The following excerpts are from letters written by border patrol guard Jonathon Yankee, from the game Homeland Defense: National Security Patrol. The game is available for $20 from Best Buy. Do not buy it.

Every member of NSP has to place his giant hand against the computer screen and say the sacred oath: "I solemnly swear to uphold the sanctity of our borders and to modulate the volume of my voice depending on the current threat level."

Day 1:

Well Mom, I made it. I have successfully completed all the training necessary to be a Border Patrol Guard for the National Security Patrol! As a member of the NSP, we’ve got all sorts of duties, but basically we’re the first line of defense against all of the illegal immigrants trying to steal our free air by breathing it.

Not much to say for today. We’re basically just waiting to find out what our orders are going to be. Until we know where we’re stationed, we’ve been practicing standing still and not noticing things happening directly in front of us. It’s tough. Any way, it’s been a long day. I better say good night.

Day 2:

We got our orders!

I’ve heard the fraternity of smugglers is a pretty bad bunch, so I’m going to make sure I check each car from Mexico super carefully, and that I pretend to check every car from the U.S.A. as well as I can, given the fact that, well, you know. I mean, it’s wrong to say it, but…you know.

Love you, Mom! Tell Dad not to touch my guns while I’m away! As soon as I get a gun rack set up in my new apartment, I’ll have you mail those down, unless the fascists in the U.S. Mail Department won’t let you mail guns nowadays.

Anyway, time to Accept My Mission and keep the borders safe!

Day 3:

First day on the job. Here’s a photo:

I'm the one on the right, staring at the ground. What the heck was I looking at? Not sure, but I remember looking at it for quite a while. Any way, Mexico is to the right and America is to the left. How come Mexicans don't drive nicer cars?

I’ve got to level with you, Mom. The first day didn’t go so well. First off, my co-workers are a little weird. Take Stan, for instance. He works at the patrol booth opposite me. So he checks all the cars coming from Mexico to the U.S. That’s what we in the Border Patrol biz call “the awesome job,” because it’s awesome. So we’re standing at our booths, waiting. A car shows up at Stan’s checkpoint. He just waits. “Hey Stan, you going to let that guy through, or not?” He looked at me blankly for a while, and then started running away from his booth, around the road to my side, and then just stops. This Mexican guy is still waiting in his car to go through the checkpoint, but now Stan is over on my side of the road. I tell him to get back to his post, which he does, but real slow. And I mean REAL slow, and walking funny, like he had dropped a dump in his pants or something. But here’s the thing: by this point, there was a car waiting in my lane to get checked through (just a routine procedure, Americans aren’t terrorists, of course, only terrorists are terrorists). So Stan, rather than walk around the car, walks right through the hood of the car!

Now there’s a bunch of cars waiting in my lane, so I realize I’ve got to put them through. I walk up to the patrol booth and try to open the gate, but I can’t. I mean, there’s just no button or anything to click to open the gate. So I walk around for a little while, as the cars pile up. We start getting these messages that cars are waiting too long at the border, and we’re getting fined for it, so Stan and I are both really struggling hard to get our gates open. I try everything I can think of: walking up to it, walking next to it, touching it, but nothing helps.

I decide to ignore the cars and check out this guy who was standing near the booth. As soon as I do, however, this lady walks right through him! I think she might have been a ghost.

Even though there's another person standing inside of this guy, his papers are in order, so I may as well let him into Mexico.

After I let that guy go, this weird ghost lady was still standing there. Her papers were in order, but seeing as she was a ghost, and a pretty attractive one at that, I decided to pat her down.

Legally, we should probably have some female staff on hand for these sort of body searches. But if the criminals don't follow laws, why should we?

The cars were still backed up, but since neither of us knew how to open the gates, Stan and I just called it a day.

Day 4:

It’s great to hear that little Lou Dobbs had puppies! If you haven’t named them yet, then we should name them: “Freedom,” “Democracy,” “Eagle,” “Ashcroft,” and “Threat Level Indicator Orange.” Name the runt “Civil Liberties,” although I’m guessing that Lou Dobbs will eat her, so tell Peggy Sue not to get too attached to that one.

Hey, I haven’t shown you guys where we live yet! Here’s a picture of our facilities.

This is where we eat, sleep, and train our drug-sniffing dogs. See how we still use 3.5" floppy disks in the lower left corner? The only thing worse than that is the DOS prompt in the lower right corner. Outdated technology slows us down a bit, but we still keep the borders reasonably secure.

For some reason, our facilities are really far away from the actual border, so when we arrest people it takes a long time to walk them to the holding pen, especially since we walk pretty slowly, and sometimes in random directions.

Today was better. I read in the manual that you can set the gates to automatically open, so that’s what we did. We ended up letting everyone go through, but at least we didn’t get any fines for letting cars sit for too long. We got some messages that the police had arrested some smugglers that had crossed the border at our checkpoint. I think they were trying to make us feel bad about it, but if the police arrested them, then that’s good, right? No harm, no foul?

Day 5:

Time to hire some new recruits. The boss is letting me look over the résumés of two of the candidates. First up we’ve got Neil Blake.

Here’s what I like about him: he’s got good dexterity, which will come in handy when he has to type up reports or do sleight-of-hand tricks. He also left “a booming career in novelty garden ornament sales,” so he’s used to dealing with weirdos. He’s from Arizona, so he’s comfortable with the locale.

What I don’t like: He’s only got an awareness of 20, which is pretty low. Stan has an awareness of 72, and he didn’t even notice that carload full of bandolier-covered illegals who rolled by the other day. (I asked them if they had any paperwork, and they replied “Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!” I pointed out that I hadn’t mentioned badges, only paperwork, but they were already speeding off towards Washington D.C., pistols firing into the air. When I asked Stan about it, he said “huh?” and walked directly through a tree.)

I also don’t like that Neil only answered the call of patriotism AFTER his wife left him. Why not before, Neil? The life of a NSP agent is fraught with danger, but if Patriotism calls, you better answer the phone as lickety-damn-split as you can. Also, during the interview he cried a lot.

Here’s the other candidate, Jacob Clark:

What I like: he recognized that being an ER medic is a waste-of-time, dead-end job that will never help anybody, and that the border patrol is where all the real action and glory are. He’s also smart and honest, which will come in handy in some way or another that isn’t entirely clear to me. (Maybe he can figure out how to open the gate manually.)

What I don’t like: Low stamina. Most of this job is about walking slowly for no particular reason, and then breaking out into a brisk jog when it’s unnecessary. If he can’t do that, or if he can’t make the inexplicably long walk from the border to our barracks without stopping to take a rest…well, that could be trouble.

