Mother of Exiles

Famous Immigrant of the Week - Martina Navratilova

2012-02-24T14:59:00.000-07:00

This week our ball is in the court of hall-of-fame tennis player, Martina Navratilova! From her biography.com page:

Navratilova played in her first tennis tournament at eight years of age. A left-handed player who ranked number one in Czechoslovakia from 1972 to 1975, she won international notice when she led her team to victory in the 1975 Federation Cup. In that year she went into exile in the United States; she became a U.S. citizen in 1981.

By 1990 Navratilova had won the women's singles championships of the French Open twice (1982, 1984), the Australian Open three times (1981, 1983, 1985), the U.S. Open four times (1983, 1984, 1986, 1987), and Wimbledon a record nine times (1978, 1979, 1982–87, 1990). In 1987, along with her singles championship, she won both the women's doubles and the mixed doubles to become the first triple-crown champion at the U.S. Open since 1970. On winning her 158th title in 1992 in Chicago, Navratilova had accumulated more championships than any other player, male or female, in the history of tennis. She retired from singles play after the 1994 season, having won 167 titles in all.

Her career totals include 59 Grand Slam titles: 18 singles, 31 doubles, and 10 mixed doubles.

Navratilova went on to write an autobiography and a series of mystery novels. She was also one of the first sports super stars to openly admit that she's gay and she's very active in the gay rights movement. You can read more about Navratilova in her autobiography Martina.

More Quick Hits

2012-02-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's tax season here at my office (ugh!) and combined with being halfway through my first pregnancy, I've had less time than normal for blogging. The links are starting to pile up, so I'm doing yet another Quick Hits today.

Government Interference in the Economy:

E-Verify: Another Federal Assault On Freedom

US Immigration's 'Culture of Cruelty' Stretches from AZ to Massachusetts

After Immigration Crackdown, Farmers Mull Planting

More Fallout From State Immigration Laws:

US (TX): Immigration laws impact more widespread

Alabama's Immigration Law Could Cost Billions Annually

Life Under Alabama’s Harsh Immigration Law: The state is driving out its illegal immigrants. Businesses want them back. Meet the men and women in the middle.

Judge delays decision on Utah's immigration law

Weekly Quote

2012-02-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.

~Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Why We Can't Wait, 1963

Quick Hits

2012-02-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Brain Drain: If America doesn't want immigrants, other countries (such as Brazil and Chile) will take them, and prosper as a result!

Government-Created Black Markets: If the government didn't create these black markets, there'd be no incentive for criminals to commit these crimes.

NY Lawyer’s Immigration Fraud Scheme Netted Millions of Dollars, Prosecutors Say

A southern California flight school owner faces the loss of his two-year-old business, along with the Cessna 172 he rented to a well-known customer. (Regarding human-smuggling.)

Couple get 18 months in prison for harboring illegal immigrants

Two Chicago brothers have been sentenced to federal prison for arranging sham marriages to enable foreign nationals to illegally become U.S. citizens.

America's immigration laws encourage the world's best and brightest to go elsewhere to be productive, while encouraging some Americans to turn to a life of crime. The government needs to remove itself from this country's economy and let capitalism do what it does best; create prosperity and opportunity for those willing to legitimately seek it!

Famous Immigrant of the Week - Michael J. Fox

2012-02-17T15:51:00.000-07:00

This week's famous immigrant is actor and once-"illegal" Canadian immigrant, Michael J. Fox. From FoxNews:

This Canadian actor suffered some nervousness at the border early on in his career, when, as he wrote in his 2010 autobiography, "the actual visa had not yet come through" and he was asked if he was entering the country for work or pleasure.

Far more important than his legal status, Fox, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, is best known for his acting and charity work. He's been in numerous movies and television shows, such as Back to the Future and Spin City.

Fox is likely best known for his role as Alex P. Keaton in TV's hit series, Family Ties. Here's a clip:

Oh, how I wish that were true! =)

Chile Reaps the Benefits of Immigrants America Won't Let In

2012-02-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

Here's a great story from Business Insider about immigrant-friendly Chile, and how they're reaping the economic benefits of a more open-immigration policy. From the article:

Like America of the past, Chile is a country that’s friendly to productive, responsible, hard-working people. It’s very easy to obtain a residency visa and work permit– all you need is a work contract from just about any local company, and you’re entitled to what’s called a “sujeto a contrato” visa.

This particular visa is renewed after one year. After the second year of continuous employment, you’re entitled to permanent residency. Three years later, you can apply for naturalization and a Chilean passport, as long as you meet minimum time-in-country requirements.

