The ACRU Blog

On Friday Feb 29th, John Armor and Ken Blackwell will be on the air.

At 12:30pm EST, John Armor will be talking to Bill Darwin on WRTC AM 1340 in Elkhart, IN. He will be talking about Immigration, Drivers Licenses or any other subject that comes up. You can listen live here.

At 5:00pm EST, Ken Blackwell will be on the Michael Medved Show. He will be talking about Second Amendment issues. You can click here to find out what station the show is on in your area.

At 7:00pm EST, Ken Blackwell will be talking to Terry Gilberg, who will be filling in on The J.D. Hayworth Show. Ken will be talking about Congress' failure to pass the Protect American Act. You can here him in Phoenix, AZ on KFYI 550AM or online by clicking here.

John Armor will be discussing the latest ACLU Outrage, The ACLU siding with illegal immigrants, with Elaine Lawson and The PartyLine on WILO/WSHW in Frankfort, KY. He will be on from 8:30-9:30am EST January 18.

The facts for this story, but not the legal conclusions, come from a column in the Boston Herald on 27 September.

On September 26th, Antonio Montenegro ran over a child on a bicycle in a crosswalk, in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. Montenegro is an illegal immigrant who has been driving without a license for eight years. Onlookers forced him to stop when he ran over 12-year-old Zachary Titus, who was on his bicycle..

Zachary suffered a broken leg, but is otherwise okay. What happened to Montenegro is what's interesting. Original media reports that he was "released on his own recognizance" are false. It was worse than that. He was never arrested in the first place. He was given two tickets, one for driving without a license and the other for "failure to yield at a crosswalk."

The day after the arrest, the Lynnfield police claimed that Montenegro presented a visa that showed who he was. This is contradicted by Montenegro himself, who told a local TV station he "could not get a license because he was in the country illegally." He further said that he'd been in the country illegally for eight years, and that he'd built up a painting business, which owned the van that he drove over Zachary Titus and his bicycle.

The local police said there was nothing else they could or should have done. This writer has not curled up with the Massachusetts Criminal Code for an evening of light reading. However, I am fairly certain that it is illegal to run over a child in a crosswalk, even in the liberal bastion of Massachusetts. Breaking a child's leg certainly qualifies as "great bodily harm," a phrase that the common law - which Massachusetts follows - uses to draw a line between a technical harm, and one that is really serious.

The only reason why this man was not arrested, fingerprinted, and photographed front and side, is that the local police apparently thought it would be politically incorrect to arrest this gentleman because he was, after all, an "undocumented immigrant" who was "working hard to better himself."

If there is reason and logic in Massachusetts - bear with me, this might somehow happen - Montenegro should be arrested on the more serious charge of running over the child. The Police Chief of Lynnfield should be encouraged to seek alternative employment. And the parents of the child should sue this illegal driver back to the Stone Age before he is deported.

Go here for this story on the Net: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1034352

The ACLU has settled one case against Homeland Security concerning a holding facility in Texas for whole families of illegal aliens. At the same time, one of the largest, most left-wing unions in the US files a new suit against Homeland. Both cases are of a piece in trying to prevent the US from enforcing its immigration laws.

The lawsuit Texas concerned the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas. The ACLU had claimed that Homeland Security was "mistreating" families, and especially children, who were being held pending deportation at that place.

A fact-finding trial was about to begin concerning that facility. According to the article, Immigration and Customs Enforcement had begun "improving education, recreation, medical care and privacy standards at its first large holding facility for illegal immigrant families." From the Washington Post article, it is not possible to judge whether these were improvements that ICE intended to make anyway, or were caused by the filing of this law suit.

When filed, the ACLU lawsuit claimed a chamber of horrors as being inflicted on long-suffering immigrants, without ever using the word "illegal." Apparently, the ACLU abandoned any claim that the families who were taken into this facility were anything other than probable illegal aliens who could be deported when they had been given a hearing on that matter.

Also, it is worth noting that the ACLU switches sides on factual matters, choosing the position with the highest "ain't it terrible" index. In Massachusetts, the ACLU challenged ICE "raids" that "separated parents from their children." In Texas, the ACLU challenged ICE precisely because it was not separating children from their parents.

Interestingly, the Post includes in this article a separate subject of a different suit in Oregon. It states that "the Service Employees International Union plans today to file a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland, Ore., against another federal immigration agency, charging that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services exceeded its authority by raising fees significantly July 30, including increasing charges for citizenship applicants from $400 to $675.

"The increase 'presents a huge barrier to thousands of immigrants' anxious to vote in the 2008 presidential primary and general elections, said Eliseo Medina, the union's executive vice president. 'This lawsuit is about accountability.' "

Were the reporters and editors responsible for this article thinking as they were typing in preparing these two paragraphs? Everyone who has not been living under a rock knows that illegal immigrants are paying upwards of $5,000 a piece to be smuggled into the United States. And yet, this particular American union claims that raising the fee for a citizenship application by - are you ready for this? - $275.

But most important is the absurdly laughable reason why the SEIU has filed this case, because thousands of immigrants are "anxious" to vote in next year's elections. Even aliens who have a right to become citizens under an obvious category such as marriage to an American, do not get their citizenship fast enough to vote in next year's elections. A competent reporter or editor should have known this, and pursued an additional point.

