Can an illegal immigrant become a lawyer?

[Jolie Rouge]

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/120420-law-samperio-hmed2p.photoblog600.jpg

Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio at Capitol Hill on April 19. He is an undocumented immigrant, brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a child, who is seeking his law license in Florida in what appears to be a landmark case.

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents when he was nine years old. Sixteen years later, he had graduated from his Florida high school as class valedictorian, become an Eagle Scout, completed college and law school, and passed the state bar exam.

But one big accomplishment eluded him: citizenship. Godinez-Samperio is in the country illegally, which could keep him from achieving another part of his American dream: becoming a lawyer.

In what appears to be a landmark case, the Florida Supreme Court is going to consider whether Godinez-Samperio has the right to practice the law -- a decision that could impact others who hope to follow in his footsteps. “It makes me feel that we’re living in a … historical moment. I really think the last time something like this happened was when African Americans and women were admitted to the bar,” he told msnbc.com. “I think if we win this, it’ll be another historical civil rights mark.”

Godinez-Samperio is pressing his case as the national debate over illegal immigration heats up. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s strict anti-illegal immigration law. And last week, Godinez-Samperio was in the nation’s capitol to lobby for the Dream Act, which would provide a path to legal status to some adults who came to America illegally as children. Supporters are making a renewed push for the legislation after it failed in the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Some 11.5 million “unauthorized immigrants,” as the Department of Homeland Security calls them, lived in the United States as of January 2011. Of that, 6.8 million were from Mexico, like Godinez-Samperio, according to the department’s Office of Immigration Statistics.

Godinez-Samperio’s journey to the law began when he and his parents left their home in Pachuca, Mexico. They came on tourist visas, which they overstayed. He didn’t know English and it was a few years before he began to realize what his immigration status was and what it meant for his future.

He couldn’t get a social security number or a driver’s license, he didn’t have access to most financial aid, he couldn’t work for compensation and has been ineligible for most internships and awards, according to an essay he submitted for his law school application.

But he said he managed to get private scholarships to help pay for his education, and volunteered where he could -- such as helping domestic violence victims obtain immigration relief. “For me, it’s very important to show that I have been a contributing member of society (the) entire time I have lived in this country,” he said. “ … there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to contribute even more … with a green card.”

When Godinez-Samperio applied to take the bar exam last year, he sought a waiver because he didn’t have proof of his immigration status, which is required by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners who administer the test. States set their own requirements for those seeking to become a lawyer.

His request was granted. Godinez-Samperio took the bar exam in July and found out in September that he had passed. He was ecstatic, until he learned in November that the board was going to seek an advisory opinion from the state supreme court on whether undocumented immigrants are eligible for admission to the Florida Bar.

Cesar Vargas at Capitol Hill on April 19 to launch a Dream Act-related campaign. He is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, brought to the U.S. as a child, who is pushing for immigration law reform. “I had mixed feelings,” he said. “I knew that it was going to be an interesting trajectory that I was about to begin.”

That journey has included a number of filings from the board and his attorney, Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, as well as a few friend-of-the-court submissions from groups supporting his application, including three past presidents of the American Bar Association.

“It’s the first time it’s ever been addressed in Florida, and I think it’s probably the first time it’s been before a supreme court anywhere in the country,” said Thomas Arthur Pobjecky, the board’s general counsel.

The board determined it was “a really serious matter” and decided to seek out the court’s guidance in these types of cases, which they expect to see more of in the future. “If the law says you cannot employ -- or it’s against the law to employ -- somebody who is not legally in this country, then when we say … here is a license to practice law in this country, are they not also implying that you can hire this person and go ahead and pay him and everything else? So there is a concern,” Pobjecky said. “Once the Florida Supreme Court licenses somebody to be a lawyer, they’re putting their stamp of approval on that person.”

But D’Alemberte questioned why the board would let his client sit the exam if they did not intend to give him a license. “It just seems to us fundamentally unfair after he’s complied with every valid rule not to just go ahead and admit him to the bar and leave to the immigration service whether he is complying with immigration,” he said.

The possibility that undocumented immigrants could receive law licenses doesn’t sit well with some. “I know what the policy ought to be, which is that … someone who doesn’t have the right to be in the United States shouldn’t be admitted to the bar, period,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that supports tighter immigration controls.

“This is trying to steal a base. In other words, they’re trying to skip over the debate over whether people in his situation should get legalized,” he added. “It’s one more way of trying to create a de facto legalization.”

Cesar Vargas, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has passed the bar exam and is in the process of applying for his law license in New York, has started a group, the Dream Bar Association, to advocate for people in his position. Membership numbers about two dozen, and includes those interested in going to law school to those who have passed the bar. “We’re basically throwing the judicial branch into the immigration debate … through our cases,” he said.

In California, Sergio Garcia, 35, an illegal immigrant, has been awaiting a decision since he passed the bar exam in 2009. Because the admissions process is confidential, neither Garcia nor the bar could speak about his application, though a bar spokeswoman said the application for admission doesn't require citizenship.

Thomas Fitton, of conservative Washington watchdog Judicial Watch, said the idea of an undocumented immigrant working as a lawyer in the U.S. was “preposterous.”

“These are kind of, in some ways, public relations stunts, but you know, we’ll see what happens … the whole notion of it is at odds with the rule of law and undermines federal immigration law,” he said. “I think those who’ve passed the bar should focus on making themselves legal as opposed to bypassing the law.”

But others feel that admission should be done on a case-by-case basis, taking into account whether a specific applicant has met the moral character test of the application, said Stephen N. Zack, a former ABA president who has filed a brief in support of Godinez-Samperio. “You can’t take one finite point and say that that is an absolute determination of a person’s character,” he said. “You have to look in a holistic way at the person’s life story and here, you have an exceptional person.”

He also noted that bar candidates like Godinez-Samperio could offer some unique services, with the nation heading to a “majority minority” status in the decades to come.

“We need people who can reach out and provide access to communities that … have historically not had access, and this is the kind of person that is ideal to provide that to the future generations,” he said.

Godinez-Samperio, who would like to work in immigration law, continues to research his case and to work on promoting the Dream Act. “This is a huge fight for me and for a lot of people,” he said.

Despite the challenges and the uncertainty, he doesn’t regret going public before a Florida legislative committee in April 2011 with his status, which few were aware of before. “I decided to come out with my story because I’m undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid,” he said. “In telling the truth, I am risking my liberty, but that’s what a lawyer is about, is about telling the truth … so I’m being as honest as I can possibly get, even to the point of risking my liberty.”

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/24/11369925-can-an-illegal-immigrant-become-a-lawyer?lite

[Jolie Rouge]

comments

How can he uphold the law while being so contemptious of the law ?

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He has broken the law plain and simple. Go home and come back legally. Just because he got educated does not offset that he is a law breaker as long as he is in this country.

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I guess my biggest question here is this:

If he's had all this time to go to school, get an education AND pass the bar exam...then why hasn't he become a legal citizen of this country? He's obviously got enough time and money to do those other things. After all, you don't get the education necessary to become a lawyer overnight.

While I appreciate the fact that he didn't come here illegally by choice, the fact of the matter remains that this man is not a legal citizen of the US. Therefore, he should not have the legal right to practice law in this country until he IS a citizen.

How can a person be expected to practice the law when they are already breaking it??

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Once again, it's great he was able to get an education and he has done well by applying himself to school.........

BUT the fact remains HE IS HERE ILLEGALLY, STOP SKIRTING THIS ISSUE WITH ALL THESE FEEL GOOD STORIES OF ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

HE IS HERE ILLEGALLY.

Give the same opportunities to the legal immigrants and I'm fine with that.

we continue HANDOUTS TO THESE ILLEGALS AND IT DILUTES WHAT IT REALLY MEANS TO BE AMERICAN.

You want citizenship then DO THE RIGHT THING. FOLLOW OUR LAWS.

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There is an easy solution to the problem...go back and apply to become a legal resident. Plain and simple. It will only be opening the flood gates if he is allowed to practice law without first becoming a legal resident. Of course, maybe he is afraid of not being accepted as a legal resident because, after all, we need another lawyer in this country about as much as we need more national debt.

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He has broken absolutely no law that you can point to. If you feel otherwise, cite and quote the particular law you are refering to. What you really mean is that you object to his very existence on Nativist and bigoted grounds. All Americans deserve the same rights and privileges. If YOU can't compete with immigrants, go back to school and acquire more skills. As a nation, we can't afford to discriminate against millions of Americans just because you feel that YOU need an unfair advantage over other people.

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But he's not an American. He's Mexican. He would be undermining federal immigration law if he practiced law here and that's not fair to American citizens and all the other immigrants who are trying to get their green cards legally. Why is it ok for him to jump ahead of the line? We've already supplied his education.

I'm sure he is a very nice person who has the best intentions in life. I think he would probably be an attribute to American society. But he's got to do it legally, just like everyone else in his position.
Here lies the problem. While it is commendable that he was validictorian of his high school class, attended, college, law school, and passed the bar exam, he is not truly a functioning member of society. He has not paid into the society which has afforded him these options. If he were to be allowed to practice law, how woudl he pay taxes on the income he has earned. I AM NOT a pro-tax person, but lets be real here. The reason he is undocumented is because he has chosen to remain that way. He indicates that the choice refused him access to public scholarships, grants, and employment, but all of this is by choice. Had he become a citizen, he would have had access to everything. IT is another wayt o beet the system. And for all of us that work hard and do pay our taxes, it is a slap in the face. Again, I commend him for hte hard work, but a lawyer shoudl abide byt he law! Many lawyers are dispbarred by breaking laws of much less consequence. And if you wanted to retain your Mexican citizenship, then oyu could have gottentyour law degree and gone back to Mexico to practice. You cannot have hte best of both worlds...as it is unfair for those who have no other choice because they are born in America and those who shoose to become citizns of this great country!

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While the outcome is pending he should be deported. After he applies for residency or to become a citizen then he can come back. Why are we even debating whether or not he can practice law??? He is an ILLEGAL alien!! He has broken the law and is still breaking the law. We want him to practice law here?

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The Florida Supreme Court's ruling must be based on the legal practice of law in the state. Most state licenses have requirements regarding legal status, convictions, residency, etc. It's purely an issue of the letter of the law. Seeing as this guy is currently breaking laws, I don't see how he can be allowed to practice law.

On the topic of his not being a citizen, did he think he was just going to get away with never becoming a citizen? Does he have a social security card so that he can pay his taxes? Did he get loans for his education- from whom and didn't they have a LOT of ID requirements? Does he have a green card or worker's visa(I know he doesn't)?

The right way to deal with this guy and other illegal immigrants is to reform immigration laws. We need to start the line with the LEGAL immigrants requesting citizenship(on visas, paying their taxes, getting their legal representation, going to their immigration meetings, etc.- doing the process the right way) in the front, followed by those here on legal visas seeking residency, followed by illegals. They should not get to go to the front of the line. They should not be allowed amnesty just because as many like to advocate. Ask ANY legal immigrant/citizen just how much work it was and if they think that illegals should catch a major break. They'll likely say no.

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He should have spent some of his time becoming a true and legal citizen. Our government wants YOU to work until you are 70 and not have Medicare, while doling out entitlements to people who have never paid a dime into the system. Our country has become a joke and is on the downhill slide.

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Yes, he has broken the law. He is undocumented. There is such a thing as personal accountability as well. After the age of 18 he couldn't point to his evil parents being the reason he is illegal. It's his fault. He never bothered. Being illegal is ILLEGAL, which would, in turn, be breaking the law.

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commensense, please see the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952. You can find this on the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services website.