Best of all, you don’t even need a lawyer. Compared to what I’ve seen in Europe and North America, the red tape involved in the Chilean immigration process is minimal; local companies in Chile have tremendous latitude in hiring foreign workers without the government getting involved.

At the very end, he includes a link to a beautiful video he made while traveling through Chile, so be sure to check that out too.

Weekly Quote

2012-02-15T09:23:00.001-07:00

"We can evade reality, but we cannot evade the consequences of evading reality." —Ayn Rand

(H/T to Paul Hsieh)

Reason on Rand and Illegal Immigrants

2012-02-14T10:28:00.001-07:00

Here's a great post on Reason.com by Shikha Dalmia about illegal immigrant, Ayn Rand, and today's anti-immigrant Republicans. Here's an excerpt:

As a vehement anti-Bolshevist, she knew that she would die waiting in line if she applied for permission to permanently relocate to America, although that’s exactly what she intended to do. Temporary tourist visas were easier to land, but only for those who could prove they didn’t plan to settle here. So what did Rand do? She committed perjury. She convinced an American visa officer that she had a fiancé waiting for her in Russia whom she intended to marry after a six-month visit with her relatives in Chicago.

However, others doubt that Uncle Sam would have handed a three-year extension to a Russian passport holder, raising suspicions that Rand might have been—gasp!—an illegal immigrant when she got married.

Read the rest of this great article, here.

9th Circuit Court Halts Deportation of Seven Immigrants

2012-02-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

In an interested turn of events, the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals has halted the deportation of 7 immigrants and "given the Obama administration until March 19th to explain if Aranda Rodriguez and the other immigrants deserve a break under a new enforcement policy known as prosecutorial discretion."

From this MercuryNews.com article:

The dissenting judge called putting the deportations on hold an "audacious ruling" that exceeded the judges' authority.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton had announced in June that immigration authorities would stop detaining and deporting some illegal immigrants who have close family and community ties and no criminal records.

Aranda Rodriguez fits that bill, said his lawyer.

The San Joaquin County construction worker and Mexican immigrant has lived in the United States for more than two decades and cares for two U.S. citizen children.

"He's the kind of person Mr. Obama and also the Morton memo is talking about. He exemplifies that," Connolly said.

The Obama administration has said it will review around 300,000 deportation cases, but it's been slow in coming and has led to quite a bit of confusion. In the meantime, worker and employer rights are being violated and families are being ripped apart. Thousands and thousands of children have been put into foster care during Obama's term in office.

I hope these 7 immigrants, and many more, are allowed to stay in the US. Their work ethic and low-cost labor are desperately needed in this lagging economy, and more importantly, they deserve to have their individual rights respected and protected!

Weekly Quote

2012-02-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

I believe Hispanics have been used as scapegoats, to say, they're the problem instead of being a symptom maybe of a problem with the welfare state. In Nazi Germany they had to have scapegoats to blame and they turned on the Jews. - Ron Paul

(Note: This is not an endorsement for Ron Paul for President. I disagree with him on several key issues.)

Few Legal Ways to Enter America

2012-02-07T09:58:00.000-07:00

Here is a good Economist article about low-skilled immigrant labor. It links out to this Washington Post article, which is also good. They discuss the "get in line" comment we hear from so many politicians these days with regards to immigrants coming here legally. But "there is no line, not even a relevant visa category, for millions of immigrants." Here's an excerpt from The Economist article:

Low-skill, undocumented immigrants can't "get in line", instead of entering and working in America illegally, because there is no line. As the Post notes, Republicans aren't alone in repeating empty "get in line" rhetoric; the president does it too.

…American demand for low-skilled workers remains. So they will come. And they will come illegally, because they must. It's very important to note that workers from south of the border act more as complements than substitutes for similar American workers.

That last link is great too and discusses how immigrants don't really steal American jobs. Go check it out!

(H/T to Paul Hsieh)

The CATO Journal: Immigration

2012-02-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently linked me to The Cato Journal's Winter 2012 edition which is dedicated to the subject of immigration. While I have not yet read all of these articles, the few I have read look good and they are definitely pro-migrant. You may want to check them out. Here's a summary of the contents:

Is Immigration Good for America?