Perhaps the Executive Vice President of this Union was committing accidental truth, admitting that these illegals WILL vote in next year's elections, unless effective steps are taken to cut down on vote fraud.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from an article in the Washington Post, published on 26 August.

Go here to find this article on the Net.

It is well-known that illegal aliens often use false Social Security numbers in seeking employment in the US. Research has shown that in some instances, hundreds of illegals are using the same number, often taken from a real and employed American. To deal with this, Homeland Security adopted a new regulation requiring employers to take action when notified that an employee had an apparently false Social Security number.

The ACLU and the AFL-CIO claimed that this would be used as "an excuse" for employers to fire employees. But the law allows the employee 90 days to correct the problem before they would be fired. The San Francisco judge who issued the injunction was appointed by former President Clinton. If the injunction is made permanent pending trial, the appeal would go to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, the most "liberal" and the most-reversed Circuit in the nation.

A logical conclusion was that the plaintiffs did some serious judge-shopping in this case. It could have been filed in any federal court in the nation. They chose to file it in San Francisco, where Homeland Security might have to appeal all the way to the US Supreme Court to dispense with this attack on efforts to deal with illegal aliens in the US.

Notice this telling statement about the case by John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, who said, "This rule is a new tool to repress workers' rights in the name of phony immigration enforcement." Notice this statement assumes that illegal aliens using other people's Social Security numbers have a "right" to do exactly that, and that American labor unions are in the business of protecting those "rights."

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, come from Webwire, an Internet resource for recently broken stories. This article was published on 4 September, based on ACLU documents.

Go here to find this article on the Net.

The Attorney General of New Jersey has done the work of the ACLU in telling the Mayor of Morristown that his police should not check the immigration status of people pulled over for traffic stops or minor crimes. Mayor Donald Cresitello first proposed that in a letter to US Attorney Christopher Christie.

The US Attorney's reply claimed that this plan "directly contradicted" plans by the Attorney General of New Jersey, Anne Milgram, to check the immigration status of people charged with serious crimes or drunk driving. The US Attorney also wrote that checking status for less serious crimes is "something our office thinks should not happen."

The Mayor is trying to be more diligent in finding illegal aliens in his jurisdiction than either the State of New Jersey or the US government. And representatives of both the state and federal governments conclude - and put it in writing - that this is a bad idea. This happened in a state where the bodies are not yet cold in the ground for the assassination of three young people by an illegal alien who should long since have been behind bars, or thrown out of the US. One victim survived and told police what she saw. Two juvenile accomplices have apparently confessed.

In the entire article, only two people spoke the plain, unvarnished truth. The Mayor did so when he said the state's Attorney General had "handcuffed law enforcement in the state." The other burst of semi-honesty came from Maria Juega, of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, who said, "The mayor wants to purge immigrants from his town."

Ms. Juega is being semi-honest because she missed one word. The Mayor is not trying to "purge immigrants." If so, he would be packing his own bags, because his name sounds very Italian. He is trying to get "ILLEGAL immigrants" out of his town.

The deliberate sloppiness of claiming that steps against illegal immigrants are steps against all immigrants is how the ACLU and its allies - like this legal defense fund - try to defend the idea of open borders for the United States. They get away with this deception in part because members of the press, including Newsday in this very article, do not point out the critical deception. Perhaps in the midst of their personal bias, the press does not even notice this deception.

The facts for this article, but not the legal conclusions, are drawn from an article in Long Island Newsday on 27 August. (Go here to find this article on the Net)

John Gizzi over at Human Event Online, in his latest "Gizzi on Politics" post, has written an important post regarding the ACLU's efforts to thwart local ordinances to protect against the crime and costs of illegal immigration. Here's the relevant section:

The ACLU Strikes Again -- And Again -- For Illegal Immigration

At a time when thirty two states have successfully enacted legislation to deal with illegal immigration and more than fifty local governments have either taken action or are considering it on the issue, there is a major roadblock that their actions will almost surely have to overcome: the American Civil Liberties Union.

In two of the communities that have taken high-profile action to stem an alarming tide of illegal immigration, the ACLU is already hot on the job. In fact, an ACLU suit (in which the group was joined by seven other plaintiffs) against the town of Hazelton, Pennsylvania was recently upheld in U.S. District Court. Facing a rising tide of overcrowded housing and crime because of illegal immigrants, Hazelton Mayor Lou Barletta won enactment of the Illegal Immigration Relief Act, which suspended business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal alien and also penalized landlords who rent to them. Once the measure took effect, Barletta told me in June, "you could see the [illegal] people leaving....There was nothing to keep them there when employers and landlords were going to check them out."

Now Barletta and the city fathers must go the U.S. Court of Appeals in an attempt to overturn the decision, issued by a Clinton-appointed district judge, James Munley.

In Prince William County, Virginia, County Supervisor John Stirrup was inspired by Barletta's original measure (which he read about in HUMAN EVENTS) and offered a tough measure of his own to deal with the mounting illegal immigration problem: permitting the county police force to ask residents if they are illegal immigrants and, if found to be in the country illegally, arresting them and sending them on to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency for deportation. Following a crowded and stormy public meeting, the eight-member Board of Supervisors in Virginia's second-most populous county voted unanimously last month to enact the Stirrup measure.

