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Former senator says Vargas should stay in U.S. Former U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) said Sunday that Jose Antonio Vargas, the former Washington Post reporter who came out last month as an illegal immigrant, should be allowed to "become an American." "It's a difficult problem, and what we need to do is find a way in which Jose can continue to contribute to this country," Martinez said on ABC's "This Week." "He wants to be an American," Martinez continued. "This is a great thing. This is the Fourth of July. We need to talk about the fact that this is a...

I’m not celebrating Cinco de Mayo today because there is nothing to honor in the memory of Mexico Independence. Mexico is attempting so hard to become dependent on the United States that it has became a laughingstock and shame among nations. Cinco de Mayo commemorates the victory of the Mexican militia over the French army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862. I will not be celebrating the day because there is no longer any Mexican national unity, there is no longer any Mexican national pride, and there is no longer any bravery among Mexicans. There is only the conspiracy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmoMGrBs5wc Are we really surprised?

President Barack Obama called Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) on Tuesday to gauge his support for a comprehensive immigration reform bill, a sign the White House is serious about pushing the issue in Congress this year. Obama’s outreach to Brown is part of a quickly hatched, coordinated effort with congressional leaders to thrust the volatile immigration debate back to the front burner. At a joint House and Senate leadership meeting late Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid promised to House leaders that he would put an immigration bill on the floor this year—and he secured a commitment from House Speaker Nancy...

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, are believed to be on the cusp of introducing a new bill in the Senate on Comprehensive immigration reform. The Schumer/Graham initiative combines enforcement with earned legal status for immigrants who are out of status or came in illegally. Washington sources say they are ready to introduce the bill "any day now."

PHOENIX (AP) — Cattle rancher Rob Krentz often helped illegal immigrants he found stranded on his sprawling Arizona ranch. Then two weeks ago, he and his dog were gunned down shortly after he reported spotting someone who appeared to be in trouble. Foot tracks were followed from the shooting scene about 20 miles south, to the Mexico border, and authorities suspect an illegal immigrant. The killing of the third-generation rancher has become a flashpoint in the immigration debate as politicians cite the episode as further proof that the U.S. must do more to secure the violent U.S.-Mexico border. (snip) Krentz's...

McCAIN: My view is you need a physical fence. But we all know that unless physical fences are surveilled, and then people just punch holes in them. And so I saw in Iraq on my visit there that their ability to serveil areas is that we have the technology now. (snip) McCAIN: After the border is secured, then obviously we have to address the issue of the 12 million people who are still in this country illegally. I don't know what ... American public opinion will take. But one of the key elements, as was in our previous legislation, is...

The opening minutes of “The Senators’ Bargain,” a documentary film appearing tonight on HBO2, show Senator John McCain at a congressional hearing in 2006, reading out loud from a newspaper article describing the death from desert broiling that befalls many immigrants trying to cross the border illegally. “The brain cooks and the delirium starts,” the Republican senator from Arizona reads somberly, explaining why he will join Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, one of the most liberal Democrats, to sponsor a bill to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants. The documentary, directed by Shari Robertson and Michael Camerini,...

This weekend, dozens of Southern Californians plan to march in Washington for immigration reform, joining thousands of activists from around the country. Today, a different group of Southern Californians – members of the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce – heard from a U.S. senator who took a lot of political heat for his efforts at immigration reform. The question arose at lunch during the Chamber’s annual lobbying trip to Washington. What did Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona think the U.S. should do about the “flood of immigrants” “running over” California? McCain cosponsored the last major immigration reform bill with...

WASHINGTON -- Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Chuck Schumer of New York discussed major immigration reforms Thursday with President Barack Obama at a White House meeting. Graham, a Republican, waded back into a political minefield on a controversial issue that has prompted conservative activists across the nation to vilify him since he helped lead a failed Senate bid to overhaul the immigration system in 2007. Obama has faced more recent criticism from Latino lawmakers and advocacy groups accusing him of failing to deliver on a 2008 campaign promise to help the 12 million undocumented workers in the United...