James A. Dorn
Editor's Note
(PDF, 2 pp., 33Kb)

Daniel T. Griswold
Introduction: Is Immigration Good for America?
(PDF, 4 pp., 49Kb)

Bryan Caplan
Why Should We Restrict Immigration?
(PDF, 20 pp., 177Kb)

Gordon H. Hanson
Immigration and Economic Growth
(PDF, 10 pp., 95Kb)

Giovanni Peri
Immigration, Labor Markets, and Productivity
(PDF, 20 pp., 175Kb)

Joel Kotkin and Erika Ozuna
America's Demographic Future
(PDF, 16 pp., 140Kb)

Stuart Anderson
America's Incoherent Immigration System
(PDF, 14 pp., 126Kb)

Pia M. Orrenius and Madeline Zavodny
The Economic Consequences of Amnesty for Unauthorized Immigrants
(PDF, 22 pp., 196Kb)

Edward Alden
Immigration and Border Control
(PDF, 18 pp., 151Kb)

Jim Harper
Internal Enforcement, E-Verify, and the Road to a National ID
(PDF, 14 pp., 117Kb)

Margaret D. Stock
Is Birthright Citizenship Good for America?
(PDF, 20 pp., 164Kb)

Daniel T. Griswold
Immigration and the Welfare State
(PDF, 16 pp., 147Kb)

Raúl Hinojosa-Ojeda
The Economic Benefits of Comprehensive Immigration Reform
(PDF, 26 pp., 219Kb)

Joshua C. Hall, Benjamin J. VanMetre, and Richard K. Vedder
U.S. Immigration Policy in the 21st Century: A Market-Based Approach
(PDF, 20 pp., 174Kb)

(H/T to MB)

Snow Day!

2012-02-03T14:03:00.000-07:00

There’s a blizzard here in Colorado, so I’m enjoying an unexpected, lazy, cozy, day off. I’ll resume posting on Monday.

The Defense Of Marriage Act: End unconstitutional tyranny upon individual rights and the rights of immigrants.

2012-02-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

By Guest Blogger, Andrew Ryan

Immigration legislation unfairly discriminates against binational LGBT couples in the United States, placing unconstitutional hardships before them by refusing to validate the contractual validity of their relationships and exposing them to deportation and separation, traumatic hardships which their heterosexual counterparts do not have to face.

Based on census data from 2000, Immigration Equality has estimated that there are approximately 36,000 same-sex binational couples in the United States. Over 45% of these couples have children [1]. Furthmore, in 79% of said binational families, the non-citizen partner is from a country that doesn’t provide immigration benefits to these couples. The situation therefore becomes one in which each partner is completely unable to offer sponsorship for a process of naturalization common to most heterosexual marriages in which the spouse is able to provide a permanent means of residence for the spouse[2].

In a heterosexual binational marriage in the United States, if an American citizen were to marry a foreign national of the opposite gender, the aforementioned national is eligible for a process of naturalization. Should they reside outside of the United States prior to the matrimonial contract, they may enter the United States through a special ‘fiancé’ visa known as the K-1 Visa. Once married, they may file for adjustment of status and enter the Green Card process. While often a long and protracted process, if the marriage is not fraudulent a spouse is granted naturalization status in a time period between three and five years[3]. This process is unattainable for same-sex binational couples thanks to the Defense of Marriage Act.

The Defense of Marriage Act (from here on referred to as DOMA) was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996. Section 3 of the Act amends Chapter 1 of title 1 of the United States Code in the following manner:

“In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.[4]”

Once passed into law, DOMA proceeded to completely annul the possibility of any committed binational same-sex couple, should they marry in a state which allows for same-sex marriage, to initiate naturalization procedures- effectively preventing one spouse from sponsoring the other for a Green Card. The resulting scenario thus forces binational same-sex couples to exist in a state of uncertainty that no other kind of relationship in the United States has to undergo. Due to the current state of immigration policies, most legal immigrants have a slim chance of attaining a coveted Work Visa, and few have the significant funds to qualify for an Investor’s Visa[5]. In a struggle to remain together, most couples resort to enrolling the foreign partner in an educational institution for an F-1 Visa. A scenario that is echoed all throughout the country is that of Frances Herbert and her Japanese partner, Takako Ueda. Featured in an article on the Brattleboro Reformer, in order to remain with her partner Ueda had to obtain a student Visa: “Ueda enrolled in classes at Keene State College soon after arriving in the United States despite the culture shock and her limited grasp of English. Last year she earned her third degree in 10 years. With the expiration of her visa looming, Ueda said she exhausted every possible avenue, looking for a way to remain with her partner.[6]”

The issues with the student scenario are worsened by the prospect of financial drain: international students under an F-1 Visa never qualify for in-state tuition and thus must pay out-of-state prices throughout the length of their degrees. That brings the cost of a full academic year at an institution such as the University of Colorado in Boulder to $44,560 per year[7], and $20,000 per year at a community college such as Colorado’s Front Range Community College[8]. Students must take a full course load, or have their Visa status revoked. If this by itself were not daunting enough a price to meet on a yearly basis, two facts make the situation even more forbidding: International students do not qualify for most available scholarships or financial aid, and they are not allowed to work outside of campus to supplement their income under penalty of revocation of status.[9]

