I have an interview scheduled with Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers, on Wednesday, June 6th at 6:35 a.m. Pacific Time, on KSFO 560 AM, San Francisco.
You can listen online here.

James Ridgeway writes at Mother Jones and Common Dreams:

According to Laura Carlsen, the director of the International Relations Center’s Americas Program, the reason behind the “massive out-migration” is fairly clear. Put simply, she wrote not long ago, “Mexico is not producing enough decent jobs for its people-and the United States is hiring.” It would seem, then, that one potential answer to the United States’ so-called immigration problem would be an effective development policy toward Mexico
……
As Douglas Massey, a Princeton University sociologist and co-director of the school’s Mexican Migration Project, told the San Francisco Chronicle last year, if “the United States had approached Mexico and its integration into the North American economy in the same way that the European Union approached Spain and Portugal in 1986, we wouldn’t have an immigration problem now.”

Dunnyveg responded:

“It is also not true that the illegals in the US are Mexico’s poor. This makes sense if we recall that it takes thousands of dollars to make a trip north illegally for transportation, coyotes, etc. The poor just don’t have the money.
……
“Mr. Ridgeway argues that Mexico would be better off if only we were to fork over more of our tax dollars in foreign aid. This argument leaves much to be desired.

Contrary to popular opinion, Mexico is not a poor country when judged by world standards; seventy percent of the world’s countries are poorer.”

The gap between Mexico and the US is larger than any EU nation had. Turkey is close to Mexico in development measures-and its integration is faces stiff resistance. Also, Illegal aliens are only secondarily driven by remittances. The big transfer of wealth takes place when a Mexican become a US citizen and obtains citizenship that is enormously more valuable than that of Mexico. Illegal Employers effectively pay in immigration rights which cost them nothing.

I favor greatly expanded development assistance to Mexico. For this to work, it must be done carefully and creatively outside the of channels corruption.

Development assistance alone can’t immediately make a reasonable US immigration policy. Increased development assistance might mean that stricter enforcement of US immigration laws wouldn’t come at the expense of the poorest of Mexicans and Central Americans. This may important in getting broad popular support on both sides of the border of different immigration policies. Most Americans want less overall immigration unless they are wealthy or politically influential.

Yeah, this is pretty boring–the only thing different from Part I (so far) is the candidates have taken to standing up and pacing the stage as they answer the questions. Or in Senator McCain’s case, he stands and paces the stage while he talks about whatever item is next on the talking points memo he carries on the campaign trail.

(The funny thing it is that the memo was probably written in 1946 when McCain first started running for President.)

“What is the most pressing moral issue facing America today?”

Governor Huckabee stressed the importance of valuing and respecting each and every life. Mayor Giuliani says we have a moral obligation to share our ideas of freedom with the rest of the world, specifically the Middle East. Senator Brownback says we can’t nominate a GOP candidate for President who is not pro-life.

Question from the audience: “Governor Romney, you have been accused of flip-flopping on the issues especially immigration. You want English to be the national language and yet you run advertisements in Spanish. Do you consider that hypocritical?”

Yeah, Romney’s answer was…well, not an answer. He just ranted on about God knows what…I still don’t know.

Congressman Tancredo said flat-out that he would not campaign in Spanish: his advertisements will be written in English and his website will not be translated into Spanish.

Senator McCain started talking about Vietnam veterans with Hispanic surnames and parlayed that into a reason for amnesty–crikey, how does the man do it? He can turn any question into a opportunity! Ask him what he thinks about the Clinton health care plan or even his prediction for the Indy 500 and his response will start with “back in Vietnam…”

My favorite line of the night:

When asked if elected what role George W. Bush would play in their new administration (Part I), Tancredo said:

“Karl Rove told me not to darken to doorstep of the White House because I challenged the administration on immigration and other issues. If elected, I would have to tell them to follow the same policy.”

Another great question from the audience:

“In regards to immigration and illegal immigration, what do you think it means to be an American?”

Congressman Tancredo said that it means if you come here and choose to become a U.S. citizen then you denounce your old allegiances. You have to assimilate. Then he asked an even better question:

“People, are we ready to call for a time-out? Have we finally reached the point where we need to stop the flow of legal and illegal immigration.”

He went on to explain that his opinion is based on simple practical sense not bigotry or prejudice. Tancredo (and only Tancredo) recognized that our current population levels are far beyond our capacity. He said that we will know when our immigration problem is under control when “you no longer pick up the phone and have to press ‘1′ for English.”

Next question was about influences–whom does the candidate consider a great influence both in their lives and on their politics?

I’m almost laughing too hard to write this response! Congressman Hunter just said that the man with the most influence over Giuliani, Mc Cain and Romney is…Ted Kennedy!!