In the end, I hired both of them. They’re both standing outside HQ, because I don’t know how to have them get guns from the armory. They tried all the usual things (walking up to it, walking near it, and touching it), but none of them worked.

Day 6:

I finally feel like a real Border Patrol Guard, Mom. I am one of the people that make NSP amazing.

Today, in fact, I responded quickly to our worst emergency yet:

Hippies. Damn, dirty hippies. We should probably elevate the threat level from "Low" to "Cherry Garcia."

Luckily, we all knew exactly what to do.

It's times like these that I remember why I love this job.

So that’s it for today, Mom. Maybe tomorrow we’ll figure out how to use the guns and tazers. Until then, love you!

-Curtis Retherford

I’m really mad and disgusted.  A comment from Israel has set me off.  I stated in a post sometime back that what is going on in near and middle east countries is in Europeans backyard and should be addressed by them ‘before’ American intervention.

Let me put this a clearly as I can. I really don’t care if your security, your cities, your way of life is threatened! United States, UK, Canada, Australia and others have fought two world wars in your defense. To date most have not even taken time or expended any effort to say a simple thank you. In fact most of you ass holes can only find fault with America, Americans, our concerns and policies. To you I say kiss the dark side of my moon!

You refuse to support American recommendations or plans at the UN, NATO, WTO, WHO, climate summit or anything else for the past 70 years! You only whine that America has not ‘given’ enough money. You can only find fault and place blame on America. Yet you whine when America does not protect your countries interest in foreign lands or prevent you nut cases from degrading into civil war or dictator governments! For Gods sake, grow up, act like men, stop whining and cowering in cellars! If you can’t feed yourself, go hungry, can’t cloth yourself, suffer in the cold! You should not except Americas help if you have not ‘First’ helped yourself.

So, I say bring our soldiers home, everyone of them, bring our equipment and technology home to American soil. Secure our bordes from foreign invaders. Iran and Iraq problem countries so what ‘You’ take care of it. Israel and Palestinians a problem, you handle it! China complains to WTO wanting free access to US and world markets while putting up road blocks to our exports entering China. I say, ban Chinese products, all of them. China floods US markets with inferior products many containing dangerous or even deadly chemicals. They produce exports using cheap and sometimes slave labor and children to produce them. To hell with them, ban all their junk from US markets.

Is the USA to become an isolationist country? Damn I hope so. South America, Mexico, Europe, Near east, Middle east and Far eastern countries your on your on, don’t call America to solve ‘Your’ problems or to protect ‘You’ from your aggressive neighbors or dictator government! Handle it, deal with it. It is Your problem not Americas! Those that want to cut our oil supplies, good, so be it. You can eat your oil and live without Americas money, food, planting seed and medical supplies.

To Our Friend In the UK, Canada, Australia have a very Merry Christmas and A safe prosperous 2010.

The AP is reporting that...Rapper Lil Wayne and 11 people traveling with him were briefly detained Friday night after U.S. Border Patrol officers found marijuana on two of his tour buses, authorities said.

Lil Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Carter, and the others were questioned and released, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the case was referred to the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office.

The rap star had been scheduled to play a gig in Laredo in Texas, but minutes before it was due to start, it was announced it would be postponed.

Wayne recently pleaded guilty to gun charges and is due to begin a year sentence on February 9,2010.

Oh well, we still got your back man…this could have happened to anybody.

Follow the full story on TMZ.com- http://www.tmz.com/2009/12/18/lil-wayne-detained-by-texas-border-patrol/

Rapper Lil Wayne was detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas on Friday after authorities found marijuana on two of his tour buses.

The marijuana on the buses was detected by a drug dog, said Agent Joe Trevino. The rapper, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., was among a dozen being detained from his group. They were later released.

Trevino said the buses were en route to Laredo, Texas, from a concert stop in Hidalgo.

The case has been referred to the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office.

Calls to Carter’s representatives were not immediately returned Friday.

The Louisiana native was the 2008 best-selling artist, with 2.8 million records sold, and is signed to Cash Money Records.

The rapper is scheduled to begin a prison sentence in February stemming from gun charges in New York.

I think Ms Cita Wayne’s mom told him he was the world as a child…then she picked the world up and dropped it on its f*ckin head…..smh

Border Patrol agents tell TMZ a random search of the vehicles uncovered a pot stash on two buses — but we’re told no drugs were found on Wayne’s person … or anyone else in the entourage.

Officials tell us a drug-sniffing K-9 unit picked up the scent outside the bus. Agents then walked the dogs onto the bus, where they located the weed.

As we first reported, Wayne and 11 members of his entourage are being detained at an internal B.P. checkpoint in southern Texas.

So far, no arrests have been made.

UPDATE 8:39 PM ET — We’re told Lil’ Wayne’s concert tonight at the Laredo Entertainment Center in Laredo, TX. has been postponed. The general manager of the venue tells us they decided to cancel the show because Lil’ Wayne didn’t show and they couldn’t get in touch with him or his people.

New York Times, 12/17/09

SAN DIEGO — At first, Luis F. Alarid seemed well on his way to becoming a customs agency success story. He had risen from a childhood of poverty and foster homes, some of them abusive, earned praise and commendations while serving in the Army and the Marines, including two tours in Iraq, and returned to Southern California to fulfill a goal of serving in law enforcement.

But, early last year, after just a few months as a customs inspector, he was waving in trucks from Mexico carrying loads of marijuana and illegal immigrants. He pocketed some $200,000 in cash that paid for, as far as the government could tell, a $15,000 motorcycle, flat-screen televisions, a laptop computer and more.

Read more…

Muncho Lake, BC

This blog entry corresponds to Episode #2 of my road trip, found here on YouTube.

When I was younger, playing hockey back in the pre-9/11 days, we would go up to Canada and normally have little to no trouble crossing the border.

Guard:  Why are you coming to Canada?

Roni’s dad:  For hockey.

Guard:  Ok.

Waved into country.

No ID checks, no hassle, no drama.  Coming back to the States, it wasn’t much different.

Things have changed considerably.

Trig and I went up to Vancouver a while back.  We were supposed to stay the weekend, but our conflicting ideas on money expenditure allowed for neither of us to really be happy.  So we went back on Saturday night.

Coming back to the States the border guard asked us what we were doing.  Our answer was something along the lines of “We were going to spend the weekend in Vancouver, but we got bored and are heading back.”

The border guard was immediately suspicious.  We didn’t alleviate his concerns with our response to the next question.

