The DREAM Act mob is on the march again — and this time they have a prominent left-wing journalist leading the charge. My syndicated column below spotlights the serial law-breaking of former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas, who is now an illegal alien activist clamoring for amnesty with the backing of the radical Tides Center, a project of George Soros and the former chief organizer of ACORN, Drummond Pike. (Hey, maybe they’ll hire Obama’s grousing illegal alien aunt Zeituni Onyango as a senior fellow.)

Vargas’s splashy revelations in the New York Times come — no coincidence, of course — amid a renewed push for the DREAM Act illegal alien student bailout.

Remember: This is a brazen “down payment” on a larger shamnesty.

Remember: This is nothing more than a 2.1 million future Democrat voter recruitment drive and a massive open-borders entitlement program for untold numbers of multi-culti ethnic tribalists who pretend to embrace assimilation for show.

And remember: The CBO score estimated that the last, failed DREAM Act bill would increase projected deficits by more than $5 billion in at least one of the four consecutive 10-year periods starting in 2021.”

Citizenship is a privilege, not an entitlement.

Want part of “no” doesn’t the open-borders lobby understand?

***

“Undocumented” folly: A liberal reporter’s illegal alien sob story
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2011

With great fanfare and elite media sympathy, Jose Antonio Vargas publicly declared himself an “undocumented immigrant” this week. “Undocumented” my you-know-what. In the felony-friendly pages of The New York Crimes — er, Times — the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist turned illegal-alien activist spilled the beans on all the illegal IDs he amassed over the years. He had documents coming out of his ears.

The Times featured full-color photos of Vargas’ fake document trove — including a a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a Social Security card his grandfather doctored for him at a Kinko’s. He committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines.

Following the rules would have meant a 10-year bar to reentry into America. Making false claims of citizenship is a felony offense. Document fraud is a felony offense.

Vargas, who frames himself as a helpless victim, freely chose instead to secure yet more dummy documents. He used a friend’s address to obtain an Oregon driver’s license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House — where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number. (Reminder: Illegal aliens were able to get through White House security under the Bush administration, too.)

At least Vargas tells the truth when he says he’s not alone. Go visit a 7-11 in the D.C. suburbs. Or the countless vendors in MacArthur Park. Or any of the 19 cities in 11 states from Massachusetts to Ohio to Kentucky where a massive, Mexico-based “highly sophisticated and violent” fraudulent-document trafficking ring operated until February 2011. “Undocumented workers” and “undocumented immigrants” have plenty of documents.

The persistent use of these open-borders euphemisms to describe Vargas and countless millions like him is a perfect illumination of the agenda-driven, dominant progressive media.

They’re as activist inside their newsrooms as Vargas is out in the open now. Bleeding-heart editors were hoaxed by a prominent colleague, exposed to liability, and yet still champion his serial subversion of the law. San Francisco Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein bragged that he was “duped” by Vargas, but endorses his “subterfuge” because Vargas’ lobbying campaign for the illegal-alien student bailout known as the DREAM Act “just might lubricate the politically tarred-up wheels of government and help craft sane immigration policy.”

Who’s insane? The Vargas deceit is not an object lesson about America’s failure to show compassion. It’s another stark reminder of America’s dangerous failure to learn from 9/11.

Time and again, security experts have warned about how jihadists have exploited lax immigration and ID enforcement. Driver’s licenses are gateways into the American mainstream. They allow residents to establish an identity and gain a foothold into their communities. They help you open bank accounts, enter secure facilities, board planes, and do things like drive tractor-trailers carrying hazardous materials.

It’s been nearly 10 years since several of the 19 9/11 hijackers operated in the country using hundreds of illicitly obtained fake driver’s licenses and IDs. Most states tightened licensing rules, yet Vargas easily obtained a driver’s license not only in Oregon, but more recently in Washington State. He again used a friend’s residence to pass muster. Washington State’s licensing bureaucracy still does not check citizenship. The man sitting in the White House campaigned to keep driver’s license laws as loose as possible for the open-borders lobby. He appointed illegal-alien lobbyists to top federal immigration positions. His head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement just signed a memo pushing the DREAM Act through by administrative fiat. And the privacy of illegal aliens still trumps national security.

I ask again: Who’s insane?

Vargas believes his sob story is an argument for giving up on immigration enforcement and passing a mass amnesty. It’s a sob story, all right. Homeland security officials across the country should be weeping at the open mockery Vargas and his enablers have made of the law.

