The open-borders folks never tire of trying to tar immigration skeptics with the racist label by inquiring whom they had lunch with or who copied their material off the web. So, merely as an educational exercise for the other side, allow me to demonstrate where such smear tactics can lead. Read more...

DHS reported recently that 694,193 foreigners became Americans last year — up a little from 2010 but down a little from 2009. The naturalization statistics prompted me to take a look at the civics test that prospective citizens have to take. The test was revised a few years back, and applicants have to get six out of 10 questions correct to pass. The 10 questions are selected from a master list of 100 questions, all online. Here’s one of the questions, followed by the answer: Read more...

When I wrote about Lamar Smith’s E-Verify bill last summer, I thought the difficult part would be getting through the Senate. Shows you what I know. Instead, it’s Speaker Boehner who’s determined not to allow any immigration measure to come to a floor vote. Read more...

The Washington Post's editorial writers ought to read their own newspaper. Monday's lead editorial bemoaned the fact that having illegal aliens go to the "back of the line" is deceptive since there is no "line" for them: Read more...

Ron Paul's immigration speech to a Hispanic group in Las Vegas Thursday was a remarkable blend of incoherence and pandering, spiced with a little America hatred. Read more...

Gingrich's interview yesterday with Jorge Ramos of Univision (video and transcript) had a telling moment that I think gets at the basic policy disagreement about illegal immigration. Ramos asks what Gingrich would do with the vast majority of illegal aliens who wouldn’t qualify under his phony-baloney draft board scheme: Read more...

There's a kingdom where outsiders are welcomed warmly and with open arms, but only if they present the proper credentials. Upon presenting themselves for admission, they are thoroughly inspected to check the validity of their travel documents and ensure that they have no contraband. Once in this kingdom, the outside visitors must follow strict rules of decorum and pay for their own support. When the visitors' time is up, their departure is carefully monitored and the kingdom checked to ensure that no one has improperly stayed behind. Read more...

Rick Santorum had never been especially distinctive on immigration. He was pretty good on enforcement issues, but his constant invocation of his immigrant father and grandfather suggested to me that he might be one of those people who needs to compensate for the grievous sin of supporting immigration enforcement by calling for increased legal immigration.

I was wrong. Read more...

A few days ago, Ed Crane, president of the Cato Institute, wrote a piece on Ron Paul in the Wall Street Journal containing the following graf: Read more...

I don't know how much national attention it got, but earlier this year there were a spate of attacks in Northern Virginia (where I live) where a man would slash a young woman's buttocks in a department store or mall and then run off. The injuries were superficial but the randomness (not to mention weirdness) of it caused a lot of concern, kind of like a farcical replay of the Beltway Sniper shootings in 2002. Read more...

The new-ish editor of the Atlanta Journal Constitution has spent the past year telling anyone who would hear that "Our goal is broader discourse" so that in the opinion pages "no single voice dominates the conversation."

Today the paper ran two pieces on Newt Gingrich's amnesty proposal and … well, you can guess what I'm going to say, but I'll go ahead anyway. The two pieces not only fail to broaden the discourse but they say the same thing and are written by members of the same pro-amnesty lobbying group. Read more...

On Face the Nation yesterday, Gingrich made clear that he wants to amnesty all illegal aliens, not just church-going grandmothers who wash the feet of the poor and knit socks for our troops in Afghanistan to help them kill the enemies of America. Read more...

Mickey Kaus points to a WaPo story from the weekend on how the drop in arrests at the Mexican border is yet another reason to pass on amnesty:

It's always a good time for comprehensive immigration reform, if you listen to its supporters. If it rains it's time for comprehensive immigration reform. If the sun comes out it's time for comprehensive immigration reform.

He demurs: Read more...

When Gingrich lobbed the amnesty bomb in last week's debate, he offered very specific criteria for selecting which illegal aliens he would legalize:

... you've been here 25 years and you got three kids and two grandkids, you've been paying taxes and obeying the law, you belong to a local church ...

Missed the debate because of wrestling practice, but it's hardly surprising that Newt would support amnesty for illegal aliens. After the Pelosi global-warming ad and Dede Scozzafava and "right-wing social engineering," is it any surprise he'd adopt the left's line on immigration too? He earned a career grade of D from Numbers USA (they calculate back to 1989). Heck, even Barbara Boxer has a career grade of D+. Read more...