And -- you guessed it! -- the ACLU was on the job again. In a letter sent to the supervisors on July 9th -- the day before the vote on the Stirrup measure -- ACLU Executive Director Kent Willis and Legal Director Rebecca Glenberg sent a letter denouncing "this ill-conceived resolution" and warning of "legal and policy problems that will have a severe impact on the civil liberties of Prince William County residents."

So, as Congress remains vague on what it will do to deal with the problem and local communities deal with what they say is a crisis that hits home, forewarned is forearmed: the ACLU is out there, waiting.

Executive Summary:

Judge Munley has ruled (AP: "Judge strikes down Hazleton's illegal immigrant law,") that local ordinances to protect munincipalities of bearing the cost of illegal immigration, like the one in Hazelton, PA, re "preempted by federal law." This is flatly contrary to prior decisions of the Supreme Court. The driving force behind the appeal of this case, and a similar decision by another federal judge against ordinances of Farmers Branch, Texas, will be future harms to the American citizens who live in those towns. There will be more rapes, robberies, assaults and murders of citizens by illegal aliens. There will be more injuries, damage and deaths from illegal aliens who are driving without licenses, without insurance, and often, while drunk. The citizens of those, and other towns, which are being overrun by illegal aliens, will rightfully blame this death and destruction on the federal judges who have, so far, stripped the local governments of the power to protect their own citizens -- which is the first duty of all local officials, everywhere.

News Channel 5 in Nashville, TN, published an article on its website on 10 July about illegal aliens suing local officials for illegally arresting them. They are claiming $100 a day for their incarceration until they are thrown out of the US in their suit against the Maury County Sheriffs' Office, and the Sheriff himself.

Nowhere does the article describe these as "illegal" immigrants. But they would not be in jail, awaiting deportation, if their status were legal.

The illegals were arrested during a raid conducted by the Sheriff and immigration officers at a mobile home park near Nashville. They were searching for, and apparently found, a man wanted for rape. The article quotes a local resident as saying, "she's scared the officers are targeting Hispanics." The rape suspect was Hispanic, as were the illegal aliens who were found and arrested.

There is no indication that the ACLU is directly involved in this case. But there is no question that the thinking here - illegal aliens have a "right" to be in the US and anyone who interferes with that "right" should pay - is right up the ACLU alley.

Go here, to find this story on the Internet:
http://www.newschannel5.com/Global/story.asp?S=6771363

Executive Summary:

An unlikely alliance between a talk radio host and a college professor, who got run down by an illegal alien, has sparked a turn-around for Tulsa, Oklahoma. From a sanctuary city it has become a watchful and wary city. And due to an extraordinary response by viewers, MSNBC has noticed and reported on this radical change.

On Monday, June 11th, the Georgia Supreme Court reversed a trial court decision that a Georgia law requiring photo ID for all voters, was unconstitutional. The court's decision was unanimous, but not substantive. It was that the Plaintiff lacked standing to object to the law, and therefore the case was dismissed.

The subject of the constitutionality of the Georgia law remains open, however, because a preliminary injunction against the law has been granted in a separate, federal challenge to the law, which is still pending.

Opponents to voter ID laws, which in many cases include the ACLU, argue that requiring photo IDs will "disenfranchise minorities, the poor and the elderly." These arguments have a tough time dealing with the practical fact that someone who wants to write a $20 check at the grocery store for milk, eggs and bread for breakfast, has to present valid, photo ID. And it is hard to argue that voting is less important than buying stuff for breakfast.

Most of the arguments in Georgia and other states against such laws claim that they amount to an "illegal poll tax." States have responded to these claims by making the process free for those citizens who want a government-issued ID in lieu of a drivers license. The real reason why opponents dislike these laws is that honest drivers licenses with photos and proof of citizenship would go a long way toward shutting down voter fraud.

And the voter ID laws will be indirectly tightened up by a federal law requiring proof of citizenship for all US and state citizens to obtain state drivers licenses, with different designs and expiration laws for any legal aliens who also obtain drivers licenses. The combined effect of voter ID and license laws will be that voters in American elections would be almost entirely living, American citizens voting only once.

Similar voter ID laws have been upheld in Arizona by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and struck down by the state Supreme Court in Missouri. Since the question of "discrimination in voting laws is a First Amendment, federal issue, it is likely that a US Supreme Court decision will settle out all these cases, both state and federal.

As a 33-year practitioner in the US Supreme Court on First Amendment issues mostly, I predict that when that Court takes one of these cases, it will rule in favor of the law, as long as there is a mechanism such as a poverty affidavit by which the poorest people can obtain state photo IDs without charge.

In the last week (as of 18 June), the US Senate and House have acted in opposite directions on the subject of "Sanctuary Cities." These are cities which take deliberate steps to protect illegal immigrants within their boundaries, who can and should be deported, and in some cases already have been deported at least once.

In the Senate, Senator Coleman proposed amendment #1158. This would have amended the "comprehensive" illegal immigration bill before the Senate last week, and rising from the dead to be before the Senate again this week. Coleman's proposal would have required that local law enforcement is not prohibited (in "sanctuary cities") from acquiring information about the immigration status of a person they have probable cause to believe is not lawfully in the U.S. This was defeated, 48-49.