Border guard:  What did you buy when you were in Canada?

Trig:  Starburst.

Roni (simultaneously): Nothing.

He immediately asked us to open the trunk.  Knocked on the inside of it a bit, as there was really nothing special to see.

Border guard (coming back to his booth):  You know what kinds of people usually go up to BC for only a day?

Trig: Drug runners?

Border guard:  Yep.  Ok, you guys can go.

Tav and I didn’t fare much better.  In fact, we fared even worse.  They were immediately suspicious of us as we arrived at the Alaska/Yukon border control.  It’s funny, as you cross in and out of the respective countries long before you deal with the actual border control.

Apparently I stink of drug dealer.  Or I hang out with people that do, as not only were we asked if we had marijuana, rolling papers and the like, we were forced to pull the car over, at which point two border guards removed all of our stuff from the car as we stood to the side.

Unfortunately, we did have contraband.  Of the unintentional agricultural variety.  Apples, oranges and potatoes.  Each had its own reaction from the Canuck controllers.

Apples:  Bad bad bad bad bad.  Terrible.  Must be confiscated and destroyed.  But feel free to eat a few first.

Oranges:  Bad bad… If you were in BC.  But Yukon doesn’t have oranges, so no worries.

Potatoes:  Bad!  You can’t bring potatoes in!  They might cause blight.  So, you can keep your potatoes, but you’re getting a lecture first…

The whole thing struck Tav and I as more than a tad arbitrary.  After that, we saw some wildlife here and there, a gorgeous landscape at Muncho Lake, BC, but other than that, not the most exciting of drives.

You can take this to the bank: Weapons and tactics developed for use in the U.S.’s corporate colonial wars can and will be used domestically. Only the naïve believe the drones will be used only against “drug smugglers.”

“LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Federal border police will soon launch an unmanned surveillance aircraft with marine radar to patrol the coastline for drug smuggling boats, authorities said on Monday.”

Read the rest at Reuters.

Canadian SF writer Peter Watts was beaten without provocation and arrested by U.S. border guards on Tuesday.

He now faces a felony rap for “assaulting a federal officer”. A legal defense fund has been set up.

Source:
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/12/11/dr-peter-watts-canad.html

A loophole in the Senate health care bill would let insurance companies place annual dollar limits on medical care for people struggling with costly illnesses. As currently written, the Senate Democratic health care bill would permit insurance companies to place annual limits on the dollar value of medical care, as long as those limits are not “unreasonable.” The bill does not define what level of limits would be allowable, delegating that task to administration officials.

Economy falters and more people go without health insurance, low-income women in at least 20 states are being turned away or put on long waiting lists for free cancer screenings, according to the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network. This is rationing of health care by offering (screenings) only in the first half of the fiscal year, or by cutting back on those programs,” Brawley said. “It’s rationing that is leading to people dying.

Teens drivers ignore laws against texting while driving. Studies suggest demographic targeted by legislation isn’t paying attention. A 17-year-old high school student and part-time supermarket cashier, admits she sometimes texts friends while driving home from work.

The Arizona teenager knows it’s illegal in Phoenix and dangerous. She once almost drifted into oncoming traffic while looking at her phone. Would a nationwide ban stop teen drivers from texting while driving their cars? No way, this teen driver said. Nobody is going to listen, this teen driver states.

Cyber Begging and Panhandling when did this moral corruption creep into American society and become conduct we tolerate in America? These ads have spurred a debate among eBay, Craigslist users and others that echoes the discussions you’ll hear about real-world panhandling.

Protesters attack Berkeley chancellor’s home. These people are not protesters, they are criminal terrorist and should be treated as terrorist! Eight people were under arrest Saturday after protesters Terrorist broke windows, lights and planters outside the home of the chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.

Immigration sweep nets more than 280 arrests of criminal illegal aliens in Calif. with criminal convictions and outstanding criminal warrants.
Seventeen people will face federal charges for re-entering the country illegally after being deported. The bulk of the individuals arrested had prior convictions for crimes such as rape and other sex offenses, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Most of those arrested this week are from Mexico or Central America, but 30 different nations in all were represented, including countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

“My friend, the wonderful sf writer Peter Watts was beaten without provocation and arrested by US border guards on Tuesday. I heard about it early Wednesday morning in London and called Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She worked her contacts to get in touch with civil rights lawyers in Michigan, and we mobilized with Caitlin Sweet (Peter’s partner) and David Nickle (Peter’s friend) and Peter was arraigned and bailed out later that day.

But now Peter faces a felony rap for “assaulting a federal officer” (Peter and the witness in the car say he didn’t do a thing, and I believe them). Defending this charge will cost a fortune, and an inadequate defense could cost Peter his home, his livelihood and his liberty.

Peter’s friends are raising money for his legal defense. I just sent him CAD$1,000, because this is absolutely my biggest nightmare: imprisoned in a foreign country for a trumped-up offense against untouchable border cops. I would want my friends to help me out if it ever happened to me.

Update: Here’s more from Peter, in his own words: “Along some other timeline, I did not get out of the car to ask what was going on. I did not repeat that question when refused an answer and told to get back into the vehicle. In that other timeline I was not punched in the face, pepper-sprayed, shit-kicked, handcuffed, thrown wet and half-naked into a holding cell for three fucking hours, thrown into an even colder jail cell overnight, arraigned, and charged with assaulting a federal officer, all without access to legal representation (although they did try to get me to waive my Miranda rights. Twice.). Nor was I finally dumped across the border in shirtsleeves: computer seized, flash drive confiscated, even my fucking paper notepad withheld until they could find someone among their number literate enough to distinguish between handwritten notes on story ideas and, I suppose, nefarious terrorist plots. I was not left without my jacket in the face of Ontario’s first winter storm, after all buses and intercity shuttles had shut down for the night.

“In some other universe I am warm and content and not looking at spending two years in jail for the crime of having been punched in the face.”

Sf writer David Nickle writes,

Hugo-award-nominated science fiction author Dr. Peter Watts is in serious legal trouble after he was beaten, pepper-sprayed and imprisoned by American border guards at a Canada U.S. border crossing December 8. This is a call to friends, fans and colleagues to help.

Peter, a Canadian citizen, was on his way back to Canada after helping a friend move house to Nebraska over the weekend. He was stopped at the border crossing at Port Huron, Michigan by U.S. border police for a search of his rental vehicle. When Peter got out of the car and questioned the nature of the search, the gang of border guards subjected him to a beating, restrained him and pepper sprayed him. At the end of it, local police laid a felony charge of assault against a federal officer against Peter. On Wednesday, he posted bond and walked across the border to Canada in shirtsleeves (he was released by Port Huron officials with his car and possessions locked in impound, into a winter storm that evening). He’s home safe. For now. But he has to go back to Michigan to face the charge brought against him.