We knew it was coming.

I’ve warned for years about illegal alien amnesty by executive fiat and the backdoor sabotage of immigration enforcement by this administration — and every one preceding it over the last two decades. I’ve also reported on how Congress issues individual deportation waivers to illegal aliens. And I’ve spotlighted the deadly “13 strikes you’re out” policies of border-state prosecutors.

On Friday, in another trademark Obama document dump, ICE issued a memo that pushes the perpetually-rejected DREAM Act for illegal alien students. As immigration lawyer Michelle Scopellite explained to me: “In essence, what this means is that if someone, is not a major criminal and is in removal proceedings, ICE officers are now to release them or terminate proceedings if they are involved in a lawsuit or fighting for union ideals. This appears to be another attempt by the Obama admin. to side-step immigration law through administrative acts. My partner and I are just returning from the AILA conference where, we were more than likely, the only Republicans in attendance and the director of DHS and the ICE Director, both discussed this memo and it received rave reviews from the liberal wing of AILA.” There are actually two documents in the hopper, a more detailed six-page prosecutorial discretion memo and shorter policy summary:

Read the documents for yourselves right here:

Prosecutorial Discretion Morton Second Memo June 17 2011

Prosecutorial Discretion Morton Memo June 17 2011

Here are the categories that Morton flags for “particular care and consideration” — e.g., amnesty:

* the person’s length of presence in the United States, with particular consideration given to presence while in lawful status;
* the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the United States and the manner of his or her entry,particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child;
* the person’s pursuit of education in the United States, with particular consideration given to those who have graduated from a U.S. high school or have successfully pursued or are pursuing a college or advanced degrees at a legitimate institution ofhigher education in the United States;
* whether the person, or the person’s immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military, reserves, or national guard, with particular consideration given to those who served in combat;
* the person’s criminal history, including arrests, prior convictions, or outstanding arrest warrants;
* the person’s immigration history, including any prior removal, outstanding order of removal, prior denial of status, or evidence offraud;
* whether the person poses a national security or public safety concern;
* the person’s ties and contributions to the community, including family relationships;
* the person’s ties to the home country and
* the person’s age, with particular consideration given to minors and the elderly;
* whether the person has a U.S. citizen or permanent resident spouse, child, or parent;
* whether the person is the primary caretaker of a person with a mental or physical disability, minor, or seriously ill relative; ;
* whether the person or the person’s spouse is pregnant or nursing;
* whether the person or the person’s spouse suffers from severe mental or physical illness;
* whether the person’s nationality renders removal unlikely;
* Whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as a relative of a U.S. citizen or permanent resident;
* whether the person is likely to be granted temporary or permanent status or other relief from removal, including as an asylum seeker, or a victim of domestic violence, human trafficking, or other crime; and
* whether the person is currently cooperating or has cooperated with federal, state or local law enforcement authorities, such as ICE, the U.S Attorneys or Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, or National Labor Relations Board, among others.

More from Kris Kobach via Neil Munro:

“They’re pushing the [immigration] agents to be even more lax, to go further in not enforcing the law,” said Kris Kobach, Kansas’ secretary of state. “At a time when millions of Americans are unemployed and looking for work, this is more bad news coming from the Obama administration… [if the administration] really cared about putting Americans back to work, it would be vigorously enforcing the law,” said Kobach, who has helped legislators in several states draft local immigration-related laws.

…The primary document was the six-page “prosecutorial discretion” memo, which provided new reasons for officials to not deport illegal immigrants.

“When weighing whether an exercise of prosecutorial discretion may be warranted for a given alien, ICE officials, agents and attorneys should consider all relevant factors, including, but not limited to – the circumstances of the person’s arrival in the United States … particularly if the alien came to the United States as a young child; the Person’s pursuit of education… .. whether the person, or the person’s immediate relative, has served in the U.S. military,” said the memo.

“The factors are extremely broad and very troubling … [it] look like a stealth DREAM Act enforcement through non-enforcement,” said Kobach.

The deportation abyss deepens again.

Remember: It ain’t over ’til the alien wins.

The 1st Amendment doesn’t say freedom of the press cannot be abridged “unless the press reports what Congress does 24 hours a day and uses words the government doesn’t like.” At least not yet.