At the same time, the House acted decisively in the opposite direction. On Friday, 16 June, the House passed an amendment proposed by Rep. Tom Tancredo to withhold federal emergency services funding from sanctuary cities. Many press accounts add the phrase "so-called" before the word sanctuary.

There is no doubt factually that there are sanctuary cities. Los Angeles has exactly the policy tying the hands of its police that Senator Coleman sought to end. New Haven, Connecticut, has just passed by a vote of 25-1 of its Aldermen to provide City ID to illegal immigrants. And last week the Mayor of Portland provided free city services to families of illegals arrested there, and referred to them as "citizens of Portland." The fact that they were also citizens of other nations apparently escaped his notice.

So there are sanctuary cities, to which Rep. Tancredo's amendment was addressed. And his proposal to amend the funding for the Department of Homeland Security was accepted by the House by a vote of 234 to 189, with 50 Democrats voting in favor. According to Tancredo's home state paper, the Rocky Mountain News, he had proposed similar amendments seven times before, all defeated.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said that she needs "70 Republican votes to pass the immigration plan." Rep. Tancredo said that the defection of Democrats and the solidity of Republicans on this issue indicates that the House "will crush" the Senate bill on illegal immigration in anything like its current form.

No actions of the Senate and House are final, of course, until either House has passed its final version of any bill, and the versions of each House have been approved by joint committees of both Houses.

Under pressure from a federal law suit of the type that has been filed by the ACLU against many small communities across the country, the City of Mamaroneck, NY, agreed that it will not enforce federal laws concerning citizens of Mexico and other nations who are in the town illegally. Instead, it has agreed to provide special benefits to these citizens of other nations beyond those available to mere citizens of Mamaroneck. (See "Day-laborer hiring site greeted by cheers, jeers in Mamaroneck")

A federal judge is expected to approve this settlement. It will probably remain in place until a number of citizens of Mamaroneck are killed in criminal activities by these citizens of other nations, or local citizens are killed in drunk driving accidents by these citizens. Until then, it is unlikely that the City leaders of Mamaroneck will be either indicted or removed from office for contributing to criminal activity in their town.

The Board of Aldermen of New Haven, Connecticut, have by an astonishing vote of 25-1 approved special City-issued IDs for illegal aliens. The program is also strongly supported by Mayor John DeStefano, Jr., who said, "It's a practical response to a real problem of a large segment of the population who felt isolated from civil authority, were fearful of civil authority and that was contributing to a lack of civility and order in our community."

New Haven is apparently the only local community which has taken such a step. The Mayor estimated that 10% of the City's 120,000 population are "undocumented." The reason why most local governments are going in the exact opposite direction can be seen in the daily press, across the country.

How will the New Haven IDs work? They "would allow access to city libraries and parks, while a debit component would facilitate purchases at some 50 stores and payment at parking meters." The claim is that the cards require the same information as banks do to open accounts. Maybe things have changed since I got my first job, had my first child, and bought my first house. But way back then, banks wanted to know that you had a legal right to stick around before they would lend you money, especially for 30 years.

Hospitals and schools are being over-crowded and bankrupted by the demands of the illegal community. Crimes, and not just drug crimes, are increasing because of the illegal community. And when the deaths from murders and drunk drivers are combined, illegals are killing more Americans every year than enemies and terrorists in all parts of the world from Iraq to the Philippines.

Why did New Haven go in the exact opposite direction from Hazleton, Pennsylvania, and Farmers Branch, Texas? Because those cities paid more attention to the interests of their citizens than the Aldermen in New Haven did. But it's not entirely their fault. They were advised by the worthies at Yale Law School.

The genesis of the program, as "Michael Wishnie, a lawyer with the legal clinics at the Yale Law School, said, was public safety and the request from immigrants to have identification they could show police." Think about that. Lawyers advising people who commit crimes how to avoid the consequences of their illegality. Let's hope this concept doesn't spread to other law schools.

Wishnie claims this is "sound local governance." He claims that police around the country see this as "moving forward." He cites Los Angeles and Chicago as good examples of police deliberately ignoring the illegal status of people they encounter.

How long will this new policy of New Haven last? Just until an illegal slaughters a few local citizens over a drug deal gone bad. Or until a drunk illegal in a car slams into a local couple at night and kills one of them and both of their children. The people will find out if the person causing the deaths had multiple encounters with the police, or worse, had been deported before, and yet was back again. Then, the Mayor and 25 of his Aldermen will feel the backlash, and this policy will die. Yale Law School, however, will feel no such backlash, and learn nothing from the experience.

New Haven could learn their lesson earlier than that. Some members of the state legislature have proposed cutting off all state aid to the city until the policy is changed. Since half of the city's budget comes from the state, this would be immediately effective. As when Congress has threatened to cut off highway funds to state governments, first there are complaints, then a loud sucking sound, then the state or local government backs down. The US Supreme Court, by the way, has approved the use of federal or state fund withholding to force changes in state or local government behavior.

I am grateful for a very thorough, factual article in the New Haven Register on 10 June, which provides much more information about the New Haven ID program than the rest of the mainstream media, put together.

The Aldermen of New Haven, Connecticut, have just approved ID cards for illegal immigrants in that City. The purpose is to allow them to open bank accounts and receive city services including welfare. Was anyone on the Board of Aldermen thinking when they adopted this measure?

