Expected, yet sad.

I guess this is what President George W. Bush calls “immigrants shaping our identity.”

Or as Kansas Senator Sam Brownback tells the New York Times:

But when he wrestled with the issue, Mr. Brownback decided that he could not join the ranks of those who wanted simply to push out illegal immigrants. “This is also about the hallmark of a compassionate society, what you do with the widows, the orphans and the foreigners among you,” he said.

His colleague Lindsey Graham is about as clueless:

“Where is home?” Mr. Graham asked his colleagues Monday. “Their home is where they’ve raised their children. Their home is where they’ve lived their married lives.”

“Whatever we do,” he added, “we have to recognize that for several generations people have made America their home.”

But now they’re making America their Mexican home.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is cutting back on enforcement:

Federal officials told immigrant advocates in a letter made public yesterday that government immigration agents would discontinue using undercover sting operations involving health and safety programs to round up illegal immigrants.

Such an operation generated a storm of protest in July when federal agents arrested 48 workers at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina on illegal immigration charges after the agents tricked the workers into attending what was billed as a mandatory training session sponsored by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

TownHall.com is publishing plenty of pro- and anti-amnesty pieces by conservative pundits. Go check them out. Weekly Standard’s website, on the other hand, has totally checked out of the immigration debate over the past week, save for a single piece by Jonathan Last in which he pats America on the back for having Mexican rather than Muslim immigrants.

The L.A. Times has an article on the omnipresence of the Mexican flag:

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, said many young people feel a need to defend their Mexican heritage.

“Their identity has not always been respected,” Salas said. “It’s a wonderful time for them to say, ‘I’m proud to be Mexican.’ “

I have no doubt they are.

This entry was posted posted by Zach on Wednesday, March 29th, 2006 at 11:19 am under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.