The mainstream media’s willful mis-reporting on many aspects of the immigration issue brings to mind Stalin’s rhetorical Q and A:

“How do we manage the ideological and political work of a party as large as ours? Only through the press.”

Luckily for the public, there is the internet and a handful of local papers which are willing to…well, report on the issue.

This from an eleven-part series on a recent refugee influx in Shelbyville, Tennessee [Somalians respond poorly to local hospitality, By Brian Mosely, Shelbyville Times-Gazette, December 29, 2007 ]

”Over the past few years, this community has given a helping hand and opened their arms to the new arrivals from Somalia.

In return, many of these refugees have given Shelbyville the finger.

When I began researching this story about the Somalis, I knew it would be controversial. We were aware that many in Shelbyville were having serious concerns about hundreds of Sunni Muslims moving here.

But as I began to talk with officials and others about our new neighbors, I was stunned by the reaction. Practically every person I spoke with locally said they had done everything possible to help out the refugees in adjusting to their new home and were treated very badly in return.

On the other hand, some I contacted for background on this story seemed to be so blinded by political correctness that they would excuse any behavior, no matter how upsetting or disruptive, as “part of their culture.”

Did anyone involved in integrating these folks into American society stop to think that many in the heartland of America might not share this overly optimistic and myopic view of cultural diversity?

There are also the stories that come from other communities that have many locals nervous. For example, in October of last year, Said Biyad, a Bantu refugee from Somalia, killed his four children in Louisville, Ky., and attacked his estranged wife with a blunt object, turning himself into police afterward. He slashed the throats of the children, aged 2 to 8, because his wife “disrespected” him, he said.

A difference in culture, no doubt.

If Shelbyville’s Somali community really wishes to “integrate into different societies to live together and to make our future here,” as Imam Haji Yousuf told me, that process must work both ways. The arrogant sense of entitlement demonstrated by these new additions to Shelbyville must stop.

One can not expect a community to keep bending over backwards to help folks, only to treated with rudeness, disrespect and hostility. At some point, our welcoming attitude and southern hospitality will turn into resentment and distrust.

And as the comments posted on our website demonstrates, that is already occurring, in far greater numbers than we ever imagined.”

The New York Times notes in Brazilians Giving Up Their American Dream, [by Nina Bernstein and Elizabeth Dwoskin, December 4, 2007] that

“In Massachusetts, says Fausto da Rocha, the founder of the Boston-area Brazilian Immigrant Center, his compatriots — many here illegally — are leaving by the thousands, some after losing homes in the subprime mortgage crisis.”

Here’s VDARE.com’s take on the issue from almost 4 years ago:The Mortgage Monsters Meet The Immigration Invasion. They Like Each Other., March 31, 2004

Nationals from 27 countries (including Western Europe) can enter the U.S. without a visa on the Visa Waiver Program.

Today, roughly one half of temporary visitors to the U.S. come in under the relatively new Visa Waiver Program (VWP). The streamlined visitor entry program became permanent in 2000 just in time for 9/11. In fact, Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted 9/11 conspirator, entered the U.S. on the VWP, Feb 23, 2001. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was also a would-be VWP entrant.

In a review of the program when it was in pilot prior to 2000, INS inspectors found that “identified terrorists and criminals believed they would receive less scrutiny during the inspection process if they applied under the VWPP and would have a greater chance of entering without being intercepted.”

That’s for sure – there is no U.S. consular interview or pre-inspection for travelers from VWP countries. Their first encounter with U.S. officials is on U.S. soil where they are pretty much waived through if they have a passport from a VWP country. After all, these are mostly Western countries with which we have relaxed travel reciprocity agreements. But wait, the current issue of the Georgetown Immigration Law Journal notes in an article (The Role Of Immigration In A Coordinated National Security Policy, Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, Vol 21:383 2007 by Donald Kerwin and Margaret D. Stock) [PDF] that a “A recent quantitative study of more than 300 Islamic terrorists found that forty-one percent were nationals ofWestern countries…”

No surprise, the article finds that “Terrorists both live in VWP countries and can be expected to use stolen passports from VWP countries.”.

Belgium recently had the highest rate of stolen passports in the world. Part of a Belgian passport’s value on the black market is as an entrée to the U.S. on the VWP.