To put this in context, would they even consider offering Get Out of Jail Free cards for bank robbers in New Haven? How about Free Lance Pharmacy cards for drug dealers? I shudder to think what they might do, to give a free ride to rapists or child molesters.

There is, of course, a serious point here. Under federal law, it is a separate violation of federal law for anyone, including an Alderman from New Haven, to deliberately assist someone else in violating federal law. There is also a practical side for dealing with New Haven and all other "sanctuary" cities.

There is no major urban area in the nation which could survive more than three months without the steady influx of federal funds for a variety of programs. If Congress passed a law saying that no more federal money from ANY federal program would go to any city that deliberately encouraged violations of federal immigration law, what would happen?

There would be a loud sucking sound. And then New Haven, Los Angeles, and all the other "sanctuary" cities would get back in line, PDQ. Actions like this happen whenever politicians get divorced from reality. Cutting off the money is the shotgun wedding to reintroduce them to that reality.

Perhaps last week's top news story, not counting whatever Rosie O'Donnell and Lindsay Lohan were doing, was the story of Andrew Speaker, the Atlanta personal injury lawyer who decided it would be a good idea to fly a few thousand miles here and there notwithstanding his knowing that he had a virulent form of tuberculosis. The passengers cooped up with him on his long, trans-oceanic flights have not been entirely thrilled with Mr. Speaker's decisions. They bear some misgivings about having had to share enclosed cabin space with the updated version of the Black Death.

The effort to track down Mr. Speaker and keep him from re-entering the United States was not entirely unsuccessful. His passport was flagged and instructions were given that he was to be detained at the border. The border agent who encountered him when he tried to enter from Canada picked up the flag, but decided -- he claims -- that the hold-at-the-checkpoint instructions were "discretionary." So Mr. Speaker crossed the border.

This episode surely has implications for the immigration package now being considered by Congress. All sides believe (or say they believe) that concrete guarantees of effective border security must be the anchor of any new plan. But how could those guarantees be taken seriously? We saw over the last few days how easy it was for a person whose identity and risk factors were known in advance to walk right past security even though he had been flagged and stopped.

By far the major problem with border security exists at our southern border. The problem is, specifically, that anonymous illegal immigrants by the thousands cross there, mostly with impunity, because they never encounter a border guard at all and even when they do, there is at best only spotty enforcement. Since we now know how porous and inept border security is even when both the opportunity and the mechanisms for enforcement are better than they will ever be in the Southwest, it is simply impossible for sensible people to believe the "guarantees" we are hearing about will be worth the proverbial paper they're printed on.

Scott Johnson of Power Line tells us what gets sanctuary in "sanctuary cities" in his shocking report, which I repeat in full below. To give the short answer, what gets sanctuary is human trafficking and sex slavery.

When the police turn a blind eye to the law -- when they are ordered turn a blind eye -- what exactly did we think was going to happen?

Read Scott's report:

Today's print edition of the Washington Times, in the "Inside Politics" section, quotes Senator Barack Obama as congratulating the Bush Administration on opening talks with our peace-loving friends in Iran (peace-loving, that is, when they're not engaged in acts of piracy, hostage taking and building The Big One). Senator Obama is quoted as saying, "I have to give the administration credit, which I rarely do....[It's] not because I trust the Iranians, but because I think they have a self-interest. They don't want to see Iraq completely collapse because they're going to have millions of people pouring over their borders," he said.

How's that?

Did Senator Obama just acknowledge (1) that a country's self-interest is properly taken into account when setting its national policy, and (2) that it is in a nation's self-interest not to "have millions of people pouring over [its] borders?"

Now if the Senator can connect the dots, so to speak, he might discern that it is also in the national interest of the United States not "to have millions of people pouring over [our] borders," as they have been doing for years, courtesy of see-no-evil border security and the 1986 amnesty deal, which effectively rewarded exactly that.

I am assuming here, of course, that Senator Obama believes that the United States is entitled to act in its self interest just as Iran is, but I confess that is only an assumption. If it's correct, however, we can hope that the Senator will recall this as he deliberates what our immigration policy should be. So hope -- but don't hold your breath.

Our ACRU bloggers have attempted to bring to this site the views of exceptionally bright and intellectually honest conservative thinkers concerning the immigration debate going on in Congress and around the country. Eric Langborgh has posted a videotaped discussion by former Attorney General (and ACRU Board Member) Ed Meese, and I have posted the views of Thomas Sowell and Charles Krauthammer. In this enty, I post the views of Paul Mirengoff, a brilliant and wonderfully clear-thinking legal and cultural analyst. Few people can hang with Paul in a debate -- I know, because he routinely routed me in the hallway debates we had in the law dorm at Stanford 35 years ago. Now his two daughters could rout me as well, were I foolish enough to take them on. Paul's entry on PowerLine, of which he is a founder, is as follows:

Conservatives demonized by unlikely source

The White House communications operation is in overdrive promoting its immigration reform proposal. I'm getting three or more emails per day on the subject. I feel frustrated that the White House failed, in my view, to push this hard for initiatives I favor, or when it came to defending itself on Iraq.