From CNS News:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), when talking to Capitol reporters, said that Fox News makes it difficult for him to garner support for his stance on immigration reform, which includes a “pathway to citizenship” for illegal aliens already living in the country.
[...]
“Let’s talk about immigration. When Fox News is saying ‘amnesty’ 24 hours a day, it makes it harder for me to get people on my side,” he added. “When the left, through MSNBC, talks about the tax cuts being a sell-out and going back to Bush policies, it makes harder for our Democratic colleagues.

“My statement to my colleagues is even though people are loud, that doesn’t mean they’re the majority,” Graham continued. “So if you’re doing things that make sense, just trust the country to figure it out, but in this environment of constant media scrutiny it is very difficult. I don’t know how you would have written the Constitution in this environment.”

If this is Graham’s attempt to get conservatives to warm up to MSNBC, I don’t think it’ll work.

Maybe Lindsey could get the immigration issue designated as a war so there would be an excuse to limit free speech (a source tells me Graham’s 2014 slogan will be “Loose Lips Sink My Re-Election Campaign’s Ship”).

I wonder how difficult it would be to get Grahamnesty to sign this petition.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe

A number of readers have pointed to a weekend post at FreeRepublic.com warning that the DREAM Act is “hidden” in another bill, H.R. 5281.

Senate staff explained to me today that DREAM was passed as an amendment to HR 5281 in the House and it was sent over as a “message,” which gave it privileged status so the Senate didn’t have to vote on a motion to proceed (simply a cloture vote). My Senate staff source added that it essentially gave the Democrats an avenue to bypass a procedural hurdle in the Senate, but since the Senate failed to proceed to the 3rd amendment (the DREAM Act), it is dead and HR 5281 does not include it.

All that said, as you know from my longtime coverage of the open-borders lobby, they never give up.

I’ve been using this Bush 43-era graphic of the night of the living shamnesty with good reason for years:

So while the Senate cloture vote on Saturday killed the stand-alone DREAM Act yet again, no doubt it will be back in some form or another. As I pointed out over the weekend, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s troubling remark that the illegal alien student bailout “should be dealt with next year” opens the door for a Republican version of the bill that forced retiree Utah Sen. Bob Bennett telegraphed last week.

Remember: There are soft-on-illegal-immigration radicals in both parties. Whatever election-year lip service they might pay to border enforcement, none can be trusted to do the right thing without your constant bucking up.

Vigilance.

***

Be sure to send a special message of thanks to GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions for his stalwart opposition and leadership in stopping another down payment on amnesty.

I will continue to keep you updated on the investigation into Arizona rancher Rob Krentz’s brutal murder. The latest:

*Funeral services have been set for April 9-10 in Douglas.

*Police are working on theories about the shooter possibly belonging to “a drug cartel scout or a band of thieves terrorizing Arizona ranches.”

*Open-borders Sen. Johnny Come Lately McCain, in the political battle of his life, is now calling for the National Guard. Don’t read his lips. Read his border security-undermining, law enforcement-abandoning record.

*The Arizona Farm Bureau sends the following statement:

“The murder of Cochise County rancher Rob Krentz this last weekend should not have happened and was preventable,” said Arizona Farm Bureau President Kevin Rogers. He and his organization send their deepest sympathy to the Krentz family for their loss.

According to Rogers, the ranching and farming community along the border, have been asking for a secure border for many years. “Our members are the ones who see the illegal traffic including drug and human cargo smuggling coming across their farms and ranches.” Rogers explained that over the last several years, his members have reported coming face to face with these smugglers that are well armed and menacing. “It is time for the federal government to fix this problem before another one of our ranch or farm families are injured or killed. No family should have to endure what the Krentz family is experiencing.”

Rogers said inaction by Congress can no longer be tolerated. “The border needs to be secured,” said Rogers. His organization has long called for securing the border and fixing the worker visa program so we know who is coming into the U.S. and who is overstaying their permission to be here. “Fixing the worker visa program becomes part of securing the border,” he emphasized.

If this tragedy is connected to smuggling from Mexico, swift action is needed to make sure this will not lead to an escalation in Arizona of the violence associated with the drug cartel brutality now just south of our border. “Until Congress addresses securing the border, all necessary resources should be focused on Arizona’s border,” concluded Rogers.