And no, I don;t believe we are "bigoted". Most of us are completely in support of legal immigration. I am the osn of an immigrant mother and a father whose father was an immigrant. Both came over through legal means, showiung respect to the country they wanted to call home.

How exactly is it bigoted to expect people who come here to follow the laws of the nation?

And how is is "descrimination" to expect those laws to be followed by those who chose to be here?

Try responding in a way that leaves out the hot buttons you like to include, and the name calling.

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I'm generally appalled at the flaunting of our laws illegals are doing and border-running going on today, but, I'm sympathetic to kids at the mercy of their parents. [Lets clean up all of our own unemployment and welfare problems first!] I have to agree with Wizard and might add, it occurred to me that he might not have wanted to "out" his parents by applying for legal status when he reached legal age, but clearly he's not afraid of that now and the cat's out of the bag. Painful as it is, he would be culpable at legal age by not disclosing the whereabouts of his illegal parents and since he knew, stayed and wouldn't risk their place here by reporting himself and seeking amnesty and citizenship, I say make him go home, risk going through all the steps and try to come back. It's not in the least cruel, at the worst he's already cleaned up by getting a fine American education, and is polished and bilingual. We have to stop this hemorrage, not only of space, welfare and American jobs, but also of respect for us. There needs to be some mechanism and might already be of amnesty for children brought here as dependents by their real parents (anything less limiting and specific and we'll have tribes of street kids dumped here with commercial 'guardians' getting citizenship easily.)

[Jolie Rouge]

Some 11.5 million “unauthorized immigrants,” as the Department of Homeland Security calls them, lived in the United States as of January 2011. Of that, 6.8 million were from Mexico, like Godinez-Samperio, according to the department’s Office of Immigration Statistics.

[Jolie Rouge]

Statistics: Crimes Commited by Illegal Aliens
FBI/INS Releases Numbers
Angela Russell, Yahoo! Contributor Network
Jul 11, 2007

Illegal immigrants cause many problems for The United States. Sometimes referred to as Illegal Aliens, these people have entered the United States via illegal methods. The FBI recently issued a set of statistics regarding crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the United States. The numbers are alarming.
In Los Angeles, over 95% of arrest warrants issued for the crime of murder are for illegal aliens. At least 83% of arrest warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens. The number climbs to 86% for Albuquerque. The most wanted lists for each of these cities is comprised of at least 75% illegal aliens.

The problem of prison overcrowding in California has been in the media many times over the past few months. Governor Schwarzenegger has attempted to gain relief from the overcrowding problem by shipping inmates to facilities in other states. Nearly 25% of the California prison population is comprised of illegal aliens. In Arizona, illegal aliens make up over 40% of the prison population and in New Mexico, the number is nearly 50%.

Illegal aliens account for nearly 30% of prison populations nationwide. This includes both state and federal prisons. The cost to house these illegal aliens is more than $1.6 billion dollars each year.

Statistics from 2005 indicate that over 75% of automobile thefts that occurred in Arizona, Nevada, California, Texas, and New Mexico were either stolen by illegal aliens or used to transport illegal aliens. Almost half of the drivers stopped in California for traffic violations have no driver's license, insurance, or registration. 92% of those are illegal aliens. In Arizona, 63% of those stopped have no license, registration or insurance and 97% of those people are illegal aliens. New Mexico's percentages are 66% stopped with no license, insurance and registration and 98% of those are illegal aliens.

Each year nearly 400,000 babies were born to illegal alien parents in the United States. Being born in the United States automatically makes you a U.S. citizen. Illegal aliens who come to the United States and give birth to children are referred to as having "anchor babies." These illegals will not be deported because they are now 'anchored' in the United States by their American born children. American taxpayers foot the bill for over 97% of these births.

Many United States citizens feel that action must be taken to thwart illegal aliens' attempts to enter the country. The plan recently released by President George Bush has come under fire for its leniency. Many Americans feel that immediate action must be taken to close our borders.

America has long been known as the land of opportunity and is comprised of many cultures, ethnicities, and races. There are a set of guidelines for those wishing to come to this country to live. Many of those who are willing to follow the law and come to this country legally have expressed outrage at the number of illegal aliens who have entered this country, and under the president's plan may be allowed to stay by paying a fine.

http://voices.yahoo.com/statistics-crimes-commited-illegal-aliens-434946.html

[Jolie Rouge]

2006 (1st Qtr) INS/FBI Statistical Report on Illegal Immigration.

62% of all “undocumented immigrants” in the United States are working for cash and not paying taxes, predominantly illegal aliens, working without a green card;

95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens;

83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens;

86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens;

75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Albuquerque are illegal aliens;

More than 380,000 “anchor babies” were born in the United States in 2005 were to parents who are illegal aliens; making those 380,000 babies automatically U.S. citizens. 97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayer;

More than 66% of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal whose births were paid for by taxpayers;

24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally;

40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally;

48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally;

29% (630,000) convicted illegal alien felons fill our state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually;

More than 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages

More than 53% of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens;

More than half of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border;

More than 43% of all Food Stamps issued are to illegal aliens;

More than 41% of all unemployment checks issued in the United States are to illegal aliens;

58% of all Welfare payments in the United States are issued to illegal aliens;

Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties in the United States are illegal aliens;

14 out of 31 TV stations in L.A. are Spanish-only;

16 out of 28 TV stations in Phoenix are Spanish-only;

15 out of 24 TV stations in Albuquerque are Spanish-only;

21 radio stations in L.A. are Spanish-only;

17 radio stations in Phoenix are Spanish-only;

17 radio stations in Albuquerque are Spanish-only;

More than 34% of Arizona students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens;

More than 24% of Arizona students in grades 1-12 are non-English-speaking;

More than 39% of California students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens;

More than 42% of California students in grades 1-12 are non-English-speaking

In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak English. 3.9 million speak Spanish;

More than 71% of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California were stolen by illegal aliens or transport coyotes”;

47% of cited/stopped drivers in California have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 47%, 92% are illegal aliens;

63% of cited/stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens;

66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66%, 98% are illegal aliens;

Less than 2% of illegal aliens in the United States are picking crops , but 41% are on welfare;

Over 70% of the United States annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration;

The cost of immigration to the American taxpayer in 1997 (latest known calculation. Can you imagine what it must be in 2006? WOW!) was a NET (after subtracting taxes immigrants pay) $70 BILLION a year, [Professor Donald Huddle, Rice University];

The estimated profit to U.S. corporations and businesses employing ILLEGAL aliens in 2005 was more than $2.36 TRILLION dollars;

The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican ILLEGAL alien is $55,000.00 cost to the American taxpayer in a 5-year span. You, personally, are giving $11,000 every year to ILLEGAL aliens.

In 2000, more than half of California’s 5.5 million Latinos age 25 and older did not have a high school diploma.

32.6 percent - Less than a ninth-grade education

20.8 percent - Ninth to 12th-grade education, no diploma

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

25 Reasons to Deport illegal aliens:

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServe

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fisca

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fisca

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. http://http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCRI

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the United States. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into the U. S. from the Southern border. Homeland Security
Report: http://www.house.gov/mccaul/pdf/In

12. The National Policy Institute, "estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period." National Policy Institute

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.contracostatimes.com/ml

14. "The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States". Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, Ph.D. - Criminal Profiler : Crime & Terrorism investigation resources

15. Every day 12 Americans are murdered by an illegal alien. Another 13 Americans are killed by uninsured drunk illegal aliens and Eight American Children are victims of a sex crime committed by an illegal alien each day! (Toto, we´re not in Kansas anymore.) http://www.house.gov/apps/list/heari

16. Today, criminal aliens account for over 29 percent of prisoners in Federal Bureau of Prisons facilities and a higher share of all federal prison inmates. These prisoners represent the fastest growing segment of the federal prison population. Incarceration of criminal aliens cost an estimated $624 million to state
prisons (1999) and $891 million to federal prisons (2002), according to the most recent available figure from the Bureau of Justice Statistics. http://www.fairus.org/site/PageServe

17. "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine". "Many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American Medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant
tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue and Chagas disease."The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons Journal of the American Physicians and Surgeons - Vol. 10 No. 1 18. In 2002, HIV/AIDS was the third leading cause of death among Hispanic men aged 35 to 44 and the fourth leading cause of death
among Hispanic women in the same age group. Source (CDC): http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/fa

19. If enacted the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (CIRA, S. 2611) would be the most dramatic change in immigration law in 80 years, allowing an estimated 103 million persons to legally immigrate to the U.S. over the next 20 years - fully one-third of the current population of the United States.

20. U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) today unveiled an impact analysis that shows the Senate immigration bill - should it become law - would permit up to 217.1 million new legal immigrants into the United States over the next 20 years, a number equal to 66 percent of the total current population..

21. The number of illegal immigrants in the United States may be as high as 20 million people, more than double the official 9 million people estimated by the
Census Bureau. 1/3/05 http://www.bearstearns.com/bscport

22. Cases of Leprosy on The Rise In The U.S., The New York Times. "While there were some 900 recorded cases in the United States 40 years ago, today more than
7,000 people have leprosy." Leprosy is an airbourne virus, it can also be spread by touching and coughing. http://jscms.jrn.columbia.edu/cns/20 http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-leprosy

23. Organizations Protesting Immigration Reform, State by State. Won´t you join in? http://www.oregonir.org/Immigration

24. America Welcomes Illegal Alien's Contagious Diseases. http://www.rense.com/general64/ill.h

25. Mexico is the 4th Richest Oil Nation in the World. http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/a

[Jolie Rouge]

I realise this data is several years out of date ... the scary thing is ... you know it has only gotten worse ... Illegal immigration data is ALWAYS, at best, an estimate. We can’t have accurate data as long as schools and ERs are prohibited from inquiring about immigration status. We only recently began to obtain data on illegal alien crimes and prison populations. Many pro-illegals consider any inquiry into the immigration status of foreigners, to be racial profiling and discrimination.

How do you expect to find credible sources for a phantom group who hide behind aliases; who use stolen and fake SSNs; who work under the table; who are protected by special interest groups, sanctuary laws, and bleeding heart citizens? They aren’t “lies,” they are simply estimates based on the best “available” data. If citizens knew the true magnitude of this problem, the outrage would resonate across the Atlantic and the Pacific; and the lives of our so-called representatives, and the unscrupulous employers of illegals, would be a living hell. I believe it is far worse than any of us could possibly imagine.


See also http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/taxes.asp

[Jolie Rouge]

2012 Presidential Hopefuls' Immigration Stances
Updated: 04/10/12

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html

https://www.numbersusa.com/content/action/2012-presidential-hopefuls-immigration-stances.html

[hblueeyes]

Appalling! How many citizens could not go to college to be a lawyer because of $$$$$. Many scholarships state you must be a citizen to qualify, however it is a rule not followed. Cocoa Cola gives them to illegals.

My neighbor is illegal and proud of it. He works for Pepsi Co. under an EIN number he received from the IRS. He owns multiple properties and his kids run an illegal business from the residence. They buy cars from Mexico, fix them and sell them. Local ordinance is no business can be run from your home that involves inventory. Cars are inventory. State of Illinois says if you sell 3 cars a year or more, you are a dealer. Yet they do not pay as if they were. It drives me crazy.

Me

[Jolie Rouge]

Yearbook of Immigration Statistics


The Yearbook of Immigration Statistics is a compendium of tables that provides data on foreign nationals who, during a fiscal year, were granted lawful permanent residence (i.e., admitted as immigrants or became legal permanent residents), were admitted into the United States on a temporary basis (e.g., tourists, students, or workers), applied for asylum or refugee status, or were naturalized. The Yearbook also presents data on immigration law enforcement actions, including alien apprehensions, removals, and prosecutions. The Yearbook tables are released as they become available. A final PDF is released in August of the following fiscal year.