Further complicating the situation is the fact that on-campus employers often prefer students who qualify for the Federal Work Study program, as it essentially provides them with students whose earnings are paid for by federal funding.[10] As expected, international students do not qualify for Federal Work programs, and as such the available positions open to them are few and far between. An international student may apply for authorization to work off-campus, but only if: (a)they can prove financial hardship, (b) that their workload will not affect their academic performance and (c) they have been in the United States for at least one full academic year.[11] Approval for off-campus employment is good for one year, and If the student wishes to continue off-campus employment, they must reapply- which can result in a revocation of status under the argument that the student should not be in the United States if they cannot support their education. As Ueda’s scenario demonstrates, this is a state of affairs that can only be temporary, as the international student must put all productivity on hold and drain their financial resources until they can no longer finance their education. Eventually after several degrees, Immigration authorities will suspect the student of ‘Immigrant Intent’ and deny any further visas.

Outside of the extremely costly Investors’ Visa, there are no Visas that allow a foreigner to be self-employed. Even should a foreigner be able to obtain the much-coveted and seldom-awarded H-1B work visa, they cannot be self-employed and earn additional income: doing so will render them out-of-status.

Eventually, and in the majority of cases, money runs out or visas stop being renewed due to suspicion of “immigrant intent”, the quest for the H-1 Visa Grail fails, and the inevitable outcome looms ever closer: every one of those 72,000 individuals faces the choice of being forcibly separated from their longtime partners. Most of these couples have been together for years and even decades, and find themselves leaving behind splintered lives and the deafening absence of the other. This reality is so foreign to the average American that he or she may fail to fully comprehend the enormity of it, and a dramatization may be necessary to paint the full image: Imagine that the person whom you have chosen as your life partner, whose life you have decided to share, whose habits have been integrated into yours, whose tastes, companionship, histories and background have become as part of your own history as your birthplace and family have, is removed by force from your life and sent to a remote location by a government that does not consider your relationship a valid one. You are left with only two options: Seek a means to be re-united with your partner on American soil (unlikely after deportation or expiration of status), or abandon the country and place of your birth in favor for their country – but only if their country recognizes your relationship. If that is not the case, neither of you have recourse to repair your forcibly-shattered life.

While an emotional appeal may be powerful enough to elicit sympathy in cases such as these, Americans need to realize that the issue is far from being simply a question of emotions- but that these cruel and tragic circumstances have been brought about by the deliberate violation of constitutional principle and individual rights. The formulation of the Defense of Marriage Act was introduced at a crucial time in United States in which it was expected that Hawaii and other states would legalize same-sex marriage. Opponents, members of the Religious Right movement, became keenly aware that under the 14^th Amendment, other states would be obligated to uphold matrimonial contracts from such states, and thus open the floodgates for further marriage reform in other states. Hence, DOMA was drafted as a measure by which the Religious Right could bypass the issue and be able to define the concept of ‘marriage’ as it applies to all United States citizens.

We may find a telling example of the exposed principle that drives the political crusade by examining the rhetoric of Stand For Marriage Maine (SFMM), a subset of the National Organization for Marriage, a non-profit established in 2007 to prevent the legal recognition and acceptance of same-sex marriage in the United States[12].

During its campaign to defeat a same-sex marriage proposition in Maine, SFMM posited on its website: “If Question 1 fails and LD 1020 is allowed to take effect, marriage will be redefined to be about any two consenting adults without regard to gender, the focus being only about what the adults want for themselves, and not what is best for society as a whole. If allowed to take effect, LD 1020 would throw to the trash heap Maine’s decades-old interest in traditional marriage and legalize homosexual, genderless marriage.[13]”

The assumption that rhetoric such as SFMM smuggles as an accepted claim is it is proper for government to restrict the right of an individual to enter into a contract of his own choosing with another individual. Furthermore, the sentence insinuates that it is perfectly within the rights of a sufficiently agitated majority to restrict other individuals from entering into a specific kind of contract (in this case, a civil marriage contract) simply because they are in disagreement with it. This, in fact, is not true at all: as long as the terms of the contract and its actions do not violate the individual rights of others, individuals are protected by the principles individual rights– they are free to enter into a marriage contract or other kind of contract if they so desire.

