that I don't agree with.”
But Alvarez's public support of Pearce doesn't stop there. He wants other Hispanics who share his tough stance on immigration to come forward. To accomplish that, he's helping form two new organizations specifically for American Hispanics.
The first group is a political action committee, Liberty on the March, a statewide fundraising arm with “conservative ideals and issues” that focuses on “the sovereignty of our nation's borders” and other immigration issues. Membership will be open to all legal residents, but its target market is Hispanic Americans.
Alvarez also is one of 10 people helping to launch a Phoenix chapter of You Don't Speak for Me, a coalition formed through the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform. This group, which also focuses on Hispanic Americans, is seeking stronger immigration enforcement. The local chapter held its first meeting last month, but the group plans to officially announce its formation this January.
Alvarez says there are many other Hispanic Americans who share his views on immigration. As proof, he points to the exit poll results from the Nov. 7 election.
In several surveys, pollsters found that many Arizona Hispanics continued a past trend of supporting anti-illegal immigration propositions. Alvarez hopes these groups will help counter the efforts of the pro-immigration movement in Arizona led by organizations such as Somos America.
“I intend to create a fire brigade to go where needed, when needed, to counter the other side,” he said.
Willa Key, who campaigned for Proposition 200 two years ago and organized the recent fundraiser for Pearce, said she thinks Alvarez has great potential to be a leader on the immigration issue. She sees Alvarez's attempt to form new organizations as a step toward opening dialogue.
“If there is a group of people in the community that has things to say and maybe they don't feel comfortable saying it alone, it would be very nice ... to be able to bring them together,” Key said.
Pearce didn't return phone messages seeking comment.
Alvarez has not always been such an active Republican. He was actually raised in a family that leaned Democrat until an uncle eventually persuaded him to become a Republican and vote for Ronald Reagan for president. At home, his family didn't teach him Spanish. He eventually learned it himself.
Alvarez believes in employer sanctions and what he calls a “physical delineation” on the border, but he did not always feel so strongly about immigration. Those feelings surfaced back in 2000 during a conversation with two of his wife's friends who are living in Arizona illegally. Alvarez said the man told him a story about how he had been pulled over for driving under the influence and police found the man did not have a license.
“He made a comment, and he was laughing when he said it,” Alvarez said. “He said, ‘Don't you know no one ever gets ahead playing by the rules?'”
Alvarez's wife, Monica, a native Mexican, said she agrees with her husband's beliefs.
Reflecting on the transition which she shared with her son, Monica Alvarez said the process for becoming a legal resident was tedious and difficult. The issue makes her feel torn because she loves her fellow Mexicans, but she does not agree with those who cross the border illegally.
“When we arrived to this country, we had to learn English,” she said in Spanish. “Why don't other Latinos do the same thing? Why don't they learn English and show ... that we want to be here?”
Illegal immigration is no longer solely a Border States problem. Illegal aliens have rapidly spread across America and are now in all 50 states. The position paper, “The New Latino South”, published July 26, 2005 by the Pew Hispanic Center, focuses on six Southern states – Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. These six states registered very fast rates of Hispanic population growth between the censuses of 1990 and 2000 and continue to outpace the national average in the most recent census estimates. (Click here to read the Pew Hispanic Center report, “The New Latino South: The Context and Consequences of Rapid Population Growth”, July 26, 2005.)
While communities from New England to the Pacific Northwest are seeing notable growth in the Hispanic population, the most dramatic increases have been in the South, reports the Pew Hispanic Center. Most of those migrants are men who lack legal status, reports Pew.
Since the last census, the Hispanic population in Georgia has grown faster than any other state. The need for laborers to accommodate the residential and commercial building boom around Atlanta is a big part of that. The rate of Hispanic births is twice the official Hispanic population there. Anti-immigration activists opposed to multiculturalism have taken to calling the state "Georgiafornia." (Click here to read "Across the Country, Many Mobilize Against Illegal Immigration", Christian Science Monitor, January 23, 2006.)

SOURCE: PEW HISPANIC CENTER TABULATIONS FROM THE 1990 AND 2000 CENSUSES; RICH CLABAUGH - STAFF
Mississippi’s illegal alien population is now estimated to be between 60,000 and 90,000, and growing fast. According to the Clarion Ledger, Mississippi has lost approximately 40,000 jobs between 1993 and 2003. However, illegal aliens are now taking American jobs in many Mississippi industries including poultry processing, restaurants, hotels, roofing, construction, and landscaping, to name a few. As a result of Hurricane Katrina, there has been a huge influx of illegal aliens who are now working on our Gulf Coast in the rebuilding process. The number of illegal aliens has profoundly increased in other cities and towns throughout all of Mississippi. Illegal aliens in Mississippi are taking jobs that should be going to out-of-work Americans and legal residents. Unscrupulous employers who hire illegal aliens blatantly violate federal law with impunity and pay low wages to illegal aliens that Americans cannot live on. It is not true that illegal aliens are taking jobs Americans will not do; illegal aliens are taking jobs that Americans would do if they were paid a decent, living wage. The jobs that illegal aliens are taking from Americans are jobs that Americans always did before the tidal wave of illegal immigration began to overwhelm our country.