In addition to the Yearbook, the Office of Immigration Statistics Annual Flow Reports and Annual Reports provide text, tables, and charts on legal permanent residents, refugees and asylees, nonimmigrant admissions, naturalizations, and enforcement actions. The Annual Flow Reports and Annual Reports have replaced the text chapters in the earlier editions of the Yearbook.

To view the entire Yearbook, click on the link below. To view only the data tables (in Excel format) or the report for a subject, such as "legal permanent residents," "naturalizations," or "nonimmigrant admissions," click on the link under the subject matter heading.

http://www.dhs.gov/files/statistics/publications/yearbook.shtm


Written testimony of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations, Transnational Crime and Public Safety Division Deputy Assistant Director Waldemar Rodriguez for a House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement hearing titled “Document Fraud In Employment Authorization: How an E-Verify Requirement Can Help.”

Release Date: April 18, 2012
http://www.dhs.gov/ynews/testimony/20120418-ice-document-fraud-hjc.shtm


Immigration and Crime: Assessing a Conflicted Issue
By Steven A. Camarota, Jessica Vaughan November 2009

This study examines academic and government research on the question of immigrant crime. New government data indicate that immigrants have high rates of criminality, while older academic research found low rates. The overall picture of immigrants and crime remains confused due to a lack of good data and contrary information. However, the newer government data indicate that there are legitimate public safety reasons for local law enforcement to work with federal immigration authorities.

http://cis.org/ImmigrantCrime

[Jolie Rouge]

Can an illegal immigrant become a lawyer?

How can he take an oath to uphold the law and the Contsitution when is is knowingly, willingly and defiently - in his own words "undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid" - in violation of the law? Yes, his parents brought him here as a child, but he has had years to apply for legal citizenship status and has rejected it.

[3lilpigs]

And chances are he WILL become a lawyer, and will end up helping MORE illegals screw the system just like he did.

[Jolie Rouge]

MoveOn.org video: Saying ‘illegal’ immigrants fits definition of a hate crime
Posted on April 28, 2012 by Conservative Byte

In yet another case of Orwellian political correctness run amok, a video posted at MoveOn.org says calling illegal immigrants “illegal” fits the definition of a hate crime and calls for the word to be banned when used in the context of immigration.

The headline at the MoveOn page screams “One word we hear too often on Fox News,” as if only Fox News calls illegal immigrants “illegal.”

A web page at Colorlines goes even further, giving words they say are more acceptable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebs6SCPf_dU&feature=player_embedded

[hblueeyes]

WOP without papers

Me

[Jolie Rouge]

if you have immigrated without following the law ... then you have immigrated illegally hence : illegal immigrants. My cat might have kittens in the oven .. but that doesn't make them biscuits no matter what you choose to call them.

[3lilpigs]

WOP without papers

Me
Can't use that.....Italian's will get offended! lol

[Jolie Rouge]

Being in this country without proper papers = illegal
Using false Social Security numbers = crime
Working off the books/ getting paid under the table is tax evasion = criminal
Collecting social benefits without properly disclosing income = fraud
I'm trying to find a way that illegals are not criminals.


Without American taxpayers, the illegals have no hope.
They simply follow successful Americans wherever we are
After all, you won't see an illegal mow the yard of another illegal.

FYI...Illegals DO NOT work for cheap. When you factor in food stamps, free medical care, free education, subsidized rent and ultilities, court appointed defense lawyers, translators and incarcaration AND they don't pay auto OR health insurance premiums....but, we pick up the tab on that, along with everything else they avoid responsibility on. ILLEGALS ARE A VERY BAD DEAL FOR AMERICA.

[hblueeyes]

Do not forget because they work for cheap, it lowers the wages of union and nonunion works as well.

Me

[Lori63]

if you have immigrated without following the law ... then you have immigrated illegally hence : illegal immigrants. My cat might have kittens in the oven .. but that doesn't make them biscuits no matter what you choose to call them.

True. Why doesn't he just become a citizen? Or is he just trying to make a point? Illegal is illegal.

[3lilpigs]

True. Why doesn't he just become a citizen? Or is he just trying to make a point? Illegal is illegal.

Then he'd have to do things legally. He'd actually have to pay taxes and such, and get off any kind of ''assistance'' he and his family are on.

Plus, this way, he gets free publicity.

[pepperpot]

Then he'd have to do things legally. He'd actually have to pay taxes and such, and get off any kind of ''assistance'' he and his family are on.

Plus, this way, he gets free publicity.
Sympathy and a following......:agree

It's trendy and beneficial to be illegal.

[3lilpigs]

I came up with this today at work. Dunno why it just popped in my head.... We'll call them ''Non-citizen Criminals." :lol

[Jolie Rouge]

Time's Illegal Immigration Cover Story: 'We Are Americans - Just Not Legally'
By Noel Sheppard | June 14, 2012 | 11:38

Time magazine waded into the illegal immigration debate Thursday with a preview of next Monday's cover and featured article guaranteed to generate heated discussion on both sides of the aisle.

In front of a picture of unknown immigrants save the story's controversial author Jose Antonio Vargas was the bold headline "We Are Americans*"; somewhat below it read "*Just not legally."

http://newsbusters.org/sites/default/files/main_photos/2012/June/Time%20613.jpg

The article began: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2117243,00.html?pcd=pw-hp


'Why haven't you gotten deported?'

That's usually the first thing people ask me when they learn I'm an undocumented immigrant or, put more rudely, an "illegal." Some ask it with anger or frustration, others with genuine bafflement. At a restaurant in Birmingham, not far from the University of Alabama, an inebriated young white man challenged me: "You got your papers?" I told him I didn't. "Well, you should get your ass home, then." In California, a middle-aged white woman threw up her arms and wanted to know: "Why hasn't Obama dealt with you?" At least once a day, I get that...

The rest of the story is available only to Time subscribers, but a "Behind the Cover" piece shed some additonal light on its contents:


In Spring 2010, four undocumented students trekked 1,500 miles from Miami to Washington to press passage of the Dream Act, a bill that would offer a path to permanent residency for immigrants who came to the country as minors and achieved certain educational accomplishments. Moved by their courage, Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist who was part of the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning team for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting, revealed that he, too, was an undocumented immigrant in an essay published by the New York Times Magazine last June.

A year later, Vargas finds that immigration in America has seen little progress, as he writes in this week’s TIME cover story.

As the Media Research Center's director of media analysis Tim Graham wrote at the time: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/06/23/short-trip-liberal-reporter-outs-himself-illegal-alien-turns-liberal-lob


Former Washington Post reporter Jose Antonio Vargas has written a long piece for The New York Times Magazine declaring that he’s an illegal alien and that he’s created a new advocacy group called Define American (“a project of the Tides Center”) to push for the DREAM Act that would provide permanent residency to illegal aliens brought to America as children.

Vargas, 30, lied to a string of media outlets about his immigration status with a fake driver’s license from Oregon. He came over from the Philippines at age 12. (Vargas told the truth to Post editor Peter Perl, a mentor, but he wouldn’t comment now.) In the Post story on this by Paul Farhi, Post spokeswoman Kris Coratti offered a no-comment on Vargas’s employment at the paper: “We will not comment on individual personnel matters out of respect for the privacy of our employees.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/post-responds-to-ex-reporter-vargass-revelation-that-hes-an-illegal-immigrant/2011/06/22/AGrdHRgH_story.html?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

What that no-comment seems to say: “We don’t want to condemn lying to us about your immigration status since we probably employ a pile of ‘undocumented’ people and are too liberal a media outlet to seem scandalized.”

It might also be suggested that Vargas was hired smack-dab out of college in 2004 in part because he was Filipino and gay – an affirmative action two-fer. The illegal status might have only added to the allure. In 2006, the Post egregiously celebrated large Washington rallies for amnesty for illegal aliens.

Graham noted the following day that Vargas had immediately become "the Left's illegal-alien hero." http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/06/24/jose-vargas-lefts-illegal-alien-hero

The New York Times Magazine's editor came out a few days later covering for Vargas by saying that lying in journalism is nothing new. As Graham wrote: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/06/28/ny-times-magazine-editor-vargas-tale-come-lyings-hardly-unprecedented-jo


Over the weekend, NPR’s On The Media found that the New York Times was so fascinated by self-proclaimed illegal alien activist Jose Antonio Vargas and found his story so compelling, the credibility of the author was not an issue. New York Times Magazine editor-in-chief Hugo Lindgren (that "great magazine head") said all the lying about his citizenship is not an issue for journalists:

That's something that's come up today. You know, people say, you know, you lie about one thing and people can't stop lying if they do that. And I think some of that misses the point. This is not unprecedented in journalism. This is not the first person who's ever told a lie who then goes on to write about it.

"The point" not to be missed is political: the injustice isn't the lying, Lindgren is saying, it's the system that "forces" illegals to lie.

So a year later - and just five months before a pivotal presidential election! - Vargas gets a Time magazine cover story to further his illegal immigration agenda whilst most assuredly politicizing this matter in a fashion that helps the current White House resident.

I'm surprised the cover didn't feature a picture of President Obama made to look Hispanic with the headline "The First Latino President."


Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/06/14/time-magazine-illegal-immigration-cover-story-we-are-americans-just-n#ixzz1xnceGrZc

comments

What country in the world would bestow its citizenship on an individual who (a) entered the country illegally, and (b) has not attempted to apply for citizenship via legal channels?

The very idea that someone who broke our laws when they entered our country and is now demanding "rights" like a citizen would be ridiculed everywhere else in the world. But in the US, the Left tries to place some guilt trip on the actual citizens and legal alien residents who play be the rules.

...

That is the ultimate question that no liberal could ever answer. The best they'd be able to come up with would be something along the lines of, "Well, we're not those other countries". Unfortunately for them, for ANY issue that they endorse, comparison between the US and other countries is usually the FIRST argument they use, i.e. gun control, capital punishment, abortion, health-care, education, etc.

...

I'm Judge, jury and executioner.
Just not legally.
'Bang!'

...

And if you find it offensive to be called an illegal alien, then go back to where you came from. America has always welcomed LEGAL immigrants.

...

Every sovereign nation on the planet has rules and regulations regarding immigration. Many of these countries are severe in their treatment of persons entering their country illegally. Because the United States is known as the "beacon of freedom" around the world, the idea that Mr. Vargas can openly and freely pen an article about his situation and that of other illegals, is perfectly alright to many Liberals. They say they support illegals as a humanitarian question, but we know it is really about another possible voting block that can help the Libs stay in power. Once again the "Progressives" use people for their own selfish goals. The law is the law! Until that changes Mr. Vargas and his fellow illegal aliens should be brought to justice for making a folly of the sovereignty of the United States of America

[Jolie Rouge]

While you were getting groped at the airport, the TSA approved flight training for 25 illegal aliens
By Doug Powers • July 19, 2012 01:09 PM

Bonus points: The flight school was also owned by an illegal alien.

From CNS News: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tsa-let-25-illegal-aliens-attend-flight-school-owned-illegal-alien


The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) approved flight training for 25 illegal aliens at a Boston-area flight school that was owned by yet another illegal alien, according to the Government Accountability Office.

The illegal-alien flight-school attendees included eight who had entered the country illegally and 17 who had overstayed their allowed period of admission into the United States, according to an audit by the GAO.

Six of the illegal aliens were actually able to get pilot’s licenses.