Presidential nominee in 2008 faces GOP primary fight. BY JOSEPH WEBER Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, Arizona Republican, said in an interview Monday that his planned primary challenge to Sen. John McCain will portray the four-term incumbent as a not-so-conservative Republican who has "enabled" President Obama and his failed economic and security policies. "I'm giving Arizona Republicans a clear choice between a consistent, common-sense conservative . . . or someone who describes himself as a maverick but is a moderate," the outspoken Mr. Hayworth told The Washington Times' "America's Morning News" radio show. Mr. Hayworth, 51, quit his job Friday as...

A recently introduced immigration reform bill in the U.S. House of Representatives could potentially end a federal immigration program currently used by the Town of Herndon to empower its local officers to enforce federal immigration law. In March 2007, the Herndon Town Council voted to make Herndon the first incorporated town in America to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train and empower local officers to enforce federal immigration law under a program called 287(g). Prince William and Loudoun counties and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park also partner with ICE in the 287(g) program. But as of...

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A new dissent Republican group may be forming in Northern Ireland. The organization would include dissidents that have defected from the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA. The group will not have a name, with the deliberate aim of confusing members of the security forces.

Schumer: “Borders Now Secure” $1 Trillion in Extra Health Care Costs by Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. thelastcrusade.org Charles Schumer (D-NY), Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says that the borders are now “secure enough to move forward on immigration reform.”Mr. Schumer’s statement comes on the heels of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, who was gunned down by members of a Mexican smuggling ring in July.Five suspects have been taken into custody by Mexican law enforcement officials.Immigration reform for Mr. Schumer, according to the Minuteman PAC, is the granting of full amnesty to all illegal aliens who...

President Obama will abandon a controversial immigration crackdown, sought by his predecessor, to pressure U.S. companies to fire 9 million workers with suspect Social Security numbers, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced yesterday. Instead, Obama will mandate that federal contractors confirm the identities of 4 million workers against federal databases beginning in September, pushing ahead under pressure from Senate Republicans with another long-stalled Bush administration initiative. Napolitano said her department will rescind a 2007 rule, tied up in federal court, that would have sent Social Security "no-match" letters to 140,000 U.S. employers. The notices were to warn companies to resolve...

DUBLIN, Ireland – A security alert has been issued today in the Northern Ireland town of Ballykinler, the site of a British Army base.

At least John McCain is back to his old self. This assumes, of course, at some point he wasn't.Believe me, he was. (See the entire 2008 campaign).He's back to being the crotchety old Republicrat spitfire, Mac the Mav.That reach-across-the-aisle, strolling-down-the-median joie de vivre he possesses (and can beckon at will) is throttling up for the new administration.Goodie gumdrops.Since the time is just about right for McCain to ride the wave of ascendancy back into the good graces of the media (who, you'll recall, once upon a time, had rockets in their pockets for him when he was still their beloved...

One of the lessons from this election is the destruction of the myth that Republicans who support amnesty for illegal aliens would do well among Hispanic voters. No presidential candidate worked harder on illegal immigration amnesty than John McCain. In 2005, he sponsored an amnesty bill that became known as the McCain-Kennedy bill (co-sponsored by Sen. Kennedy). When that bill failed, he tried again the following year, with a variant of the McCain-Kennedy bill. That bill also failed. Unfazed, he tried yet again in 2007. If any one of those bills had passed, at least 10 million illegal aliens would...

An immigration activist says the Republican Party lost any real chance of retaining the White House the day John McCain won the GOP primary. William Gheen is president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, or ALIPAC. Throughout the presidential campaign, Gheen ardently refused to support John McCain because of the Arizona senator's continued support to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens. Gheen believes McCain was counting on GOP voters to march into the booths at the last minute, hold their noses, and elect him out of fear of Obama. He notes while many Republicans reluctantly made that choice, a...

QUESTION: Considering you were one of the leading advocates of immigration reform in 2007, do you intend to take up on that role again with President Obama? Or is it too much of a political liability, considering you're running for re-election? MCCAIN: Running for re-election has never been a concern of mine as far as issues like that are concerned. I intend to discuss that with the president-elect. It's pretty clear that our agenda, that all Americans are, is our economy, but I still am committed to comprehensive immigration reform, with the need to secure our borders and a guest-worker...

On his first full day as President, Barack Obama will be greeted by salutes, good wishes - and throngs of protesters on the National Mall demanding immigration reform.   It will be a thunderous welcome, delivered mostly by Hispanic voters who - having provided a critical edge to Obama on Election Day in several key states - are looking for payback. "We voted in the millions, and now we're going to demand progress in the millions," said Angelica Salas, an organizer of the Jan. 21 protest and director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. RELATED: LATINO...