In keeping with the ACRU's commitment to a free and robust exchange of ideas (no speech codes in these parts), I re-produce below, from RealClearPolitics, Charles Krauthammer's views on the current debate in Congress on illegal immigration. Dr. Krauthammer believes that the bill under consideration does indeed create amnesty, but does not per se oppose it on that account. On the other hand, Dr. Krauthammer's take on amnesty comes with a twist:

Here is the Hon. Ed Meese, ACRU Policy Board Member and former Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, commenting on the Bush-Kennedy immigration bill currently being debated in congress in a "Heritage In Focus" video, produced by the Heritage Foundation:

Be sure also to read what Mr. Meese recommends instead regarding immigration, and the principles he lays out in his paper, "Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform."

The ACRU does not lobby for or against pending legislation. This does not prevent us from joining an important national debate, however, by bringing readers the views of others (and sometimes our own) on issues relevant to the discussion. Many of these issues, if not all of them, long pre-existed the introduction of the immigration bill presently before Congress.

Below, I re-produce in full a piece by the brilliant Thomas Sowell. For full disclosure purposes, I should add that I was a teaching assistant for Professor Sowell a mere 38 years ago, when he had a dank basement office in the Economics Department of Cornell University. He went on to become a renowned thinker and writer; I went on to become an obscure government lawyer.

Professor Sowell's views, published Tuesday in RealClearPolitics, are as follows:

Many readers will remember that Farmers Branch, Texas, a Dallas suburb, recently enacted an ordinance to the effect that landlords may not rent to illegal immigrants. The ordinance went to a vote after a pro-illegal immigrant group waged a vigorous campaign to, as they put it, "Let the Voters Decide." The voters promplty did so. By a margin of 68% to 32%, they decided to adopt the ordinance.

Without missing a beat, it then became time to "Let the Court Decide," a strategy the previously pro-vote group has now pursued. Yesterday they obtained, from a federal judge appointed by President Clinton, a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the ordinance the voters decided upon. The gist of the court's reasoning is that because the law makes regulating immigration an exclusively federal concern, the Farmers Branch ordinance is an impermissible encroachment on federal power.

My astutue colleague John Armor has thoroughly analysed the court's opinion, and I would add only a few thoughts. The ordinance does not actually enforce or have anything directly to do with the enforcement of federal law. It never says an illegal immigrant can't live in Farmers Branch, take residence in a house there or buy property. It says only that landlords may not rent to illegal immigrants. But that does not affect any specifically FEDERAL interest in immigration, since federal law does not cover rental agreements with aliens, legal or illegal. To whatever extent the ordinance may tangentially affect federal law, however, it is not inconsistent with it, but instead acts in aid of it, just as drug enforcement by local police acts in aid of federal drug statutes.

One might point out that sanctuary city ordinances, which actually DO affect the enforcement of federal law (namely by frustrating it), have never, on that account, been declared unconstitutional as an impermissible local infringement on matters exclusively reserved for federal control.

Finally, under the court's "reasoning," a "reverse sanctuary city" ordinance would a fortiori have to go. That is, if a city adopted an ordinance requiring its police to inquire after immigration status and report illegals to the federal government, that would (hopefully) have an effect on federal immigration enforcement far greater than the no-renting ordinance does. This would plainly meet the court's definition of local "infringement." So it turns out that anything a local government wants to do to assist enforcement of federal law, even ever so indirectly (as in the Farmers Branch case), is verbotten, while anything that turns its back on federal law is consistent with exclusive federal authority.

Translation: If your city wants to assist federal immigration enforcement, such of it as there is, that constitutes infringement, but if your city wants to squelch federal enforcement, that constitutes good government.

Go figure.

Farmers Branch, a small Texas town near Dallas, passed an ordinance imposing penalties on landlords who might rent their apartments to illegal aliens. The act included a requirement that the voters must approve it. In an exceptional turnout last Saturday, the voters did approve, 68% to 32%.

The ACLU and various parties took the town to court, claiming that the ordinance was unconstitutional. The court then ruled that the councilmen and residents of Farmers Branch are too stupid to govern themselves, substituted its judgment for theirs, and struck the ordinance as unconstitutional.

No, that's not the stated reason for the decision of US District Judge Sam Lindsay for issuing an injunction against the ordinance. But that is the effect of his decision. This was a "temporary" injunction, one that will probably remain in effect for years while the decision is on appeal.

The judge noted, correctly, that the Constitution gives sole power to regulate immigration to Congress. But then he dives right into the argument of the ACLU and others that Farmers Branch was preempted by federal laws on immigration. He did quote, but then passed quickly over, the preamble to the ordinance in which the town asserted its "police power" to act to protect the "health, safety and general welfare" of its citizens.

Had the court bothered to look at the history of cities, he would have discovered that "municipal corporations" were making decisions about how and where people could live and work, to protect their health and safety, centuries before the United States was a gleam in anyone's eye. What Farmers Branch sought to do was well within the normal power of any city.

The judge also failed to note that self-government through elected representatives is the most basic right possessed by all Americans. The Declaration of Independence states that "to secure these [unalienable] rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...."

The Constitution in Article IV turns that statement of philosophy into a principle of law, when it guarantees to every state (and all its cities and counties) "a Republican Form of Government." And, in case the judge didn't know what that means, that is a government in which "the supreme power is held by the citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives."

