Letters of the Week: Nov 7- Nov 11

Please email your letters to editor@ilw.com or post them directly as "Comment" below.

Comments

[richard y]

911 happened because we allow and being political correct on religious radicalism, it has nothing to do with ones legal status in any countries. Separation of religions and states worldwide is the cure answer and we should never allow faiths to be abused as instrument of hate, intolerance, viloence, hypocrisy and ignorance. Police state or real id act won't deter anyone whom have been brainwashed to do anything stupid and dangerous and I hope mr. Robert will open his mind and think more rationally.

[Jim Roberts]

Dear Editor,

It is good to see David Murray and Ali Alexander recent postings and I hope they will continue, it will no doubt improve the content of Letters

of which Mr. Murray complains. They both add an element of common sense, the concerns of DM with AILA being one example.
But DM has had some deviations from that standard. I see no name calling in Donald Miller's letter which logically analyses the Roger Algase writing style and his branding all differing opinion as hate, bigotry and racist. It is my opinion that the latter and Richard Yang are Exhibits A & B in that department. And my recollection of the older

Letters section under Michele Kim differs somewhat. While it was more restricted and edited, perhaps the most devastating, unfair personal attack ever seen in Letters was one by D. Murray against Norm Matloff, an educated scholar who had offered opinion on the H-Bl visa, an area in

which he has great expertise:
See: "Norm Matloff's Biographical Sketch"
http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/matloff.html
Also, while recent ID editorial comments may be Liberal and self-serving

to the profession, some of the older editorials were really radical in
their content. I haven't seen any of those lately. I like the new,
free style of the Letters section, it allows the reader rather than the editor to decide what to draw from the offerings.
While Murray wonders why a radical, Jeanne Butterfield, would be chosen to lead AILA, their stated goals which in essence is to impede the entry

policies of US and to place the interests of foreigners above our own citizens and policies, makes the selection more understandable. Anyone who doesn't believe the lax entry policies had nothing to do with 9/11
is not mainstream. I would only add that I recently had a letter
edited for length that wasn't half as long as the current one by D.
Murray and that some separation line is needed between the letters as it

is not immediately apparent where one letter ends and the other begins.

[richard y]

Amnesties don't come as free option, there are requirements to pay fines and back and future taxes and doesn't mean automatic entitlement on welfare checks, so i have no idea where restrictionists got the $999 billions number for the cost of amnesty. 999 seems like pizza good deal for me.But what everyone know and agree that it costs a lot of money to detain people in jails and to put them on the planes to ship them out of this country and amazingly restrictionists think it's free because goverment has a magic wand to do so overnight. I have no better suggestion other than they got to get out of their bubble of ignorance.

[Jim Roberts]

Dear Editor,

Re: Nov. 8th Comment: "Oppression Not States Rights", it is your myopic views and false premise of placing the interests of illegals above citizens that leads to the wrong conclusion that Alabama is overturning principles of the Constitution, rather they are upholding them. What AL is trying to do is to protect US citizens from the illegal migration
invasion which the Feds have not done for decades and their actions follow existing Federal laws. See: "The Legacy of the IRCA Amnesty" http://www.examiner.com/immigration-in-san-francisco/the-legacy-of-the-irca-amnesty-part-1?render=print
(and) "Notes from a Retired U.S. Border Patrol Agent"
http://www.nostinkingamnesty.com/archives/156

The Preamble to the Constitution proclaims it's purpose, "...to ourselves and our Posterity", not to non-citizen, foreign illegals. Article IV, Sec. 4 requires the Feds
to, "protect [the States] against Invasion". Any laws
contrary to the Constitution are null and void [Marbury vs. Madison]. America cannot absorb the massive entry numbers and resulting costs of all kinds. See: "It Can't Happen Here"
http://buchanan.org/blog/it-cant-happen-here-4942 (and) "Illegal Immigration: The Cost of Amnesty = $999 Billion"
http://www.newswithviews.com/Wooldridge/frosty712.htm Our entry policies should consider Citizens first, not last or not at all.

[richard y]

Regarding names calling, how should we call those who suggest more hassles and harrasment on foreign tourists so they don't come here but go to other countries to spend their money there, a genius? They also think this stupid idea as brilliant while unemployment in Nevada is the highest in the nation and we can appreciate extra visitors to bring their money in to gamble at Vegas casinos. The reasons of our country is broke because of so many of them are here. They are living in the bubles of ignorance,xenophobia, isolationism and self denial. If these people can do the math, they will write something else here and they should understand that their medicare and social security checks they get and enjoy indeed is socialism they despise.

