Because immigration reformers are routinely denounced as “nativists,” as I’ve always had a soft spot for the much-maligned Know-Nothings—they actually knew quite a lot. But this Journal of Social History article by University of Illinois’ Richard Jensen demonstrating that those “No Irish Need Apply” signs are an urban/ ethnic myth is really eye-opening from a number of points of view.

The U.S. Supreme Court dispensed a smidgen of common sense in 2002 with a ruling that illegal aliens could not recover lost wages because, well, they could not have legally earned them in the first place.

However, in direct defiance of that ruling, an appellate court in New York has ruled that illegal aliens can collect back wages at their home country’s rate. [Sanango v 200 E. 16th St. Hous. Corp.]

A jury handed Arcenio Sanango, an Ecuadoran illegal who fell from a ladder at a Manhattan worksite, $96,000 in lost earnings, both past and future. The award in U.S. dollars couldn’t be upheld, the appellate judges acknowledged, so they remanded for a recalculation based on the Ecuadoran pay scale.

“We are unaware… of any federal policy that would be offended by awarding an undocumented alien damages for lost earnings based on the prevailing wage in the alien’s country of origin,” wrote Justice David Friedman.

Uh, how about that big one that says illegal aliens aren’t supposed to be here to begin with?

But here’s an idea: By the same token, are illegal aliens who commit crimes in America entitled to “home country” criminal procedure?

If so, we could get confessions with a bullwhip.

On Monday, the Pew Hispanic Center published a study on the size of the illegal immigrant population (they wimped this to “Undocumented”).

We at VDARE.COM suspect Pew’s 10.3 million estimate for the illegal alien stock is too low (so, apparently, does Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns). But Pew deserves praise for addressing the topic.

Particularly valuable: the prominence Pew gives to the rate of acceleration of the invasion. A 70 percent increase in the DC area since 2000 to 500,000 for example—23% nationwide in the same period—e.g. since George W. became Commander in Chief.

Undeserving of praise: the spin given by the Establishment Media:

“Flow of Illegal Immigrants to U.S. Unabated”, gloated the Washington Post (Sylvia Moreno, March 22 2005) sneering at border enforcement.

“Undocumented migrants coming to stay,” cheered the Arizona Republic (Chris Hawley, March 22 2005). So far I have not found that particular prediction in the study.)

And no-one mentioned the real story: the incentive to illegal immigration given by the Bush Amnesty proposal—and, even more outrageous, the Bush administration’s silent abandonment of workplace enforcement.

What kind of householder stops objecting to burglars just because they have crossed the threshold?

I turned on Sixty Minutes recently in anticipation of seeing the heroic ex-Muslim women’s rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and I wasn’t disappointed. She had been a refugee from Somalia who ran away from an arranged marriage to find freedom in the Netherlands, starting as a menial hotel worker, then going to college and later being elected to the Dutch Parliament.

She has been absolutely fearless in denouncing Islam’s brutality toward women and has called Mohammed a pervert for m marrying third wifelette Aisha, aged 6. Hirsi Ali’s work among abused Muslim women in the Netherlands led her to author the controversial film Submission, which apparently angered an Islamic extremist enough to murder the director, Theo van Gogh, on an Amsterdam street.

Being an outspoken ex-Muslim woman is not the safest lifestyle in today’s Islamized Netherlands. Yet Hirsi Ali exudes courageous good cheer. Despite the stress of living with 24/7 police protection because of ongoing death threats, she retains her upbeat demeanor and radiant smile. The Sixty Minutes link includes a brief clip of her speaking in excellent English. (Another video with her here.) She is the sort of immigrant any democratic country should welcome, someone who comes for the opportunity to join the community of freedom-loving individuals.

She is seen as a traitor to Islam, the faith she rejected as a very young woman. Hirsi Ali says her rejection of Islam started at an early age: “From the time I started reading novels of Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, I wanted to be like Nancy Drew.” Her beliefs estranged her from her parents, who remain devout believers.

How did she do it?

“The American dream,” says Hirsi Ali. “I think it’s in every individual, if you have the will to improve your life.”

She is working on the sequel to Submission because anything less would be rewarding terrorists for their violence.

Boston Globe reporter Yvonne Abraham [email her] wrote a puff piece Mayans’ Invisible Struggle [March 14, 2005] about the roughly 2,000 Guatemalan Mayans living in New Bedford, MA.

You’ve read it all before. The Mayans, escaping the horrors of the Guatemalan Civil War in search of “a better life” are exploited at the seafood processing plants where they are illegally employed.

Even though they only make minimum wage, they always manage to send a few hundred dollars home every month thus putting their own finances at risk, etc ad nauseum.