Though the USA PATRIOT Act now requires participating countries to issue machine-readable passports which include biometric identifiers and and other recent U.S. law requires these countries to track and report lost or stolen passports, don’t expect major changes soon since the VWP supposedly provides economic benefits to the U.S. and convenience to U.S. travelers.

The Law Journal reports

An April 2004 report by the DHS Inspector General criticized: (1) the program’s uncertain leadership; (2) its failure to perform mandatory reviews of participating countries; (3) its failure to collect information on the use of fraudulent passports in the program; (4) inadequate training on passport fraud for inspectors at ports-of-entry; and (5) the ability of VWP participants to avoid the US-VISIT entry/exit system. The program remains the U.S. immigration system’s area of greatest vulnerability. (Italics added)

When Donald Kerwin, the Executive Director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. and an advisor on immigration to the promiscuously open-borders U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is alarmed, the situation is truly dire.

With the stirrings of real debate on immigration abroad in the land, it is gratifying to see the government and media focused on the really important issues like occasional rudeness from immigration judges when rejecting asylum applications.

The Attorney General has ordered a comprehensive review of the immigration court system because of some immigration judges �whose conduct can aptly be described as intemperate or even abusive and whose work must improve�. Look for a parade of media heroes putting a human face on a campaign for administrative measures aimed at easing asylum regulations.

In covering the �story� (12/26/05, Adam Liptak, Courts Criticize Judges� Handling of Asylum Cases, page 1), the New York Times cites as exhibit A one Judge Annie S. Garcy who rejected an asylum application from a Chinese illegal Qun Wang, noting inter alia, “He’s a horrible father as far as the court’s concerned.”

That�s the sum of the evidence of injudicious tone and sarcasm presented by the Times against the judge.

Had the Times included a rudimentary outline of the case and noted the similarities to the thousands of asylum applications immigration judges review each year, even typical Times� readers would be left thinking more rudeness might be in order.

One of 50,000 or so Chinese smuggled in by snakeheads each year, Mr. Wang was caught and sought to change his status from illegal alien to political asylum seeker based on a �96 law which includes coercive population control programs as grounds for political asylum. Passage of the law was a coup for the immigration lobby, but was also seen as part of an outreach effort to the religious right.

The Times noted the judge felt Mr. Wang was obsessed with having a son and did not pay enough attention to his daughter, who is disabled.

More precisely, Mr. Wang left his family of 3 children (including 1 son according to Chinese media sources) and wife behind in China, claiming that his wife�s sterilization, ordered by state authorities, was the cause of his flight. Not noted in the Times report was the judge�s reasonable conclusion that the applicant seeks to ride on his wife�s coat tails to an asylum claim.

The Attorney General�s criticism of the immigration judge received media coverage in China where human smuggling gangs use the lure of guaranteed U.S. asylum when convincing its clients to borrow up to 60,000 dollars and undertake the perilous trip to America.

It would be hard to find a piece of humanitarian legislation that has caused more human suffering than the coercive population control clause in U.S. immigration law.

This bizarre interpretation of the ancient principle of asylum is rightfully seen in China as a huge gift to the snakeheads � almost as big a gift as the shoddy immigration reporting and analysis that pours out of the MSM these days.

The definition of asylum has been twisted beyond recognition by the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. Increasingly, what was intended to provide refuge for those fleeing repressive governments is now providing a generous welcome for those claiming flight from repressive social norms.

VDARE.com readers can check their local PBS listings for Oct 26 to see the likely future for the �new normal� in asylum admissions.

�Breaking Free: A Woman�s Journey�, part of a fall PBS series on immigration and refugee issues, will detail the asylum appeal of Rodi Alvarado, a victim of severe domestic violence from Guatemala.

Initially granted asylum by an immigration judge, the Board of Immigration Appeals reversed that decision in 1999. At that time Attorney General Janet Reno proposed regulations granting asylum to Ms. Alvarado and codifying the availability of asylum for women and girls who claim to be fleeing domestic abuse. Those regulations were never finalized and are still awaiting final approval from the Attorney General.

It was expected by many that John Ashcroft would formalize the new regulation. The expectation is near universal in the human rights/immigration/refugee lobby that Alberto Gonzales will finalize the new regulation. Indeed, most recently, DHS has urged acceptance of the Reno/Clinton regulation and recommended asylum for Ms Alvarado.

