The latest crime trend in Mexico City is “express kidnapping” in which a person is held for a couple hours and forced to hand over their bank debit card and pin number. The victim is often snatched when innocently taking a cab [Mexico City style applied economics 101, Reuters 8/31/06].

FYI, Mexico ranks #2 in the world for kidnapping.

“I’m really sorry. This is my job,” the man said, wiping his fingerprints from my debit card.

He slipped it back to me under a table in a crowded downtown restaurant where a Mexican friend and I had been held hostage for a half an hour that felt like two days. [...]

Express kidnappings have become so common in Mexico that taking a street taxi — which thieves often use to capture their victims — is akin to playing Russian roulette. Many end in violence and sometimes death.

It’s this failing state, crumbling from crime and corruption, that Presidente Bush wants to join with America in the shotgun marriage from hell, aka the North American Union.

An Anglo Lawyer in Texas writes, in response to my previous item:

I would like to recommend that you read The Texas Rangersby Walter Prescott Webb which he wrote in 1938 while some of the Rangers who were active in the fight against Mexican raiders were still alive.

I have been reading this book lately and I now realize this border stuff is nothing new. The inaction of the Feds is nothing new.

In the 1800’s and 1900’s, the Mexicans were coming across to raid, murder and pillage. They were supported by the Mexican military. They were also supported by some of the Mexicans on this side of the Rio Grande.

Reconquista was alive then and it’s alive now.

What you say about the Spanish-surnamed city officials in Laredo is nothing new. For example,it is rare for the top lawfirms in Texas to send Anglo (or Scots-Irish descendant) lawyers to Laredo or the Valley for trial–unless they speak fluent Spanish. Courtroom lore is rife with examples of judges allowing everyone in the courtroom to speak Spanish in those courtrooms to the disadvantage of the American non-Spanish speakers. I have always had a Spanish-speaking lawyer lined up to help me with clients in South Texas and Laredo because of this.

A review of history will again prove that there is truly nothing new under the sun.

The Media Research Center has always done good work exposing media bias, but very little about immigration over the years.

They’ve issued a special report:Election In The Streets How The Broadcast Networks Promote Illegal Immigration [By Tim Graham, MRC Director of Media Analysis August 28, 2006 Full Report | PDF Version]

I discovered this on Reason Magazine’s Hit and Run blog, where Katherine Mangu-Ward deserves some credit for saying

I love illegal immigrants (and their protests) as much as the next guy, but this kind of coverage screws us all in the end. When each side has its own set of facts, it just means more tiresome dinner conversations where everyone accuses the other side of lying and no one ever changes their minds, squabbling even as illegal Mexican busboys clear away the plates after dessert.

My position, as I’ve said, is “while people are entitled to their opinions, they aren’t entitled to their own facts.”

Yesterday, an Afghan immigrant used his SUV as a weapon and ran down more than a dozen people in the San Francisco Bay area. The rampage started in Fremont, where 29-year-old Omeed Aziz Popal struck and killed a man walking in a bike lane.

He then drove 33 miles in busy mid-day traffic, crossing the Bay Bridge to reach San Francisco, where he proceeded to run down at least 14 pedestrians and a bike rider. He struck people in crosswalks and on the sidewalk, starting in the Tenderloin and ending up in Laurel Heights (map). In one case, he returned to chase down a good Samaritan who was trying to help a victim. At the Jewish Community Center on California, he hit two people on the sidewalk.

Predictably, the family goes for the insanity defense, saying Popal has been strange since he returned from his arranged marriage in Afghanistan, where his wife remains a month later. And yes, the local Afghan community is concerned about a “backlash”: they are “worried about what Popal’s
arrest might mean for other area Afghans.” If they expressed any concern for the many victims, some in critical condition, it wasn’t in the papers.

Daniel Pipes has coined a term, Sudden Jihad Syndrome, for Muslims living in the west who are thought reasonable yet suddenly start mass-murdering infidels. The occasion of the phrase was when another SUV-driving Muslim immigrant, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, ran down nine people at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill last March.

After the horrific shootings in July at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle in which one woman was killed, I suggested that the interior culture clash of young Muslim immigrants can unhinge some, at which time they revert to the jihadist ideology of killing infidels learned in the mosque. Popal might well have been psychologically stressed, but if so, it was his religion and culture which defined how he acted out that anxiety.

But in the uber-lib media of the San Francisco Bay Area, the word “Muslim” is apparently hard for many reporters to spell, and “terrorist” even more so. At this time, no media source has even called Popal an immigrant, though one article admitted he was “born in Afghanistan.” In many others, the perp is “a Fremont man.”

There is a big problem with importing avowed enemies to America and calling it immigration diversity. One symptom is the growing incidence of culture- and religion-based murders of Americans by Muslims. But you won’t find that discussion in the MSM, only in Vdare.com and other purveyors of reason in the blogosphere.