For the citizenship to have the power to prohibit a couple of the same sex from entering into said contract, there would have to be an explicit right to specifically delimit relationships of third parties. No such right exists and no such right could exist because its philosophical and legal repercussions would be devastating upon individual liberties: with these principles put into practice, one group may prohibit a set of individuals from entering into a contract of marriage because of religious grounds, racial grounds, public opinion, et cetera. Specific provisions by the Constitution protect the rights of the individual from the use of coercion by government on a federal or state level.[14]

To be specific, SFMM and DOMA’s rhetoric specifically violate the 14^th amendment of the Constitution which guarantees equal protection (emphasis added):

“No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.[15]”

The intent to violate equal protection is evident in the fourth line of SFMM’s website excerpt: ‘The focus being only about what the adults want for themselves, and not what is best for society as a whole.’ Upon reading this excerpt it behooves us to ask: who is ‘society’? What rights does ‘society’ have that it supersedes the rights of the individual? In this example, just as in all other examples of arguments using ‘social theory’ rhetoric throughout the ages, same sex couples are not part of ‘society’ and their benefit is not part of ‘what is best for society.’ The main intent consists solely on denying or imposing a course of action upon a third party simply because a majority has decided it must be so, without any necessary proof other than testifying that they ‘speak for society,’ and in this particular species of argument “society” always happens to be everybody but the parties being coerced. On this principle of ‘social theory’ at work, Rand said that “Although it claims that its chief concern is life on earth, it is not the life of man, not the life of an individual, but the life of a disembodied entity, the collective, which, in relation to every individual, consists of everybody except himself.[16]”

There are no special rights that are conferred when two or more people are gathered together against a third party- each individual has his own rights, which are no different from any of the rights those around him hold. The argument from social theory would have you believe that consensus equals truth, but that is not the case: Society is not a beast apart from the individual unit (it is, in fact, nothing more than an abstract concept that subsumes the total sum of individuals living within a specific social framework)—what is good for the individual is what is ‘good for society’, and what is good for the individual is to have his individual rights respected and enforced: to impede two individuals from defining their relationship in legal terms is infringing those rights.

There is a large and intentional confusion when it comes to the term ‘marriage’ as it is applied to the non-ecclesiastic function of two individuals signing a legal contract with the intent to share their assets and their lives. Opponents of same-sex marriage have used this tactic over and over again, obscuring the nature of the argument to muddle the definition of what exactly is being discussed. Opponents of same-sex marriage use charged rhetoric in order to emotionally confuse ecclesiastic marriage, the ceremony by a religious officiator unites the couple in question before their shared deity, with contractual civil marriage. This is, in fact, not the case, as the entities of civil marriage and religious marriage are separate and it is impossible to treat them as a single entity: one is a legal contract, the other one a religious ritual, and neither has any effect on the other by virtue of the first amendment to the Constitution. The contract that a couple signs when marrying through City Hall is, in fact, a civil union, regardless of the specific genders of the couple in question.

A marriage contract, such as is performed through the government, is a contractual agreement whereby two individuals mutually promise to live together as a legally interrelated whole for life, or until the legal termination of the relationship. Rand, arguing on the principle of government, observed that “the only proper functions of a government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law.[17]” The proper role of a rights-respecting government therefore is contradictory with the aims of NOM, SFMM and ultimately the mandates established by DOMA: third parties do not have the right to delimit the legal relationships into which consenting individuals enter, and neither does the government have the right to exercise one of its primary functions (the upholding and defense of contractual agreements) based upon a religious principle. The first amendment to the Constitution reads (added emphasis):

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[18]”

The first clause, commonly referred to as the establishment clause, shows evidence that a number of the founding fathers such as Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson felt that established religion, under the auspices of state enforcement, would serve as a threat to freedom. This is plainly evident in Jefferson’s 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.[19]"

The majority of arguments against gay marriage are religious in nature[20], and indeed that is the case with government-based opposition: rhetoric featuring the term “sanctity of marriage” is the first and foremost spearhead directed against any attempts at counter-legislation. In 2006, President George W. Bush, on his weekly radio program, called upon Congress to pass a constitutional amendment in order to ban gay marriage, expressing his opinion that marriage “cannot be cut off from it cultural, religious, and natural roots.[21]” Arguing for a contractual law to mirror religious creed is a blatant disregard for the first amendment, and alluding to cultural and ‘natural’ roots are part of a common logical fallacy known as The Appeal To Antiquity, where the claimant asks his or her audience to assume that the mere fact that an idea has a long tradition or life behind it is an immediate and irrevocable implication that it is, in fact, true.[22] One would only need to point to the pre-Civil War South and its long ‘tradition of slavery’ as an example of how this kind of reasoning is completely fallacious. One may also equally point towards humanity’s long tradition of racism to indicate that, in fact, a racist attitude is not only right, but “natural” as well. Appeals to antiquity disintegrate quickly when exposed to oxygen.

