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My syndicated column today tackles the bailout angle no one wants to talk about: Open borders and the home loan debacle. You’ve heard a lot about Fannie/Freddie and the minority lending shakedowns, but you haven’t heard most commentators/analysts on either the left or the right talk about the massive illegal alien mortgage racket — a topic I’ve reported on for the past five years. That’s because fault lies at the feet of the crime-enabling banking industry and the ethnic lobbyists and the illegal alien-enabling Bush administration.

They screwed us. Now, they want us to fork over a trillion dollars.

Screw them.

Kill this bailout.

And I second Mark Krikorian: Credit is not a civil right. It’s not a civil right for illegal aliens. For foreign banks. For American banks. For anyone. The bailout proposal, as I noted earlier, now includes student loans and auto loan debt. Will our tax dollars next cover foreign student loan debts? Illegal alien in-state discounted college tuition debt? Where and when will it end?

Oh, but pardon me. I’m just being, you know, an ideological purist.

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Illegal immigration and the mortgage mess
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2008

The Mother of All Bailouts has many fathers. As panicked politicians prepare to fork over a trillion dollars in taxpayer funding to rescue the financial industry, they’ve fingered regulation, deregulation, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Community Reinvestment Act, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, both Bushes, greedy banks, greedy borrowers, greedy short-sellers, and minority home ownership mau-mauers (can’t call ‘em greedy, that would be racist) for blame.

But there’s one giant paternal elephant in the room that has slipped notice: How illegal immigration, crime-enabling banks, and open-borders Bush policies fueled the mortgage crisis.

It’s no coincidence that most of the areas hardest hit by the foreclosure wave – Loudon County, Virginia, California’s Inland Empire, Stockton, San Joaquin Valley, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, for starters — also happen to be some of the nation’s largest illegal alien sanctuaries. Half of the mortgages to Hispanics are subprime (the accursed species of loan to borrowers with the shadiest credit histories). A quarter of all those subprime loans are in default and foreclosure.

Regional reports across the country have decried the subprime meltdown’s impact on illegal immigrant “victims.” A July report showed that in seven of the 10 metro areas with the highest foreclosure rates, Hispanics represented at least one-third of the population; in two of those areas – Merced and Salinas-Monterey, Calif. – Hispanics comprised half the population. The amnesty-promoting National Council of La Raza and its Development Fund have received millions in federal funds to “counsel” their constituents on obtaining mortgages with little to no money down; the group almost succeeded in attaching a $10 million earmark for itself in one of the housing bills past this spring.

For the last five years, I’ve reported on the rapidly expanding illegal alien home loan racket. The top banks clamoring for their handouts as their profits plummet, led by Wachovia and Bank of America, launched aggressive campaigns to woo illegal alien homebuyers. The quasi-governmental Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority jumped in to guarantee home loans to illegal immigrants. The Washington Post noted, almost as an afterthought in a 2005 report: “Hispanics, the nation’s fastest-growing major ethnic or racial group, have been courted aggressively by real estate agents, mortgage brokers and programs for first-time buyers that offer help with closing costs. Ads proclaim: “Sin verificacion de ingresos ! Sin verificacion de documento !” — which loosely translates as, ‘Income tax forms are not required, nor are immigration papers.’”

In addition, fraudsters have engaged in massive house-flipping rings using illegal aliens as straw buyers. Among many examples cited by the FBI: a conspiracy in Las Vegas involving a former Nevada First Residential Mortgage Company branch manager who directed loan officers and processors in the origination of 233 fraudulent Federal Housing Authority loans valued at over $25 million. The defrauders manufactured and submitted false employment and income documentation for borrowers; most were illegal immigrants from Mexico. To date, the FBI reported, “58 loans with a total value of $6.2 million have gone into default, with a loss to the Housing and Urban Development Department of over $1.9 million.”

It’s the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to lax Bush administration-approved policies allowing illegal aliens to use “matricula consular cards” and taxpayer identification numbers to open bank accounts, more forms of mortgage fraud have burgeoned. Moneylenders still have no access to a verification system to check Social Security numbers before approving loans. In an interview about rampant illegal alien home loan fraud, a spokeswoman for the U.S. General Accounting Office told me five years ago:

“[C]onsidering the size of Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Houston, and other large cities throughout the United States known to be inundated with illegal aliens, I don’t think the federal government is willing to expose this problem for financial reasons as well as for fear of political repercussions.”

Chickens coming home to roost. And law-abiding, responsible taxpayers are going to pay for it.