Letters from ranchers along the southern border are pouring into my e-mail box. Here’s a sample of messages from the front lines:

From Michael in Florence, AZ…

Thanks for mentioning the story about Bob Krentz’ death. This hit my own family pretty hard at the nearby Riggs Ranch. We’ve been their neighbors for over 100 years, our own place established in 1881 in Dos Cabezas. This Government of ours just won’t provide the protection needed to secure this border, and the media is not even on the same planet with reporting about it. When the US Customs office located at the Maricopa BOT in Nogales got machined gunned last December by one of the cartels, not even the Arizona Republic did the episode any justice. The Fourth Estate doesn’t exist anymore; today, its just a propaganda outlet for special interests.

Thanks for your good work.

From Danielle…

The cartels have been cultivating deep reaches into US communities for many years. They front legitimate businesses on this side of the border. Cartel members have used these “respectable faces” to gain influence and seats on school boards and city and county governments as well as working in many of our law enforcement agencies.

From Billie in CA…

Michelle,

…As a ranching wife, my heart goes out to Bob’s family and especially his wife Susan. No one outside the ranching community knows how hard a life this is ( in terms of physical work never being done). To those of us who love it, the price is well worth the benefits. But not for Susan Krentz. I cannot imagine what she must feel, knowing they have been robbed before, vandalized and terrorized.

Ranching families work hard as teams to get everything done to care for their animals. They are usually short on help considering all that needs to be done. I hope that Susan’s loss of her husband, her partner in the business and the head of a multi generational legacy is not lost in the reporting. Her life is forever changed and helping her find a sense of peace and sanity is what we all need to think about.

I have wonderful, grass-roots friends at Freedomworks.

Dick Armey is not one of them.

He’s a clueless promoter of bailout-happy, big government Republican Sen. John McCain. And Armey’s a blowhard-y Beltway dinosaur who can’t resist shooting off his mouth and alienating the Tea Party base while criticizing other conservatives of alienation. At the National Press Club to promote the D.C. protest against Demcare, Armey veered off into a liberal platitude-littered rant against conservatives who believe in strict enforcement of our immigration laws.

Armey singled out former Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo and bragged about censoring him while they served in the House together:

Former Republican House leader Dick Armey said staunch anti-immigration opponents such as Rep. Tom Tancredo are destructive to Republicans — and are alienating a “natural” constituency that could help the party win elections.

“Who in the Republican Party was the genius that said that now that we have identified the fastest-growing voting demographic in America, let’s go out and alienate them?” Armey said, referencing Hispanics, during a luncheon in Washington at the National Press Club.

“When I was the majority leader, I saw to it that Tom Tancredo did not get on the stage because I saw how destructive he was,” Armey said of the Colorado congressman and 2008 Republican presidential candidate known for his opposition to illegal immigration.

Armey said “this is a nation of immigrants” and “if you love America, love freedom” and if you will work and pay taxes, you should be welcome in the country.

The “nation of immigrants” mantra has been addressed many times on this blog — history lessons here and here. Just like all the other open-borders zealots who smear those of us who believe in strict immigration enforcement and control, Armey whitewashes the distinction between legal and illegal.

Since when are illegal Hispanic aliens the “natural” constituency of the Republican Party? See also: Debunking open-borders myths and Whither the Hispanic vote?

Tancredo was on the right side of the illegal alien shamnesty debate from day one — and as John Derbyshire noted in defense of Tancredo, “Tom stood up for our national sovereignty, for the integrity of our borders and the enforcement of our laws, when most Republican politicians were weaseling on those issues (as too many still are). I’ll honor him for that.”

NumbersUSA details Armey’s pro-amnesty record. It’s abysmal.

In boasting about exercising his Beltway power to keep folks like Tancredo off the stage, Armey embodies everything the Tea Party movement is supposed to stand against — top-down control, political hubris, silencing of dissent. With “friends” like Dick Armey, who needs enemies?

Caveat emptor.

***

The open-borders lobby will march on Washington this Sunday. Perhaps Armey can serve as an honorary grand marshal, with his good friends John McCain and Lindsey Graham leading the feckless GOP contingent.

***

Related reading from Tancredo: Republicans and the Hispanic Vote: Inconvenient Facts for Amnesty Proponents

Related: More issues with Dick Armey, via Dan Riehl.

What a busy little “bipartisan” bee Lindsey Grahamnesty has been lately.

He’s holding hands with John Kerry to push carbon caps and unrepentant global warming cultism.

He’s collaborating with the White House to close down Gitmo.