Discovery of the trouble at the flight school began when local police–not federal authorities–pulled over the owner of the school on a traffic violation and were able to determine that he was an illegal alien.
[...]
Stephen Lord, who is the GAO’s director of Homeland Security and Justice Issues, testified about the matter Wednesday in Rogers’ subcommittee. Rogers asked him: “Isn’t it true that, based on your report, the Transportation Security Administration cannot assure the American people that foreign terrorists are not in this country learning how to fly airplanes, yes or no?”

Lord responded: “At this time, no.”

CNS notes that the TSA’s program for foreign flight students does not check for immigration status. Well that’s stupid… how else is the administration supposed to know who needs a waiver? http://michellemalkin.com/2012/06/15/occupy-open-borders-obama-delivers-800000-more-illegal-alien-deportation-waivers/

Additionally:


The GAO’s Stephen Lord, in his prepared remarks, told lawmakers that the TSA does not screen new and existing FAA pilot license holders against the Terrorist Screening Database until after the foreign national has completed flight training. “Thus, foreign nationals obtaining flight training with the intent to do harm, such as three of the pilots and leaders of the September 11 terrorist attacks, could have already obtained the training needed to operate an aircraft before they received any type of vetting,” warned the GAO.

The obligatory accompaniment to any air insecurity post: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHZISoNlqAA&feature=player_embedded


**Written by Doug Powers http://michellemalkin.com/2012/07/19/tsa-flight-training/

comments

Note that the local police uncovered this. If you are in AZ, the DHS and the DOJ would not report back that he was illegal.

..


The GAO’s Stephen Lord, in his prepared remarks, told lawmakers that the TSA does not screen new and existing FAA pilot license holders against the Terrorist Screening Database until after the foreign national has completed flight training.

That’s because it’s illegal to fly jetliners into buildings without a license!

/sarc

...

And just think it was Boston’s Logan airport where some of the 9/11 hijackers, who just happen to overstay their visas and attend flight training school, boarded a plane on that day of infamy.

...

Just another gov success story. Another example of how “we didn’t get there on our own”. That’s because we would never have been so stupid as to invent totally useless policies and procedures to be implemented by people stupid enough to do those jobs. Those civil service exams are geared at screening out smart people so they won’t become whistle blowers later. Why are we even bothering to have TSA when the gov is filled with islamic sympathizers and communists? The TSA was created so unions had more members and had nothing to do with airport security.

..

So how long do you think it will be until someone in the adminstration or some liberal group (I know pretty redundant)cries racial profiling?

...

My wife and I travelled to San Francisco in June. The TSA gauntlet was not too bad, although my wife was pulled aside and swabbed for explosives and I got run through the high-tech spectrograph popo checker on the return trip.

What struck me was the arrogance of one TSA screener who gave my wife the stink-eye when she would not stand directly in front of his podium and scolded her when she did not “get it”. He then proceeded to look around casually and listen to neighboring conversations before rubbing a magic marker across her boarding pass and waving her through dismissively. The knots of several young TSA clerks, nattily attired in their uniforms and joking together, also got my attention.

[Jolie Rouge]

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/120420-law-samperio-hmed2p.photoblog600.jpg

Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio at Capitol Hill on April 19. He is an undocumented immigrant, brought to the U.S. from Mexico as a child, who is seeking his law license in Florida in what appears to be a landmark case.

By Miranda Leitsinger, msnbc.com

Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio was brought to the United States from Mexico by his parents when he was nine years old. Sixteen years later, he had graduated from his Florida high school as class valedictorian, become an Eagle Scout, completed college and law school, and passed the state bar exam.

But one big accomplishment eluded him: citizenship. Godinez-Samperio is in the country illegally, which could keep him from achieving another part of his American dream: becoming a lawyer.

In what appears to be a landmark case, the Florida Supreme Court is going to consider whether Godinez-Samperio has the right to practice the law -- a decision that could impact others who hope to follow in his footsteps. “It makes me feel that we’re living in a … historical moment. I really think the last time something like this happened was when African Americans and women were admitted to the bar,” he told msnbc.com. “I think if we win this, it’ll be another historical civil rights mark.”

Godinez-Samperio is pressing his case as the national debate over illegal immigration heats up. On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of Arizona’s strict anti-illegal immigration law. And last week, Godinez-Samperio was in the nation’s capitol to lobby for the Dream Act, which would provide a path to legal status to some adults who came to America illegally as children. Supporters are making a renewed push for the legislation after it failed in the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Some 11.5 million “unauthorized immigrants,” as the Department of Homeland Security calls them, lived in the United States as of January 2011. Of that, 6.8 million were from Mexico, like Godinez-Samperio, according to the department’s Office of Immigration Statistics.

Godinez-Samperio’s journey to the law began when he and his parents left their home in Pachuca, Mexico. They came on tourist visas, which they overstayed. He didn’t know English and it was a few years before he began to realize what his immigration status was and what it meant for his future.

He couldn’t get a social security number or a driver’s license, he didn’t have access to most financial aid, he couldn’t work for compensation and has been ineligible for most internships and awards, according to an essay he submitted for his law school application.

But he said he managed to get private scholarships to help pay for his education, and volunteered where he could -- such as helping domestic violence victims obtain immigration relief. “For me, it’s very important to show that I have been a contributing member of society (the) entire time I have lived in this country,” he said. “ … there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be allowed to contribute even more … with a green card.”

When Godinez-Samperio applied to take the bar exam last year, he sought a waiver because he didn’t have proof of his immigration status, which is required by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners who administer the test. States set their own requirements for those seeking to become a lawyer.

His request was granted. Godinez-Samperio took the bar exam in July and found out in September that he had passed. He was ecstatic, until he learned in November that the board was going to seek an advisory opinion from the state supreme court on whether undocumented immigrants are eligible for admission to the Florida Bar.

Cesar Vargas at Capitol Hill on April 19 to launch a Dream Act-related campaign. He is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, brought to the U.S. as a child, who is pushing for immigration law reform. “I had mixed feelings,” he said. “I knew that it was going to be an interesting trajectory that I was about to begin.”

That journey has included a number of filings from the board and his attorney, Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte, as well as a few friend-of-the-court submissions from groups supporting his application, including three past presidents of the American Bar Association.

“It’s the first time it’s ever been addressed in Florida, and I think it’s probably the first time it’s been before a supreme court anywhere in the country,” said Thomas Arthur Pobjecky, the board’s general counsel.

The board determined it was “a really serious matter” and decided to seek out the court’s guidance in these types of cases, which they expect to see more of in the future. “If the law says you cannot employ -- or it’s against the law to employ -- somebody who is not legally in this country, then when we say … here is a license to practice law in this country, are they not also implying that you can hire this person and go ahead and pay him and everything else? So there is a concern,” Pobjecky said. “Once the Florida Supreme Court licenses somebody to be a lawyer, they’re putting their stamp of approval on that person.”

But D’Alemberte questioned why the board would let his client sit the exam if they did not intend to give him a license. “It just seems to us fundamentally unfair after he’s complied with every valid rule not to just go ahead and admit him to the bar and leave to the immigration service whether he is complying with immigration,” he said.

The possibility that undocumented immigrants could receive law licenses doesn’t sit well with some. “I know what the policy ought to be, which is that … someone who doesn’t have the right to be in the United States shouldn’t be admitted to the bar, period,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank that supports tighter immigration controls.

“This is trying to steal a base. In other words, they’re trying to skip over the debate over whether people in his situation should get legalized,” he added. “It’s one more way of trying to create a de facto legalization.”

Cesar Vargas, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who has passed the bar exam and is in the process of applying for his law license in New York, has started a group, the Dream Bar Association, to advocate for people in his position. Membership numbers about two dozen, and includes those interested in going to law school to those who have passed the bar. “We’re basically throwing the judicial branch into the immigration debate … through our cases,” he said.

In California, Sergio Garcia, 35, an illegal immigrant, has been awaiting a decision since he passed the bar exam in 2009. Because the admissions process is confidential, neither Garcia nor the bar could speak about his application, though a bar spokeswoman said the application for admission doesn't require citizenship.

Thomas Fitton, of conservative Washington watchdog Judicial Watch, said the idea of an undocumented immigrant working as a lawyer in the U.S. was “preposterous.”

“These are kind of, in some ways, public relations stunts, but you know, we’ll see what happens … the whole notion of it is at odds with the rule of law and undermines federal immigration law,” he said. “I think those who’ve passed the bar should focus on making themselves legal as opposed to bypassing the law.”

But others feel that admission should be done on a case-by-case basis, taking into account whether a specific applicant has met the moral character test of the application, said Stephen N. Zack, a former ABA president who has filed a brief in support of Godinez-Samperio. “You can’t take one finite point and say that that is an absolute determination of a person’s character,” he said. “You have to look in a holistic way at the person’s life story and here, you have an exceptional person.”

He also noted that bar candidates like Godinez-Samperio could offer some unique services, with the nation heading to a “majority minority” status in the decades to come.

“We need people who can reach out and provide access to communities that … have historically not had access, and this is the kind of person that is ideal to provide that to the future generations,” he said.

Godinez-Samperio, who would like to work in immigration law, continues to research his case and to work on promoting the Dream Act. “This is a huge fight for me and for a lot of people,” he said.

Despite the challenges and the uncertainty, he doesn’t regret going public before a Florida legislative committee in April 2011 with his status, which few were aware of before. “I decided to come out with my story because I’m undocumented, unapologetic and unafraid,” he said. “In telling the truth, I am risking my liberty, but that’s what a lawyer is about, is about telling the truth … so I’m being as honest as I can possibly get, even to the point of risking my liberty.”

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/24/11369925-can-an-illegal-immigrant-become-a-lawyer?lite

.
Courts mull whether illegal immigrants can be licensed to practice law
By Mary Slosson | Reuters – 2 hrs 40 mins ago.

[Jolie Rouge]

Courts mull whether illegal immigrants can be licensed to practice law
By Mary Slosson | Reuters – 2 hrs 40 mins ago.

..

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) - A law school graduate seeking to join the California bar despite his status as an illegal immigrant may soon become a test case for other young and undocumented professionals as the state's highest court weighs whether he can be admitted to practice law.

The state Supreme Court is mulling the case of 35-year-old Sergio Garcia, who has already found strong support both from California's attorney general and the state bar association. The court has requested guidance from the U.S. Justice Department on the matter that could come as early as Wednesday.

The case is the latest battleground in the nation's immigration wars that have seen the Obama administration grant leniency to some young illegal immigrants brought to the country as children even as a number of states have sought to crack down on illegal immigrants within their borders.

Garcia, who passed the bar exam, was brought to the United States when he was 17 months old by his parents. They left to return to their native Mexico when Garcia was eight or nine, only to return to the United States again when he was 17.

His father was a U.S. permanent resident at the time, and later became a citizen. In 1994, he filed a petition for his son to be granted an immigrant visa. Approved in 1995, Garcia has been waiting 17 years for a visa that will allow him to become a lawful permanent resident and, eventually, a citizen.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the case, but could soon weigh in after requesting in mid-July that it be granted an extension to August 1 to file a brief with its views on the matter. That opinion will carry weight for similar cases in Florida and New York.

"I am very hopeful and confident that they will weigh in my favor," Garcia told Reuters, declining to comment further.

Garcia has already won support from state Attorney General Kamala Harris, who wrote an amicus brief to the state Supreme Court urging that he be admitted to the bar and describing him as "a model of the self-reliant and self-sufficient immigrant."

Critics, however, say that allowing immigrants who are in the country illegally to become lawyers undermines the justice system, and that they should become legal immigrants first.

