HOW SIMPLE IT IS!

In the debate over immigration reform in the United States, some citizens have called for a halt to illegal crossings of the U.S.-Mexico border, while others contend it is impossible to completely stop the flow of poor migrants across the 3,000-km. (1,864-mile) line. But a new Border Patrol pilot program is showing that strict enforcement of existing U.S. immigration laws can have a dramatic effect.

The Del Rio sector of the U.S.-Mexico border runs for 288 kilometers (179 miles) along the Rio Grande River, which forms the boundary between Texas and Mexico. Since December of last year, the U.S. Border Patrol has tried a new program here that has curtailed both immigrant crossings and drug trafficking. With the cooperation of local law enforcement and U.S. attorneys in the area, the Border Patrol has sent hundreds of illegal entrants to be prosecuted for their crimes.

Under existing U.S. law, a person who enters the United States at any point other than an official port of entry is guilty of a misdemeanor and can be sentenced to up to six months in prison. In an interview, Del Rio Border Patrol spokesman Randy Clark said the threat of punishment has discouraged people from crossing here. "In our busiest station, where we once apprehended the most aliens, we are now close to 70 percent down for the month of May, when we compare it to 2005," he said. "For the period of the operation, which is December 2005 to present, we have noticed a 50 percent decline in the station, overall, for those six months."

Clark says the secret to the program's success is the application of existing law and the use of penalties spelled out in the statutes. In the Del Rio sector, agents have ended the so-called "revolving door" practice, whereby captured illegal immigrants were simply processed and sent back into Mexico, where they could then make another attempt at crossing. It has been common for Border Patrol agents to apprehend the same individual two or three times in the same day because of this practice.

More here. (Scroll down. Worth reading the lot)

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ELSEWHERE

Only whites can commit hate-crimes: "The pack of thugs who mugged and fatally beat a New Jersey man outside a Chelsea nightclub had robbed before, police sources said yesterday. "Get that white m----------r!" one of the attackers shouted before three of them surrounded Thomas Whitney Jr., 24, and threw the first punch, according to two women who saw the beating. Najib Noor, 19, punched Whitney in the head while Daryush Omar, 20, and Walliullah Hashimi, 22, kicked him as he lay bleeding on W. 19th St., not far from the Spy Club, where Whitney had been partying, prosecutors said. The trio then flipped the financial analyst over so they could rummage through his pockets and steal his wallet and cell phone, authorities said... Police said they didn't charge the three with a hate crime because the comment was seen as a way to identify a drunken mark, rather than a racial slur, police sources said. Omar and Noor are natives of Pakistan and Hashimi of Afghanistan".

French Protestants saved Jews in WW2: "The French village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon played an extraordinarily courageous role in the second world war, providing sanctuary for thousands of Jews.... In an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country, the area's inhabitants were predominantly Protestant. The first Protestants in France had long suffered murder at the hands of their countrymen. Many fled the country. But here they clung tenaciously to their rocky territory - and their equally unshakable beliefs. The area became a sanctuary for the dispossessed. At the turn of the century they welcomed the impoverished children of newly industrialised France. In the 1930s it was refugees from the Spanish civil war - and then the Jews. "The key to their extraordinary behaviour during the war is their collective memory of their own persecuted past," says Sauvage. One pastor told him: "The Jews felt close to us, because we believed in the Old Testament and they were the people of the Old Testament.""

Lefty media declining: "About 70 reporters, editors, photographers and newsroom administrators have taken early retirement offers from The Washington Post Co. amid declining circulation at its flagship newspaper. About 100 employees outside the newsroom, such as those in The Washington Post's pressrooms or on the advertising staff, also took the offer, The Post announced in Thursday's editions. Circulation at The Washington Post and most daily newspapers has decreased in recent years as readers turn to television and the Internet for news. Daily circulation at The Post peaked at 832,232 in 1993. The Post's daily circulation for the first three months of this year averaged 690,700, the company reported last month... Several other newspapers are using buyouts or layoffs to cut costs. The New York Times Co. is cutting 700 company-wide jobs. Tribune Co., which publishes 11 newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, said last week that it would use layoffs to cut costs. Last year, Tribune newspapers eliminated 185 positions through buyouts and layoffs. This is The Post's second round of buyouts in the past three years, the newspaper reported."

Leftist ethics crumble: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has dropped her demand that Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., resign from the powerful House Way & Means Committee - in exchange for a promise from the Congressional Black Caucus that they won't campaign against her in advance of this fall's critical mid-term elections.... Pelosi had ordered Jefferson to step down last week after he was caught hiding $90,000 in alleged bribe money in his freezer, saying his resignation would be "in the interest of upholding the high ethical standard of the House Democratic Caucus."

Responsible lending to high-risk groups: "Black and Hispanic home buyers are more likely to pay high mortgage rates than white borrowers with similar credit ratings and income levels, an advocacy group found... The study, released Wednesday, found that blacks were 29 percent more likely to pay a high interest rate on a fixed-rate home purchase loan. A Hispanic borrower also was more likely to pay a high rate, it found.... "African Americans and Latinos are paying a premium for home loans because of the color of their skin," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau.... The center's data did not include all the factors used by lenders, such as a borrower's total debts, making the study's conclusions incomplete, said Doug Duncan of the Mortgage Bankers Association. He also questioned the ability of any national study to prove discrimination, which would require an analysis of specific lenders".

Surprise! African graft stings donors: "Uganda -- a small, poor country still best known for its infamous former dictator, Idi Amin -- isn't used to being first in much. But in the 1990s, it became the first African country to substantially bring down its AIDS rate. It has since become a darling of international donors, especially in the health sector. So no one was surprised when, in 2003, Uganda became one of the first countries to receive a multimillion-dollar grant from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. But three years later, the phrase 'Global Fund' has become synonymous with graft in Uganda. A government inquiry recently revealed that tens of millions of dollars of the country's Global Fund grants have gone missing, much of it plundered by high-ranking public officials."

For more postings, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE and AUSTRALIAN POLITICS. (Mirror sites here, here, here, here, here, here and here).

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"All the worth which the human being possesses, all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the State." -- 19th century German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel is the most influential philosopher of the Left -- inspiring Karl Marx, the American "Progressives" of the early 20th century and university socialists to this day.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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