The charge is spurious. But it’s also very serious. It could mean two years in prison in the United States, and a ban on travel in that country for the rest of Peter’s life. Peter is mounting a vigorous defense, but it’s going to be expensive – he’s effectively going up against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and he needs the best legal help that he can get.

He’s got that help, courtesy of one of the top criminal lawyers in the State of Michigan. We, Peter’s friends and colleagues here in Canada, want to make sure he gets the help he needs financially to come out of this nightmare whole.

The need for that help is real. While Peter is a critically successful science fiction writer, he is by no means a best-selling author. Without help, the weight of his legal fees could literally put him on the street by spring.

We can’t let that happen. So there’s going to be fundraising.

We’re going to think of something suitable in the New Year – but immediately, anyone who wants to help can do so easily. Peter’s website, rifters.com, has a link to a PayPal account, whimsically named the Niblet Memorial Kibble Fund. He set it up years ago for fans of the Hugo-nominated novel Blindsight and his Rifters books, to cover veterinary bills for the cats he habitually rescues from the mean streets of Toronto. Peter has made it clear that he doesn’t want to use the veterinary money to cover his lawsuit. But until we can figure out a more graceful conduit for the legal fund, that’s the best place to send donations for now. Just let Peter know that the donation’s for his legal defense, and that’s where it will go. “

From: http://www.boingboing.net

Later …

More unconstitutional checkpoints INSIDE america!!!

There are very few people in history that achieve the level of “Elvis Cool,” however; I have had the blessing of meeting a few in my life!

One that stands out in particular, is Luis Alberto Urrea!

I attended the Great Read in Joliet, Illinois on Monday evening at the Barnes and Noble.  Luis was the opening night speaker for the Great Read, and was telling his story, answering questions, and signing books. After speaking, Luis walked right up to me with wide open arms and gave me a huge, warm bear hug!  This is indicative of this man’s heart! He is a Pulitzer Prize Finalist author finishing a talk to eager fans, and the first thing he does after speaking is hug me! I was so blessed and humbled, to say the least!

Luis has God in his heart and the desire to help those around him experience the stories that make up all of our lives!  He is famous – yet humble, first!  He has never forgotten where he came from!  God has blessed him with an incredible talent and he deserves every bit of success he receives – yet Luis never feels or acts like he is above you!  He is thankful, polite, funny, and eager to share life’s experiences with anyone who wants to sit with him.  He is just a person you want to be around!

Luis thanked me in The Devil’s Highway, made me a character in Into the Beautiful North, and hinted that he may use one of my stories again in an introduction he is writing for a new photographic journal that is being published soon!  I cannot adequately express my thanks to God for His blessing me in such a unique and exciting way through Luis!

Luis, if you ever read this, I want to tell you thank you, as well, for finding what I have to say interesting enough to care about it!  You are an incredible author, but an even more incredible person!

I encourage each and every one of you to read Luis’ works!  My strongest suggestion is that you start with Across the Wire! Once you read it, you will be hooked!  I also encourage you to follow him on his blog at:  http://www.LuisUrrea.com

(Rumor has it that Hummingbird’s Daughter is in production as a movie at the time of this writing and that they are searching for someone to make The Devil’s Highway into a movie, as well!)

The Great Luis Urrea with "Agent Anderson" - December 7th 2009

Into the Beautiful North: A Novel

Across the Wire: Life and Hard Times on the Mexican Border

The Devil’s Highway: A True Story

I was up early enough on San Diego day that the other biker at the H/B site was still asleep when I left, following a good breakfast of cream of wheat.  Since I couldn’t return to the campground, I would need to reach the border and get far enough out of town to camp in one day.  The morning was chilly when I took off south down the highway.  This time I decided to stick to the highway, although unfortunately, I should have turned off onto a side road that followed the coast through the northernmost sprawl.  Instead, the highway traveled east, into the foothills I wasn’t expecting.  The road was rough enough and hilly enough to make riding unpleasant, and as I slowly traveled east, I began to worry about extending the distance I needed to ride, and risk being stuck in the city after dark.  So, predictably enough, I set off on a promising side road to find something paralleling I-5 into downtown.  Unlike LA, this worked, and I was able to follow the valley south on flatter terrain into the downtown section of the city.

Downtown San Diego was actually fairly biker friendly, and I made good time despite traffic lights on the route.  At some point, I discovered a neat little market covered with flags and brightly colored decorations, Mexican in style.  Music was playing throughout.  It was a reminder of how a cultural, rather than economically driven society would create fun and beautiful spaces, designed for someone to travel on foot, rather than oversized roads and grey pavement.  I’ll include a picture; it’s a good look at how I wish life looked, rather than Walmart and McDonalds.  I stopped there briefly to take a look, drawn in by the inviting atmosphere, and briefly pondered finding something to ship home for someone, but nothing caught my eye as being worth the cost.

It was slowly becoming apparently that the distances I needed to travel were much farther than I expected, and I was running at least an hour behind where I had wanted to be by the time I exited the downtown and entered the ten-or-so mile stretch south to the border.  Sticking close to the water paid off and I hit a bike path that travelled about half the route, across a wetland and oddly placed “refuge” in the middle of the suburbs.  Lunch time rolled around while I was still several miles from the border, where I had hoped to be before lunch.  Eventually, the brown, uninviting hills and grey border fence rolled into view, and after one false start down a road the turned into dirt, I found and followed the road to Border Field.  This time of year the park is “closed,” so cars can’t enter, but people on foot (and bike) can still go in.

Border Field represents the southwesternmost corner of the United States.  Although I didn’t know anything about it prior to entering, I had decided to travel there primarily motivated by having come so far, I wanted to know I had been to the border along the Pacific Coast (at that time I still thought I’d later be returning to complete to the Pacific Coast Highway north of where I’d started.)  I was also curious to see the border, since I didn’t go two years ago when I had the opportunity to go to the Calexico/Mexicali border.