"Mr. Garcia is not qualified to practice law because he continually violates federal law by his presence in the United States," retired prosecutor for the state bar of California, Larry DeSha, wrote in an opposition brief.

The California Supreme Court has not given any indication of how long it might take to make a decision on Garcia's case after it receives guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice.

LIKEWISE IN FLORIDA, NEW YORK

Whatever the guidance, it could impact the cases of other young law school graduates in other states who find themselves in similar circumstances including a case that is making its way through Florida's legal system.

A 26-year-old Eagle Scout who has the backing of his former law professors at the Florida State University College of Law to enter the legal profession, Jose Manuel Godinez-Samperio arrived in the United States at the age of nine, when his parents illegally carried him across the border from Mexico.

The Florida Board of Bar Examiners asked that state's Supreme Court for guidance on whether Godinez-Samperio and others like him could be admitted to the state bar association as full-fledged lawyers. The court has yet to issue an opinion.

In New York, immigrant rights activist Cesar Vargas finds himself in a similar position. A law school graduate, he passed the bar exam and will face the same issues when he applies to be admitted to the bar as a lawyer.

Vargas was brought to the United States from Mexico when he was five years old. He put himself through college and then law school thanks to private scholarships and community support.

"My graduation was bittersweet, since I was accomplishing something that made my family proud, but knew I wasn't going to be a lawyer because of my status," Vargas told Reuters.

The Obama administration announced in June that hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants brought into the United States as children will be able to avoid deportation and get work permits.

That move was a nod to supporters of the DREAM Act, legislation that would allow certain children of illegal immigrants to stay in the United States to pursue college education and jobs and put them on a path to citizenship.

http://news.yahoo.com/courts-mull-whether-illegal-immigrants-licensed-practice-law-020223474.html?_esi=1

[Jolie Rouge]

TSA: Training Sky-bound Illegal Aliens
By Michelle Malkin • July 20, 2012 08:22 AM

http://s.michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/visaviolate.jpg
http://s.michellemalkin.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/visaviolate.jpg

When it comes to soldiers, breast-feeding moms, toddlers and grannies, the Transportation Security Administration is not just hands-on, it’s hands-all-over. But when it comes to illegal alien pilot trainees, our homeland security bureaucracy’s policy is still stuck in pre-9/11 mode: Hands off, blinders on.

This week, the U.S. Government Accountability Office released a report (PDF) on the airline security agency’s “process for ensuring (that) foreign flight students do not pose a security risk.” http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/592598.pdf In short, there isn’t much of a “process” at all when it comes to checking the immigration status of flight school students. While the GAO report may be new, the documented lapses are part of the same old, same old refusal to profile foreign flight risks for fear of offending and inconveniencing politically correct special interests.

In November 2010, my column, “No Illegal Alien Pilot Left Behind,” spotlighted a shady flight school outside Boston that had provided single-engine pilot lessons to more than two dozen illegal immigrants from Brazil. Clear counter-terror rules banned illegal aliens from enrolling in U.S. flight schools. Clear counter-terror regulations required TSA to run foreign flight students’ names against a plethora of terrorism, criminal and immigration databases. Yet dozens of these illegal alien students eluded our homeland security radar screen.

What’s changed since that illegal alien flight school first came to light? The new GAO audit, first reported on by CNSNews.com on Wednesday, disclosed fresh details about the Boston area flight school racket:


– “Eight of the 25 foreign nationals who received approval by TSA to begin flight training were in ‘entry without inspection’ status, meaning they had entered the country illegally. Three of these had obtained FAA airman certificates: Two held FAA private pilot certificates, and one held an FAA commercial pilot certificate.”

– “Seventeen of the 25 foreign nationals who received approval by the TSA to begin flight training were in ‘overstay’ status, meaning they had overstayed their authorized period of admission into the United States.”

– “In addition, the flight school owner held two FAA airman certificates. Specifically, he was a certified Airline Transport Pilot (cargo pilot) and a Certified Flight Instructor. However, he had never received a TSA security threat assessment or been approved by TSA to obtain flight training.”

The GAO report pointed out that over the past two years, TSA and Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security have supposedly been working on a pilot program to vet names of foreign students against immigration databases — “but have not specified desired outcomes and time frames, or assigned individuals with responsibility for fully instituting the program.”

The Obama administration promises to have a “plan” in place by December 2012 to “assess” the legal status of foreign pilot trainees. Meantime, election-year amnesty and intransigent apathy reign.

For more than decade, I’ve reported on the failure of the federal government to build a comprehensive foreign visitor entry-exit tracking system. Visa overstayers constitute 40 percent of the entire illegal alien population — and have been major beneficiaries of both Bush and Obama illegal alien waiver programs and deportation freezes.

On the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks last year, GOP House Homeland Security Chairwoman Candice Miller reported on the federal backlog of more than 750,000 unvetted visa overstay records: “If we are serious about controlling who comes into the nation and preventing another 9/11 attack, we need to get serious about an exit program,” she testified. “The (Department of Homeland Security) has yet to articulate a plan to move forward with a comprehensive exit plan in the air environment or elsewhere.”

Open-borders lobbyists, the travel industry, civil-rights absolutists and ethnic-grievance groups have lobbied hard to stymie full implementation of coordinated databases to identify, locate and remove illegal overstayers. The systemic, bipartisan refusal to crack down on short-term tourist, business and student visa holders is a clear and present security danger.

Don’t take my word for it.

In 2010, President Obama’s own Homeland Security Department Inspector General Richard Skinner testified before Congress: “Overstays perpetuate the illegal immigration problem by using the visa process to break the law to remain in the United States. Moreover, some overstays represent a very real national security risk to the nation.”

Need a reminder? The Nationwide Visa Overstayers Club includes dozens of jihadists, including Mohamed Atta and four other 9/11 hijackers; 1997 New York subway bomber Lafi Khalil; four of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers; 1993 New York landmark-bombing conspirator Fadil Abdelgani; convicted Times Square bomb plotter Faisal Shahzad; and U.S. Capitol bomb plotter Amine El Khalifi, whose visa expired in 1999 and escaped homeland security notice for 12 years before he was arrested this February just blocks from the Capitol building donning what he thought was a suicide bomb vest.

For the willfully dense: The salient homeland security point here isn’t that every overstayer is a jihadi. The point is that the nation’s massive, untouched illegal alien overstayer population allows nefarious malefactors from all over the world to blend in and operate with impunity.

Evil never rests. Washington bureaucrats, on the other, are engaged in an endless, reckless game of Kick the Can.

http://michellemalkin.com/2012/07/20/tsa-training-sky-bound-illegal-aliens/

[Jolie Rouge]

.
Obama's immigration power play: 4 takeaways
By The Week's Editorial Staff | The Week – 5 hrs ago.

Young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children are now eligible for President Obama's temporary program offering them deportation deferrals and work permits

Tens of thousands of young immigrants who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children are lining up to fill out paperwork that could let them live and work legally in the U.S., under an initiative by President Obama that took effect on Wednesday. The program offers fewer benefits than the Dream Act, which Congress rejected in 2010, as it doesn't offer applicants a path to citizenship. Still, GOP critics say it's a backdoor amnesty for the estimated 1.2 million people expected to apply for the renewable, two-year deportation deferments, and a naked ploy for Hispanic votes. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R), who gained national prominence after signing Arizona's hard-line immigration law in 2010, issued her own executive order barring state agencies from giving driver's licenses or benefits to the estimated 80,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona who qualify for Obama's program. How has the new initiative changed the immigration debate? Here, four takeaways:

1. Obama is making people's lives better: "Unlike most of what happens in an election year," says Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, "this policy is actually changing... lives." For the illegal immigrants it affects, the initiative makes life "genuinely different." For those it doesn't affect, it at least sends the message that Obama "actually is interested in figuring out solutions for them." And that could make a huge difference in November. "These immigrants, of course, can’t vote. But they have friends, family, and are part of communities that can."

2. The president just made true immigration reform harder: "The U.S. immigration system is broken and in dire need of reform," says Jessica Zuckerman at The Heritage Foundation. Instead of uniting the nation with reasonable bipartisan reform, Obama chose to "undercut the legislative process and abuse the latitude the president has under existing law," by imposing part of a plan Congress has already rejected. That might impress Obama's fans, but all it really does is "poison the well looking at collaborative solutions for the way forward."

3. Some eligible people will be scared to apply: Not everyone who stands to benefit from Obama's program will rush to sign up, says Jens Erik Gould at TIME. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services says it will weed out people who have been convicted of a felony or "significant" misdemeanor, or who pose some kind of "threat" — without explaining what they "mean by 'significant' and a 'threat.'" That will scare some people away, as will the fear that "misinformed" or dishonest attorneys or notaries will use this as an opportunity to cheat them out of their money.

4. States won't necessarily go along: In theory, this is a big break for eligible immigrants, says Franco Ordonez at McClatchy Newspapers. But many states "forbid undocumented immigrants to get driver's licenses or require them to pay out-of-state tuition at public universities," and it's unclear whether Obama's policy overrides those policies. Obama can defer deportations for people who qualify, but "it will be up to the states" to decide how many privileges they'll enjoy when they come out of the shadows.

http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-immigration-power-play-4-takeaways-134000170.html

comments


These immigrants, of course, can’t vote.

Says WHO ??

That is what Obama and the Dems are COUNTING on ..

With a green card they will go right away to the MVA to get a DL and then sign their MOTOR VOTER application to vote for Obama on 11-6. That is why Gov Brewer is not going to let that happen.

..

The way I see it, is that during a time when job's are scarce, he increased everyone's competition by 2 million people. He spit in the faces of everyone who has come here legally and through the proper channels. And is pretty much buying his vote with the welfare of a nation.

..

IF Obama did this out of the kindness of his heart and not for the election, why did he wait until now when he had close to 4 years to do it?

..

Why do we, legal citizens of the U.S., need to pay for benefits to be extended to folks who are here illegally? Obama is pandering to the illegals and their relatives, some of whom may be here legally, at the expense of those of us who pay his salary (and have always paid his salary, since he has never been anything other than a government flack).

..

These "children" have gotten a free ride illegally for years due to their parents. I think, humbly, that some of that should be paid back. Whatever that is, make them pay it like the courts force people to pay child support. Weekly, monthly, whatever, just pay SOMETHING into this country, the one that your parents have robbed of so much.. THAT would show some reasonable desire to be American.

..

If the illegals are given a free ride then I think pot smokers should all get a free ride too. How is breaking one law different from breaking another law, but one is done by legal citizens the other is done by people that should not be here at all. There are many people trying to come to this country legaly and this is not fair to them at all..

...

So how can they plan their lives around this beneift? What if Romney is elected? will he honor this decree? What if Obama changes his mind? What happens to them after the two years passes? IMHO, this move not only defies the constitution in that Obama does not have power to make such an edict, but also throws so much fudd into the issue that these people will not be able to properly prepare for their uncertain futures.

..


Young emigrants that were brought here need to have some help, it was not their idea to come here, they deserve some lea-way. The gop thinks they should be sent "back" to a country they know very little about, the only country most have ever known is the USA. Why can't the repubs have a little compassion? ~ "James"

..

There are lots of people suffering in the world. Millions and millions. Let's have them all come over to the USA and stay at James's house at his expense. He's compassionate after all.

...

Uh - these poverty stricken 'immigrants' who were earning Mexcian minimum wage of $5 US per day and paid their coyotes $3,000 per head to bring them here, obviously had a source of income other than the Mexican minimum wage job, so their need for income is apparently no more than a cover for the profits they are capable of accessing through obvious contraband smuggling-- poor poor things.