Each year, thousands of women enter the United States illegally to give birth, knowing that their child will have automatic U.S. citizenship. Their children immediately qualify for federal, state, and local benefit programs which they should be ineligible for. Many financially struggling American citizens do not qualify for these programs. Furthermore, when the children of illegal aliens turn 21, they can sponsor the immigration of other relatives, thus becoming "Anchor Babies" for an entire clan. Illegal aliens cross our borders to give birth in the United States to take advantage of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which states in Article 1:
“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof [emphasis added], are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
However, the babies born to illegal aliens are not under the jurisdiction of the United States. (Click here to read an analysis of the true meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "Alien Birthright Citizenship: A Fable That Lives Through Ignorance", The Federalist Blog, December 17, 2005.)
Legal immigrants must demonstrate they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction, yet illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases. (Click here to read “Illegal Aliens and American Medicine”, Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D., Esq., Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, Spring 2005.) Some of the diseases now occurring in America that were eradicated years ago or never were present in America include:
· Tuberculosis (including drug-resistant strains);
· Leprosy;
· Dengue Fever;
· Polio;
· Malaria;
· Chagas Disease; and
· Hepatitis A, B, and C are resurging.
As reported in the January 3, 2006 article, "Illegals Threaten Closure of Emergency Rooms: Florida Hospitals Face Crisis of Treating Uninsured Patients", WorldNetDaily (click here to read), hospital emergency rooms in Florida may soon be closing their doors as a result of increased demands by uninsured and under-insured patients – many of them illegal aliens. According to a new study by University of South Florida researchers, much of the demand on hospitals comes from new residents of the state. More than half of all emergency room patients in some Florida hospitals do not have insurance.
Doctors who treat uninsured patients are not compensated for their treatment.
As a result, hospitals in Florida have lost surgeons and stand to lose entire surgical departments. Some hospitals are having a hard time getting physicians to work because they are choosing to work in other areas where they will be fully compensated for the treatment they give.
Leprosy, the contagious skin disease evoking thoughts of biblical and medieval times, is now making its mark in the United States, and many believe the influx of illegal aliens is a main factor.
"Americans should be told that diseases long eradicated in this country – tuberculosis, leprosy, polio, for example – and other extremely contagious diseases have been linked directly to illegals," Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., told the Business Journal of Phoenix. "For example, in 40 years, only 900 persons were afflicted by leprosy in the U.S.; in the past three years, more than 7,000 cases have been presented."
The number of cases of leprosy, now known as Hansen's disease, among immigrants to the U.S. has more than doubled since 2000, according to a news report from Columbia University. The fear is that since the disease remains contagious until treatment is commenced, a surge of diagnosed-but-untreated patients could mean a spread of leprosy into the population of those born in America.
Dr. William Levis, head of the New York Hansen's Disease Clinic, told Columbia News Service. "This is a real phenomenon. It's a public health threat. New York is endemic now, and nobody's noticed."
Levis thinks America could be on the verge of an epidemic. "We just don't know when these epidemics are going to occur," he said. "But we're on the cusp of it here, because we're starting to see endemic cases that we didn't see 25 years ago."
(click here to read "Are Illegals Making U.S. a Leper Colony?", WorldNetDaily, May 22, 2005.)
Some of the most violent criminals at large today are illegal aliens. Yet in cities where the crime these illegal aliens commit is highest, the police cannot use the most obvious tool to apprehend them: their immigration status. In Los Angeles, for example, dozens of members of Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13), a ruthless Salvadoran prison gang, have sneaked back into town after having been deported for such crimes as murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and drug trafficking. Police officers know who they are and know that their mere presence in the country is a felony. Yet should a cop arrest an illegal gang banger for felonious reentry, it is the cop who will be treated as a criminal, for violating the Los Angeles Police Department’s rule against enforcing immigration law.