As it has been explained before, opponents of same-sex marriage do not have a constitutional or rational reason to oppose the rights to which, by constitutional principle, should be granted. The effect of continuing to disregard individual rights and constitutional principle is that scenarios such as Takako Ueda’s are repeated tens of thousands of times all across America, separating individuals who have no reason for being treated as second-class citizens, and tearing families asunder simply because certain elected representatives do not believe they should be families in the first place. The United States of America is not a Democracy, where a majority may willingly vote away the rights of a minority- it is a Constitutional Republic, with checks and balances placed by the Constitution upon the power and reach of government upon the lives of its individual constituents to prevent scenarios like these. The ordered death of Socrates was a fully democratic act carried out by the people of Athens,[23] and it was scenarios like these that the fathers of the Constitution sought to avoid with the original document and its first tend amendments called “The Bill of Rights” which guaranteed the inalienable rights of an individual, even against overwhelming votes.

Opponents continue to fight the issue, citing that same-sex marriages are “special rights”- that is, rights not found in the original Constitution and for which special legislation had to be effected[24]. However, this argument also falls apart in contradiction when examined: The drafting of DOMA, a specialized piece of legislation, proves that special treatment was actually given to a group of religious ideologies to interfere with the natural course of events as guaranteed by the 14^th amendment. Unless one were to argue that the Constitution and its amendments initially promoted ‘special treatment’ (which would render the purpose of the Constitution as a document establishing individual rights impossible), there is no option but to discard the argument of ‘special rights’ immediately. The question is impossible to ignore: why did it take a special action from a focused interest group to sign legislation that obstructs a constitutional amendment from honoring same-sex contractual marriages, as they would have been under the fourteenth amendment? There was, in fact, a ‘special treatment’ granted in the issue of same-sex marriage, but in this case it was granted to the Religious Right in flagrant disregard for constitutional principle.

The only conclusion to which a rights-respecting individual, under Constitutional principle, can arrive at is that there is currently a subset of the American population that is suffering extreme injustice, discrimination and persecution. These are not special rights that have been taken away from same-sex binational couples, but basic constitutional rights that have been restricted through political maneuvers by the Religious Right. Such a situation cannot be tolerated nor can it be allowed to stand. There are two courses of action to which I exhort the reader, after presenting the arguments in favor of this case:

Support the Uniting American Families Act: Representative Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) reintroduced U.A.F.A. in the House of Representatives. Said bill has been presented to the house over a course of ten years, constantly being re-introduced, and which would allow the provision of ‘same sex partnerships’ to immigration procedures, allowing committed same-sex relationships to qualify for immigration and naturalization benefits without depending on the repeal of DOMA (which might take several years in court). And,

Support the Repeal of the Defense Of Marriage Act: U.A.F.A may be considered a stopgap measure in order to prevent further deportation of innocent, rights-respecting same-sex couples that have run afoul of the Religious Right’s legislation, but the ultimate goal to which any rights-respecting American must aspire is towards the full and absolute repeal of the Defense of Marriage act on the grounds that it violates individual rights, and specifically the first and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution. In order to become involved in the process to pass both U.A.F.A. and repeal DOMA, I urge the reader to refer himself to the Immigration Equality Action Fund at http://immigrationequalityactionfund.org/ and follow the guides in place for action.

Sources Cited

1. Immigration Equality: About Us. http://www.immigrationequality.org/about/

2. Immigration Action Fund: Statistics and Facts. http://immigrationequalityactionfund.org/press/facts/

3. Travel State Gov: Nonimmigrant Visas for Fiances. http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_2994.html

4. Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Pub. L. 104-199, 100 Stat. 2419 (Sept. 21, 1996)

5. Visas for Treaty Traders and Treaty Investors, Travel.StateGov, http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1273.html

6. Jaime Cone, Vermont Couples In Limbo From Defense of Marriage Act, http://www.immigrationequality.org/clippings/vermont-couple-in-limbo-from-defense-of-marriage-act/

7. Information for International Students, Undergraduate Admission, CU Boulder , http://admissions.colorado.edu/undergraduate/finances/international

8. Community College International Student Admissions, FRCC , http://www.frontrange.edu/international/

9. Student Visas, U.S. Department of State, http://travel.state.gov/visa/temp/types/types_1268.html

10. Federal Work Study Program, U.S. Department of Education, http://www2.ed.gov/programs/fws/index.html

11. Off-Campus Basic Guidelines, ICE, http://www.ice.gov/sevis/employment/faq_f_off1.htm

12. NOM: About NOM, http://www.nationformarriage.org/site/c.omL2KeN0LzH/b.3479573/k.E2D0/About_NOM.htm

13. Why Marriage Matters, SFMM, http://www.standformarriagemaine.com/?page_id=115

14. 14^th Amendment, U.S. Constitution Online, http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am14.html

15. Constitutional Law, Legal Information Institute, http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/Constitutional_law

16. Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 34.

