In its latest newsletter , the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) – a unit of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security – suggests that migrants crossing the border illegally from Mexico into the scorching Arizona deserts are driven to do so by “emotions” and “machismo”:

“Intellectually, those considering jumping the U.S.-Mexican border realize how hot it is in the southwest during mid-summer. But somehow their emotions, their machismo, win out and they make a run for it, only to be faced with the desperate realization of just how hot the desert summer is: Deathly hot.

“When much of the U.S. was under heat advisories this summer for temperatures in the high 90s, the southwestern deserts were baking under temperatures consistently reaching 120 degrees. No shade, no pools, no air conditioning, just 120 life-sapping degrees. “

Continue Reading The U.S. Must Repudiate Life-Threatening Psycho-Babble and Instead Enact Reality-Based Immigration Laws

To this astonished blogger, Lou Dobbs’ profession of love for immigrants came as a welcome surprise. Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN (March 3, 2005). http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0503/03/ldt.01.html

In a debate on New York driver’s licenses for the undocumented with Cesar Perales of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, Lou repeatedly declared his heartfelt affection for migrants and seemed offended and surprised that anyone could ever suspect that he might harbor anti-immigrant sentiments. While besmitten with amore for immigrants, Lou allowed, however, that he brooked no sympathy for illegal immigration and insisted that he, as all of us should, will cherish forever the rights, privileges and duties of American citizenship.
Continue Reading Lou Dobbs to the World: “I love Immigrants!”

On January 10, 2005, the US Department of Homeland Security announced temporary relief measure for nationals of countries affected by the Asian tsunami, including:

• Burma (Myanmar)
• India
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• Maldives
• Somalia
• Sri Lanka
• Thailand

DHS has announced “temporary relief measures” that are now available to those individuals who (as a result of the destruction and humanitarian crisis in Southeast Asia):

1. Are unable to return to their home country or
2. Are currently traveling in the United States.

Continue Reading 10 Practice Pointers On Tsunami-Related Immigration Relief

The list grows longer – Bernard Kerik, Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood, Linda Chavez – all were felled in their political ascendancy by the revelation that a household employee or member lacked valid immigration papers. Just as Superman learned that the base metal, lead, could protect him from Kryptonite’s debilitating rays, politicians must recognize that immigration toxicity needs an immediate antidote.

If the immigration law supposes that we should disqualify worthy candidates for government service because they solved their pressing childcare needs by hiring or housing an undocumented nanny, then paraphrasing Charles Dickens, the law is “a ass, a idiot.”

Ironically, the subject came up in Los Angeles this week in a debate on talk radio (KNX-AM 1070’s The Business Hour), two days before Mr. Kerik’s disclosure of probable immigration violations and his resignation as President Bush’s nominee as the nation’s top immigration cop, the Secretary of the Homeland Security Department.
Continue Reading Immigration – The New Kryptonite