[Jolie Rouge]

BUSTED: Illegal Alien Wins Jackpot at Arizona Casino, Then Deported to Mexico
By John Hill on January 4, 2013

An illegal alien was busted after winning the slots jackpot at a Tuscon casino – and then deported. Mirna Valenzuela – a Mexican illegal who had been previously deported multiple times - won $1,200 last month at Casino del Sol Resort. But when going to collect her slot-machine winnings, Valenzuela was busted and then deported back to Mexico – and didn’t take a penny of her jackpot with her.

Federal law requires casinos to ask for identification for tax purposes whenever someone wins a jackpot of $1,200 or more. Casino officials questioned the ID that Valenzuela showed them on Dec. 3 as potentially fraudulent. Because the casino is on tribal land, officials called Pascua Yaqui police, who determined that Valenzuela and her daughter Zamira Osorio were illegal aliens from Mexico. So, they turned both over to the U.S. Border Patrol, which deported Valenzuela.

The daughter Osorio was released thanks to Barack Obama’s “deferred-action” amnesty program – which he has enacted via executive order in violation of Federal law – because she apparently entered the U.S. as a minor more than 5 years ago. http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2012/08/15/obama-dream-begins-for-millions-of-illegal-aliens-amnesty-work-permits-no-safeguards-against-fraud/

And, as we have come to expect, Osorio is as arrogant as most such “Dreamers”, who routinely demand that their repeated law breaking be ignored and that any enforcement against them or their families is “racism”:


“If they don’t want anybody illegally there, they should put up a sign that says that they don’t want anybody who’s illegal, you know, playing at the casino,” Osorio said, adding, “This is really unfair. We feel really discriminated (against). … This is the first time I got arrested in my whole entire life.”

You can’t make this stuff up: the casino should put up a sign saying they don’t want to serve law-breakers? Classic illegal alien arrogance.

The casino, being located near Tuscon – the most lax enforcer of S.B. 1070 in Arizona – was quick to backtrack, almost pathetically apologizing for the incident:

“It’s not our policy to report people unless they’ve committed a serious crime,” said Wendell Long, chief executive officer of Casino del Sol Resort. “A large portion of our business is Mexican-Americans and Mexicans from Sonora….We’re not here to deport people.”

Fortunately Tribal authorities didn’t have the same contempt for S.B. 1070 and Federal immigration laws and immediately called Border Patrol, who did their job well and deported Valenzuela back to the only place she legally belongs – Mexico

Valenzuela’s winnings, meanwhile, are still at the casino. She’ll have to claim them in person with a valid ID, Long said.

Here is the full video news report. The arrogant daughter’s full comments have to be seen to be believed, but are becoming all too common in the lawless Obama Era… http://bcove.me/sshoq8rz

http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2013/01/04/busted-illegal-alien-wins-jackpot-at-arizona-casino-then-deported-to-mexico/

comments

She committed a felony when she provided a fraudulent ID.. yet the daughter says they didn't do anything illegally. Amazing.

..

a Mexican illegal who had been previously deported multiple times ... cries :

“This is really unfair. We feel really discriminated (against). … This is the first time I got arrested in my whole entire life.”

..

ok so she presented a fake id... and got caught .. Let me get this straight the daughter thinks the mom that was here illegally is allowed to be here ,, and present a Fake ID and its ok........ ask any parent of any teenager fake IDs are illeagal .. I personally think the daughter hiding behind a dream provision ,, not a law just an implemented obama rule should have been deported as well anytime you win a jack pot you have to offer a valid ID ....... this isnt the same as voting,,, LOL

Federal law: You must have a valid social security number to claim any winnings (no matter the size) of any lottery or casino in the country especially the reservations. All of our casinos here are owned by the indians as well and that is a federal law not state law. The reason? in case you owe child support or alimony or taxes or any other reason 'the government deems necessary.' There was a case a few years ago (which falls under the same state statute listed above) in Phoenix where a company of 60 employees bought a ticket won a 2 million dollar jackpot. they elected one person to collect. he went down to lottery headquarters to claim his prize. One of the questions on the form is your social. they use it to see if you owe any 'debts to the government'. This man owed for 3 months of back child support and the lottery officials took the check, gave it to the state and the winners ended up with nothing. the case is is searchable online and is still pending in Maricopa Superior Court.

..

[Jolie Rouge]

The rest of the story is available only to Time subscribers, but a "Behind the Cover" piece shed some additonal light on its contents:


In Spring 2010, four undocumented students trekked 1,500 miles from Miami to Washington to press passage of the Dream Act, a bill that would offer a path to permanent residency for immigrants who came to the country as minors and achieved certain educational accomplishments. Moved by their courage, Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist who was part of the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning team for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting, revealed that he, too, was an undocumented immigrant in an essay published by the New York Times Magazine last June.

Today was a day that SHOULD live in infamy, as Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal alien and former reporter, scolded a Senate panel, saying that he should not be called “illegal”, and saying it is an insult to his family who brought him here.

“When you inaccurately call me illegal, you not only dehumanize me, you’re offending them,” he said. “No human being is illegal.”

But Vargas IS an illegal, and also a criminal FELON, having committed multiple Federal felonies, which would put anyone else in prison and deny them citizenship. Yet here he was arrogantly lecturing elected U.S. Senators. SHAME ON THE SENATE for permitting an illegal alien criminal to disgrace the People's House.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/feb/13/illegal-immigrant-tells-congress-not-call-him-ille/

Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal alien and former reporter, scolded a Senate panel on Wednesday, saying that he should not be called “illegal”, and saying it is an insult to his family who brought him here.

“When you inaccurately call me illegal, you not only dehumanize me, you’re offending them,” he said. “No human being is illegal.”

Sure, we’ve heard all that and more from the La Raza crowd for years, as well as a long-running campaign and website called Drop The I-Word (illegal), as we have pointed out to our activists in the past. http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/

However to hear it in this context – the halls of the U.S. Senate - by an illegal alien himself in person, and with such arrogance and sense of entitlement, was truly revolting. And this was also from an illegal alien who has admitted to multiple Federal felonies, yet was disgracefully allowed to lecture elected U.S. Senators today.

Vargas is no ordinary illegal alien. He is the poster boy for the open-borders crowd and its lapdog media. Vargas was chosen for this role by the media to put an emotional, sympathetic face to the drive for amnesty for 20+ million illegals. The New York Times even arranged an Op-Ed piece by Vargas to be published on the same day as his testimony, for maximum effect. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/my-familys-papers.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

In that piece, and other writings, Vargas portrays himself as a hapless victim, whose uncle, grandmother and aunt were legal aliens and/or immigrants from the Philippines, but he was sent here, alone, on a plane at age 12 by his mother to live with his grandparents and obtain citizenship via marriage – but because he came out as gay, this could not be an option.

But Vargas was not a victim.

He has admitted to multiple felonies in order to maintain his presence here and evade responsibility (and deportation) for years via massive document fraud and false claims on Federal forms. Once he was aware of his illegal status, Vargas could have returned to his native country and and applied for a visa based on his existing citizen family members – and would very likely have gotten one in short order, based on officials we contacted. But Vargas did not want to own up to his lies to his friends and colleagues, and disturb the elaborate fiction he has constructed, which was producing a budding journalistic career.

Vargas is indeed an “illegal alien”. And a criminal felon.

Remember he said by calling him “illegal” was an “insult” to those that sent him here. Well let’s first look at the first member of his family who sent him: his mother. She put 12-year-old Vargas on a plane to the U.S., in the company of a coyote (at the rate of $4,500) under a fake name and fake passport. I’m so sorry for the “insult”, Mama Vargas, but that was ILLEGAL.

Michelle Malkin detailed the subsequent chronology of Vargas’ crimes in a 2011 piece:


The Times featured full-color photos of Vargas’ fake document trove — including a a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a Social Security card his grandfather doctored for him at a Kinko’s. He committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines.

Following the rules would have meant a 10-year bar to reentry into America. Making false claims of citizenship is a felony offense. Document fraud is a felony offense.

Vargas…freely chose instead to secure yet more dummy documents. He used a friend’s address to obtain an Oregon driver’s license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House — where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.

Blogger Anthony Wells details the specific felonies to which Vargas has admitted (there are likely many more):
http://exmaninblues.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/nothing-to-see-here/


8 USC 1325(a)(3) – Illegal entry under false information.

Vargas was too young and unaware of the conspiracy to illegally enter the country. However, this does not change the fact that he has enjoyed the benefits of the illegal activity. Once he learned of his status he began participating in furthering the crime, a crime which has been ongoing for 20 years.

8 USC 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) – Illegal alien ineligible for visa or admission.

Under this statute, if Vargas and the millions of other illegal aliens are living here without permission, they would not be able to apply for a visa or admission. But, Obama and others in Government wish to give a free pass, which the law simply does not allow. That is unless you subvert the law.

8 USC 1182(a)(6)(C)(ii)(I) and 18 USC 911– Misrepresenting/falsifying citizenship.

A person misrepresenting or falsifying their citizenship are not eligible for a visa or admission. Vargas clearly admits to violating this law in his article.

8 USC 1324c(a)(1) and 18 USC 1028(a) – Forged, counterfeit, alter documents.


The last felony included using forged documents to enter the White House in 2010 – a separate felony in and of itself.

Once again, as he was told in 2002, he could have at any time owned up to his crimes, and corrected his mother’s original fraud to obtain legal immigration. But he did not. He remains illegal, and a felon. And his presence in the halls of Congress was a disgrace – to the Senate, and to the House Speaker John Boehner, who commands the Sergeant of Arms, and could have ordered Vargas (and the 5 illegals who attended the State of the Union http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2013/02/12/democrats-bringing-illegal-aliens-as-guests-to-state-of-the-union-speech/ ) to be denied entry, as Congressional rules demand.

To make the situation today even more disturbing, Mr. Vargas testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee alongside Chris Crane — a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and president of the ICE agents’ union. Crane is a senior ICE agent, but is unable to arrest him under the administration’s new non-deportation policies. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/13/ice-union-leader-reveals-shocking-details-about-immigration-enforcement-in-testimony-before-senate-committee/

The nation is teetering on a dangerous precipice. That of complete lawlessness. If 20+ million illegal aliens are once again – as in 1986, and despite its disastrous lessons – granted full amnesty for their lawbreaking, then the Constitution has utterly no meaning, and we are indeed living, as Mark Levin has termed it, a “post-Constitutional America”. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/16/mark_levin_were_in_a_post-constitutional_america.html

Americans must either stand, fight and defeat this amnesty – or see our rule of law corrupted by arrogant, egotistical criminals like Jose Antonio Vargas.

http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2013/02/13/illegal-alien-felon-scolds-senate-dont-call-me-illegal/

[Jolie Rouge]

Posted on January 16, 2012 Mark Levin:
We're In A "Post-Constitutional America"

Author and radio talk show host on his new book Ameritopia.

“We’re already in a post-Constitutional America. In so many respects, we’ve distanced ourselves from our founding, and my big fear is so many people don’t understand what our founding is all about," Mark Levin said on FOX News today.

He discussed Obama’s policies, calling the president a Marxist, and said, “He’s the President of the United States. I looked at the Constitution before coming over here, and it doesn’t say anything about him leveling playing fields, and it doesn’t say anything about him transforming America.”

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/16/mark_levin_were_in_a_post-constitutional_america.html

[Jolie Rouge]

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/s480x480/65930_506710022720694_158003626_n.jpg

Did you hear that the US Department of Agriculture instructs employees to refer to the Pilgrims as “illegal aliens”…?

