ABC News: “Midwest Town May Mandate Immigration Check For Renters Far from Any US Border, Fremont, Nebraska, Could Set National Precedent on Immigration”
Hi Gang:
Once again a local community has decided to act to address illegal immigration as a result of the failures of the federal government to secure our nation’s borders and create an immigration system that has real integrity
ABC News is reporting on how a small town, Fremont, Nebraska, with a population of just 25,000 has left it up to the voters to decide on whether or not to pass a law that will require that landlords screen those who rent apartments to make certain that they do not rent apartments to illegal aliens. I guess you could say that the local leaders of Fremont are attempting to do the work the federal government won’t do!
This sort of law parallels what has been done in other towns such as Farmers Branch, Texas and Hazelton, Pennsylvania. (As you may know I was the final witness at the Hazelton trial that resulted when the ACLU filed a lawsuit to block the Hazelton law from taking effect. While the judge in that case ruled against the law, appeals have been filed. Additionally, I participated in a public debate at the town of Farmers Branch just before the vote was cast by the residents of that small town.)
It would seem that like cascading dominoes, states such as Arizona and small towns across our nation are seeking to discourage illegal immigration.
It is interesting that the reporter who wrote the story I attached below made the point that Fremont, Nebraska is not located near a border. I have always made the point that when you consider that an estimated 40% of the illegal aliens who are present in our country entered our country via the inspections process and then either overstayed their authorized period of admission or otherwise violated the terms of their admission into the United States. This is why I have made the point that any state that has a seaport or an international airport should also be considered a “border state.”
Additionally, when illegal aliens do run our nation’s borders they do not set up tents on the U.S. side of the border but actually head for the rest of our country. Immigration is not an issue that is limited to the border states but is an issue that impacts every state and nearly every community from coast to coast and border to border.
When citizens of our nation or the politicians who actually listen to the concerns of their constituents, seek to take actions that discourage illegal immigration- they are often vilified as being “anti-immigrant,” “xenophobic,” “racist” or worse. This is as absurd as saying that anyone who locks his doors at night is “anti-social!”
The difference between an immigrant and an illegal alien is the same as the difference between a houseguest and a burglar! I love having folks come to visit but not if they climb through my bedroom window in the dead of night!
As more and more such local and state laws are enacted I suspect that we will find that the federal government will bring ever more lawsuits against those towns, cities and states.
What really disturbs me is the possibility that the federal government might attempt to circumvent the whole effort mounted by state and local political leaders and give virtually every illegal alien lawful status in the United States even though there would be no way of even knowing the true identities of these millions of illegal aliens. The open borders advocates have decided to refer to illegal aliens as being undocumented.
Take a moment and consider what the term “undocumented” really means- it means that there is no way of knowing who these foreign nationals really are.
Our officials would have absolutely no reliable way of knowing the true names or nationalities of these millions of illegal aliens. No way of knowing if they have criminal histories in other countries. No way of knowing when, where or how they entered the United States and no way of knowing if they are affiliated with criminal or terrorist organizations. Terrorists who have been involved in terrorist attacks and other terror related activities in our country have been able to make use of their ability to acquire official identity documents and lawful status in our country even though they lied about their true identities and backgrounds.
I wonder if our federal “leaders” will ever wake up and understand precisely what their respective oaths of office require of them to secure our nation’s borders against the entry of those aliens whose presence in our country is harmful to our nation and/or our citizens.
Let us remember that the whole point to having aliens seeking to enter our country is comparable to the responsible home owner or apartment dweller who looks through his (her) peephole before deciding on whether or not to admit a stranger into his home. This is why the front door on virtually every house or apartment come equipped with a door bell and a peep hole. Going back before the discovery of electricity and ways of harnessing it, front doors were often adorned with door knockers for the very same purpose.
You could say that when I worked for the INS as an Immigration Inspector, I had my eye to the peephole on America’s front door.
Any politician who believes that it is unfair or unreasonable to enforce the immigration laws to make certain that foreign national (aliens) who are present in our country are here in accordance with our nation’s immigration laws are either irresponsible, foolish or worse!
When an alien runs our nation’s borders, in violation of the immigration laws designed to protect our nation and our citizens, that alien does not become less illegal by getting further away from the border!
A burglar who breaks into a home is no less illegally present if he is caught in an upstairs bedroom than if he is caught in close proximity to the window through which he crawled in order to gain illegal entry into the house he broke into!
Our nation’s security is being threatened by terrorists, transnational criminals and gangs as well as by major narcotics trafficking organizations operating in Mexico and other countries. How can our government protect our nation and our citizens from these serious threats without securing our nation’s borders and creating an immigration system that has real integrity?