The court based much of its analysis on De Canas, a 1976 Supreme Court case, which approved a California law dealing with employment of illegal immigrants to the detriment of "lawful resident workers." In that case, the Supreme Court said that states (or cities) are engaging in forbidden "regulation of immigration" when they determine who should or should not be admitted to the country.

The court notes that Farmers Branch did not make any new determination of who should be admitted. Its councilmen and citizens accepted federal definitions, down the line. However, the court noted that the town adopted definitions and forms developed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to be used in its regulation of landlord tenant law in the town. Presuming that the HUD laws and regulations have been tested and found constitutional, the court does not explain why Farmers Branch is "creating a new definition" when it is using existing federal documents, word for word.

The court did not consider any other issues in the case.

The law that this court denied to the town and its citizens, would have required that landlords ask all tenants to provide a declaration that they are citizens, or in the alternative, a declaration that they are legal aliens, and sign an immigration form created by Customs. These documents would be kept on file, and would be available as need be to both state and federal officials. Landlords who failed to follow these conditions would be subject to fines.

One aspect of this decision is pathetic. The court told Farmers Branch that it could not enact an ordinance solely within its own boundaries, because it was interfering with federal control of immigration. The double and obvious defects of that position are that the federal government is NOT controlling immigration now, and that the town did not say that anyone could not be in the US, only that certain illegals could not rent apartments in that town, no more, no less.

There is also litigation in Hazleton, Pennsylvania, against similar ordinances concerning both illegals being employed and renting apartments. These two cases are the leading edge of what will become dozens of cases around the country. Ultimately, it is the Supreme Court which will decide whether or not cities and towns can act with respect to illegal aliens within their own boundaries.

Since this is a simple matter of local decision-making, the towns should ultimately prevail. And when they do, they should seek costs and fees against the ACLU for assaulting the most basic civil right of all, the right to self-government.

Below is a description of the provisions of what is inaccurately being called the National ID Act. These are minimum standards which all states are required to follow, as a matter of national security and illegal immigration. All states are free to have whatever requirements they choose, above and beyond these minimums.

The "Real ID Act of 2005" was actually passed as Section B of the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005. It repealed a prior law that sought consultation between federal agencies and the states, to set standards for issuance of Drivers Licenses and IDs (subsequently referred to here as DL/ID). It replaced that with a required set of standards.

It required these minimum elements in all DL/IDs: (1) person's full legal name, (2) person's date of birth, (3) person's gender, (4) DL/ID number, (5) digital photograph, (6), person's address of legal residence, (7) person's signature, (8) physical security features designed to prevent tampering, counterfeiting or duplication for fraudulent purposes, and (9) a common machine-readable technology with defined data elements.

The way that a federal standard could apply to a state-issued document was this: "A federal agency may not accept a driver's license or personal identification card (DL/ID) after May 11, 2008, unless the state has been certified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in consultation with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to meet the requirements of the law." This means that no American can use his/her state drivers license to board an airplane, draw Social Security, receive other federal benefits, or obtain a passport, etc., unless his/her state is in compliance with this federal law, by that date. Non-conforming DL/IDs shall state on their face that they "may not be accepted for federal identification or any other official purpose, and [have] a unique design or color indicator to alert federal agencies or other law enforcement personnel that it may not be accepted...."

States must obtain proof of the following: A photo identity document (except that a non-photo identity document is acceptable if it includes both the person's full legal name and date of birth). Documentation showing the person's date of birth. Proof of the person's social security account number (SSN)... or verification that the person is not eligible for an SSN. Documentation showing the person's name and address of principal residence. The state is required to verify each of the documents presented, and to keep both paper documents and electronic scans for a required number of years. If the Social Security Number has apparently been issued to more than one person, the state must "resolve the discrepancy" before issuing the DL/ID.

There is also a negative: A state shall not accept any foreign document other than an official passport.

Before issuing a DL/ID the state must require and verify documentation for the fact that the applicant is an American citizen, or is one of five categories of aliens. In the latter categories, the license shall be temporary and issued only for the length of stay in the US, or if no length is shown, for no more than a year.

Each state shall make available the information in its motor vehicle data base to all other states.

Lastly, the Department of Homeland Security is empowered, "in consultation with the states" to issue regulations to carry out the provisions of the law.

Note that this law does not prevent any state from passing a law to allow DL/IDs to be issued other than the federal law requires, including to illegal aliens. It simply provides that such DL/IDs will not be usable for federal purposes, and will be clearly marked so any law enforcement personnel will know it is not valid for such purposes.

In January, five years ago, I was invited to meet in Washington, D.C., with an ad hoc group of state legislators from around the country, The subject was the security implications of state drivers licenses, which have long been the basis of personal identification, credit issuance, etc. The point they already understood, and which I stressed, was that the state DL/ID system was as weak as its weakest link. Because all states had reciprocal laws with all others, anyone could go to the state with the most lax requirements, get a license there, and then trade that in for a license in any other state at any other address. The terrorists of 9/11 did exactly that.

I stressed to the state legislators that they would have to establish, in consultation with their colleagues across the country, the minimum standards that all states should follow, and stop the reciprocity for any states which refused to go along. Or, in the alternative, the Congress would inevitably set the minimum standards and enforce them against the states. The legislators in the group recognized the necessity for action. However, the states themselves could not agree on standards, by any of several routes.