Now, that just made listening the last hour worthwhile!

Good grief! We’re only minutes into the GOP debate in New Hampshire and Governor Huckabee (R-AR) is already invoking the spirit of Ronald Reagan. Must they do this every time? Can’t these guys move on? Get some new material?

CNN is hosting tonight’s debate and I must say, Wolf Blitzer started off with a zinger of a question:

“Knowing what you know now, would you support (vote for) the war in Iraq?”

Ouch! He’s not going to go easy on these guys tonight….thank God! Then again, nobody answered his question…

FINALLY! Twenty-five minutes into the debate and we’re on to immigration! First question:

“What are the consequences if the immigration reform bill backed by President Bush becomes law?”

Congressman Tancredo opposes the bill across the board…no surprise there.

Mayor Rudy Guiliani is back on the whole “national i.d. card thing” which is well…stupid and spiritually unamerican.

Senator John Mc Cain (R-AZ) co-authored the bill and admits that “This is not the bill I would have written” but that doesn’t mean he would have written a better bill. In fact, if he and his sidekick Teddy Kennedy had their way, everybody (including child molesters, murderers or basically anybody who could potentially vote for them) would likely receive automatic citizenship.

“What would you do with the millions of illegal immigrants here already?”

Romney didn’t answer the question–he talked around it with the usual jargon “we need to enforce existing laws then we wouldn’t have these problems” which is patently absurd.

Not surprisingly, Congressman Duncan Hunter had a harsher response HOWEVER he just said (more or less) that he would support an “amnesty type” situation for those already here if border security is strengthened first. Hmm…I wasn’t expecting that for him!

Tommy Thompson is talking about securing the border before giving “legal status” to anybody.

Only Congressman Ron Paul (so far) is talking about the problem in detail: he opposes birth-right citizenship, welfare and free education for illegals. Bravo!

Next question:

“Should English be the official language of the United States?”

Out of the eight Democrats involved in the debate last weekend, only one (I don’t know which) supported English as the officiall language of the United States. Of these ten Republicans, only Mc Cain spoke in favor over embracing other languages–the other nine were quite in favor of English.

Answering this question, Senator Mc Cain just mentioned that most of the illegal immigrants here today did not “sneak across the border” but rather overstayed their Visas. Well…that makes all the difference in the world!

You might realize that his answer has nothing to do with the above question but so far, Mc Cain has been speaking out of turn and off topic all evening. While I have rarely agreed with his opinions in the past, until tonight I was unaware of how rude and frankly self-serving this guy can be.

It was inevitable but the discussion has now switched to religion (evolution, abortion) and Governor Huckabee speaks very well on these subjects. You know how normally when this topic rears it’s controversial head people either laugh, get angry or fall asleep? I actually listen to Huckabee and he sounds like a true believer–how refreshing!

Ooh! They just hit Romney with the Mormon question…”do you think your faith will hurt you with voters?”

Romney (of course) said no but that’s like saying Roosevelt would have been elected if we watched him campaign as a cripple in a wheelchair. We might say it wouldn’t have influenced our opinion but only because to admit that it in fact would sounds mean and I suppose, bigoted.

“Is it time to end the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy in the military?”

Governor Huckabee…oh rats, didn’t answer the question but kind of implied that he would not change the policy.

Mayor Giuliani avoided the question as well.

ARGHHH!! I want someone to answer the question!

Supposedly, Romney used to support gays in the military but does not at this time. Senator Mc Cain (the man who never misses an opportunity to talk about his own military career) supports the current policy.

“If you were elected, how would you use George W. Bush in your administration?”

Tommy Thompson said “I certainly wouldn’t send him to the United Nations.” Hee hee…that’s pretty good!

This was a good question:

“What’s happened to the GOP?”

Huckabee summed it up with simplicity and accuracy: “They’ve lost credibility.”

Next question:

“Would you pardon Scooter Libby?”

Giuliani said the sentence was excessive and wrong. Romney said maybe. Brownback said yes. Tommy Thompson said basically yes…

And now we come to the first break…I’ll be back with Part II in just a few minutes!

During 2005 and 2006, we linked a number of times to A Certain Slant of Light, then one of the best - and most selfless - of the Patriot blogs on the Immigration issue. Particular VDARE.com favorites were this and this.

As happens so often, ACSL burned out. But now, like The Dow Blog, the desperate nature of the times has provided inspiration. Welcome back, A Certain Slant of Light – your country needs you!

New Hampshire is the locale for the big to-do this evening and that should surprise nobody! NH is the state with the earliest Presidential Primary election so naturally every candidate wants to win it and win it BIG!!

Ten candidates (at last count) will vie for our approval by spewing their opinions (they might even call them campaign pledges but that term implies some sort of follow through which as we all know rarely comes to fruition) on taxes, the war, health care and how rotten they all find the Bush administration.

In short boring, boring, boring…unless of course someone dares to shake things up a bit and address the real problem facing our nation: ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION!!

Reading through the pre-debate press, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) seems intent on pressing the issue. In statements made yesterday and earlier today, Tancredo–easily the most steadfast supporter of immigration reform out there–is already challenging his yellow-bellied opponents on the issue.

Specifically, he wants them to address the current Senate bill which on a good day is an unmitigated disaster…on a bad day, it’s more like the blueprint for the end of the world!

In fact, Tancredo has made the most hopeful statement I have heard from any candidate so far:

“I am going to use my presidential campaign as a vehicle to rally the millions of law-abiding Americans who oppose the Kennedy-McCain-Bush sellout of America.” FOX News 6/05/07

Yee-haw! The Congressman definitely gets it! This election is not necessarily about winning the White House–it’s about sending a messing, spreading a message and making a difference.

The future is uncertain for Tancredo in ‘08 (as it is for all candidates) but if he gets people talking about that disgusting amnesty deal floating around Congress, if he convinces people to hold our politicians accountable for selling out America than he may turn out to be better than the President of the United States…

He may be our savior!

Here’s Senator Pete Domenici, talking about a childhood run-in with the immigration authorities:

Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M.

I wish to tell about both my parents who came to this country as aliens. … They were told that my mother was a citizen once they got married because my father was a citizen. He became a citizen because he served in the First World War. He came over at the turn of the century and was drafted into the First World War.

It turned out that the lawyer gave them wrong advice, and my mother was not a citizen. She raised her children here and lived here as a … model citizen.

Then one day during the Second World War, she was arrested by several men who came in black cars to the backdoor while we four children were playing with marbles, or whatever we did. In came the people, the agents that work for the U.S., saying this lady was an illegal alien and she should be arrested. … By evening, my poor mother was released because she had a good lawyer.

A lot of people don’t have that, and we know what happens to them under our laws.

Personal histories shape immigration views - USATODAY.com

While I assume Mrs. Domenici was harmless, here’s something USA TODAY has omitted from Senator Domenici’s personal story of illegal immigration–the fact that his mother was technically a citizen of the Kingdom of Italy, a country that, during WWII, was actually at war with the United States. [NOTE: I had originally written that the Senator had omitted this--actually it's in his floor statement. It's the newspaper that, tellingly, left it out. The point stands, however.]

Immigration enthusiasts think that immigration laws should be enforced only against enemy aliens, not against “busboys” or other illegal workers doing jobs formerly done by Americans.

Now Senator Domenici doesn’t want them enforced even against enemy aliens. If he can’t separate his public duty from his family feeling, he might consider abstaining from voting on the immigration bill, like a judge who recuses himself because of personal interest.

On Monday, I watched New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici speak before the U.S. Senate in support of S.1368. As I listened to him ramble on—almost incoherently—it occurred to me, and I bring this up cautiously, that he might be in the early stages of senility.

Domenici said, with a straight face, that the U.S. did not have any enforceable immigration laws on the books. And he commented that during his one week break, he got almost exclusively positive feedback about the proposed legislation. But Domenici spoke to six editorial boards and two Hispanic groups. What did he expect?

Statistically, according according to a Richard Posner study titled “Aging and Old Age” it is possible that the 75-year old Domenici and two other very senior pro-amnesty Senators California’s Dianne Feinstein (74) and Massachusetts’ Teddy Kennedy (75) may have early symptoms of senility. Posner found that in the age group between 75 and 84, 16.4 percent of the population is senile.

Whether or not Domenici, Feinstein and Kennedy are senile I certainly don’t know. But if they are, it would explain why they’re beyond reach on immigration.

And senility doesn’t explain the other pro-immigration Senators who spoke today—Colorado’s Ken Salazar, Arizona’s Jon Kyl or New Jersey’s Bob Menendez.

We’ll just put them down for traitors.

In a recent interview, Mexican President Felipe Calderon spoke, as he has before, about the relationship between supply and demand in the international drug trade. Calderon said that

“It’s evident that while there is a market, while there is drug consumption in the United States, this problem will exist in Mexico.”

The Mexican president has a valid point. Mexican drug traffickers are evil people. But where would they be without their American customers? The reality is that American drug addicts are the principal financiers of Mexican drug traffickers.

As a nation, we need to get control of our border, and we also need to take an honest and realistic look at our own “War on Drugs”.