[David D. Murray, Esq.]

As I read through the above email string, I could not help but think, WOW! . . . ILW is so different now in its Editorials, which always appear to be from the proverbial "soap box" of liberalism and in the approch to readers' letters. So different from when Michele Kim, Esq. was the Editor if ILW.

I rarely come to this forum any more, but earlier today I posted an applaud to Kenneth Rinzler's excellent article about AILA. Sadly, I was appalled by the degneration of the un-monitored system the editors of ILW now choose to use for readers posting their Letters to the Editor, which in fact is no longer "Letters to the Editor", but a regrettable un-monitored free-for-all, where people can not only disagree, but insult each other, as Donald Miller did to Roger Algase, Esq. earlier today. Shame on Mr. Miller and shame on ILW for allowing this type of "argument", which serves nobody good.

Yes, I long for the days of Michele Kim, Esq., her excellent and usually well-balanced ILW editorials and her meticulous editing of the ILW's Letters to the Editor, where ideas were exchanged, but tirades and derrogatory personal references were always edited out. This was a lot of work. Regretably, it appears the current ILW Editor does not care to provide an intelligent formum for discussion of ideas. And that is exactly why you old ILW Letters to the Editor fans have not heard from me in this form.

Cheers, David D. Murray, Esq.

[David D. Murray, Esq.]

I agree totally with Kenneth Rinzler's Immigration Daily article about AILA. In fact, that is why I am not an AILA member any more, after 20 years of previous membership, quitting in 2005.

Before I finally decided to part ways with AILA, I had a disagreement with then Director Jeanne Butterfield about ALIF transparency and AILA's lobbying activities. I also was not satisfied, and quite shocked, with Ms. Butterfield's background as an activist.

I do not intend to rejoin AILA, as it seems nothing, or at least not much, has changed. And please tell me how I can get one of those 8% loans . . . . !

Cheers to all . . . David D. Murray, Esq.

For your amusement, here is part of what caused me to sever my AILA membership:

Ties to Terrorism
Published July 10, 2003
FOXNews

There are many in American public life who have embarrassing pasts, like Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., or who engage in very questionable tactics, like Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.

But few members of mainstream organizations have worked closely and openly with terrorist groups, like Jeanne Butterfield (search), director of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (search).

The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the immigration bar's equivalent of the American Bar Association. It is a national professional organization that requires membership, keeps immigration lawyers abreast of developments in immigration law and acts as an advocate for immigrants before legislative bodies. It also promulgates ethical standards for immigration lawyers.

Jeanne Butterfield is, in some sense of the term, the nation's head immigration lawyer (search). A major part of the organization's work is developing and deploying legal strategies that ease the entry of immigrants, help to erect hurdles to their removal, and in many cases, are used in class actions to seek to keep people who never had any legal immigration status -- illegal aliens (search) -- in the country.

You may recall that it was Ms. Butterfield who said, just after a group of young men on student visas flew planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, "I don't think that the events of last week can be attributed to the failure of our immigration laws."

To understand Ms. Butterfield's history is to understand the newer and downright irresponsible positions taken by AILA. Before she was elected director of AILA, Jeanne Butterfield was executive director of the Palestine Solidarity Committee (search), the group that acted as a front for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (search) in much the same way that Sinn Fein (search) acted as a representative of the Irish Republican Army (search) -- but without participating in electoral politics and representative government as Sinn Fein has.

Instead, the Palestine Solidarity Committee seems to have devoted its efforts to apologizing for the PFLP and campaigning to isolate Israel, specifically U.S. aid to Israel.

But its defense of terror did not stop with the action of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. David Horowitz (search) noted in a 1991 National Review article that the Palestine Solidarity Committee was "one of the few groups in the world supporting Saddam's rape of Kuwait."

The Palestine Solidarity Committee was formerly known as the November 29th Committee for Palestine (search) (November 29th is the "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People"). The Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith (search) said the following in a 1983 report: "Close observation and analysis of the activities of the November 29 (committee) indicates that it appears to be a de facto alliance between U.S. adherents of the Popular Front...and the (Trotskyist) Workers World Party (search) (of New York)..."

The "Popular Front" the report refers to of course is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The group was founded by George Habash (search) in 1967 when he was a member of the PLO, and it continues to attack and murder settlers. Just last year, the PFLP was described by the New York Times as "a secular Marxist (search) organization that spearheaded international Palestinian terrorism in the late 1960's and 1970's, [which] remains lethal."