And he’s schmoozing with Chuckie Schumer on another illegal alien amnesty campaign — an effort that has been in the works for months.

Yesterday, I asked if the GOP had the balls to take on the Left and the permanent Nanny State.

Brains and souls are AWOL, too.

I encouraged you last week to fight the SEIU/Demcare corruption and contribute to MA GOP Senate candidate Scott Brown’s campaign.

The election date — Jan. 19 — is rapidly approaching and the race has turned competitive thanks to grass-roots conservative pressure.

The NYTimes takes notice today. In a word, Democrats are “anxious:”

While Ms. Coakley kept a low profile over the holidays, Mr. Brown hammered her as soft on terrorists and as a “crusader” for abortion rights. He has played up his military credentials — he serves in the Army National Guard — and his opposition to the health care overhaul headed for a final vote in Congress. That, too, has unnerved Democrats, who cannot afford to lose a single vote on the embattled legislation.

Republicans are hoping that diminished support for President Obama and his party among independents could give Mr. Brown a shot at winning. About half of the state’s voters are not affiliated with a party.

“Scott’s done a great job of tapping into the economy as an issue and the fact that people aren’t happy with what’s going on in Washington,” said Charles Manning, a Republican strategist here. “When you couple that with the coronation campaign that Martha’s been trying to run, it’s really made a difference.”

Democrats dismiss such statements as wishful thinking whipped up by conservative commentators outside Massachusetts. Still, Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist, said Ms. Coakley erred in not campaigning more aggressively last month.

“By taking a low-profile approach, she invited more of a race than she would have had otherwise,” Ms. Marsh said. “Sometimes I wanted to say, ‘My God, woman, take it up a notch.’ ”

The SEIU continues to “pull out all the stops” to “get Martha elected.” While her Purple Army friends push for another massive illegal alien shamnesty, Scott Brown is calling attention to Coakley’s open-borders advocacy:

In a direct attack on his Democratic opponent in the U.S. Senate race, Republican state Sen. Scott Brown has filed a bill that would require proof of citizenship or legal residency for people seeking action against employers for violating the state’s wage laws.

As attorney general, Martha Coakley has aggressively enforced laws protecting workers’ wages. Before the campaign, her office often announced settlements with companies she sued for allegedly violating prevailing wage laws or avoiding payroll taxes. Coakley represented everyone, including illegal immigrants.

Her opponent, Scott Brown, said that encourages people who are here illegally.

“As a top law enforcement official, her No. 1 job is to enforce the laws of the state and to protect citizens here legally and the people who are here with the appropriate immigration status,” Brown said during a telephone interview.

Coakley’s “basking” in left-wing money.

Fight Coakley and her Big Labor/Demcare corruption/Open Borders bakers here.

***

Senate debate tonight – 7pm Eastern on WGBH. You catch watch/listen online here.

The SEIU needs more dues-paying members.

The open-borders lobby needs something to do.

Voila! Meet the new illegal alien shamnesty push via the Washington Times (readers: note that this is an excerpt from a NEWS story from the Times, NOT a Times editorial endorsement of amnesty!):

Democrats on Tuesday begin their new push for an immigration bill, hamstrung by the image of legalizing millions of illegal immigrant workers at a time when the unemployment rate stands at 10 percent — more than twice what it was the last time Congress tried to act.

“It certainly will confuse the debate a lot more, but at the end of the day what we have to understand is fixing this system will be good for American workers,” said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which is one of the major advocates for legalizing illegal immigrant workers.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, the Illinois Democrat who has taken over leadership on the issue after the death of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, plans to introduce an immigration legalization bill Tuesday, and backers are planning a strategy to avoid repeats of the failed attempts of 2006 and 2007.

The bill would torpedo the joint federal-local deportation program known as 287(g) and opposes beefing up our land borders with more Border Patrol agents or fencing.

SEIU has been lobbying for illegal alien amnesty as a massive membership booster all year. In May, the Purple Shirts held a pro-illegal immigration rally from Malcolm X Park to the White House to put pressure on homeland security officials to call off workplace raids (not that Janet Napolitano needed any convincing):

Flashback: NakedEmperorNews digs up video of SEIU’s #1 amnesty-pusher Eliseo Medina bragging about illegal alien workers in the union’s ranks:

Flashback: Non-English-speaking day laborers carry signs they can’t read for Nancy Pelosi’s Astroturf Demcare brigade.

If the black-and-yellow pro-illegal alien amnesty signs in the photos above and video below look familiar, they should. The Workers’ World Party-staffed ANSWER Coalition first used them during the 2006 nationwide illegal alien marches.

Well, they’re baaaack. And over the weekend, as the Obama administration gets ready to launch Night of the Living Amnesty II, the ANSWER goons were out in full force in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. — using their signs to bludgeon anti-illegal immigration activists trying to film the ANSWER/amnesty rally.

Meet the “persuasion of power:”

And yes, those are the same Che Guevara signs recycled from 2006, too:

Che chic is back. It never left.

Here it comes. Look for John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and the open-borders Republicans to hop on board the Obama Amnesty Bandwagon. God save us from bipartisanship. Via the NYT:

The Obama administration will insist on measures to give legal status to an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants as it pushes early next year for legislation to overhaul the immigration system, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said on Friday.

In an address at the Center for American Progress, a liberal policy group in Washington, Ms. Napolitano sought to dispel any notion that the administration — with health care, energy and other major issues crowding its agenda — might postpone the most contentious piece of an immigration overhaul until after midterm elections next November.

Laying out the administration’s bottom line, she said it will argue for a “three-legged stool” that includes enacting tougher enforcement laws against illegal immigrants and the people who hire them, and streamlining the system for legal immigration, but also what she called a “tough and fair pathway to earned legal status.”

With unemployment surging over 10 percent and Congress wrestling with health care, advocates on all sides of the immigration debate had started to doubt that President Obama would keep to his pledge to take on the divisive issue of illegal immigration in the first months of 2010.

Actually, anti-amnesty forces are ready and mobilized.

There’s a nationwide protest tomorrow against illegal alien amnesty by grass-roots groups. Go here for more info.

And remember: They’re watching.

Next up: ShamnesTeddy.

Morton Kondracke is leading the charge:

Along with a health care reform bill, it would be a fitting tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) if Congress could act on his other great unfinished cause: immigration reform.

For all his liberal Democratic passion, Kennedy understood — as few of his colleagues seem to nowadays — the importance of working on a bipartisan basis to get legislation passed.

He worked with President George W. Bush to pass No Child Left Behind education reform and a Medicare prescription drug law, though he ultimately opposed the final bill as insufficiently generous.

Kennedy’s death undoubtedly will elicit calls to get health care reform legislation passed in his memory, but reforming the immigration system was also one of his major goals yet unreached…

…Obama campaigned in 2008 promising that comprehensive immigration reform would be on his first-year agenda, but during a trip to Mexico this month, he said it had to be put off until 2009, an election year.

The administration is certain to call for swift action on health care reform as a tribute to Kennedy. But it also should accelerate work on immigration reform in his name.

The mad rush to capitalize on Kennedy’s death is yet the latest manifestation of Rahm Emanuel’s decree to never allow a crisis to go to waste.

The open-borders zombie from hell is back:

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is working behind the scenes to help Democrats craft a new version of former President Bush’s immigration reform bill. Graham also supported the Bush/Kennedy/McCain bill back in 2007. As The Wall Street Journal reports:

Wes Hickman, a spokesman for Mr. Graham, said in a statement that “Senator Graham is ready and willing to play a key role in immigration reform. He intends to work with many of his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.”

The new bill will most likely be introduced in September by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Graham has been working with his colleague in search of other Republican votes.

Source: Politics Daily

Shamnesty never dies.

***

Obama, meeting with leaders in Mexico, says that a shamnesty bill will have to wait until next year.

But shamnesty lives on at DHS:

It was bad enough that federal immigration officials blamed an Arizona sheriff for releasing illegal immigrants when the feds themselves actually had ordered the release. What’s worse is that releasing illegals is becoming official policy and the feds have issued a gag order to try to stop the sheriff from telling the public about it.

The spat between controversial Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surfaced on July 23 and 24 when the sheriff’s deputies were ordered by ICE officials to release illegal immigrants who had been caught in a broader criminal sweep. Sheriff Arpaio complained to the media; a federal spokesman claimed the release was the sheriff’s fault; and the sheriff then released audiotapes proving that ICE officials, not he, had ordered the release.

Caught looking foolish, ICE officials threatened to withdraw the sheriff’s authority to enforce any immigration laws because the sheriff had violated a ban on contacting the media without first obtaining approval from the Department of Homeland Security, which is ICE’s parent agency.

Yes, you read that correctly: The sheriff was ordered to shut up. To make it clearer, ICE’s principal legal adviser, Peter S. Vincent, wrote to Arpaio attorney Robert Driscoll on July 31 that the sheriff’s department, under the terms of its agreement with ICE, must “coordinate with ICE regarding information to be released to the media regarding actions taken under this memorandum of agreement.”

I pointed a few weeks ago to Obama’s meeting with Latino groups pushing for faster action on paving the pathway to citizenship for millions of illegal aliens. You know that the DREAM Act has been reintroduced in Congress. You know about the Obama Census plan to Leave No Illegal Alien Behind. And you know that Nancy Pelosi has been banging the “stop the unpatriotic raids” drum.

You also know that there is already a de facto shamnesty plan already in place — overseen by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who is eroding interior immigration enforcement. A West Coast source tells me that customs and border patrol agents have been ordered not to confiscate Washington state IDs from illegal aliens. ICE agents are feeling pressure to curtail workplace investigations. And illegal alien deportation fugitive Zeituni Onyango, aunt of the president, is going nowhere.

What is more newsworthy is the rising tide of voices standing up against lax immigration enforcement and its costs.

It’s not just conservative immigration enforcement activists.

It’s politicians who have to answer to their law-abiding constituents demanding to know why scarce resources should be allocated to illegal aliens over citizens. Like the five Democrats in Colorado who helped kill the state version of the DREAM Act. And the local health officials in northern California who are finally ending taxpayer subsidies for non-emergency illegal alien care.

It’s citizens who have suffered the loss of loved ones as a result of bloody sanctuary policies. Like Ray Tranchant, who testified on Capitol Hill last week on how failure of local and federal immigration officials to cooperate contributed to the death of his daughter and her best friend at the hands of a revolving door illegal alien drunk driver. Or like Daniella Bologna, who filed suit against the open-borders government of San Francisco on Tuesday:

The family of a father and his two sons who were gunned down last year have filed a lawsuit against the city of San Francisco, claiming its sanctuary policy contributed to their deaths.
Anthony Bologna, 48, and his sons Michael, 20, and Matthew, 16, were gunned down in the Excelsior District on June 16 after possibly being mistaken for rival gang members, according to police.

Edwin Ramos, 22, a suspected member of the MS-13 gang, has been charged with their murders.

The Bologna family lawsuit alleges that the city’s sanctuary policy shielding illegal immigrants – even those charged with a crime – allowed Ramos to stay in this country illegally. Ramos had a history of violence and several prior contacts with San Francisco police as a minor. But city policy prevented officers from turning him over to federal immigration authorities for deportation.

“What we’re saying is that the city adopted and enforced a policy that was actually inconsistent with and prohibited by federal law,” Michael Kelly, an attorney for the Bologna family, said Tuesday.

Since the last immigration battle, more and more citizens and local and state officials have begun to recognize the ravages of lax enforcement. When Obama moves forward with his official shamnesty legislation, he better be prepared. We’ve been there. Done that. And the White House should know that we are ready to stop the Open-Borders Express again.

Stick that on your front page, Fishwrap of Record.

The Hill reports that President Obama will “huddle” with Hispanic Democrats tomorrow to talk “immigration reform.”

Translation: The seeds of the next shamnesty are being planted:

Hispanic Democrats will have their first West Wing meeting with President Obama on Wednesday morning to discuss immigration reform, according to Democratic sources.

The meeting is the first face-to-face sit-down between Obama and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) since the president was sworn-in. Some in the CHC have recently expressed frustration that Obama has not talked more about immigration in his first two months in office.

Immigration reform is front-and-center on the group’s agenda.

CHC is eager to hear the president’s ideas and proposals for tackling immigration reform, not only as it relates to a comprehensive reform bill that could provide a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented workers but also as it relates to rolling back Bush administration policies of raiding workplaces and detaining and deporting thousands of illegal workers.

CHC members came away from a recent meeting in the Capitol with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano — a day after her Senate confirmation hearing — very encouraged that the workplace raids policy would be fully reviewed, and possibly altered.

Obama is on board. His DHS secretary is on board. The question is not whether, but when. He spoke to the massive illegal alien shamnesty march in Chicago in 2006, where he boasted of standing “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the open-borders mob. Here’s a flashback: