Yesterday I expressed skepticism about Mike Huckabee’s credentials as an Immigration reform patriot. As it happens Huckabee addressed the issue on Friday in Iowa. ( Huckabee discusses immigration during Iowa visit By JOSH NELSON WCFCourier.com Saturday, April 28 2007)

To an experienced eye, it is clear Huckabee’s commitment to repairing America’s immigration disaster is thin and cosmetic. (VDARE.com italics)

Huckabee tried to shore up his credibility on the issue, which ranks at the top of Republican voters’ concerns, while speaking to a crowd at an Iowa Christian Alliance fundraiser. He… said there needed to be a “common sense approach” to the issue.

That approach includes a physical fence in areas where it is needed and electronic monitoring in other areas, he said.

(This of course is the minimalist position usually adopted by those against the idea. Why not a full fence?)

While he said he is opposed to any plans for amnesty, he would like to see a path toward citizenship for people in the country.

(In other words, he wants the effect of Amnesty.)

“I just don’t think it’s realistic to say this weekend we’re going to round up 12 to 20 million young people and their children…”

(This is the central tenet of pro immigration defeatist line. Those who know the history on immigration know that voluntary repatriation often reached 40% of any given immigration flow – but that was before the magnetism of America’s social programs took effect.)

Tellingly, Huckabee did not apparently mention the crucial issues of birthright citizenship, or the status of English.

Any inclination to give Huckabee the benefit of the doubt was completely eradicated by three devastating articles helpfully supplied by a reader (thanks, T.S.)

Huckabee promotes ‘open door’ policy at LULAC convention Thursday, June 30, 2005 By Wesley Brown Arkansas News Bureau

In a impassioned speech before hundreds of influential Hispanic civil rights leaders from across the nation, Gov. Mike Huckabee told a captive audience Wednesday that America is great because it has always opened it doors up to people seeking a better way of life…
“Pretty soon, Southern white guys like me may be in the minority,” Huckabee said jokingly as the crowd roared in laughter…He said Arkansas needs to make the transition from a traditional Southern state to one that recognizes and cherishes diversity “in culture, in language and in population.”

Immigration bill un-Christian, anti-life, governor says Friday, Jan 28, 2005 By Doug Thompson
Arkansas News Bureau

Gov. Mike Huckabee Thursday denounced a bill by Sen. Jim Holt that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life…Huckabee said he took exception to characterization of immigrants in the bill and by its supporters as exploiters of social programs….Something that’s not worth sharing is not worth celebrating,” Huckabee said. “This is the kind of country that opens its doors. This bill expresses an un-American attitude.”

Governor Huckabee risks political fortunes to denounce immigration raid By Melissa Nelson Associated Press August 5 2005

Huckabee, a Baptist minister, said his support for the state’s growing Hispanic population has to do with compassion, not politics…Hugo Juarez, deputy consul general for the Mexican Consulate in Dallas, called Huckabee a good friend of Mexicans and the Mexican government.

The governor’s pro-immigrant stance was also praised by LULAC president Hector Flores, who called Huckabee’s efforts for the children a testament to progress in racial attitudes.

“I marvel at the changes in a Southern state like Arkansas where the governor actually called out the troops to keep the schools from being integrated in 1957. What a turnaround and especially for it to come from a Republican,” he said.

“What a turnaround” is right. But is Huckabee a “good friend” of the American people? Not on this evidence.

At times when the nefarious, post-national forces arrayed against immigration sanity seem overwhelming, it’s cheering to realize that ordinary American citizens from sea to shining sea are, in large numbers, rising to the challenge.

For example, some time in the last couple of weeks, the immigration-reduction organization NumbersUSA signed up its 300,000th faxer for our cause. That’s one out of every thousand Americans! If distributed uniformly across the 435 congressional districts, this would be 690 faxers per district, which is certainly a formidable number of educated constituents for hammering a congressional office on a single subject. (And for a state with more than about 20 congressional districts — California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Florida … — a U.S. senator’s office really takes it on the chin!)

But how uniform is the distribution of NumbersUSA faxers? Congressman (and former House Speaker) Dennis Hastert (R-IL) said last summer that “Every state is a border state,” and certainly we’re hearing news about illegal aliens’ impacts from every corner of the map. Still, are Americans from every corner alarmed enough to be digging into their wallets?