The park consists primarily of a small picnic area, eerily empty with the park closed, about a mile up the road.  It sits on a small bluff that overlooks the beach, where you can see the border fence stretch into the ocean.  There are actually two border fences, the old, rusty one that runs right along the border, and the shiny new protect-the-American-worker-from-having-their-job-”stolen”-by-Mexicans-and-spend-taxpayer-money fence approximately ten years further back.  Two bored border guards stand watch over a gate that allows entrance into a small fenced in enclosure (there’s a lot of fences out there) where one can approach the old fence, close enough to communicate across the old fence and see the monument marking the agreed upon border, while keeping you an arm’s length from the old fence.  To enter, you have to display a US ID, and can only stay up to half-an-hour each day within the enclosure.  Among the rules, one cannot pass things across the fence or touch anyone on the other side of the fence.  Since this rule has been in place, the drug smuggling from Mexico has all but ceased, the cost of being unable to touch loved ones across the fence being a small price to pay (or is it the other way around…).  Considering how vigilant the guards were, rarely watching what was happening within the enclosure, it would probably be quite easy to toss something across the fence while their backs were turned, but I didn’t have anything to part with, nor was I willing to risk getting caught just to prove it could be done.

A family departed as I was allowed in to the fence.  One man still remained within the enclosure, and a Mexican family with children watch from across the fence for a moment before departing.  Soon two women and a man approached the fence from the other side, and one of the women, in English, began speaking with the other man in the enclosure, joking about the fence in a way that made it clear how much its presence hurt.  For a while I simply listened while studying what I could see through the fence: the large stadium and houses clustered into the hillsides like hives.

“They built this fence.  What they do, did they buy the Earth?” she asked, her laugh covering the sting of truth in her question.

“That’s what they seem to think, all the politicians,” I responded.

“Yeah.  In America they’re always telling you where you can go, and where you can’t.”

“True.  The government really likes to build fences.”

“Good thing you’ve got a fence.  We’re all terrorists over her.  Were going to blow you up!.”

“Or steal my job…that I don’t have anyway.”  Hell, I’d let them have my job to get rid of the fence.

We began to talk, asking questions and joking about the insanity and waste of the entire thing.  I tried to picture the border back when the monument was first installed, before the fences.  I imagined simply crossing over, being able to look her in the eye squinting through the small holes in the fence, chatting easily across the fence without the heavy weight of racism and paranoia hovering between us.  At Evergreen I first heard the concept that all Americans are inherently racist, because we live in a racist system and support it.  That damned fence drove the point home.  My tax dollars had been squandered on that fence, whose sole purpose was to convince me that somehow there was an inherent difference between me and the woman I was now talking to with false comfort.  That somehow I had the right to be here, by birth and skin color, while they didn’t deserve to cross the border.  My passport was burning a hole in my pocket, my right to cross the border.  I could go to Mexico, but they couldn’t come here.  Hell, I could get a job in Mexico…I know a friend who teaches in Mexico because her husband is “illegal”.

“I lived in San Diego for a long time.  Then three years ago I decided to move back here because I hadn’t seen my mother in ten years.  I wanted my children to know their grandmother.  Now I can’t go back.  It’s a beautiful city, San Diego.”

Her friend mentioned having grown up near the Berlin Wall.  The comparison is legitimate.  Europe pulls down barriers, we build them.  Like Israel.  Tall fences, trapping us in, choking us off.  Cutting a line through the world, defining us and them.  That fence could only exist for one reason, I decided.  We are at war.  I don’t know why the idea settled so completely in my head, but it explained everything from the fence to the stigma towards Mexicans in American society.  War was the only explanation.  Perpetual war with an enemy that doesn’t attack.

“They think they’re so smart up there.  They think they know everything.  But down here, we’re smart too.  We’ve got knowledge.  Go ahead, ask me anything.  I’ve got knowledge too.”

My time was growing short, though I had originally expected to only stay a few minutes.  I asked the woman if I could take a picture of her and her friends.  At first, upon reviewing the picture, I thought it wasn’t good; they are to obscured through the fence.  But then I decided it was perfect, summing up the obscurity and frustration of the fence.  Beautiful people I couldn’t photograph because the fence cannot exist in a world with beauty and friendship.  Friendship made impossible because of the social barriers made impassible by the fence.  As I was leaving, a third man who had entered the enclosure approached me:

“If you look over there on your way out, you can see the international garden.  We just replanted it today.  There’s only a few plants on the American side, but the Mexican side is about 60 feet long.  The American side used to be just as long, but they destroyed it when they put in the new fence.  One of the border guards begged them to let us in today to replant, and when they refused, he offered to do it by himself.  Without him it wouldn’t even be there.”

At the Canadian border, there is an international park.  Here, it’s a struggle to maintain a small garden.

I hopped on my bike and rode off in a hurry to get away from the town and into the undeveloped areas to the east, where I was sure I’d find camping.  After a half-hour detour down a road before realizing that no roads crossed the river to the north, I finally exited the city through the Jamul Valley.  Eventually the road crosses Hwy 94, and my goal was to cross the highway and head into Cleveland National Forest, however nightfall caught me twenty minutes short of the highway.  Most of the way the route passes through a reserve, but barbed wire prevented me from crossing.  For the second time, the challenge of hiding a bike became an issue, where on foot I would have simply crossed on of the low sections of fence and found a place out of site to hide.  I passed two private campgrounds, where I petitioned for a night, offering to pay for the honor of taking up a bivy sacks worth of ground, but these were the kind of campgrounds you have to own an expensive membership to enter, so, like the hostel that turned me away two years ago, they turned down my money despite having plenty of space.

Finally I reached an area without any barbed wire, and no cars within sight.  It was perfect.  I steered the bike off in the darkness, careening forward until the rough ground knocked me off the seat.  I leapt off the bike, turned off both lights and dragged my bag loose from the trailer, and, leaving the bike on the ground, made a dash for the ditch as a car approached.  I reached it just in time to duck out of sight as a border patrol truck passed.  Few things are more exiting than a narrow escape in a covert bivy.  I then retrieved my bike after a few false starts, where cars would approach just as I reach the bike, and I would lay in the dirt waiting for them to pass.  It wasn’t until I had both bike and bag safely hidden in the ditch that I began to reflect on previous illegal roadside bivies.

I’ve camped illegally plenty of times, but only a handful of those have been in places where I was likely to be caught.  In the National Parks, I was in the middle of nowhere, in areas that perhaps hadn’t seen visitors for years or even decades.  But when you can’t get away from the roads in areas that are frequently patrolled, stealth becomes essential.  This means no light, therefore no reading, no journal, and often no stove.  Paranoia is also an issue, as every passing car become a potential arrest, or at least the possibility of being forced out in the middle of the night.  This was one of the latter type or bivies, without enough cover to hide my headlamp, although the brush would keep me out of sight and hide the bike.  I pulled out the map and examined it in the last remnants of light, and decided that the National Forest, where camping would be legal anywhere, wasn’t that far away, so I smuggled everything back to the roadside and hopped back on.