Despite championing immigration reform in 2007, John McCain is poised to lose the Hispanic vote by a landslide margin that is well below President George W. Bush's 2004 performance. Polls show Obama winning the broadest support from Latino voters of any Democrat in a decade, while McCain is struggling to reach 30 percent, closer to Senator Bob Dole's dismal 1996 result than to Bush's historic 40% four years ago. McCain seems to have wound up with the worst of both worlds: He appears to be getting no credit from Latino voters for his past support for immigration reform, while carrying...

SAN DIEGO, California (CNN) -- The new offensive in the presidential election is a Spanish-language air war in which each party is trying to convince Latino voters that the other is no amigo to the nation's largest minority and that it did them wrong during the immigration debacle in Congress. ... Stop the tape! The spots are hard-hitting, but only one hits the target. The McCain-Palin ad is accurate. But the Obama-Biden ad is riddled with problems.

A new Spanish-language John McCain television commercial airing in Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico attacks Barack Obama for not doing enough to support the so-called "comprehensive immigration reform" legislation backed by President Bush and Sen. Ted Kennedy that was defeated in 2007 after a national uprising in which it was characterized as a massive amnesty scheme. The English-language translation of the 30-second commercial, "Which Side Are They On?" is here: Announcer: Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they? The press reports that their efforts were "poison pills" that made immigration...

Rush Limbaugh, featured in a new, Spanish-language Barack Obama ad, says the commercial distorts his past statements and amounts to "race-baiting" by the Democratic nominee. The commercial, to air in Limbaugh's home state of Florida as well as Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada, features a picture of the conservative talk show host and shows his words on the screen: "Mexicans are stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out." It was first reported by the Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe. "Obama is now stoking racism in the country," Limbaugh wrote in an email. "Obama is a disgrace - he...

If immigration is your number one political priority, what should you do this election? We begin with the observation that Democrats will likely consolidate and expand their control of the Senate and the House. This is good news for the immigration cause. However, in spite of controlling Congress for the past two years Democrats have done virtually nothing on immigration benefits and have continued massive spending on immigration enforcement. So, even though most political analysts are agreed that Democrats are poised for significant gains in the House and the Senate, that alone does not portend any immigration benefits in the...

New McCain ad blames Obama and Democrats for death of immigration overhaul effort.(CNN) – John McCain’s campaign is running a Spanish language ad in battleground states that blames Barack Obama and Senate Democrats for the failure of attempts to overhaul the nation’s immigration laws — even though the Republican nominee and his Democratic counterpart cast identical votes in the key Senate showdowns on that issue last year “Obama and his congressional allies say they are on the side of immigrants. But are they?” asks the announcer in the 30-second spot, “Which Side Are They On?” “The press reports that their...

All eyes may be on Denver this week, but the Republican National Committee began their meetings to draft an election platform today ahead of next week’s convention. Sparks flew when delegates got into debate over illegal immigration, which reflected where John McCain originally stood on the issue, but has now taken a more conservative stance. Delegates were split into different subcommittees and it was in the national security meeting where members got into heated discussion surrounding the issues of amnesty and English as the official language of the United States. Two delegates wanted to harden the language surrounding the issue...

SAN DIEGO – Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Monday vigorously disputed his opponent's assertion that he had backed away from his own comprehensive plan to overhaul the nation's immigration laws. “I do ask for your trust that when I say I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it,” the Arizona senator told the National Council of La Raza convention here. “I think I have earned that trust.” On Sunday, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, told the same group at the San Diego Convention Center that McCain backed off his...

Top priority overall or just top domestic priority? Iraq and the economy can wait, I guess. The clip comes, via reader Edgar M, from today’s appearance before NALEO, in which he and Obama took turns to see who could pander most cravenly on immigration. Truth be told, there’s little new here: Lip service is duly paid to securing the border despite the questioner’s emphasis on comprehensive reform “and not just enforcement,” and he recycles his old line about illegals being “God’s children too” as a way of insinuating, a la his crony’s notorious remarks about telling “the bigots” to shut...