Please forgive the pun- I know that the issue here is the enforcement of the immigration laws- but could the federal government possibly do more to alienate it own citizens?
How many criminals and terrorists are now entering our nation each and every day? We have American soldiers dying and getting grievously wounded every week in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a war on and our nation’s alleged “leaders” are moving glacially to protect our nation’s borders and, indeed, our nation itself!
Illegal aliens who succeed in running our nation’s borders have little to fear once they get beyond the borders- there are but a handful of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) special agents seeking to locate those illegal aliens and even when located, many will simply be processed and released!
A recent news article indicated that there are only 272 special agents of ICE seeking to locate and apprehend illegal aliens who did not run our nation’s borders but were admitted via the inspections process and then, in one way or another, violated the terms of their admission. Purportedly there are more than 4.5 million such illegal aliens apparently being sought by all of 272 agents! You might truly say that the odds are not good for our country!
Could you imagine if the administration, especially DHS and the United States Congress was put in charge of the fire department in your community? The smallest fires would be allowed to burn out of control while decisions were made about which fire fighter would drive and which one would sit in each seat of the fire engines!
As building after building caught fire the “leaders” would assess the situation and decide that the fire was too big to cope with and evacuate the entire city!
This is exactly how failures to address illegal immigration and failures to secure the immigration benefits program from rampant fraud are now ravaging our nation!
November 2nd cannot come fast enough!
We the People, throughout this nation, must do the same sort of thing with all of our elected “representatives.” We must seek opportunities to make it clear to them that we understand their game plan and won’t tolerate it!.
I believe our nation’s is greatly benefited by the rich diversity of our people which is why I could never imagine living anywhere except New York City, arguably the most diverse city in our nation if not, in fact, the world. However, my idea of diversity most certainly does not include members of MS-13, the Mexican drug cartels and members of al-Qaeda!
If reading this makes it difficult for you to sleep now- perhaps you could do something worthwhile- perhaps you might spend a couple of your sleepless hours writing letters to your elected representatives this evening and remind them that Election Day is just months away!
We the People can add to the consternation of these politicians who are failing to live up to their oaths of office by contacting them and making it abundantly clear that election day is coming and they should think of election day as their personal “Day of Reckoning!”
Our government must live up to its obligation of protecting its own citizens and, indeed, all who are present in our country from the criminals and terrorists who would threaten our lives and the survival of our nation and our way of life. In the end, the government is actually those who are elected to act as our “leaders.” Those who fail to truly lead and look out for those they are supposed to represent, need to be sent packing this coming Election Day!
If our country is to survive and if our children and their children are to get their share of the “American Dream” the citizens of this nation must take their citizenship seriously!
We the People must be the best citizens we can be, citizens who are worthy of the gallantry demonstrated by our valiant men and women in the military, law enforcement and firefighters, who routinely go in harm’s way in defense of this nation and our citizens.
My goal in writing this and other commentaries is to point out our nations many failings before more victims pay the ultimate price for the incompetence and ineptitude of our government.
The first step in problem-solving is to first identify the problems and vulnerabilities and then devise strategies to overcome them.
Any politician who refuses to work to secure our borders and create an immigration system that has integrity is either corrupt or too dumb to keep his (her) job. Any politician, irrespective of party affiliation who favors Comprehensive Immigration Reform and the outrageous betrayal that this would represent given the national security implications that this program would have, should be shown the door at the next election!
If you find yourself to be in agreement with this commentary, I ask that you forward it to as many of your friends and family members as possible and encourage them to do the same. We need to create a “Bucket Brigade of Truth!”
Later this year, each and every member of the House of Representatives is up for reelection. Later this year more than one third of the members of the United States Senate will have to face their constituents. They need to be reminded that they work for us, We the People!
However, the practice of good citizenship does not end in the voting booth, it only begins there.
The large scale apathy demonstrated by citizens of this nation has emboldened elected representatives to all but ignore the needs of the average American citizen in a quest for massive campaign funds and the promises of votes to be ostensibly delivered by special interest groups. There is much that we cannot do but there is one thing that We the People absolutely must do- we must stop sitting on the sidelines!
The collective failure of We the People to get involved in make our concerns known to our politicians have nearly made the concerns of the great majority of the citizens of this nation all but irrelevant to the politicians.I implore you to get involved!
If this situation concerns you or especially if it angers you, I ask you to call your Senators and Congressional “Representative. This is not only your right- it is your obligation!