I was wrong about the distance to the park, primarily because I had no idea of the terrain I was getting into, but luckily, just past the highway, I discovered a dirt parking lot with a trail heading into the hills.  I pulled in on a whim and searched all around.  The lot is designed for hunters entering the preserve up in the hills next to it, and free of any “no camping” signs.  I walked up the trail just to get away from potential cars set up camp.  Soon I was drifting off, full belly and a good 50 pages further into my book.  A couple cars had pulled in to the lot, making me nervous (there’s some crazy people out there, and most are harmless, but at night the potential seems far more menacing).

Just as I was crossing into that border where you’re half dreaming, half aware of your surroundings, headlights landed on me, paused for a few seconds, then turned away and parked facing the road.  I sat up and looked at it: border patrol.  Certain that he was going to want to run my licence, I decided to save him the walk to me, and approach him.  I grabbed my licence and put on my shoes, walking quickly trying to ignore the cold.  When I approached he rolled down his window.

“Can I help you?” He seemed surprised to see me.

“Oh, I saw you pull in and figured you were gonna want to talk to me.”

“Nah.  I noticed you up there, but figured you weren’t causing any trouble.”

“Is it okay for me to be camped here?  I didn’t see any signs that said I couldn’t.”

“Yeah, sure.  People camp here occasionally.  I’m just waiting meet someone to do a body pick-up.  We use this as a transfer point.”  His casual attitude indicated that a “body” was, in fact, a live (soon to be deported) human, not a corpse.  I also learned throughout the night that transfers were made here about every hour-and-a-half, leading to a restless night, since I woke up each time a car pulled in.

About an hour after he left with his ‘body’, I was wrenched out of sleep, aware that a very bright light was shining sideways out a car approaching slowly.  The car pulled in and parked with headlights and spotlight shining directly at me.  Only cops use this kind of treatment.  I decided to let them come to me this time, though I reached into my pocket to be sure I had my ID handy.  I didn’t even sit up until he was a few feet away, shining his flashlight in my face.  It was so bright I never saw anything above his waist and addressed his knees the entire time.  He asked me the typical battery of questions with the typical tone that creates authority through awe rather than respect.

“Where are you from?” Seattle.  ”Where are you going?” Right now, I’m headed to Phoenix.  ”How long have you been out here?” A little over a week, though I just got here today.  ”You bike the whole way?” Since Monterrey.  ”Don’t you have a job?” No, not right now.  My job is seasonal.  ”Where do you work?”  At a camp north of Seattle, in the spring and fall.  Then finally, the one I’d been hoping he’d get to quickly: “Do you have ID.”  You mean, am I an ‘illegal?’ I thought as I handed him my drivers licence.  He wrote down the information, at which point I decided I might as well know my fate.

“I didn’t see any signs saying I couldn’t camp.  I hope its alright I’m out here.”

“Yeah, well, I ain’t gonna bust your balls about it.”  I found it funny that he had to pretend to have the authority to kick me out, even though it was clear he didn’t.

“Is there any other sheriffs likely to come up here with a different opinion who might kick me out?”

“Nah, it’s just the two of us, and, like I said, I ain’t gonna bust your balls.”  He really liked that phrase.

I got a restless nights sleep after that, but wasn’t disturbed again.

As promised, a couple pictures.

Future posts won’t focus so heavily on a single day, but this was one of the most memorable days of my life.  More tomorrow.

-Jimmy

And by UFO’s I mean to say Unmanned Flying Objects.

Just in time for this upcoming Season to be Jolly, the U.S. government has unveiled a “super” idea: It will begin using military predator drones to catch illegal immigrants along the U.S.-Mexico border. These babies, which are currently used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan, cost only $13.5 million each, but can fire two AGM-114 Hellfire missiles… which must be like shit scary stuff.

[Chances are your Transborder Immigrant Tool will not be of much assistance in helping you make it across unscratched.]

Ah… Isn’t it satisfying to see your taxes being put to good use?

State of California is near bankruptcy.
Now we find that California judges must have been sleeping when God was passing out brains and common sense!
What else can you except from people appointed by their friends and political allies.
Just another example why judges should be elected by and accountable to Americas citizens.

Associated Press Story
EL PASO, Texas — Immigrants who have been arrested in zero-tolerance zones along the Mexican border must not be tried at mass criminal immigration hearings because the proceedings violate federal rules, an appeals court ruled Wednesday.

A three-judge panel with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that a federal court in Tucson, Arizona, where mass hearings have been held for defendants arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents had violated a rule that requires that each defendant be read their rights and be given an explanation of what a guilty plea means.

Any immigrants found in zero-tolerance zones established along the Mexican border under Operation Streamline can be arrested and prosecuted in a federal court on charges of illegal entry.

The program was initially credited with curbing illegal border crossings, but critics have long argued that immigrants are pushed through the system without being given a chance to fairly defend themselves or understanding the proceedings. What is there to understand? They are Criminals in the USA Illegally

Most immigrants scooped up under those circumstances answer “yes” en masse when asked if they understand their rights and the consequences of pleading guilty, according to the ruling posted on the court’s Web site. Most are not individually questioned by the judge, it said.

Why is Common Sense so Uncommon?

I was breaking in my brothers new car…..he told me to slow down Hasselhoff….I heard Assholoff. 

After a a few hours of driving he said that he thinks I’m getting too comfortable in it.

My brother and I left LA over a week ago. I wanted to drive the 8 East to Tucson. While my brother was driving we went through a make shift border control stop. There was a sign, “Caution, Dog Working”. He shined the light in his eyes and asked where we were headed and my brother said, “Arizona.” We were waved through.

We switched driving somewhere around 3:00 a.m. in the morning, we were two hours still away from Grandpa’s and I came across another make shift border patrol check point. The drive is gorgeous out of San Diego, you leave mountains and then drive on flat lands where the desert is lit up by the stars. I cruise comfortably at 90 mph, there isn’t a cop in sight, and border patrol isn’t giving out speeding tickets.

There were 4 border patrol officers and a dog surround us.