The pro-amnesty folks are crowing at the defeat of Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, a leading immigration hawk. Soros-funded America's Voice says "The tide is beginning to turn," while the immigration coalition set up by the Alinskyite Center for Community Change writes that "anti-immigrant legislators will now have to think twice before pursuing anti-immigrant policies in our states." Read more...

From The Monitor newspaper in South Texas:

An internal Gulf Cartel struggle may have directly caused at least two recent kidnappings in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as an apparent exodus of lieutenants who are looking for safety on U.S. soil.

What is it about the immigration issue that brings out the worst in pundits? Washington Post pundit Michael Gerson proves today that he's given immigration policy no more thought since his last sanctimonious and sneering column on the topic. Read more...

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith points out in Politico today that the White House boasts on deportations are not what they seem: "Unfortunately for U.S. workers, the Obama administration’s immigration enforcement record is just a magic trick." More on the deportation legerdemain here and here.

U.S. News (yes, it's still around, in some form anyway) has an online commentary thing called Debate Club and the most recent question was "Should the United States Build a Fence on Its Southern Border?" There were five responses (including mine), and disregarding the lame "No" response from a representative of a sketchy group with "tea party" in its name (who's also lobbied against E-Verify), the four germane responses were split, two Yes and two No. Read more...

We're still looking for the video, but last night's Republican presidential debate included reference to the Center's analysis of job growth in Texas, which found that about 40 percent of job growth there from 2007 to 2010 went to illegal aliens, with another 40 percent going to legal immigrants. Here's the exchange between Romney and Perry from CNN's transcript: Read more...

The administration released the preliminary FY 2011 statistics for "removals" (the largest part of which is deportations), described as "the largest number in the agency's history." But when you look at history, the "largest number" is only about 1,700 more than two years ago; in fact, once the final numbers came out last year, the total had actually dropped slightly from the previous year, even though the agency had also touted those preliminary numbers as the "largest ever" and had Read more...

In last night's debate, Romney was right when he said:

I think it's important for us as Republicans on this stage to say something that hasn't been said, and that's that every person here loves legal immigration. We respect people who come here legally.

Both true and necessary to say amidst the back and forth about illegal immigration. Americans are uniquely accepting of newcomers whom we've admitted to join our city on a hill; as Teddy Roosevelt put it: Read more...

Over at National Review Online, California politician Chuck DeVore has attempted to debunk the recent CIS report on the immigrant share of job growth in Texas. CIS's Steven Camarota debunks DeVore's attempted debunking here.

The Jobs Americans Won't Do phenomenon has reached a level of true absurdity: will Americans really not work as gym teachers? Along these lines, my CIS colleague David North delved into rulings he stumbled across from tax court to get a detailed look at the grim world of a group of Filipino indentured teachers brought in under the guise of a "cultural exchange" program. The sliminess of this whole practice of foreign contract labor never ceases to amaze me. Read more...

La Raza announced last week that it was lifting its boycott of Arizona, imposed last year in response to the passage of SB 1070, the state's controversial immigration law. I missed the announcement because, you know, what boycott? They put a brave face on the whole thing, saying they'd succeeded in scaring off other states from passing similar measures (except Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, and Utah, of course!). Read more...

California wants to ensure that illegal aliens keep getting hired:

State poised to restrict use of immigration database

California is poised to nullify immigration enforcement ordinances in about a half dozen Inland Empire cities – and to continue to buck a national trend – by restricting the use of E-Verify, the national online database used to check the immigration status of workers.

The cover story in Sunday's Washington Post magazine was a profile of a McDonald's store just south of the House office buildings in Washington, one of the busiest in the whole metro area, focusing on the manager, Raul Reyes, and his rise from a teenager selling coconuts on buses in Guatemala to running a busy and successful fast-food restaurant. Read more...

A front-page piece in today's Washington Post reports:

Polls may not suggest it, and the candidates may not be catering to it, but immigration is an issue that voters won't let the GOP White House hopefuls escape.

Republican primary voters keep bringing immigration up as the candidates campaign in back yards, opera houses and recreation halls across Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. To a sizable chunk of those who will pick the GOP's presidential nominee, immigration is an urgent issue, even a litmus test.

The Boston Herald is reporting that the president's other illegal-alien relative, Uncle Omar Onyango Obama, arrested last week for drunk driving, has had a valid Social Security number for at least 19 years. Read more...