Immigrants have brought tuberculosis to a North Carolina poultry processor:

State health officials tested 286 employees at a Greenville poultry-processing plant for tuberculosis after a case of TB was reported there, and nearly half had a positive skin test.

The investigation at Columbia Farms began a week ago after tests on the first individual confirmed active TB, said Thom Berry, spokesman for the state Department of Health and Environmental Control

Poultry workers test positive for TB: 131 at Greenville plant show signs of exposure after active case found, by Liv Osby, The Greenville News, June 20, 2007.

Typically, the word “immigrant”, much less “illegal immigrant”, appears nowhere in the article. But it contains this tell-tale passage:

Berry said investigators were not surprised by the number of positive skin tests because so many of the employees are foreign-born. People born in other countries are nearly nine times more likely to have TB than those born in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We suspect many may have been infected in their home countries before they came to the U.S.,” he said.

Ask reporter Osby why she suppressed this angle. Ask plant owner House of Raeford why it ducked comment.

The former Governor of Texas, now the President of the United States, can’t get either of his state’s Republican Senators to back his Amnesty Bill. Of course, they shouldn’t, Texas is one of the hardest hit states, but why doesn’t ex-Governor Bush know that?

June 21, 2007, 5:14PM
Hutchison to defy GOP on immigration bill

By MICHELLE MITTELSTADT
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas, who has been under intense pressure from the White House and Republican leadership to support a sweeping immigration overhaul, nevertheless announced today that she will vote against reviving the legislation when it returns to the Senate floor next week.

She was joined today by the state’s other senator, Republican John Cornyn, who had been expected by the bill’s supporters to take such a stance. They had aggressively lobbied Hutchison in hopes of adding her vote to the 60 necessary to revive the stalled legislation.

Michelle Malkin, (who has just redesigned her blog, check it out) points to this story featuring Trent Lott being folksy and rural, while trying to say enforcement won’t work.

What does a fence on the United State-Mexico border have to do with goats?

Sen. Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss., was talking to reporters Wednesday about the immigration bill, when he said, “If the answer is ‘build a fence’ I’ve got two goats on my place in Mississippi. There ain’t no fence big enough, high enough, strong enough, that you can keep those goats in that fence.”

“Now people are at least as smart as goats,” Lott continued. “Maybe not as agile. Build a fence. We should have a virtual fence. Now one of the ways I keep those goats in the fence is I electrified them. Once they got popped a couple of times they quit trying to jump it.”

“I’m not proposing an electrified goat fence,” Lott added quickly, “I’m just trying, there’s an analogy there.”

Lott: ‘I’ve already offended everybody’
Fence? Goats? What is Lott talking about?
By MARIA RECIO Gulfport, Missisippi, Sun Herald
June 21, 2007

Of course, enforcement would work now, if it were carried out by an administration that really wanted to deter border crossers. One of Malkin’s commenters pointed to this story:Mr. President, tear down that fence!, By Janet Folger

The fence Ms. Folger is talking about is the one on the White House lawn--she says that if the President really doesn’t believe fences can keep people out, why doesn’t he tear down that expensive wrought iron fence around 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue?

Allan Wall has an interview scheduled with Austin Hill at 3:35 p.m, Pacific Time, on News Talk 960 AM, KKNT, Phoenix. You can listen online here.

Billionaire New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was previously a Democrat, then won two mayoral elections as a Republican, has switched party allegiance again this time to Independent. This would open the door to his running a third party campaign for President. He has mused about dropping a billion bucks of his own money on such a race.

Perhaps Bloomberg believed the article by Washington Post reporter Dan Balz lamenting the collapse of the Senate amnesty bill (Warning: It’s alive!):

Voters wanted an immigration deal …The collective failure of the two parties already appears to have stimulated interest in a third-party candidate for president in 2008 whose main promise would be to make Washington work. It is far too early to assess the viability of such a candidate, but it is easy to imagine the immigration impasse finding its way into a television commercial if someone such as New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg decides to run.

But I can think of an even more effective commercial Bloomberg could make based on this news story:

Bloomberg: Illegal immigrants help golfers

NEW YORK, April 1, 2006 (UPI) — New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says golf fairways would suffer if illegal immigrants were returned to their native country.