This piece is a rare discussion from a Hispanic person (Rev. Nelson Quinones) who admits that maybe, just maybe, the mayhem exploding from immigrant enclaves is a major problem.

What led Latinos to Hazleton was not the gun violence Mayor Barletta attempted to keep at bay, but racial consciousness, which accused the mayor of targeting Latino immigrants. Yet, the Latino leadership agenda said little to nothing regarding Mayor Barletta’s concern: The shooting and killing of a 29-year-old man by an undocumented Latino immigrant, and the arrest of a 14-year-old Latino for firing a gun at a playground.

In 2005, Allentown set a record for homicides with 21 record murders. Close to half of the homicide victims had Latino surnames. In addition, several of those arrested had Latinos surnames. Recently, the Lehigh County Homicide Task Force arrested three suspects alleged to have been involved in a homicide last year. Two were identified with Latino surnames.

Jose Rosado, assistant principal of East Hills Middle School in Bethlehem, has publicly discussed his disappointment with the lack of Latino participation at a drug and crime forum held in Bethlehem. During that forum, a desecrated Puerto Rican flag was shown with gang graffiti symbols. Meanwhile in Bethlehem, homicide charges were filed against Latino parents of a 10-month-old infant who died from ingested heroin at home. In Reading, a Latino suspect was charged with first-degree murder in the killing of a police officer. [ Latinos can't ignore violent crime in immigration debate, Allentown [PA] Morning Call, August 28, 2006]

The truth is not pretty. The cultural propensity toward crime is clear. Mexico is #6 in the world in murders per capita in a tough field. Even the Washington Post wrote, For Many in Mexico, Bribes a Way of Life. Drug cartels continue to increase their control over whole regions of northern Mexico (See here scroll down.). Mexico is violent, lawless and corrupt. It’s the Third World.

Millions of Mexicans have broken the law to enter the US and get more money. Why should anyone be surprised that individual Mexicans commit violent crimes in communities to which they have no connection other than greed?

I got an email from the SPLC that said

[TX] Border Patrol Chief, Mayor want nothing to do with Minutemen
Laredo Morning Times / August 24, 2006
Neither the chief of Border Patrol in the Laredo sector nor Laredo’s mayor are happy that Jim Gilchrist’s Minutemen are coming to town.

I am not surprised that a senior law enforcement officer and a local politician are opposed to citizens defending themselves and their nation–but there’s a detail that wasn’t included in the the original email.

The Border Patrol guy is Acting Chief Patrol Agent Reynaldo Garza, his Deputy Chief is John Cristian Esquivel, the Mayor of Laredo is Raul Salinas. Is it surprising that they don’t want the Minutemen?

[TX] Border Patrol Chief, Mayor want nothing to do with Minutemen
Laredo Morning Times / August 24, 2006

The head of the Border Patrol said Wednesday he doesn’t want members of the Minuteman Project working near his agents when they come to the Laredo area next month. The civilian group, which reports illegal immigrants to immigration authorities, is expected to start patrolling the border in the Laredo area on Sept. 11 and continue through Nov. 7.

Acting Chief Patrol Agent Reynaldo Garza of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Laredo Sector said he can’t prevent the civilians from coming to Laredo, but said they won’t be allowed to interfere with official business.

John Cristian Esquivel, deputy chief, said the agency wants to know where the Minuteman members will be to avoid any problems.

“We’re not going to tell them what they can or can’t do. They are responsible for their own actions,” Esquivel said. “They can be on private property. It’s a matter of who will allow them to occupy their land.” [...]

Mayor Raul Salinas said that if any of the members of the Minuteman Project violate the law, they will be arrested just as any other citizen.

“The Border Patrol forces are professionals and they have maintained peace and safety,” Salinas said. “I think they (Minuteman members) are simply looking for publicity.”

Salinas said Jim Gilchrist, founder of the civilian group, is just looking for media attention to help sell his new book…

The Laredo Morning Times reports
[SPLCenter.org: Immigration Watch for August 29, 2006]

Since the title of the Congressional Testimony referred to below was Born in the U.S.A.? Rethinking Birthright Citizenship in the Wake of 9/11 , I was looking for an online soundfile of Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA for you to listen to online. I was amused to find that one of the search results on HypeMachine was not Springsteen, but a cover by Jose Gonzalez, with an intro in Spanish.

I thought, “Well, he probably was born in the USA. Maybe even in New Jersey, like the Boss.A lot of people are these days.“ Turns out Jose was born in Sweden, to Argentinian parents.

This is almost a year old, but I saw it on Hugh Hewitt today. Vdare.com was on this before 9/11:Weigh Anchor! Enforce The Citizenship Clause, August 31, 2001, by Howard Sutherland, who right next to Ground Zero 11 days later. Peter Brimelow was on it even earlier, see here for his personal involvement.