Last year, the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 (Senate bill 1348) went down to a resounding defeat thanks to the vigilance of talk-radio and the blogs. John McCain was a leading voice in favor of passage in the Senate. Since that defeat, John McCain has claimed that he has "gotten the message" that the country does not want the McCain version of "comprehensive reform" and he has avoided the issue in most campaign appearances. But Juan McCain still lurks inside of John McCain. Read the rest at Publius' Forum.

The Hunt for American al Qaeda The United States is turning up the heat in the hunt for the California boy turned al Qaeda operative, Adam Gadahn, who has been charged with treason and is believed to be hiding in Afghanistan. If caught and convicted, Gadahn could face the death penalty. The State Department along with the Department of Diplomatic Security announced the beginning of a publicity campaign in Afghanistan urging locals to provide any information on Gadahn's whereabouts, with a reward if the information leads to his capture. Radio advertisements with information concerning the $1 million reward have...

Dozens of Fox Valley Hispanics will get the chance to talk with Sen. John McCain, the Republican Party's nominee for president, later this month. And they'll get to do it for free. McCain will be in Chicago on June 18 for a fundraiser at the Drake Hotel, but he'll stick around that night to hold a town hall meeting with Illinois Hispanics. » Click to enlarge image John McCain to speak in Chicago More than 100 are expected to attend, according to the meeting's organizers, Julie Brady and Gabriela Wyatt. Brady, of St. Charles, is the deputy co-chairman of McCain's...

After adjusting his immigration stance when his comprehensive immigration bill died last summer, John McCain, now with the Republican nomination in hand, has once again ruffled conservaive feathers on the immigration issue by returning to the position that almost stopped his campaign dead in its tracks. Last week McCain joined California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in supporting a "comprehensive" immigration plan. "Sen. Kennedy and I tried very hard to get a comprehensive immigration plan through Congress. We must make it a top agenda item," McCain said. But the Arizona senator's staunch defense of such a comprehensive package at the expense of...

Takeway exchange from John McCain's Meet The Press appearance today. TIM RUSSERT: If the Senate passed your bill, S-1433, the McCain-Kennedy immigration bill, would you as president sign it? JOHN MCCAIN: Yeah, but the lesson is that it isn't going to come, it isn't going to come. The lesson is that they want the borders secured first. View video here.

This would suggest McCain hasn't learned any lessons from the spring other than Americans aren't where he is — though they should be and he'd sign his bill from the spring so many of us opposed if he were president and it passed: RUSSERT: "If the Senate passed your bill, S.1433, the McCain/Kennedy immigration bill, would you as president sign it? SEN. MCCAIN: "Yeah. But look, the lesson is, it isn't – one, it isn't going to come. It isn't going to come."

White House press secretary Tony Snow, during his last day on the job yesterday, lamented the state of modern political discourse and said President Bush is right about immigration and that his defeated plan will one day be the law.

Given the responses I got the last time I focused on this issue, I almost hate to bring it up…but here goes. I think Tony Snow is exactly right when he says here: “I deeply admire what [Mr. Bush] did on immigration and I think he’s right,” Mr. Snow said. “I think the policies the president outlined generally are the ones that eventually this country is going to adopt.” Let us hope so, because the alternative “solutions” out there - “let everyone in and register them all Democrat” on the left and “ship them all back to Mexico no matter...

Outgoing White House press secretary Tony Snow said today that the Bush administration had underestimated the ferocity of opposition to White House-backed immigration legislation. "I freely admit that we underestimated the (public) skepticism," Snow said over breakfast with a group of reporters on his final day on the job. Snow said that the White House was not prepared for the anger of foes of illegal immigration, who believed that government at all levels had failed to secure the nation's borders. While the public backlash is aimed "not merely (at) the Bush administration," he conceded that the White House "made some...

The Senate vote on immigration failed. The issue is dead. Or is it? No, it isn't – and Americans better not be complacent about it. The politicians will be back with another version, regardless of which party wins the next election. Locally, the same mentality prevails to circumvent law, logic and morals on the part of politicians, activist groups and churches and the media are cheerleaders. Example: Front page, Contra Costa Times in Northern California, July 11. Complete with intentionally emotional pictures, it described a 1.3-square mile area on one street in Concord with 91 apartment complexes housing some 38,000...