The proliferation of illegal alien criminal gangs across America is astounding. Even cities in America’s heartland, for example Omaha, Des Moines, Minneapolis, and Kansas City, now have illegal alien gangs. No community -- rural, suburban, or urban -- is immune. In Prince William County, Virginia, just outside our nation’s capital, murder and mayhem is committed by horrifically violent illegal alien gangs. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reported that ‘the majority of MS-13 members are foreign nationals in this country illegally.’ Newsweek has termed MS-13, which has an estimated 20,000 members in the United States, ‘the most dangerous gang in America.’ It has even been alleged to be negotiating with al Qaeda to smuggle terrorists into our country. (Click here to read "The Illegal-Alien Crime Wave", Heather Mac Donald, Winter 2004.)
In Chester County, Pennsylvania, FBI agent Calixto Vazquez told a Common Pleas Court judge during a hearing in a murder trial this year [2005] that there are at least three Hispanic gangs operating in Chester County: Surreys 13, Ocho and the Vikings. With the county's Latino population growing over the past decades, street gang organizers from Philadelphia, Wilmington (Delaware) and Baltimore are finding places to start making their marks in the southern Chester County area. A 42-year old illegal alien Latino gang member from Colombia said that Chester County is the "new market", ripe with money and youth to recruit as new members. He claimed to be part of a growing number of gang members living and working in the Chester County area -- and by "working" he mostly means selling drugs.
In Memphis, Tennessee, graffiti on the side of a building makes the announcement: The Serranos 13 and K.A.L.'s, groups known as Latino gangs, are in Memphis. District Attorney Bill Gibbons says the gangs bring violence. "These gangs have a reputation for being very violent," he said. "We're very concerned about it." (Click here to read "Latino Gangs a Growing Problem in Memphis", WMCTV.com, November 2, 2005.)
Federal officials have warned U.S. Border Patrol agents that they could be the targets of assassins hired by immigrant smugglers, according to a confidential memo.
"Unidentified Mexican alien smugglers are angry about the increased security along the U.S./Mexico border and have agreed that the best way to deal with U.S. Border Patrol agents is to hire a group of contract killers," the Department of Homeland Security said in a Dec. 21 Officer Safety Alert.
The alert states that the smugglers intend to bring members of the Mara Salvatrucha street gang - known as MS-13 - into the country to perform the killings. Federal officials consider MS-13, with an estimated 30,000 members in 33 states, to be one of the most dangerous gangs in the country. It was formed in Los Angeles by immigrants from El Salvador.
The cost of illegal immigration is not just measured in lost American jobs. According to the report, "Breaking the Piggy Bank", by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the cost to Mississippi taxpayers in 2004 for educating illegal alien students in our public schools was $9.9 million. Add to that $13.8 million for the cost of educating their Anchor Babies, and the total cost to Mississippi taxpayers was $23.7 million in 2004. As we approach 2006, the cost is even greater to our state because there are now even more illegal aliens, their illegal alien children, and their Anchor Babies.
According to federal law, all states are obligated to provide medical care to any persons who seek it regardless of immigration status or ability to pay. In most cases illegal aliens use the emergency room when there is not a genuine emergency, such as when their children get the sniffles. The likelihood is high that illegal aliens will not pay their medical bills, and they take advantage of that. As a result, Mississippi taxpayers get stuck with the costs. In Los Angeles County within the last 10 years, 84 hospital emergency rooms went bankrupt and were forced to close down because they were required to treat illegal aliens who did not pay their medical bills. The closure of even one hospital emergency room puts Americans at greatly increased risk when they suffer a real emergency because precious time is lost when the patients must be transported greater distances for medical treatment. This has resulted in death.
In 1996, Congress passed a federal statute specifically prohibiting state governments from giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens (Title 8 U.S.C., Chapter 14, Section 1623). Congress declared that no state may give in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens without extending the same benefits to U.S. citizens who live out of state:
Section 1623. Limitation on eligibility for preferential treatment of aliens not lawfully present on basis of residence for higher education benefits (a) In general Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident. (b) Effective date This section shall apply to benefits provided on or after July 1, 1998.
Currently California, Texas, New York, Utah, Washington, Oklahoma, Illinois, and Kansas give in-state tuition to illegal aliens. The only requirement is that illegal aliens reside in the state for three years and graduate from a state high school. Clearly any state that provides in-state tuition to illegal aliens is in violation of federal law if it does not provide the same benefit to American citizens and legal residents of other states.
Giving in-state tuition to illegal aliens is unfair to U.S. citizens and a slap in the face to law-abiding American students. For example, consider a student from Missouri who attends Kansas University (which is only 35 miles from the state line). That Missouri student has always played by the rules and obeyed the law. Perhaps his father even fought in the Vietnam War. Yet Kansas University will now charge him $7,800 a year more than it charges an illegal alien whose very presence in the United States is a violation of federal criminal law.
