Since arriving in America in 2000 as a winner in a Green Card Lottery, South African Tim Wood has established himself as amongst the best journalists covering the global metals and mining field. Resource Investor, of which he is the founding editor, is obligatory reading for those like myself involved in the area.

Somewhere along the way, Tim picked up an acute comprehension of the dynamics of America’s immigration disaster. He is also unassimilated enough to express it out loud. In late May he interjected into a debate in which he was participating, about the possibility the gold market is managed, the totally accurate statement

There is concerted effort led from all branches of government to ensure that wage prices at the lower end of the market do not rise and they do that by allowing the importation of vast quantities of illegal immigrants who suppress what would otherwise be a market price.

Now I see that last Thursday he put up on the blog associated with his site, normally entirely concerned with natural resource issues, Incentivising illegal immigration to the US. This deals with the discovery in Florida that a 27- year Guatemalan illegal immigrant had enrolled himself in a local High School - and the inane comment of local officials that he would have been eligible for adult education courses.

Wood acidly notes

Those who have been through the legal immigration process know that you dare not leave a mark out of place on your application forms, or you’re history. But as an illegal, every accommodation will be made for you.

The message is clear. Your best and most convenient shot at residence in the USA is via a border late at night. Once you’re in, drivers licence, welfare entitlements, medical insurance, workers comp and more ad infinitum will be secured for you by special interest lobbies tied to politicians courting votes and funds.

Tim Wood - an immigrant doing a dirty job most Americans are not tough enough to face. Congratulate him.

The Collier County Sheriff’s Department arrested several men in Immokalee, Florida for the alleged gang rape of an 18 year-old girl.

She was dragged from her home at 4 o’clock in the morning on October 1, and fourteen local farm laborers allegedly took turns beating and raping her before tossing her out on the street.

Thirteen are foreign nationals from Guatemala and Mexico. One is from Puerto Rico.

Sheriff’s arrest report [here]

The Mainstream Media has so far ignored this story and the few smaller publications that picked up the story neglect to mention the immigration status of those arrested.

So I called the Collier County Sheriff’s Department and asked the Duty Officer is she could verify their immigration status for me.

She told me that she didn’t know.

When I asked her if she could look into it she informed me that I would have to “contact the INS for that information” because “that is a matter between you and the INS.”

Here are the thugs:

Rolando Perez Claudio W/M/23

Ovidio Lopez Funez W/M/19

Gabino Garcia Godinez W/M/24

Augusto Perez Lopez W/M/32

Cesar Perez Lopez W/M/29

Napoleon Perez Lopez W/M/29

Alvarado Perez Luis W/M/21

Mario Lopez Luis W/M/19

Rene Perez Garcia W/M/22

Edwin Rivera W/M/28

Ermitanio Lopez Salas W/M/18

Herman Sanchez Salas W/M/28

Isreal Santiago W/M/56

Augusto Garcia Velasquez W/M/30

Just in case you didn’t notice the statistical anomaly, these Mexican and Guatemalan nationals, et cetera, are listed as “W” or white for ethnicity.

You’ll have to check with the Collier County Sheriff’s Department [email] about that little glitch.

In Kevin Lamb’s column last week, The Leftward Course Of Human Events, he wrote that “The SPLC even lists the American Enterprise Institute as a “hate” group. “ The SPLC protested virtuously that of the groups listed in their article “Into The Mainstream,” only the groups marked with an asterisk are singled out as hate groups, so we’ve inserted the following note into Kevin’s article.

[KL correction 10/5/05: In fact, AEI is not listed in the SPLC’s “hate group” page, but an article describes AEI “sponsored scholars” as having “views” that are “seen by many as bigoted or even racist”, citing Dinesh D’Souza, author of The End of Racism, and Charles Murray, co-author of The Bell Curve.]

Both the October 7 London Economist magazine and my old friend John Fund in the October 3 Wall Street Journal ponder the current demoralization and drift of the Republican Party - Fund’s bluntly headed “The GOP Could Lose in ‘06.” (Following the current suicidal fashion among treezine managers, none of the Economist story is available online, so I won’t bother linking). Neither mentions Bush’s immigration policy. We’ve bashed the Economist’s wilful blindness before. Fund is a more complicated case. By contrast, the lookouts on the Titanic at least reported the iceberg. A better lookout: legendary Reagan operative Lynn Nofziger, who has quietly but sensationally suggested (scroll down to his May 19 entry) that the immigration issue may provoke a successful third party by 2008.