Contrary to continuing media propaganda, the 2006 election and the killing of the Senate "comprehensive" immigration bill do NOT prove that anti-amnesty is a loser for Republicans. The Democrats who won in 2006 campaigned with Republican-rhetoric messages calling for border security, and they kept their promises in the decisive cloture vote on June 28. Republican Senators voted "no" by a 3-to-1 majority (37 to 12), and they were conspicuously joined by three new Democratic senators who defeated incumbent Republicans in November after criticizing the failure of the U.S. government to stop the flow of illegal immigrants across U.S. borders. They...

Tuesday, July 3, 2007 With the White House, the leaders of both political parties, and the media all solidly behind the "comprehensive" immigration "reform" bill, how could it be stopped in the Senate, as it was last week? The people stopped it. That is what democracy is all about. When members of Congress began to be deluged with angry letters, phone calls, and e-mails from their constituents, they knew the game was over -- and that their careers could be over if they didn't pay attention to what the voters were saying. This bill was an insult to people's intelligence...

Democrats won both houses of Congress in the 2006 elections in part by arguing that Republicans were incompetent to govern. On immigration, they enjoyed a comparatively united party and cooperation from a Republican White House. More than any other factor, heat from the right killed the bill. But voters elect congressional majorities to solve problems, and Democratic incumbents can expect to pay some price every time they fail. But that fallout almost certainly will pale alongside the damage to future Republican presidential candidates. Hispanics represent the fastest-growing chunk of the U.S. electorate. Their choices help drive the rising swing states...

The most succinct observation I've come across about the failure of comprehensive immigration reform is that of pollster Scott Rasmussen. The American public simply didn't want the bill. Rasmussen's polling indicated the immigration legislation being pushed had the support of just 22 percent of the American public. Rasmussen goes on further to point out just how far detached from the sentiment of the voting public those pushing the bill were. Not only didn't the American public want the bill, but the focus of the immigration debate in the Senate was the opposite of the public's highest concern. According to Rasmussen,...

RUSH: 46 to 53, and it is over. We have some audio sound bites from the debate that happened on the floor of the Senate this morning. It's truly astounding, and I want to you hear these sound bites. Here's what's going to happen next. Just a little prediction here, and I told you, we went out on a limb yesterday and predicted to you this thing would go down in flames. There were 18, as I counted, 18 switch votes, and, by the way, I want to tell you one thing, everybody is going to try to portray this...

Meet Sen. Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas. He wants to be President of the United States. But on the most critical homeland security issues of our time, he can’t make up his mind and stick to it. On the morning of June 28, 2007, he was for the illegal alien amnesty bill…before he was against it… For it…then against it… That’s right. He changed his mind and changed his vote in the span of 11 minutes! Sam Brownback. Leadership only John Kerry could love.

Last week, the White House Council of Economic Advisers issued a report entitled "Immigration's Economic Impact" which defended the President's promotion of the Senate's "comprehensive" immigration legislation (S.1348).[1] On June 25, the White House issued a follow-up editorial elaborating on the points made in the CEA report.[2] These publications criticized Heritage Foundation research on the fiscal costs of low skill immigration and amnesty. The Heritage research criticized by the White House made the following basic points about immigration and its costs: 1. Individuals without a high school degree impose significant net costs (the extent to which benefits and services received...

Everyone—from President Bush to his critics to Ted Kennedy—is dead set against "amnesty," and yet the word overshadows all else in the immigration debate. Despite its proponents' claims to the contrary, amnesty is the cornerstone of the Senate's immigration bill. Indeed, this legislation, with its many provisions, guarantees one thing only: that a population of individuals defined solely on the basis of their illegal status will receive legal status and a privileged path to permanent residency and citizenship. Everything else in the bill—border security, worker verification, the temporary worker plan, a new merit-based immigration system—would be contingent on future political...

We're in the middle of a domestic immigration war, and it's a classic. The blind are leading the blind. The selectively deaf are leading the selectively deaf. Their enemy is the electorate. They march onto the Washington congressional battlefield with the banner of their leader, George W. Bush, flapping in the wind. The coat of arms is golden yellow, emblazoned with a cross on the shield, supported by two bold figures – a fruitcake and a skunk – all on a field of mockingbirds.Golden yellow is for cowardice in the face of pressure groups – everything from big business and...