So, ultimately, Congress stepped in to deal with the failure of the states to act, and this law was the result. Note that this law does not mean that a state cannot issue a drivers license to an illegal alien. But if a state does that, it must issue a licence that by color, design and statement on its face is "not valid for federal identification." Of course, such a drivers license would also immediately show to any state or local law enforcement personnel that the person presenting it is not a citizen of the United States. It may just be that those who promote open borders for the US have just realized this last consequence of this law, and are encouraging conservatives to attack the law (as an unwanted "national ID card") in hopes of protecting illegal aliens from identification in routine circumstances.

Columnist Mark Steyn has a must-read Op-Ed at the New York Sun today concerning illegal immigration. As he points out, sponsors of the recent accord between the White House and the Senate don't like the word "amnesty" any more than the deal's critics do. Rather, Steyn argues, we should call it "zamnesty." As he writes:

That's why the [proposed Z-1, Z-2, and Z-3] visa starts with the letter that's furthest away from the one "amnesty" begins with. "Z" stands for zellout ...no, hang on, zurrender or Zapatista, or some other word way up the other end of the alphabet from "amnesty". But the point is, at a stroke there will be no more illegal immigrants. Because being illegal means you're now legal.

To read Steyn's full article, click here.

Wall Street, or at least the Wall Street Journal, seems quite satisfied with the immigration deal brokered late last week between the White House and the Senate. Said the opinion editors of the esteemed business journal, it "looks like the best chance in years to balance border security with human and economic realities." In the article, "Immigration Opening: The Bush-Kennedy Proposal's Vices and Virtues," the editors look favorably upon the smooth glide path to legal status provided for the 12 million undocumented aliens living in the U.S., thinking that good for the American economy. However, the Wall Street Journal looks less favorably upon the merit-based restrictions the deal would purportedly put on future immigration. And they strongly dislike the harsher "guest worker" policies, border control provisions, and employer-sanctions against those who would hire illegal aliens.

Meanwhile, many other conservatives are up in arms about the whole deal. Regardless of what the bill's proponents want to call it, these critics say it amounts to amnesty, of rewarding foreign nationals for breaking our immigration laws. Further, they say that the new "restrictions" this deal would impose on immigration and "guest workers" are highly fungible, likely to be ignored as so much chaff, just as previous laws and restrictions have been so cavalierly ignored following past immigration reforms. And the bill's attempt to tighten the sieve that is the U.S.-Mexican border amounts to a Band-Aid on a porous dike, that will be quickly overwhelmed by the great demand created through our awarding of amnesty to previous waves of illegal aliens. Perhaps most devastating, some of these critics reveal that fifty years of history with such huge immigration reform bills has shown, again and again, that the results are always far different than those predicted by the bills' sponsors, and have always resulted in the opening of the illegal immigration floodgates.

With various views in between, the above summarizes the "basically pro" versus the "definitely con" views of the pundits following word of the immigration reform deal brokered last week by national leaders. Though it must be said that at 700-plus pages, crafted in secrecy, details of the bill are still trickling out.

What do you think?

Last week I provided a link to, and summarized the broad principles outlined in, a Backgrounder paper penned by ACRU Policy Board member Ed Meese and Dr. Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation. Is this bill consistent with the principles and policy recommendations laid out in the paper, "Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform"?

Other questions: Do you believe this bill will be signed into law? Should it be? Why or why not? Is this true immigration reform or more of the same? What do you think of those who hold the views summarized above? If you believe reform is needed, what should that reform look like? What, broadly speaking, would you propose?

Let us know what you are thinking.

The Hon. Ed Meese, ACRU Policy Board Member and former Attorney General under President Ronald Reagan, has co-authored an important paper with Dr. Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation concerning immigration reform.

The Backgrounder paper is titled "Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform." At a time when the Congress is considering a comprehensive immigration reform bill that reports indicate will do little to stem the tide of lawless immigration and will do much to reward those who have already breached our borders illegally, this is a much read.

In the paper, Mr. Meese and Dr. Spalding lay out several policy proposals and overarching principles, the latter which I summarize here:

1. The First Priority: National Security - America's immigration system must be a national strength and not a strategic vulnerability


2. Uphold the Rule of Law - The rule of law requires the fair, firm, and consistent enforcement of the law, and immigration is no exception


3. Amnesty Is Not the Answer - Those who enter, remain in, and work in the country illegally are in ongoing and extensive violation our immigration laws


4. Strengthen Citizenship - Each nation has the responsibility--and obligation--to determine its own conditions for immigration, naturalization, and citizenship


5. Benefit the American Economy - Immigration policy should be a fiscal and economic benefit not only for immigrants, but also for the nation as a whole


6. A Real Temporary Worker Program - A temporary worker program must be temporary, market-oriented, and feasible

[Lawmakers] should oppose and, if necessary, the President should veto any reforms or reform packages that do not comport with these principles, are not in the best interest of the United States, and are inconsistent with the great traditions and compassionate practices of America's ongoing experiment in ordered liberty.

For more details, including the specific policy proposals that fall under each of these principles, download "Where We Stand: Essential Requirements for Immigration Reform" here.