It is also unfair to the in-state families who will have to pick up the tab. Their hard-earned tax dollars will now be used to pay for the illegal aliens' subsidized tuition. And as the cost of higher education continues to skyrocket, the size of that tab will only get larger (click here to read "Breaking the Law, Breaking the Budget", Kris W. Kobach, June 22, 2004).
By Brian Feagans
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/16/06
High-achieving students who grew up in Georgia but are in the country illegally soon won't qualify for in-state tuition on state campuses.
Burns Newsome, an associate vice chancellor who acts as the Board of Regents' attorney, has advised the presidents of Georgia's public universities to stop granting so-called tuition "waivers" to students who may have high grades but lack legal resident status. That means such students will have to pay the much higher out-of-state tuition rate.
The change is necessary, Newsome says, to comply with SB 529, considered one of the nation's most aggressive attempts to confront illegal immigration at the state level. Signed into law by Gov. Sonny Perdue in April, the measure orders state agencies and institutions to make sure they are in compliance with all federal immigration laws by July.
Newsome initially gave the advice in a May 25 position paper distributed to university presidents. But word has filtered down to recruiters, scholarship funds and immigrant advocates only lately.
Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock), the architect of SB 529, said he's pleased with the university system's interpretation of the law. It makes no sense to subsidize the education of students who will not be able to work legally upon graduation, Rogers said.
He also pointed to lawsuits against states such as California and New York for offering in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. "Georgia doesn't need to be put through that," he said.
State Sen. Sam Zamarripa (D-Atlanta), who fought SB 529, said the change sends a devastating message to some of the best and brightest in communities already suffering from soaring high school dropout rates. Many of the students have lived in Georgia nearly their entire lives but know their families can't pay out-of-state tuition rates, he said.
"It's unconscionable to punish children for the sins of their parents," Zamarripa said. "This initiative is essentially going after kids that are more Georgian than anybody who has moved here in the past five years. They like boiled peanuts. They like southern rock. They like the Braves."
It's unclear how many students will be directly affected. The university system doesn't track the number of illegal immigrants attending state universities. And records at individual institutions are often spotty.
Georgia State University currently grants waivers to roughly 10 students who don't have legal U.S. residency, said DeAnna Hines, a spokeswoman for the university in downtown Atlanta. But that will end in July to comply with the legal advice from the regents, she said. Out-of-state tuition is $7,785 per semester, or about four times the in-state rate of $1,946.
Some of the state's smaller schools will feel the effects, too. Dalton State College, Gainesville College and Southern Polytechnic State University have acknowledged granting in-state tuition to undocumented students in the past.
The University of Georgia, however, has never given such waivers, spokesman Tom Jackson said. Illegal immigrants, who numbered 14 last spring, are charged at the out-of-state rate, he said.
Newsome, the regents' attorney, said SB 529 prompted the regents to review its waiver policy, which allows universities to grant in-state tuition to about 2 percent of the student body. Waivers can go to international students, military personnel and other special cases. Newsome concluded that people in the country illegally should no longer qualify. "There is so much immigration law that is not enforced by the federal government," Newsome said. "One thing [SB 529] did was ... tell state agencies to enforce federal law."
Newsome said there's a growing consensus that in-state tuition constitutes the kind of "assistance" banned for illegal immigrants under federal law. But some states, such as California and New York, maintain the lower tuition rates are legal. "This question has never gone to a federal court," Newsome said. "... It's left to people like me to read the tea leaves."
Ten states offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants, according to the National Council of La Raza. Several of them have faced lawsuits from U.S. citizens who are paying out-of-state tuition rates, however.
Jagdish Patel, a member of the PTSA board at Meadowcreek High near Norcross, said he supports the university system's new stance. Those who followed legal channels to enter the United States shouldn't see their tax dollars subsidizing the higher education of those who did not, said Patel, a naturalized U.S. citizen from India. "Those who are the children of legal parents must get first chance — no matter what."
Imelda Hernández, executive director of the Roswell-based Celia & Marcos Scholarship Fund, said it's communities such as Norcross that will lose if standout students lose hope. "We're trying to prevent students from dropping out of high school," Hernández said, "and now this."
Hernández said she was shocked to hear of Georgia's policy change during a recent meeting at Valdosta State University. Several college recruiters were talking about how to increase Hispanic enrollment in Georgia universities when one stood up and waved the regents' position paper in the air.
Hernández said many of the fund's 15 scholarships go to students relying on tuition waivers. She fears some will have to drop out of college in July.
Hernández and other immigrant advocates are hoping for federal help. Backers of the Development, Relief and E