17. Ayn Rand, “Galt’s Speech”, For the New Intellectual, 183.

18. Constitution of the United States of America, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

19. Jefferson’s Wall of Separation Letter, U.S. Constitution Online, http://www.usconstitution.net/jeffwall.html

20. Common Arguments Against Gay Marriage, About.com, http://atheism.about.com/od/gaymarriage/p/ContraGayMarria.htm

21. Comely Beattie, “Preserving the Sanctity of Marriage”, Common Dreams, http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0605-25.htm

22. Appeal To Antiquity, Logical Fallacies, http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/appeals/appeal-to-tradition/

23. Doug Linder, The Trial of Socrates, http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/socrates/socratesaccount.html

24. Tom Strode, “Opposed to ‘gay marriage’ , ‘special rights’ Bush says”, Baptist Press, http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=6657

Weekly Quote

2012-02-01T09:07:00.001-07:00

Racism isn't born, folks, it's taught. I have a two-year-old son. You know what he hates? Naps! End of list. ~Dennis Leary

Famous Immigrant of the Week - Oscar de la Renta

2012-01-27T10:53:00.001-07:00

This week, we take a stroll down the red carpet with Dominican-born American fashion designer, Oscar de la Renta! From his page on Biography.com:

[De la Renta's work] blends European luxury with American ease and helped define standards of elegant dressing among society circles in the late 20th and the early 21st century.

De la Renta received an international fashion education. At 18 he left the Dominican Republic to study painting at the San Fernando Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid. There, he began working as an illustrator for fashion houses, a position that led eventually to the post of assisting Spain's leading designer, Cristóbal Balenciaga. In 1961 he settled in Paris and worked as the assistant to Lanvin-Castillo's head designer, Antonio del Castillo, before moving to New York City in 1963 to design the couture and ready-to-wear collections for Elizabeth Arden. In 1965 he established his own eponymous company in New York.

De la Renta went on to win several awards and became the first American designer to be awarded a major post at a French couture house.

More Evidence of Immigrants Being More "American" than Americans?

2012-01-26T10:55:00.000-07:00

This article from Strategy Page has some interesting facts about foreigners serving in the US (and other country's) militaries. Here's an excerpt:

In the last decade the U.S. military has enlisted some 70,000 non-citizens, about five percent of all recruits. These foreigners made better soldiers than American citizens. The foreigners are tossed out during their first three months of service at half the rate of their citizen counterparts. After three years of service 72 percent of citizens were still in uniform, compared to 84 percent of non-citizen troops. The foreign troops are more patriotic and work harder than their citizen counterparts.

It's also interesting to note that more Latinos have been awarded the Medal of Honor (the highest military decoration awarded by the US government), than any other ethnic group.

Because I'm not a racist or tribalist, I don't think there is something inherent in Latino genes that makes them a better soldier than a person of German or Irish descent, for example. I think it has more to do with the work ethic of immigrants vs. the native-born American.

Many native-born Americans now believe they have a right to a job, a right to health care and a right to the American way of life, but they don't. This country was founded under mostly capitalist ideals, including that you have to earn what you desire. You have the right to pursue your happiness, but happiness and prosperity is not automatic.

Immigrants seem to really understand that concept and they are willing to do just about any job in order to exercise their right to pursue happiness. They will work jobs Americans aren't willing to work, and save what little money they earn in an attempt to move up in the world, and that's incentive to do their work very well!

Weekly Quote

2012-01-25T10:21:00.001-07:00

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~Anne Frank

Government-Created Black Markets

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-07:00

Here are some quick hits regarding government-created black markets in the immigration world:

Former Contractor Pleads Guilty To Taking Part In Fraud Against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Stephen E. Henderson, 61, who previously was employed by a contractor doing work for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), pled guilty today to taking part in a scheme in which he fraudulently received more than $50,000 in government money.

Former ICE Analyst Sentenced in Travel Fund Scheme

A former Intelligence analyst for Immigration and Customs Enforcement was sentenced to prison Wednesday for his role in an alleged embezzlement scheme, and federal prosecutors announced another former analyst and a former agency contractor have pleaded guilty to related charges.