The first officer asks me who the car is registered to and  I say, “My brother, but I’m included on the insurance.” Another officer with a dog is circling the car. The officer waves us through and as I’m looking in the rear view mirror I see and hear with my window still down…..”Rough” …. the dog barks and we are flagged to pull into the tent. I’m asked to step out of the car and so is my brother. He is getting patted down and I’m asked to go over near the bench. I am asked to empty all of my pockets. I had been eating a bunch of beef jerky (my standard road trip snack) and had two old pieces of dental floss in my pocket. I say to the officer sheepishly, “Sorry.” I’m then asked to turn out all of my pockets and I do. I’m watching over his shoulder as a dog is being allowed to jump inside my brothers brand new car and trunk. He is sitting on the bench thinking to himself (I found out later) OH COME ON GUYS! I’m thinking to myself, I wonder if the dog is going to eat the beef jerky? The officer tells me I can pick up my things and I see a silver lighter that looks customized. I said, “That’s not mine!” The officer took it.

When we arrived to Grandpa’s I saw a scratch on the rear of the car. I said, “OMG, I didn’t do this.” It took us awhile to figure out how it happened, until my brother unloaded the car and saw paw prints all over the place. The dog’s chain going around the car scratched his brand new vehicle. My brother said, “Well, in this economy, I guess you are not supposed to be able to buy a new car.”

On the way back we took the 10. There was a cop every mile along that route. I think they moved all the police to the 10 from the 8. There is a dangerous war on the border between America and Mexico. Many people are being abducted and held for ransom. The drug trafficking is out of control. There is a very serious cartel and many gangs that are involved. The Border Patrol made it clear they did not want us driving the 8. I was asked why I went out of my way to drive the 8 instead of the 10. I told them, “My grandmother told me it was a better drive.”

Every time we needed to stop at a rest stop, we were cautious that we went to one that had at least some people around, lights, and not too close to the border. Usually that time of night rest stops are full of cars and truckers but on this patch of road, about only 1/3 of what I normally see. I have always been a driver. Even during work. When I was sent from New York to Alabama, I drove both ways at least 4 times. I also drove to Arkansas as a 10 hour road trip vacation to find relatives I’d never met before then. That seemed short compared to the 18 – 24 hour drives.

The above picture of the speedometer belongs to our Cadillac Brougham 1991. The speed is actually in Kilometers. If you click on the picture it goes to a video I sent to Chip Foose Overhaulin T.V. show.

Sunday River’s New Campaign

Newry, ME — With every new ski season comes a new campaign to generate interest in the sport and its respected resorts. This year Sunday River will promote their resort with an intricately designed image on their websites, clothing, stickers, etc. Sunday River wanted to stay away from the current fad of bright and loud patterns that are reminiscent of the eighties, and go in a totally new direction. The resort wanted their new campaign to be prominently featured amongst complex, intricate designs created by the Native Americans. So, Sunday River went out and hired a group of Native American artisans, the Aryan Nation.

“Listen,” begins a distressed Sunday River executive, “we totally fucked up and we know it. We wanted to hire some Native Americans, but who the hell knows even knows an actual Native American person? We needed to find out how to locate some, so we went online to search them. Originally, we all agreed that Cherokees were pretty badass and that we should contact them, but every time we Googled them, we kept getting results for websites about jeeps. After that didn’t work, we then typed in ‘true Americans’, and that’s how we found the Aryan Nation’s website. We just assumed that ‘true Americans’ meant ‘Native Americans’, and you’ve got to admit that Aryan Nation does sound like a Native American reservation. Honestly, we didn’t know that we were hiring ignorant assholes. We just thought that we were getting some Indians.”

On the behalf of the Aryan Nation, Roger Whiteback, chief propaganda designer, states his brotherhood’s side of the story. “First of all, me and my partner, Stan Whiteface, were super-duper excited to do the Sunday River project. What they did was send us a rough sketch of what they wanted. Their original sketch was this picture of a weird image that had about four arms extended from the center, and within that image were the words ‘We Support White Powder’. So, I went to work on the background image first. I couldn’t make out what the hell that thing was supposed to be, but when I started to squint at it, it made sense. It was just a poorly drawn swastika. Well, I beefed it up a bit, and made it into one of the best swastikas I’ve ever designed. They got mad about that because later on, after we finished the project, they told me it was actually a snowflake and not a swastika. Then there was the incident with their slogan in the forefront of their sketch: ‘We Support White Powder’. They got all pissed when I took the letter ‘d’ out of ‘Powder’. Seriously? They hired the Aryan Nation, of course we’re gonna think ‘We Support White Powder’ is a typo, ya know?”

After experiencing a rough economic patch, Boyne has admitted that they’re unable to financially support a new campaign, and if they want to continue to promote their ski resort, then the Aryan’s finished product will have to suffice.

A Boyne spokesperson further explains their company’s stance. “We’re in the middle of a financial dilemma here and a racial controversy, but we’re just going to have to lean on the old proverb that ‘All publicity is good publicity’. Yes we accidentally employed the Aryan Nation, but it was for a very brief moment in time. We’re willing to admit that we had a brief exchange, but we don’t want people to think we’ve been rubbing elbows so hard with the Aryans that their lynching arms are bruised.”

To help put Sunday River back into the good graces of its loyal guests, and also distance themselves from white supremacy, Boyne employed a Jewish publicist to put a positive spin on the “We Support White Power” campaign, and prove that if a Jew could work for Sunday River, then their logo can’t possibly stem back to the days of the Nazis.

“Alright,” begins the Jewish publicist, Sal Steinberg, finally, after fifteens minutes of pleading for someone to turn the heat up at Sunday River’s press conference. “You’ll notice the words ‘We Support White Powder’ in the middle of this here sticker. Last winter was pretty tough financially, and there wasn’t enough money to put into a second campaign, but we did have enough money for a case of Whiteout. If you put your face a few inches away you’ll clearly notice that each sticker has squeezed in a Whiteout letter ‘d’ to make the word ‘Powder’. This makes each one unique and a collector’s item. Now, let’s talk about that background symbol. Since when did a windmill-esque image, on an axis, with four arms that eventually bend at a ninety degree angle, automatically mean it’s a swastika? We just thought it’d be fun to stray away from the traditional idea that a snowflake is a fancy, doily-looking object. We just took a simple, stripped down image to use instead. Everyone uses the fancy snowflake image, and as everyone knows, no two snowflakes are the same. So, we believe a snowflake like ours could definitely exist.” He’s right, it did exist. In East Germany.

Later that night, a waitress at the Matterhorn Ski Bar overheard the Jewish publicist, in a nasally voice, saying the following (right before he left a meager eight percent tip), “I’m so nauseous right now. I can’t believe I said those things for money. I feel like one of those prostitutes, you know? The ones with the ungodly clothing and diseases. I hate myself. I’m going to have nightmares for weeks now about Moses chasing me with a pitchfork. My poor mother would never forgive me for getting involved with those Nazi lovers. I just want to go back to my condo in Miami.”