“You and I are beneficiaries of these jobs,” Bloomberg told his WABC-AM radio co-host, John Gambling. “You and I both play golf; who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?”

However, Robert Heaney, general manager of Deepdale Golf Club – a Long Island course where Bloomberg often plays — told The New York Daily News that no illegal immigrants work at the club.

Deepdale is “maybe the most reclusive club in America,” and it “hosts maybe ten rounds per day,” according to golf course architect Tom Doak in his indispensable Confidential Guide To Golf Courses.

Wouldn’t that make a great TV commercial?

• Open with a helicopter shot of a beautiful 160 acre golf course with nobody on it–except Mike Bloomberg in the middle of a fairway.
• Cut to Bloomberg hitting a 4-iron shot.
• But the fairway has only been mown to 7/16″ of an inch instead of the 5/16″ the way Bloomberg likes it, so in super-close-up/super slo-mo you can see blades of grass getting between the grooves of his clubface and his Titleist Pro-V1 golf ball.
• Lacking adequate backspin, his shot doesn’t “bite” and rolls over the green into a sandtrap.
• With a look of infinite sadness transforming into steely resolve, Bloomberg turns and faces the camera.
• He says to the American people: “Never forget. Without amnesty to ensure that America has enough poorly paid greens keepers, this could happen to you too someday.”
• His slogan flashes on the screen:

  Vote Amnesty
  Vote Bloomberg

See also: Mayor Bloomberg: Native-Born Americans Lazy And Stupid

The Washington Post this morning carries a propaganda blast from the White House: Immigration Lifts Wages, Report Says By Lori Montgomery June 21 2007 (Access requires registration)

It says of immigration:

there are “small negative effects” on the earnings of the least-skilled Americans

so that doesn’t matter, does it?

This report had already been leaked to the Wall Street Journal, and drawn a comprehensive refutation from George Borjas, the leading expert in the field.

If Lori Montgomery were doing her job, rather than purveying White House propaganda, she would have referenced the Borjas response, which was up on his blog yesterday. Complain to her.

Open borders are increasingly welcoming the Mexican way of crime to this country. Forget the sentimental baloney about hard-working foreigners breaking in to feed their families: America’s full refrigerator of riches is an irresistible attraction to criminals looking to upgrade their lifestyle via bigger and better illegal activity than they could achieve at home. (See Beyond Willie Sutton for an examination of foreign criminals in search of a better life.)

Kidnapping can be a low-rent crime, since it requires little in the way of infrastructure. A gun, a vehicle and a hiding place mean you can be in business. Voila! People-snatching has grown in popularity in Mexico, which is #2 in kidnapping per capita in the world, right behind Colombia.

In February, 13-year-old Clay Moore of Parrish, Florida, was grabbed by Mexican Vicente Beltran-Moreno at a school bus stop in a kidnap-for-ransom plot (Mexico’s Kidnap Culture Appears in Florida). Fortunately Clay was resourceful enough to escape his captivity, but the crime was an indicator of Mexicans’ third-world criminal preferences appearing in America.

Another devolutionary marker is the current kidnapping case in San Diego. Five Hispanic non-citizens snatched a man for cash in the Mexican style. Kidnapping for ransom was practically unheard of in the United States until now, when treasonous Washington has dissolved national borders and sovereignty for money and influence.

Five men pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges of kidnapping and torture in what prosecutors said was a sophisticated kidnap-for-ransom ring.

The five were involved in the kidnapping of Eduardo Gonzalez Tostado, 32, whose family paid $200,000 in ransom, said San Diego Deputy District Attorney Mark Amador.
[Five men charged with kidnap for ransom San Jose Mercury News 6/20/07]

This turn of events was easy to predict because of the earlier reports of Mexicans “moving” to southern California to escape the escalating crime wave in Mexico. Of course, they just brought their criminal culture with them, along with their famous enchiladas.

The revenant and wonderfully industrious blog A Certain Slant of Light has posted The Heritage Foundation’s article on and link to S.1639 (the new Amnesty/Immigration Surge bill) along with a valuable compendium of relevant and useful links which I would guess took more than half a day to compile. This is true patriotism.

Also supplying some light refreshment, ACSL notes that the boxes full of supporting letters displayed at Senator Kennedy’s pro-Amnesty rally last Thursday were in fact empty.

It figures.