All I ask is that you make it clear to our politicians that we are not as dumb as they hope we are!
We live in a perilous world and in a perilous era. The survival of our nation and the lives of our citizens hang in the balance.
This is neither a Conservative issue, nor is it a Liberal issue- simply stated, this is most certainly an AMERICAN issue!
You are either part of the solution or you are a part of the problem!
Democracy is not a spectator sport!
Lead, follow or get out of the way!
-michael cutler-
June 21st, 2010 at 11:26 pm
The Tea Bag Party are just “haters not debaters” or as others have dubbed them “screamers not dreamers”, with their failed attempts at stopping Healthcare reform, they say they respect the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence but they do not mind passing laws, through weak Governors (no one voted for this crazy) who only cares about getting elected Governor, on the backs of undocumented workers, that will not pass Constitution muster.
Brewer signed into law;
1. S.B. 1070,
2. No permit conceal weapons law,
3. The famous Birthers law,
4. Banning Ethnic studies law,
5. Could she be behind the Mural in Prescott, Arizona, ordered to be whiten,
6. On deck to pass, no citizenship to babies born to undocumented workers,
7. If she can read she should look up Arizona’s House Bill 2779 from two years ago (which was un-constitution and failed when legally challenged),
8. The boycotted Martin Luther King Day, what idiots don’t want another holiday? Yes, you guessed it Arizona.
Well Arizona, you can boycott new holidays and keep passing crazy laws and the rest of us will continue to challenged them in a court of law and continue to add cities to our Boycott of your state.
I real cannot believe anything that comes out of Brewer’s mouth, in an interview she first said her father had died in Germany fighting the Nazi in World War II (war ended 1945) but of course we find out the truth that father was never in Germany and died in California in 1955. But we are suppose to believe everything else she says, right! No one voted for you for Governor, yet you keep listening to the tiny brains of the crazies and signing into law everything that comes into their feeble minds, it only make you look dumb, stupid or racist, or maybe all three.
As for the Tea Bag Party, their phony patriotism is sickening; they are just racists going by another name. We all know you are just itching to put a sheet on their head? Let’s face it the Republicans had eight years to deal with health care, immigration, energy (remember Cheney’s secret meetings with oil companies where loosening regulation and oversight were sealed), climate change and financial oversight and governance and they failed. It appears that the Republican Party is only good at starting wars (two in eight years, with fat contracts to friends of Cheney/Bush) but not at winning wars as seen by the continuing line of body bags that keep coming home. The Republicans party will continue turned inward to their old fashion obstructionist party (and their Confederacy appreciation roots) because they continue to allow a small portions (but very loud portion) of their party of “birthers, baggers and blowhards” to rule their party. I will admit that this fringe is very good at playing “Follow the Leader” by listening to their dullard leaders, Beck, Hedgecock, Hannity, O’Reilly, Rush, Savage, Sarah Bailin, Orly Taitz, Victoria Jackson, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the Blowhards and acting as ill programmed robots (they have already acted against doctors that perform abortions).
The Birthers and the Tea Bag party crowd think they can scare, intimidate and force others to go along with them by comments like “This time we came unarmed”, let me tell you something not all ex-military join the fringe militia crazies who don’t pay taxes and run around with face paint in the parks playing commando, the majority are mature and understand that the world is more complicated and grey than the black and white that these simpleton make it out to be and that my friend is the point. The world is complicated and people like Hamilton, Lincoln, and Roosevelt believed that we should use government a little to increase social mobility, now it’s about dancing around the claim of government is the problem. The sainted Reagan passed the biggest tax increase in American history and as a result federal employment increased, but facts are lost when mired in mysticism and superstition. For a party that gave us Abraham Lincoln, it is tragic that the ranks are filled with too many empty suits and the crazy Birthers who have not learned that the way our courts work is that you get a competent lawyer, verifiable facts and present them to a judge, if the facts are real and not half baked internet lies, then, and only then, do you proceed to trial. The Birthers seem to be having a problem with their so called “Internet facts”. Let’s face it no one will take the Birthers seriously until they win a case, but until then, you will continue to appear dumb, crazy or racist, or maybe all three. I heard that Orly Taitz now wants to investigate the “Republican 2009 Summer of Love” list: Assemblyman, Michael D. Duvall (CA), Senator John Ensign (NV), Senator Paul Stanley (TN), Governor Mark Stanford (SC), Board of Ed Chair, and Kristin Maguire AKA Bridget Keeney (SC), she wants to re-establish a family values party, that is like saying that the Catholic Church cares about the welling being of children in their care, too late for that. Yee Haw!