After dumping the body of the young woman who overheard the publicist, Boyne and Sunday River executives were hoping that the explanation of the logo would help the controversy blow over, but certain groups took notice. One of those groups, the Ku Klux Klan, overheard the conference, and one of their leaders had this to say, “As you’ve probably guessed, we are ecstatic that Sunday River surfaced their true feelings and beliefs. We finally have a safe place to go on a skiing vacation now. A place where we’ll be accepted in our hood and robes. It’s not easy going out in public when you dress like us. You have no idea how painful it is to be constantly judged and ostracized everywhere you go, just because of who you are. It doesn’t matter now though, because in Bethel, they tell it like it is. White Power all the way! Hell, they even support the Confederacy. I mean, they must support the Confederacy if they put a statue of a faggy Union soldier, on Bethel’s Main St., smack-dab between a homo flower store and a God damn taco shop! I love it! Reminds me of the good ol’ days in Montgomery, Alabama.”

After a private meeting, executives of Boyne and Sunday River held another press conference. “We have finally come up with a way to prove that we aren’t racist, and that we don’t support White Power,” exclaims a representative of Sunday River, who regularly quotes the movie Blazing Saddles. “Our superiors at Boyne Realty are currently installing a border length wall to stop racist people like the Aryan Nation and the KKK from entering Maine. We originally had the idea to build the wall years ago to keep out Massholes, and now it’s finally about to become a reality. Aside from those three groups, other people wishing to come to Bethel are still more than welcome and may enter from New Hampshire, because Canada will obviously be completely walled off. However, due to the wall being several miles wide, it was incidentally built on top of Gorham, New Hampshire, so people will instead have to go through the wall’s border patrol located in Berlin. Now, I know some people are worried, but as long as people have their papers in order, they’ll be fine. Everyone’s really friendly at the Berlin Wall.”

_____________

**DISCLAIMER** This is a FAKE story. It is written purely for entertainment purposes. None of the events in the above story are true.

A story that is becoming increasingly passe just over our southern border:

“Women, Children Raped In County’s ‘Most Dangerous Area‘”

SAN DIEGO — Authorities said a desolate corner of San Diego County may be its most violent area. It is so dangerous 10News crews had to put on bulletproof vests before entering the area near Boulevard.

“The violence in this area is so bad that a 12-year-old was raped to death,” said Estela De Los Rios of the Center for Social Advocacy.

In the area, authorities said there are pieces of evidence left behind that serve as a grim reminder of the violence happening near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“They’re ruthless; they’ll come over here, they’ll pick one out that they want, they drag her off onto the rocks, they’ll rape her and they just leave them here,” said Carl Braun, founder of the Border Patrol Auxiliary, a group that assists U.S. Border Patrol agents.

The rapes are committed by the people the victims trust, authorities said. The women and their families give their life savings to human smugglers, only to be hurt by them.

“What they’ll do is they’ll get them in sight of the border or right across the border and then they’ll demand a form of payment that wasn’t agreed to on the front end. They will take them off and then rape them,” said Braun.

After raping the women, authorities said the smugglers hang their underwear on the trees as trophies to mark their brutal conquests.

Braun said he has witnessed a woman being raped but could not help because it happened on the south side of the border.

“In the morning, we found her undergarments hanging from that stick that’s sticking up by the fence there,” said Braun.

Braun said the violence has now crossed the border into San Diego County.

Here are my thoughts about this: build a wall.  Build it tall and strong.  And patrol our side of it.  Keep these people the hell out of our country.

And in so doing prevent helpless women and children from trusting these human-suit-wearing-cockroaches to illegally bring them here in the first place.

La Raza-types would argue that my opposing illegal immigration qualifies me as a racist, to which I shout, “What a racist thing of you to say!”  They don’t bother to make a distinction between legal and illegal immigration.  If I oppose illegal immigration I’m a racist.  But they’re the racists.  And why should anyone care what they say?

La Raza may not give a damn about these Mexican women and young girls being raped  by Coyotes within sight of the U.S. border, but I sure do.

Conservatives are all in favor of immigration – from ALL over the world, and not just from Mexico or Latin America – as long as it is a) legal and b) benefits the United States.  Now, very little of either occurs.

Allow me to elaborate on how we severed the improvement of the United States from our immigration policy to show how we got to this point.

This country used to have the best interest of the nation and its own people as a core value.  But in 1965, championed by Democrat President Lyndon Johnson and Senator Ted Kennedy, that changed with the passage of the Hart-Celler Act.  Democrats assured the country that our borders would never be flooded with waves of immigrants.

The Hart-Celler Act repealed our previous immigration laws – which Democrats attacked as favoring Europeans and immigrants with job skills – and replaced our previous sane policy with one of chain immigration.  Instead of bringing in people with the job skills this country needed, the agenda became bringing in relatives of immigrants [Source: Mark Levin, Liberty And Tyranny, pp 150-151, and his citation from the Center for Immigration Studies, Sept. 1995].

We have continued to see wave after wave of unskilled immigrants flow into our country, along with their unskilled relatives, ever since.  We have attracted them with all the welfare benefits that a Great Society could provide.  And we have encouraged illegal immigration by these means, and by refusing to deal with the crisis our own elected representatives have foisted upon us.

Republican Representative William Miller understood the ramifications quite well.  He said, “We estimate that if the President gets his way, and the current immigration laws are repealed, the number of immigrants next year will increase threefold and in subsequent years will increase even more.”

He was right.  The Democrats were terribly wrong – other than the fact that they have – at the expense of the nation and the American people – successfully created a new pro-Democrat special interest/constituency group.

We need to end the process by which unskilled Latin American immigrants flood into this country either illegally or legally, and return to the system – based on fair international quotas and job skills – in which the most qualified people from all over the world come here to start new lives as Americans.  We need to encourage immigrants who will leave their cultures behind and embrace American values, rather than our current system which encourages our immigrants to march against the clear national interests of the American people on a communist holiday (May Day) carrying a Mexican flag rather than the American flag – or even worse:

For what it’s worth, I’m not opposed to qualified, skilled immigrants legally coming here from Mexico or the Latin American hemisphere.  Quite the contrary.  I would gladly welcome such new Americans to this country.  But you can count on me being much less gracious and welcoming to people who come and demand welfare benefits while flying a foreign flag.