Yes. A recently added feature at NumbersUSA’s site is their frequently-updated national map of current-month-to-date donations by grassroots members/faxers. The map is self-explanatory, but I’ll point out that it’s organized by congressional district and that the color code giving number of donors per district is at the map’s bottom. (The map doesn’t provide total donation amounts per district.) Those living in large metro areas will likely be interested in the regional maps on the right margin. You can also scroll down to see the final map for the preceding month.

If you’re registered with NumbersUSA and currently logged in, the map displays a headline giving the number of donations from your district so far this month. If you’re not registered, or not logged in, you’ll see “Put Your Congressional District On The Map In Fight Against Amnesty & Extreme Immigration” across the top of the map.

At 1:30 a.m. Mountain Time on Sunday, April 28, 2007, the map and the donations gage just below it on the left show that patriotic citizens from across the country have stepped up in sufficient numbers to keep the fight for the country’s survival humming this month. Though the distribution of donors per district is far from uniform, it’s clear that there are districts glowing green or “hotter” in every state except Hawaii, North Dakota, and Rhode Island.

A glance at the detailed metro maps shows many “cold” central cities abutting suburbs that are hot to red hot. (Surprise!)

Interestingly, northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland is a pretty hot area, donations-wise, suggesting that the area’s increasingly in-your-face diversity and metastasizing traffic gridlock are winning us converts among citizens well-located to shriek at Congress in person, if suitably mobilized.

I look at the map at least daily. I find it fascinating and, towards the end of the month (when there’s lots of green through red), heartening.

Of course I’m interested in how Montana is doing, since I live in Bozeman. This month it’s on the verge of red hot, the best yet. Since I’m actually logged in to the NumbersUSA site, I can also see that we’re at 14 donations.

You might ask, “So all the congressional districts across Montana are about equally hot?” Well … all of Montana is a single district! It had two districts until after the 1990 census, when the (largely-immigration-driven) population growth in other states cost Montana its second congressional seat.

(Wyoming, the Dakotas, and Alaska are also single-district states. Because of this, their — and Montana’s — U.S. senators probably aren’t being pounded by enough faxers.)

What would impel citizens in remote Montana to be as concerned about mass immigration as they are, judging by their robust financial support for NumbersUSA? I’m not sure. Maybe the donors up here are primarily refugees from California, such as myself. On the other hand, news articles on immigration in Montana’s papers that permit online comments from readers typically attract swarms of such comments, heavily weighted toward getting tough on illegal aliens, their enablers, and their employers. For example, see a recent Billings Gazette article (”Immigration bills fail in legislature,” scroll down for readers’ comments) about the disappointing demise of state-level immigration bills in our legislature this year. It’s clear that a lot of these comments are from genuine Montana residents, as distinguished from kibitzers who live in other states.

The other state that especially interests me is Oregon, which consists of five congressional districts. The eastern 2/3 of Oregon (which may be one geographically-large district; I don’t know) has been red hot for at least these last three months. What’s going on there? Questions such as that may sometime become grist for master’s and PhD theses in history — if we save the republic — with these donation maps as a primary source.

So there are lots of us contributing money to the cause, all across the country. Many of us are carrying the burden.

However, these donations are just a means to our end, not a suitable arena for competition or boasting rights. I’ve had people tell me that they were reluctant to use NumbersUSA’s tools because they couldn’t afford to donate. But those of us who can afford to donate want as many patriots as possible using these tools, with no guilty feelings allowed!

As Tom Tancredo said at a November 2003 rally in LaCanada, California,

But we have no other choice, do we? No matter what it looks like, no matter how overwhelming. [Long-time newsman-broadcaster] George Putnam must have thought a million times in the years he’s been [talking about this crisis], that this is overwhelming. But he doesn’t stop, and you know why? He can’t stop. There is no alternative to doing everything we can do. I don’t care what your lot in life is. I don’t care what you’re doing or what your job is. You have a role to play with your neighbors, with your friends, with letters to the editor, with ways you can influence your constituency. I have the same role to play. We all have to do it, no matter what it takes and no matter how challenging.

[See Chapter Nine of Daniel Sheehy's Fighting Immigration Anarchy: American Patriots Battle to Save the Nation.]

p.s. If you’re not yet active via NumbersUSA, you might be interested in an intro I’ve written that I can email to you. Please contact me if so.

p.p.s. Although this note may seem to be a puff-piece for NumbersUSA, that’s not my intent. I was spurred by their donations map and what it tells us about participation in our cause across the country. I encourage donations to all the national (CIS, Pro-English, CAPS, 911/FSA, FAIR … ) and local groups (CCIR, IFIRE, CAIR, Dustin Inman Society… ). And, of course, VDARE!