Just when you thought we were making strides in homeland security comes another frightening reminder of how little seriousness is being placed on monitoring those who enter our borders. Introducing the Howdy Doody ID card -- also known as the Matricula Consular card.
The Matricula Consular (MC) card is not new, but it's gaining increased recognition as more and more politicians and citizens recognize how the MC card could be used by illegal aliens and potential terrorists to gain entry into America. The MC card is essentially an identification card which is issued
by Mexican consulates to Mexican nationals. It is not a travel document nor is it a driver's license.
Mexicans who are legally in the U.S. have no need for an MC card because they already possess appropriate identifying documents such as a passport or green card. It is the illegal aliens who are eagerly waiting for their own MC card. As more and more businesses and institutions accept the MC card as
a valid means of identification, illegal aliens are going to be more and more likely to use it.
The MC card does not give the bearer any legal status in the U.S. It is simply an ID card. It carries about as much weight as an ID card to the Howdy Doody Fan Club. Perhaps if I put my picture on my Blockbuster card, I could get into FBI headquarters.
According to the Consulate of Mexico in Boston, one of the requirements to get an MC card is to present a valid Mexican birth certificate. Give me , and I'll get you a "valid" Mexican birth certificate too. That and a U.S. mailing address are all you need. There are no background checks of any kind involved
with getting an MC card. Simply supply the appropriate paperwork, and you have your own Howdy Doody ID card.
If businesses accept the MC card over other forms of valid identification (identification having more requirements) and it is easy to obtain, then we are essentially granting illegal aliens a "legal" status in the U.S. by allowing them to conduct transactions, purchase goods, or whatever else would take place
at the accepting business or institution.
Rather than closing loopholes and cracking down on ways for terrorists to enter the country, we are now making it easier through the increased acceptance of the MC card. Now, individuals possessing an MC card can enter and conduct business in federal buildings. We are rolling out the red carpet and inviting the
terrorists in.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently issued a statement praising the fact that individuals who carry the MC card will now have access to the Phillip Burton Federal Building and United States Courthouse at 450 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco.
These buildings are headquarters for FBI offices as well as other agencies which may be tempting targets for terrorists. In addition, by accepting the MC card, we are sending the wrong message to illegal aliens. As Americans we should welcome immigrants with open arms, and we do... as long as they enter our country legally. The MC card is but another disincentive to curbing the flood of illegal aliens.
In responding to Rep. Pelosi's statements, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO), a leading advocate in the fight against illegal immigration, is quoted in the Washington Times as saying, "There is no one in the United States of America that needs a [Mexican-issued] ID card other than someone who is here illegally or someone here who is a felon."
The MC card is currently not recognized by the federal government. However, some local governments have elected to accept the MC card as a valid form of identification. This will certainly lead to problems under the "equal protection clause" of the U.S. Constitution which requires that all laws be enforced
equally.
The greater acceptance of the MC card also sends the wrong messages to Americans. Are we serious about protecting our borders and fighting the war on terror? Are we serious in cracking down on illegal immigration? Statements by legislators such as Nancy Pelosi send the wrong message.
It's hard enough to fight a war on terror and combat illegal immigration as it is now.
Invasion Of The Illegal Aliens:
An American Horror StoryVideo Movie Guide 2002 awarded the 1956 movie Invasion of the Body Snatchers a full five stars and labeled it, “quite possibly the most frightening film ever made.” That was a movie, a fantasy. A frightening reality nowadays could be entitled Invasion of the Illegal Aliens across America´s Borders. Pat Buchanan, former candidate for U. S. President, acknowledged: “One of the great social crises of this country is unrestricted immigration and an invasion from the south.”
Our government has the responsibility to do whatever it must—even station troops at our borders—to shut off the flow of illegal aliens and to deport the illegals who are already here. They should also stem the overwhelming tide of legal immigration. Can you guess why our politicians won´t do anything? Gee, would it have anything to do with an election next year? President Bush wants to grant amnesty to illegals living here. Until then, the disgraceful truth is that illegals can acquire documents that give them essentially the same rights and privileges as American citizens and legal permanent residents. The 9/11 hijackers easily obtained Virginia identification cards. Many states now issue driver licenses to illegal aliens.
Mexican consulates in the U. S. issue Matricula Consular identification documents to Mexican illegal aliens. The Federation for American Immigration Reform reports that the document allows the alien to “facilitate any transactions that require a person to establish his or her identity. Examples include check cashing, other banking, airline travel, or government investigations.” Businesses are selling America´s soul for a few pieces of silver.
More and more government agencies accept the card when they should be calling the local Immigration & Naturalization Service office to have the alien arrested and deported. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has even instructed the federal building in San Francisco to accept the cards.
The Washington Times reported that more than 60 percent of Americans believe immigration levels are a critical threat to the United States, but only 14 percent of our political elite do. Would you say that our politicians are a tad out of touch with their fellow Americans? They´re surely out of touch with reality. Some Americans who live near the border are so disgusted, they have organized a militia to stop illegal aliens sneaking across our border.
FAIR estimates that one million illegal aliens sneak into the U. S. every year. At the present rate of mass immigration, the U. S. Census Bureau warns that U. S. population will grow to 400 million by 2050.
Illegal aliens make fools of their law-abiding fellow countrymen back home who line up at our embassies to apply for legal entry and undergo the rigorous health and criminal background checks that illegals never undergo. Who knows how many career criminals have slipped into our country and now prey on Americans? If we cut off illegal immigration, we could allow in more reputable legal immigrants who could contribute positively to our economy. Instead, we get the Russian Mafia and street gangs in Los Angeles.
The nightmare doesn´t stop there. Many Mexicans here want to turn the southwestern U. S. into a new nation or Mexican province called Aztlan. Aztlan has caused so much concern that the subject took up most of the hour that I was a guest on the nationally syndicated Barry Farber radio show.
In her definitive book on illegal immigration, Invasion (aptly subtitled How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores), Michelle Malkin, the daughter of legal immigrants, reminds us: “Immigration policy must be treated as a national security issue.” Instead, the government does little to seal our borders or catch and deport those aliens who arrive here illegally. Murderers, rapists, terrorists, whatever, can easily cross our essentially open borders.
Even when illegals are captured here, they´re usually released back into the community. Before Lee Malvo became the alleged Beltway Sniper, U. S. Border Patrol agents captured him and his mother and recommended that the INS deport them. The INS instead set them free. There are ten fresh graves that affirm the deadly stupidity of that decision.
Some illegal aliens who arrive by air and ship use forged passports from advanced nations such as Great Britain. Why don´t our immigration agents have the technology to detect a false passport from friendly nations that have the technology to issue non-forgeable passports?
The dozens of horror stories that Michelle Malkin uncovered during her investigations will give most Americans nightmares. The mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing arrived in the U. S. before the attack with an Iraqi passport and without a valid visa, but officials released him into our midst. A Hungarian rapist killed a Los Angeles homicide detective, an El Salvadoran alcoholic shot a female police officer, a Mexican drug dealer shot a Washington state trooper, and a Jamaican convict shot a Virginia officer. Among those to whom America granted citizenship or permanent residence were a Haitian death squad leader and an Ethiopian war criminal who enjoyed torturing naked women.
An Egyptian who fled Egypt after being arrested for molesting his seven-year-old cousin was allowed to stay in the U. S. by claiming religious persecution back home. He moved to California where he molested and murdered his twelve-year-old neighbor. (Those stories are just in Michelle´s Introduction; the remainder of the book is as frightening.)
Our government has failed us in its responsibility to protect our borders. If our politicians grant an amnesty to the illegals here, they will make a mockery of our laws and the potential immigrants around the world who legally apply to realize the American Dream. They will also be endangering their fellow Americans. Is that worth a few lousy votes?
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The definition of Discrimination should stay the same no matter who reads it.
In its Jan. 27 cover story on affirmative action, Newsweek tells us that less than "7 percent of Harvard's current freshman class is black, compared with 12.9 percent of the overall population." The implication is clear: This is a low, unacceptable figure that can be remedied only by the application of affirmative action. Maybe. But there is one figure Newsweek does not provide: What should the black percentage be?
I ask that question not just to be persnickety but because you would think that there is some sort of racial crisis in higher education that is mandating the persistence of affirmative action. After all, how else can we go on discriminating in favor of one race and discriminating against another?
Is 7 percent an unacceptable figure? If so, how do blacks stack up against Italian Americans or Polish Americans? Should Asians be held to their exact percentage in the overall population (3.6 percent)? And what about Jews? They amount to less than 2 percent of the population, yet one estimate has them at 21 percent of Harvard's undergraduate class.
It's true, of course, that blacks are in a special category. Their ancestors were slaves. They were oppressed. They were kept in servitude and then in penury -- and sometimes in fear for their lives. But now Hispanics, too, are the beneficiaries of affirmative action and they, my research tells me, were not enslaved in the United States of America. In fact, most of their ancestors were not even here at the time.
Newsweek gives us another figure: "Blacks account for 11 percent of undergraduates nationally." That's hardly a calamity. (They're 12.9 percent of the overall population, remember?) In fact, the figure surprised me. The truth is that at most schools the only criterion for admission is a pulse.
It's the elite schools where the battle is being fought. One of them is the University of Michigan, whose case is now before the Supreme Court. The university's former president Lee C. Bollinger writes (again in Newsweek) that he knew when he went to Michigan in 1997 that "affirmative action in higher education was under siege from the right" -- a sweeping characterization that must include me and the two-thirds of Americans who oppose such programs.
Bollinger cautions us not to "lose the sense of history, the compassion and the largeness of vision that defined the best of the civil-rights era." I'm with him on that. But he is now the president of Columbia University and it, too, has a history -- a quota to limit Jews. What he defended at Michigan may not literally be a quota, but the numbers are reached by the usual methods: Certain people are favored and others are not on account of race.
Certainly diversity is a worthwhile goal. But does 12 percent do the job and 7 percent not? And just as certainly, the goals of affirmative action even aside from diversity (producing black leaders in all fields) are good things -- very good things. But not even good things can be achieved by bad means. College and university presidents, who for years have obscured what they are doing, cannot persist in saying they know best for America.
Americans do not support affirmative action. Even many blacks do not support it. Its champions engage in the most twisted, tortured reasoning -- equating race, for example, with athletic ability -- and treat the American people as doctors do children: You won't like it, but this will be good for you.
But it is not good -- even if it once was. It sets one race against another. It elevates race -- sheer skin color -- to an importance it should not have. Under the Michigan system, an "underrepresented racial or ethnic minority" gets a 20-point bonus even if he or she is the child of a dentist or Wall Street analyst. A perfect scorer on the SAT would get a measly 12 points.
On "Meet the Press" Sunday, Condoleezza Rice said the reason Bush had asked her views on affirmative action was that for six years she had been the provost of Stanford University. "I know something about admissions policies and I know something about trying to build a diverse class," she said. What she did not say was that Bush approached her because she is also an African American and might, therefore, bring a special perspective to the discussion.
In a way, that was an odd omission. But if Rice wants us to look past her race -- as Bush seems to have done -- then who can blame her? In fact, when it comes to affirmative action, it's time -- past time, really -- that we follow her example.
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