The PFLP is undeterred by the facts that current Palestinian politics have trended strongly toward the PLO and Hamas, and that it no longer appears to have much of a hand to play in bringing about a Palestinian state. In 2001 alone, the PFLP exploded seven car bombs, a bus and motorcycle bomb, and several bombs placed near high-pedestrian traffic areas, like malls across Israel. In October, 2001, it assassinated Israel's Minister of Tourism as he walked to his home in a quiet neighborhood.

The March-April 1989 issue of Palestine Focus (search), the national newspaper of the Palestine Solidarity Committee -- which features Butterfield on the masthead -- lists among its goals "to stop U.S. intervention in the Middle East and to cut off U.S. aid to Israel."

The Workers World Party referred to in the B'Nai Brith Report, perhaps still bitter that Saddam's work in Kuwait had been cut short by American military intervention, is of course the entity that orchestrated the anti-war protests which preceded President Bush's action in Iraq. The Palestine Solidarity Committee has morphed into many college and regional chapters, some as far away as Africa.

It's baffling that a person whose early career was spent apologizing for terrorism has risen to director of a mainstream, national professional organization whose members testify on Capitol Hill. (search) It is even more baffling that Ms. Butterfield was elected to her position by members of a profession that counts among its members many Jews, while her early career was devoted destruction of the Jewish state (search). If Ms. Butterfield had been a leader of another group that advocated hate and violence, such as the Ku Klux Klan (search), she would not have the credibility or trustworthiness to find work as a bank teller, let alone lead a national, mainstream legal organization.

F. Scott Fitzgerald (search) said that in American life, there are no second acts. Jeanne Butterfield proves, provided your politics are acceptable to some, that that's not always so.

Matt Hayes began practicing immigration law shortly after graduating from Pace University School of Law in 1994, representing new immigrants in civil and criminal matters. He teaches at Berkeley College, and is author of The New Immigration Law and Practice, a textbook to be published by West Legal Publications in October, 2003.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,91527,00.html#ixzz1dALfHXwA

[Roger Algase]

Correction: I meant to write: "is incomprehensible to me", not "in incomprehensible to me".

[Roger Algase]

With regard to Donald Miller's diatribe, I graduated from Harvard Law School in 1962. There is no need to comment on the rest of his rantings, except to ask how many proven instances of voter fraud there have been in the past decade. If Mr. Miller knows of any, let him come forward and say so.

Voter fraud is not a real problem for the Republicans or anyone else. Minority voters are - for the Republicans, a very big problem indeed, one that may be the end of their party, perhaps even in my lifetime. Why one of America's two major parties would want to jump out on the white supremacist limb and then saw itself off in incomprehensible to me.

But then again, why Obama would do everything in his power to persecute and antagonize America's fastest growing voting group, Latinos, by deporting 400,000 people a year is also incomprehensible to me. Does he expect Mr. Miller to vote for him?

[Donald Miller]

I am appalled at Roger Algase’s latest rant re. the supposed Republican “racist attack on minorities” through the effort to upgrade voters’ IDs and the efforts to control illegal immigration of “minorities”! It is difficult to believe that Algase is a graduate of possibly the best (or one of the best) law schools in the US. What in the world did he learn there?
These two issues are totally unrelated: the first is a logical effort to prevent or at least reduce possible voter fraud. Where, I would ask Algase, is this horde of people in the US who have absolutely no personal identification documentation? Who are they? We are asked to produce basic identification several times every day in conducting our normal business, from banking to cashing checks to paying for groceries…not to mention traveling and getting government bennies. Just who are these totally isolated troglodytes who have lived all their lives in this country and have never had or obtained any sort of personal identification document? If there is any “conspiracy” afoot here it is on the part of Algase and his ilk who want the polling places to be swarmed by unidentifiable “voters” of dubious legality precisely in order to elect human disasters like our current President and other crooks from his party.

As for “discrimination” against minority immigrants, well…duh! If, as is currently the case, the overwhelming majority of illegal border-jumpers happen to be members of US minority groups, then logically (odd word for you, Algase. Look it up.) those will be the people most affected by immigration restrictions! If it were the case that the Mexican, Central American, Caribbean hordes swarming into the country were to be replaced one for one by, say, English, Irish, and Scandinavian immigrants then they would be the “victims” of immigration restriction. Would Algase then complain that Holder’s largely black and Jewish DoJ is prejudiced against “majority” immigrants?

Every time Roger Algase opens up his computer I am simply amazed that any graduate of any accredited law school can produce such simplistic babble! The legal profession in general , and especially those in immigration law, are currently held in abysmally low esteem by the American public and every time someone like Algase, supposedly with Harvard Law creds, lets go, yet another nail is driven into the coffin of legal reputation.