But when I visited Guatemala last summer, I saw no signs of the Civil War that ended 10 years ago.

And even though the Mayans earn only $2.00 a day in Guatemala, given the cost of living in Massachusetts, they are actually economically better off at home than in the U.S.

The Mayans case reflects a big problem with illegal immigration and those, like the Boston Globe, who condone it.

Some special circumstance like a long-ago war is always a good enough reason to forgive lawbreaking.

Vicente Fox, El Presidente, has complained that the US needs to do something about the Minuteman Project, whose volunteers he calls “extremists.”

“We totally reject the idea of these migrant-hunting groups,” Fox said. “We will use the law, international law and even U.S. law to make sure that these types of groups, which are a minority . . . will not have any opportunity to progress.” [U.S. needs to watch extremists, Fox says, Chris Hawley, Arizona Republic Mexico City Bureau, Mar. 17, 2005 12:00 AM]

Let’s see, how wrong is that?

The majority of Americans want to stop illegal immigration.

Stopping illegal immigration is the law of the land. (Years ago, someone complained that the Guardian Angels] were “taking the law into their own hands.” A spokesman replied “Citizens arrest is the law.”)

And if Se?or Fox doesn’t want his border crossers to run into American citizens in the desert, he might consider calling out his Army, and stopping the invasion, south of the border.

From the Globe and Mail [Canada]

“… the co-chairs call for a loosely defined “border pass” allowing all North American residents to freely cross internal boundaries.” .

This includes Mexico!

Going public with the continental market place concept that has been Bush’s goal since his candidacy now has a new face – and excuse- “Continental Security. ”

A loosely defined “border pass” indeed!

He has been loosely defining “citizenship” and loosely regarding the United States constitution and American law for quite some time… now on to loosely defining America itself.

Bill Clinton was impeached for considerably less “loose” definitions.

Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of “violation of the oath of office is.”

Enough!

It is time for everybody to announce a side…”Nation—or Street Bazaar?”.

The President has.

Walmart has agreed to pay an $11 million dollar fine to the U.S. government, but will face no criminal charges, for hiring more than 350 illegal aliens.

Not quite out of hot water, Walmart still faces a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of those 350 illegal aliens who claim unfair wages, working conditions and hours.

Walmart grossed more than $280 billion dollars in sales in 2004. I would think $11 million is more like “Hey, here’s a little something for trouble now go away” money for the retail giant but at least they can no longer feel absolutely immune.

Now if we could direct to feds in the general direction of agriculture labor in California…

The famous diplomat and historian George F. Kennan, who died Thursday at the age of 101, was best known for his “Long Telegram” of February 1946 that both shattered the U.S. government’s illusion that Stalin’s Soviet Union was its ally and outlined a strategy for containing Communism without setting off World War III.

One of the great conservative realists of the 20th Century, Kennan was starkly skeptical about mass immigration. (As is common among immigration skeptics, Kennan had family ties to immigrants: his wife of 74 years was from Norway.) He wrote in his 1994 book Around the Cragged Hill:

“However one cuts it, the question is not whether there are limits to this country’s ability to absorb immigration; the question is only where those limits lie, and how they should be determined and enforced—whether by rational decision at this end or by the ultimate achievement of some sort of a balance of misery between this country and the vast pools of poverty elsewhere that now confront it. The inability of any society to resist immigration … is a serious weakness, and possibly even a fatal one, in any national society.” (p. 19)

Kennan also said:

“It is obviously easier, for the short run, to draw cheap labor from adjacent pools of poverty…than to find it among one’s own people. And to the billions of such prospective immigrants from poverty to prosperity, there is, rightly or wrongly, no place that looks more attractive than the United States. Given its head , and subject to no restrictions, this pressure will find its termination only when the levels of overpopulation and poverty in the United States are equal to those of the countries from which these people are now so anxious to escape.”

I offer this for the VDARE.COM reader for the photos as much as the text – which, however, is quite different from the mendacious headline. [No drop in migrant flow or deaths Multimillion-dollar border effort had little impact, analysis shows – Claudine Lomonaco (e-mail) Tucson Citizen, March 16, 2005]

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Human Chain…Where Have They Been All These Years? [D. A. King] - 03/18/05

From the Inland Valley [California] Daily Bulletin regarding the Minute Man Project in Arizona, U.S.A.–”…Latino activists protesting the Minuteman Project could also form a human chain across the border, and plan to protest Saturday…”

Now, they want to form a “human chain” at the border.

April is apparently really is immigration crime-fighting month in Bush’s “New America”.

How “extreme”.