Judicial Watch Breaks USDA Training Video Labeling Pilgrims 'Illegal Aliens'
by Breitbart News14 Feb 2013

Wednesday night on The O’Reilly Factor, Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, broke a series of previously unreleased US Department of Agriculture Videos featuring required “Cultural Sensitivity Training.” The program required employees to chant, “The pilgrims were illegal aliens,” never to use the word “minorities” and to replace it instead with “emerging majorities,” and other similarly leftist tripe.

The sensitivity training sessions taped here were held on USDA premises, and is part of what Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack termed the department’s “new era of Civil Rights” and “broader effort towards cultural transformation at USDA.” The training sessions were created by diversity awareness trainer Samuel Betances at a cost of approximately $200,000.

The video highlights include: http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91074&sitesection=breitbartprivate&VID=24404071


•Betances explaining to USDA employees that “If you take a look at all of you here and you think about your salaries and your benefits and what you have left undone – plus my fee – plus the expense of the team that putting the video together, this is a huge expense.”

•Betances urging to repeat the leftist version of American history: “I want you to say that America was founded by outsiders – say that – who are today’s insiders, who are very nervous about today’s outsiders. I want you to say, ‘The pilgrims were illegal aliens.’ Say, ‘The pilgrims never gave their passports to the Indians.”

•Betances stating, “By the way, I don’t like the word ‘minorities.’ How about ‘emerging majorities’?”

http://landing.newsinc.com/shared/video.html?freewheel=91074&sitesection=breitbartprivate&VID=24404103

The complete video is available through the Judicial Watch website. https://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/multimedia/


Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, told Breitbart News, “This was a pretty straightforward attempt at psychological reconditioning. Underlying the whole program is the theory that white males especially are inherently racist, sexist, or homophobic. It’s a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

“This is as objectionable or as significant as the GSA Las Vegas scandal. This is a program blessed at the highest levels of the USDA. We found out about it because of a whistleblower who was forced to undergo this type of training. They’ve obviously selling this left-wing diversity cult,” said Fitton.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/14/Exclusive-Judicial-Watch-USDA

[pepperpot]

What I would like to know is who checked all the Indian's immigration files? You mean none of the pilgrims applied for citizenship, visas, green cards and such? Who was the head of immigration at that time?

What asses.

[Jolie Rouge]

The rest of the story is available only to Time subscribers, but a "Behind the Cover" piece shed some additonal light on its contents:

In Spring 2010, four undocumented students trekked 1,500 miles from Miami to Washington to press passage of the Dream Act, a bill that would offer a path to permanent residency for immigrants who came to the country as minors and achieved certain educational accomplishments. Moved by their courage, Jose Antonio Vargas, a journalist who was part of the Washington Post’s Pulitzer Prize winning team for their coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting, revealed that he, too, was an undocumented immigrant in an essay published by the New York Times Magazine last June.

Today was a day that SHOULD live in infamy, as Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal alien and former reporter, scolded a Senate panel, saying that he should not be called “illegal”, and saying it is an insult to his family who brought him here.

“When you inaccurately call me illegal, you not only dehumanize me, you’re offending them,” he said. “No human being is illegal.”

But Vargas IS an illegal, and also a criminal FELON, having committed multiple Federal felonies, which would put anyone else in prison and deny them citizenship. Yet here he was arrogantly lecturing elected U.S. Senators. SHAME ON THE SENATE for permitting an illegal alien criminal to disgrace the People's House.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/feb/13/illegal-immigrant-tells-congress-not-call-him-ille/

Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal alien and former reporter, scolded a Senate panel on Wednesday, saying that he should not be called “illegal”, and saying it is an insult to his family who brought him here.


“When you inaccurately call me illegal, you not only dehumanize me, you’re offending them,” he said. “No human being is illegal.”

Sure, we’ve heard all that and more from the La Raza crowd for years, as well as a long-running campaign and website called Drop The I-Word (illegal), as we have pointed out to our activists in the past. http://colorlines.com/droptheiword/

However to hear it in this context – the halls of the U.S. Senate - by an illegal alien himself in person, and with such arrogance and sense of entitlement, was truly revolting. And this was also from an illegal alien who has admitted to multiple Federal felonies, yet was disgracefully allowed to lecture elected U.S. Senators today.

Vargas is no ordinary illegal alien. He is the poster boy for the open-borders crowd and its lapdog media. Vargas was chosen for this role by the media to put an emotional, sympathetic face to the drive for amnesty for 20+ million illegals. The New York Times even arranged an Op-Ed piece by Vargas to be published on the same day as his testimony, for maximum effect. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/opinion/my-familys-papers.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

In that piece, and other writings, Vargas portrays himself as a hapless victim, whose uncle, grandmother and aunt were legal aliens and/or immigrants from the Philippines, but he was sent here, alone, on a plane at age 12 by his mother to live with his grandparents and obtain citizenship via marriage – but because he came out as gay, this could not be an option.

But Vargas was not a victim.

He has admitted to multiple felonies in order to maintain his presence here and evade responsibility (and deportation) for years via massive document fraud and false claims on Federal forms. Once he was aware of his illegal status, Vargas could have returned to his native country and and applied for a visa based on his existing citizen family members – and would very likely have gotten one in short order, based on officials we contacted. But Vargas did not want to own up to his lies to his friends and colleagues, and disturb the elaborate fiction he has constructed, which was producing a budding journalistic career.

Vargas is indeed an “illegal alien”. And a criminal felon.

Remember he said by calling him “illegal” was an “insult” to those that sent him here. Well let’s first look at the first member of his family who sent him: his mother. She put 12-year-old Vargas on a plane to the U.S., in the company of a coyote (at the rate of $4,500) under a fake name and fake passport. I’m so sorry for the “insult”, Mama Vargas, but that was ILLEGAL.

Michelle Malkin detailed the subsequent chronology of Vargas’ crimes in a 2011 piece:


The Times featured full-color photos of Vargas’ fake document trove — including a a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a Social Security card his grandfather doctored for him at a Kinko’s. He committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines.

Following the rules would have meant a 10-year bar to reentry into America. Making false claims of citizenship is a felony offense. Document fraud is a felony offense.

Vargas…freely chose instead to secure yet more dummy documents. He used a friend’s address to obtain an Oregon driver’s license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House — where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.

Blogger Anthony Wells details the specific felonies to which Vargas has admitted (there are likely many more):
http://exmaninblues.wordpress.com/2013/02/10/nothing-to-see-here/


8 USC 1325(a)(3) – Illegal entry under false information.

Vargas was too young and unaware of the conspiracy to illegally enter the country. However, this does not change the fact that he has enjoyed the benefits of the illegal activity. Once he learned of his status he began participating in furthering the crime, a crime which has been ongoing for 20 years.

8 USC 1182(a)(6)(A)(i) – Illegal alien ineligible for visa or admission.

Under this statute, if Vargas and the millions of other illegal aliens are living here without permission, they would not be able to apply for a visa or admission. But, Obama and others in Government wish to give a free pass, which the law simply does not allow. That is unless you subvert the law.

8 USC 1182(a)(6)(C)(ii)(I) and 18 USC 911– Misrepresenting/falsifying citizenship.

A person misrepresenting or falsifying their citizenship are not eligible for a visa or admission. Vargas clearly admits to violating this law in his article.

8 USC 1324c(a)(1) and 18 USC 1028(a) – Forged, counterfeit, alter documents.


The last felony included using forged documents to enter the White House in 2010 – a separate felony in and of itself.

Once again, as he was told in 2002, he could have at any time owned up to his crimes, and corrected his mother’s original fraud to obtain legal immigration. But he did not. He remains illegal, and a felon. And his presence in the halls of Congress was a disgrace – to the Senate, and to the House Speaker John Boehner, who commands the Sergeant of Arms, and could have ordered Vargas (and the 5 illegals who attended the State of the Union http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2013/02/12/democrats-bringing-illegal-aliens-as-guests-to-state-of-the-union-speech/ ) to be denied entry, as Congressional rules demand.

To make the situation today even more disturbing, Mr. Vargas testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee alongside Chris Crane — a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and president of the ICE agents’ union. Crane is a senior ICE agent, but is unable to arrest him under the administration’s new non-deportation policies. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/13/ice-union-leader-reveals-shocking-details-about-immigration-enforcement-in-testimony-before-senate-committee/

The nation is teetering on a dangerous precipice. That of complete lawlessness. If 20+ million illegal aliens are once again – as in 1986, and despite its disastrous lessons – granted full amnesty for their lawbreaking, then the Constitution has utterly no meaning, and we are indeed living, as Mark Levin has termed it, a “post-Constitutional America”. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2012/01/16/mark_levin_were_in_a_post-constitutional_america.html

Americans must either stand, fight and defeat this amnesty – or see our rule of law corrupted by arrogant, egotistical criminals like Jose Antonio Vargas.

http://standwitharizona.com/blog/2013/02/13/illegal-alien-felon-scolds-senate-dont-call-me-illegal/

‘Immigration isn’t a TV contest:’ CNN’s shameless amnesty bait sickens viewers
Posted at 9:44 pm on June 29, 2014



CNN ✔ @CNN

Do you think Jose should be deported? Answer with JOSESTAY or JOSEGO using #Documented

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrVxWoaCMAEs8cC.jpg

8:10 PM - 29 Jun 2014


Yes, this is CNN. Tonight, the “news” network broadcast the pro-illegal alien amnesty documentary, “Documented,” on the life of Pulitzer Prize-winning, document-faking, law-breaking, deportation-evading journalist-turned-activist Jose Antonio Vargas.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrVvMVSCcAAk6S7.jpg

No Shame ...

http://twitchy.com/2014/06/29/immigration-isnt-a-tv-contest-cnns-shameless-amnesty-bait-sickens-viewers/

[Jolie Rouge]

Jose Antonio Vargas: The face of the entitled illegal immigrant
By Michelle Malkin | July 16, 2014 | 11:57 am

They've blown it again, big time. They just can't help themselves.

During the Bush years, the open-borders movement won over bleeding hearts in the White House but alienated the American public with radical displays of La Raza ("The Race") militancy, desecrated American flags and Che Guevara shirt-wearing, fist-thrusting marches across the country.

Left-wing public relations consultants taught the amnesty mob to tone it down, turn the flags right-side up and stop threatening Reconquista. But the phony red-white-and-blue dye job didn't last. The movement's true extremist, entitled roots can't be concealed for long.

On Monday, leading illegal-alien journalist turned activist Jose Antonio Vargas engaged in a foolish stunt that will backfire on him and his allies in the media and Hollywood and on Capitol Hill. An openly defiant law-breaker who proudly calls himself "the most privileged undocumented immigrant in the country," Vargas traveled to Texas with a film crew to commune with illegal aliens surging across the border.

But on his way out of the Rio Grande Valley, the former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner was detained at the McAllen, Texas, airport by Customs and Border Patrol. He was attempting to clear security and board a flight without legally required U.S. identification.

No surprise: Vargas initially made it past the buffoons at the TSA.

The media-savvy amnesty agitator telegraphed the stunt beforehand in a piece for Politico. He hyped sympathetic coverage from the liberal Huffington Post. He tweeted a photo of his Philippine passport and a pocket Constitution, which he audaciously presented to authorities in lieu of valid ID. And then Vargas' publicity minions captured and tweeted the exact moment when he was handcuffed, looking shocked and aggrieved that federal law enforcement officers would actually -- gasp! -- enforce the law.

An illegal-alien Icarus, Vargas had been riding high after movie theaters and CNN aired his biographical, pro-illegal immigration documentary. His amnesty activism is backed by the progressive Tides Center, a project of George Soros and former ACORN chief organizer Drummond Pike. To his elite friends in the no-borders industry, he's a "hero."