JOHN C. EASTMAN
Chapman University School of Law; The Claremont Institute Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence September 29, 2005

Abstract:
Testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives, Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security, and Claims (Sept. 29, 2005) contends that the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment has been misconstrued as mandating birthright citizenship. Rather, the clause was a codification of the 1866 Civil Rights Act, which quite clearly exempted from the automatic citizenship provisions children of parents who owed allegiance to a foreign power - i.e., those who were in the U.S. only temporarily (and particularly those who were in the U.S. illegally). This was the understanding of those who drafted and those who ratified the 14th Amendment, and was confirmed by the Supreme Court in the first two cases to address the clause. In 1898, the Court reversed course, though, holding that the Clause mandated birthright citizenship, resulting in a repudiation of the principle of bilateral consent as the foundation for citizenship.SSRN-Born in the U.S.A.? Rethinking Birthright Citizenship in the Wake of 9/11 by John Eastman

A PDF of the whole testimony is here.

There’s more news to file in the “Mexico: Failed State” folder. The country is now so violent and lawless that financiers are rethinking investment there [Mexico's power vacuum lets drug terror spread , Dallas Morning News, 8/27/06].

The historic level of drug violence not only threatens Mexican judges and politicians, who once were immune, but also American tourists and U.S. investors, as the cartels move into vacation corridors such as Acapulco-Zihuatanejo on the Pacific Coast, and Morelia-Uruapan in the central state of Michoacan.

A Dallas businessman recently pulled out of a $40 million project near the Zihuatanejo resort.

“We didn’t think this was the right moment,” said Carol Davenport, a real estate agent from Arlington, Texas, now working in Mexico, who represented the businessman. “The dire situation didn’t exactly inspire investor confidence,” she added, referring to a rash of killings in the area.

The scale of the lawlessness, its geographical reach, and the apparent inability of the government to keep it in check threaten Mexico’s political stability, some analysts warn.

Inability to enforce the law and preserve order over territory is the definition of a failed state. A major negative milestone occurred in June 2005 when el Presidente Fox sent the Army into Nuevo Laredo to quell the drug cartel war, and the violence only got worse. After a few weeks, the Mexican Army simply gave up and left.

Since then, the once active border city has declined precipitously, with at least 40 and perhaps over 100 businesses closing.

Yet there is little if any response from Washington to the danger from Mexico’s worsening drug cartel anarchy spreading north. If anything, Mexican thugs recently got a full speed ahead message from the Bush Justice Department by the shocking prosecution of two Border Patrol agents, in which a drug smuggler got immunity and is suing us taxpayers for $5 million.

Another disturbing symptom is that Mexican drug cartels have further extended their reach into American national forest lands. Forget about safe hiking.

But Washington remains brain dead about encroaching anarchy. Do our elected representatives believe America is immune from becoming a failed state? They shouldn’t.

Kathy Shaidle points to this story from England,

This is how far we have come in the past year or so. When an ICM poll of Britain’s Muslims in February this year revealed that some 40% (that is, about 800,000 people) wished to see Islamic law introduced in parts of Britain, the chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality[!] responded by saying that they should therefore pack their bags and clear off. Sir Trevor Phillips’s exact words were these: “If you want to have laws decided in another way, you have to live somewhere else.”

My guess is this: if such a statement had been made by a member of the Tory party’s Monday Club in 1984 — or, for that matter, 1994 — he would have been excoriated and quite probably would have been kicked out of the party. “If you don’t like it here then go somewhere else” was once considered the apogee of “racism”. People who did not like it here were exhorted to exert their political muscle and change the status quo.

How right wing the left sounds after its moment of racial truth By Rod Liddle, Sunday Times, August 27, 2006

OK, that’s the head of the Commission For Racial Equality that just said go back where you came from. Under a Labour Government. Wow!

Anyhow, the same article also refers to the Ray Honeyford case, which you can read about here in the Daily Telegraph: | Headteacher who never taught again after daring to criticise multiculturalism.

The point of Telegraph story is that Honeyford has been vindicated.

Kathy Shaidle writes

No conservative in England will now be awarded the You Were Right All Along Award, and get to make an unforgettable “Oscar” type speech to an audience of millions, not to mention a knighthood.

I wrote in 2004 that Honeyford was

[U]nlikely to get any apologies from the “anti-racist” crowd.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, conservative historian Robert Conquest was asked to do a second edition of his book on Communist mass murder, The Great Terror.

All its evidence had been sneered at by left-wing historians. But naturally, with the collapse of Communism, the truth had come out, and Conquest had been totally vindicated.

When his publisher asked if he had a suggestion for a new title, he said “How about “I Told You So, You —king Fools.”

This would make a great title for a Honeyford autobiography.