Supporters of domestic violence as grounds for asylum like to point out that it did not open the flood gates in Canada when that country adopted relaxed criteria vis a vis domestic violence. But Canada is only bordered by the U.S. . The U.S. is bordered by Mexico.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has found that domestic violence in Mexico is “pervasive, officially tolerated, and in some areas, legally approved”. (Aguirre-Cervantes v. INS, No. 99-70861, Mar. 21, 2001). That certainly goes for most other countries in the region such as Ms Alvarado�s home of Guatemala.

If domestic violence is grounds for admission to the U.S. then we may not need the Bush immigration plan after all. Half the region will be eligible for admission under asylum law. And the other half will not be stopped from following them in. (So much for putting an end to domestic violence.)

The PBS �documentary� on Rodi Alvarado�s �journey� is part of a lobbying effort supported by refugee and asylee federal contractors, large corporate donors and immigration lawyers and enlisting popular opinion molders from Hollywood, TV and rock music.

The Human Rights / immigrant rights lobby is not offering to sacrifice any of its resources to aid victims of domestic violence. It could for instance, lobby for an immigrant status that stopped somewhere short of the full rights and entitlements that a successful asylum claim brings. But immigrants with such a status might require support from the supporters of relaxed asylum criteria. Click here to see what entitlements await Ms Alvarado when she gains asylum. (see below)

I have sat in on sessions where the director of the National Immigration Forum spoke of the importance of timing the release of such quasi-news stories around Thanksgiving when, according to their marketers, Americans are most likely to be receptive to the message in the story. No, I am not saying that Frank Sharry is pulling the strings of MSM puppets, but the MSM is congenitally incapable of talking to both sides on the question of humanitarian immigration. Going exclusively to one side for �stories� differs little from serving outright as a publicity agent for that side�s agenda. One side�s agenda is what viewers are in for with PBS�s Thanksgiving story.

Federal �Means-Tested� Public benefits available to asylees include:

� Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
� Medicaid
� Food Stamps
� Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
� Social Security Disability Insurance
� Administration on Developmental Disabilities (ADD) (direct services only)
� Child Care and Development Fund
� Independent Living Program
� Job Opportunities for Low Income Individuals (JOLI)
� Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
� Postsecondary Education Loans and Grants
� Public Housing
� Refugee Assistance Programs
� Section 8 Subsidized Housing
� State Children�s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
� Title IV Foster Care and Adoption Assistance Payments (if parents are �qualified immigrants�)
� Title XX Social Services Block Grant Funds

Bryanna is correct that mono-lingual teachers face diminished opportunities wherever bi-lingualism takes hold. So might mono-lingual government employees and politicians.

In Canada, many federal offices, even in Anglophone provinces, legally require proficiency in both languages of the officially bi-lingual nation.

Quebecers are much more likely than those from other provinces to speak both English and French. I am told this has led to Quebecers getting a disproportionate number of federal Government jobs.

Note the preponderance Quebecers among recent Prime Ministers. Vincente Fox for President anyone?

Note that Senate Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Saxby Chambliss was recently purged�reportedly because he was not sufficiently pro-immigration.

Chambliss, whose overall Americans for Better Immigration score is A- was replaced by Sen. John Cornyn (R, Texas), whose overall score is D.

The Bush team was said to be particularly offended that Chambliss presumed to deviate from the White House line after they helped him win his 2002 Senate race by trashing his opponent, wounded Vietnam veteran Max Cleland.

The appalling truth: Senator Kennedy, the ranking Democrat on the committee, is closest to what the Bush team wants out of the leadership of the committee.

Add Manchester, NH to the list of communities which have mounted enough resistance to stall the resettlement of African refugees by federal authorities in their towns. This list now includes the entire state of Kansas; Holyoke, Mass; Cayce, South Carolina and Lewiston, Me.

As reported in the Manchester Union Leader:

�the unexpectedly large number of refugees who arrived here last summer exceeded the city�s capacity to serve them, ensure their safety and absorb them into the community.

As usual, the federal government and its contactors

did not give city officials advance notice of the placements�. According the state refugee coordinator �Manchester just got overwhelmed�.

Refugee officials have vowed to place the refugees in other New Hampshire towns such as Laconia and Concord. [�City halts flow of refugees,� by Kathryn Marchocki, December 23, 2004; �Sept 11 tied to surge of NH refugees,� by Kathryn Marchocki, December 24, 2004.]

The national media has ignored what might once have been reported as a major event.

Perhaps they don�t want those other towns to get any ideas!