Journalists, celebrities and politicians immediately swallowed the propaganda bait, rallying to their privileged pal's side. "#DontDeportJose," they all cried in an orchestrated Twitter campaign. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people from around the world are waiting patiently for their backlogged visa and green card applications to be reviewed.

Vargas' outraged reporter friends don't have much sympathy for those would-be Americans. Or for the Americans who've dedicated their lives to protecting homeland security and upholding our laws. Vargas' enablers jumped to condemn the CBP employees in McAllen for doing their jobs and demanded that he be freed from "unfair" and "out of hand" detention, as one hysterical Roll Call reporter put it.

Unfair and out of hand?

As I've noted previously, Vargas came here from the Philippines as a child, but knowingly broke multiple laws as an adult in order to stay in the country. After being supplied with a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a bogus Social Security number, he committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines. He ignored the counsel and instead used a friend's address to obtain an Oregon driver's license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House -- where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.

The Vargas stunt will backfire because it is a smug and emblematic middle finger to everyone outside the D.C.-Manhattan bubble who believes in following the rules. As legal immigrant Asoka Samarasinghe wrote to me on Monday, "Michelle, this guy is a slap to the face of all us legal immigrants and citizens."

As for "due process," celebrity illegal alien Vargas will undoubtedly get more bites at the immigration court and federal appeals apple than law-abiding citizens will ever enjoy (see Zeituni Onyango).

But the sob-story violins play on. Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio sanctimoniously tweeted Monday afternoon: "I stand in solidarity with journalist and advocate [Vargas]. He exemplifies what America is about."

Only if "America" means protecting leftist elitists from the consequences of their reckless, arrogant actions.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/jose-antonio-vargas-the-face-of-the-entitled-illegal-immigrant/article/2550908

[Jolie Rouge]

Jose Antonio Vargas: The face of the entitled illegal immigrant
By Michelle Malkin | July 16, 2014 | 11:57 am

They've blown it again, big time. They just can't help themselves.

During the Bush years, the open-borders movement won over bleeding hearts in the White House but alienated the American public with radical displays of La Raza ("The Race") militancy, desecrated American flags and Che Guevara shirt-wearing, fist-thrusting marches across the country.

Left-wing public relations consultants taught the amnesty mob to tone it down, turn the flags right-side up and stop threatening Reconquista. But the phony red-white-and-blue dye job didn't last. The movement's true extremist, entitled roots can't be concealed for long.

On Monday, leading illegal-alien journalist turned activist Jose Antonio Vargas engaged in a foolish stunt that will backfire on him and his allies in the media and Hollywood and on Capitol Hill. An openly defiant law-breaker who proudly calls himself "the most privileged undocumented immigrant in the country," Vargas traveled to Texas with a film crew to commune with illegal aliens surging across the border.

But on his way out of the Rio Grande Valley, the former Washington Post reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner was detained at the McAllen, Texas, airport by Customs and Border Patrol. He was attempting to clear security and board a flight without legally required U.S. identification.

No surprise: Vargas initially made it past the buffoons at the TSA.

The media-savvy amnesty agitator telegraphed the stunt beforehand in a piece for Politico. He hyped sympathetic coverage from the liberal Huffington Post. He tweeted a photo of his Philippine passport and a pocket Constitution, which he audaciously presented to authorities in lieu of valid ID. And then Vargas' publicity minions captured and tweeted the exact moment when he was handcuffed, looking shocked and aggrieved that federal law enforcement officers would actually -- gasp! -- enforce the law.

An illegal-alien Icarus, Vargas had been riding high after movie theaters and CNN aired his biographical, pro-illegal immigration documentary. His amnesty activism is backed by the progressive Tides Center, a project of George Soros and former ACORN chief organizer Drummond Pike. To his elite friends in the no-borders industry, he's a "hero."

Journalists, celebrities and politicians immediately swallowed the propaganda bait, rallying to their privileged pal's side. "#DontDeportJose," they all cried in an orchestrated Twitter campaign. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of law-abiding people from around the world are waiting patiently for their backlogged visa and green card applications to be reviewed.

Vargas' outraged reporter friends don't have much sympathy for those would-be Americans. Or for the Americans who've dedicated their lives to protecting homeland security and upholding our laws. Vargas' enablers jumped to condemn the CBP employees in McAllen for doing their jobs and demanded that he be freed from "unfair" and "out of hand" detention, as one hysterical Roll Call reporter put it.

Unfair and out of hand?

As I've noted previously, Vargas came here from the Philippines as a child, but knowingly broke multiple laws as an adult in order to stay in the country. After being supplied with a fake passport with a fake name, a fake green card and a bogus Social Security number, he committed perjury repeatedly on federal I-9 employment eligibility forms. In 2002, while pursuing his journalism career goals, an immigration lawyer told him he needed to accept the consequences of his law-breaking and return to his native Philippines. He ignored the counsel and instead used a friend's address to obtain an Oregon driver's license under false pretenses. It gave him an eight-year golden ticket to travel by car, board trains and airplanes, work at prestigious newspapers, and even gain access to the White House -- where crack Secret Service agents allowed him to attend a state dinner using his bogus Social Security number.

The Vargas stunt will backfire because it is a smug and emblematic middle finger to everyone outside the D.C.-Manhattan bubble who believes in following the rules. As legal immigrant Asoka Samarasinghe wrote to me on Monday, "Michelle, this guy is a slap to the face of all us legal immigrants and citizens."

As for "due process," celebrity illegal alien Vargas will undoubtedly get more bites at the immigration court and federal appeals apple than law-abiding citizens will ever enjoy (see Zeituni Onyango).

But the sob-story violins play on. Democratic New York Mayor Bill de Blasio sanctimoniously tweeted Monday afternoon: "I stand in solidarity with journalist and advocate [Vargas]. He exemplifies what America is about."

Only if "America" means protecting leftist elitists from the consequences of their reckless, arrogant actions.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/jose-antonio-vargas-the-face-of-the-entitled-illegal-immigrant/article/2550908

Jose Antonio Vargas is mad, you guys. See, the illegal alien writer and activist heard it through the grapevine that MSNBC is still using a dirty word:



Jose Antonio Vargas ✔ @joseiswriting

I'll be on @CNN at around 7:30pET talking #immigration, #gop and @DefineAmerican w/ @donlemon

[QUOTE]Latino Political Ave @LatPoliticalAve

@joseiswriting @CNN @DefineAmerican @donlemon great good reason to change the channel to CNN @hardball they continue to use "illegal aliens"

6:19 PM - 14 Nov 2014


Jose Antonio Vargas ✔ @joseiswriting

Wait, what: @msnbc is using "illegal" to refer to people?
#nohumanbeingisillegal #immigration @DefineAmerican

6:24 PM - 14 Nov 2014

Not seeing the problem?

That’s because there isn’t one. If you immigrated here illegally, you are an illegal immigrant. Sorry, Jose, but them’s the breaks.

http://twitchy.com/2014/11/14/wait-what-illegal-alien-jose-antonio-vargas-is-shocked-that-msnbc-could-say-this/

[Jolie Rouge]

WashPost Oozes Over Illegal Alien Reporter-Activist Who Lied to Get a Post Job
By Tim Graham | November 24, 2014

Monday's Washington Post carried a huge three-page article on its former employee, Jose Antonio Vargas, an illegal alien and amnesty activist. The headline was "HIDE, THEN SEEK: Amid Obama's executive actions, immigration activist Jose Antonio Vargas tirelessly pursues change -- even as he hopes to reunite with his mother." The headline inside was "From journalism to activism: A life on the run."

It took reporter Marc Fisher 38 paragraphs to arrive at Vargas lying to the Post to get a job – their search for young reporters that would help them meet diversity targets (in this case, Asian and openly gay) apparently made them an easy mark.


He built his supercharged escalator to success with energy, smarts, creativity, deceit and outright lies. Beginning in high school, Vargas hid his immigration status from each of his employers as he rose through his profession, winning over editors who were hungry for young talent.

"We were behind the curve on all things digital and along came Jose," says Peter Perl, a Washington Post editor who was in charge of hiring when Vargas was a summer intern in 2003. Vargas quickly established himself as an innovative, energetic reporter.

He was hired into a full-time position and became "the voice of youth in the newsroom," Perl says. "He's charming and charismatic."

But within a year of arriving at The Post, Vargas, shaking and evidently troubled, approached Perl and asked him to walk over to Lafayette Park. On a bench there, Vargas told the editor what he had not told anyone at his previous jobs, what no one at The Post had detected - that, according to the law, he didn't belong there. "He was unburdening himself to a father figure," Perl says. "He didn't ask for anything."

For seven years, Perl who has since retired from The Post, told Vargas's secret to no one but his wife. (In 2011, when Vargas came clean, Perl was reprimanded, but he has no regrets about keeping silent to protect Vargas's career.)

Vargas illegally arrived in America from the Philippines at age 12 in 1993. Fisher also explained that the Post felt Vargas didn't really come clean when he attempted to write a showy article outing himself as an illegal alien, but he sugared it up with classical music and yearning for his mother:


In December 2010, the Senate voted down the Dream Act, which would have created a path to citizenship for young people brought to the country illegally as children. Vargas went out for a long walk to the Brooklyn Bridge, listening to Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 - by turns delicate, melodramatic, overbearing. By the time he got back to his apartment, he says he knew he would end the lies. He hadn't seen his mother in 16 years. "It must seem strange that somebody who seems so social and friendly could keep secrets for so long," Vargas told me. "I don't know how the hell I managed it. The moment you tell someone, you feel guilty, because you're endangering them. I was a coward. A ticking time bomb. Either someone was going to out me, or I would out myself, or I would have to shut the f--- up for the rest of my life."

He set out to write a first-person piece for his old employer, this newspaper, in which he would come out as an illegal immigrant. The Post assigned a team of editors to check the story rigorously; a story about lies had to be airtight. In the end, The Post's editor at the time, Marcus Brauchli, decided not to publish the story.

Vargas offered it to the New York Times, which put it on the cover of its Sunday magazine. Brauchli says he has nothing to add to his original explanation, which said: "We made a judgment not to run the piece." Vargas says he thinks The Post bailed out because he had a second illegally obtained driver's license that he hadn't mentioned in his first draft.

But he says he was committed to telling all [!?] and gladly added any fact the editors wanted. Some fellow journalists read the Times story and felt as if they'd been made unwitting parties to a lie. "I was duped," wrote Phil Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, where Vargas had worked at the start of his career. "Jose lied to me and everyone else he worked for, and that's not kosher."

The Post's ombudsman then, Patrick Pexton, wrote that Vargas had a reputation in the newsroom "for being tenacious and talented but also for being a relentless self-promoter whom many colleagues didn't trust." Pexton concluded that Vargas had now "crossed the line from journalist to advocate."

These quotes are the closest thing to criticism in the article. Fisher ran sugary quotes from his subject:


"I traffic in empathy," Vargas says. "I try to be vulnerable with people so they can be vulnerable back. I've always been searching for empathy in other people. It's when I feel most not alone."

But this passage may have been the weirdest, after the Post described the Vargas publicity stunt where he went to southern Texas to get arrested during the "unaccompanied minors" crisis:


Even if the president's initiative stands and the threat of deportation is lifted for some, the politics of immigration remain volatile and Vargas's future is still uncertain, all of which leaves him eager to keep confronting the system. "I want to be as creatively disruptive as possible," he says. "I want to be radically transparent in a way that isn't showboating."

He is writing a memoir and recently announced a deal with MTV to direct a documentary on what it means to be young and white in America.


http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2014/11/24/washpost-oozes-over-illegal-alien-reporter-activist-who-lied-get-post