Fake ID bust leads to immigration hearing, possible deportation

[The immigrant] told officers through an interpreter he had received the fake IDs from a friend. He was unable to produce a resident alien card when asked for one by an officer, according to the affidavit.

Human trafficking a growing crime in the U.S.

A University of Michigan janitor. A Ukrainian nightclub owner. A Detroit man nicknamed "Gruesome."

The three men, authorities say, are all tied to a growing crime: human trafficking.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, human trafficking has become the second fastest growing criminal industry — just behind drug trafficking — with children accounting for roughly half of all victims. Of the 2,515 cases under investigation in theU.S. in 2010, more than 1,000 involved children.

And those are only the ones we know of. Too often, authorities say, victims stay silent out of fear, so no one knows they exist.

Give Thanks

2012-01-23T09:53:00.001-07:00

Famous Immigrant of the Week - Gene Simmons

2012-01-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, and that means I'm ready to rock-n-roll all night thanks to legendary KISS band member Gene Simmons!

Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz on August 25, 1949 in Haifa, Israel. From his page at Biography.com:

His mother, Flora, was a Hungarian Jew and Holocaust survivor, who watched her family die in the concentration camps when she was only 14 years old. After the end of World War II, Flora headed to Israel. It was there that she met carpenter Yeichel Witz, the man who would eventually become Chaim's father.

Gene's mother and father split when he was young and he never saw his father again.

In 1958, when Chaim was eight years old, he and his mother immigrated to New York to live with relatives in Flushing, Queens. After entering the country, Chaim changed his name to Gene, because it was easier to pronounce, and took his mother's surname of Klein. Gene quickly learned English through comic books and television, and entered the Hasidic theological seminary, called yeshiva, at the age of nine. He studied rigorously while his mother worked at a button factory in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

After seeing the Beatles on television one night, he decided he wanted to be in a band so screaming women would fall in love with him, and after graduating college, he formed the band KISS.

Throughout the 1970s, the band toured virtually nonstop, and became hugely popular for their over-the-top stage antics. KISS developed a large cult following during this time, with fans—called the "KISS Army"—often imitating the group's dress and make-up. But although KISS hit the road consistently, they wouldn't gain popular appeal until their live album Alive! (1975), hit the stores. The album spawned the group's first hit single, "Rock and Roll All Nite," which jumped onto the Billboard Top 40 charts.

KISS continues to tour the world and is still hugely famous. Gene Simmons is an interesting character, to say the least, and whether you like KISS' music or not, he's definitely an asset to America!

Colbert on AL HB 56

2012-01-19T10:43:00.001-07:00

This video is humorous, but Mr. Douglas raises some great points and reminds us that, "an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The Colbert Report

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Weekly Quote

2012-01-18T09:15:00.001-07:00

No matter what other nations may say about the United States, immigration is still the sincerest form of flattery. - Clayton Cramer

Getting Rid of Immigrants Would Get Rid of American Jobs

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

A new study shows that immigrants founded half of the top US start-up companies, further busting the myth that immigration is bad for the US economy. From this TD Waterhouse article:

Of the 50 top venture-backed companies, 23 had at least one immigrant founder, the study found. In addition, 37 of the 50 companies employed at least one immigrant in a key management position such as chief technology officer.

…and the immigrant-founded companies created an average of 150 jobs.

Do you work for a company started by an immigrant? If so, let us hear from you in the comments.

(H/T to Paul Hsieh for linking me to the article.)

Famous Immigrant of the Week - Rita Moreno

2012-01-13T10:22:00.001-07:00

This week's spotlight is on Oscar, Emmy, Tony and Grammy-winner, Rita Moreno. The actress and singer was born Rosa Dolores Alverio on December 11, 1931, in Humacao, Puerto Rico.

From her biography on Internet Movie Database:

American actress Rita Moreno has managed to have a thriving career for the better part of six decades despite the institutional racism that has plagued the entertainment industry, particularly the anti-Hispanic bias that stereotyped Hispanic women as "spitfires" and sexpots. Moreno, one of the very few (and very first) performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy, was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931. She moved to New York City in 1937 along with her mother, where she began a professional career before she was a teenager. The 11-year-old Rosita got her first movie experience dubbing Spanish-language versions of American films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 11, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, co-starring with Arthur Keegan and the young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost 20 years, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. It would take her nearly as long to break through the forces of institutional racism and become the first Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award.

Here's a clip of Moreno in perhaps her best-known role as Anita in West Side Story: