And You Thought WE Were Livid About Immigration?

Yes, we're pretty ticked at the deal. We're happy, though, that the compromise was nixed today in the Senate. Both sides are pointing their fingers at one another. But while the issue of immigration may end with them, Michelle Malkin points out that the buck ultimately stops with the president. Needless to say, she's pretty pi**ed off. Below, cited so our readers can see it first-hand, is her diatribe regarding immigration, and the ineptitude presented by those in charge of ICE. (All emphasis is mine.)

The arrest of Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian J. Doyle on felony charges of sexually preying on a undercover cop posing as a 14-year-old girl this week is just the latest debacle for the bureaucratic behemoth.

I dealt with Doyle a few times while reporting on the incompetence of leaders at the Federal Air Marshals Service over the past couple of years. He was a standard-issue, CYA mouthpiece. And as disgusted rank-and-file employees of the agency will tell you, DHS is full of them.

The mess at DHS stands as Towering Reason Number One to oppose the Senate's border security sellout. For the last four years, I've reported repeatedly on the immigration bureaucracy's inability to enforce our laws and protect the American public--let alone protect its own employees and police itself.

Leadership positions under the Bush administration's pre-9/11 INS and post-9/11 DHS have been filled by cronies with little or no experience in immigration law and immigration enforcement.

First there was James Ziglar, a Paine Webber banker whose main qualifications for the nation's top immigration enforcement job were his boyhood friendship with Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott and his effortless ability to suck up to Sen. Ted Kennedy--and whose law enforcement background consisted of less than three years as the U.S. Senate's sergeant-at-arms and doorkeeper, protecting the Senate gavel and playing Senate hall monitor.

Then there was Eduardo Aguirre, another banker with zero immigration law experience whom President Bush named to head the Department of Homeland Security's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Then there was Julie Myers, whose uncle is Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and whose husband is DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff's current chief of staff, John F. Wood. With virtually no experience in immigration law or immigration enforcement, the 36-year-old Myers was named head of the beleaguered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).

Then there was Emilio T. Gonzalez, Aguirre's replacement at CIS--yet another appointee with no immigration law expertise whatsoever outside his own personal experience as a Cuban refugee.

I've reported on many other bureaucratic horror stories along the way. Here's the sordid tale of the former head of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service's counterterrorism unit, Walter Cadman and his former colleagues at Miami's former INS office who illustrate the "screw up, move up" culture in the immigration bureaucracy. And there's the disturbing tale of one of the managers involved in DeadHijackerVisaGate, Janis Sposato. I also tracked the story of two veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who detailed gross mismanagement by supervisors at the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC), which is supposed to share information with state and local police agencies about the immigration status of aliens suspected of crimes or under arrest.

In November 2002, I reported on how the then-INS had recently granted American citizenship to a known terrorist under investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. Countless of my columns and blog posts have been devoted here to the continuing outrage of "catch and release." (More on that to come.) We've pounded away at the still-broken deportation system over at The Immigration Blog; my backgrounder on the subject was published by the Center for Immigration Studies.

Other messes still not fixed: asylum laxity, religious visa fraud, abysmal lack of information-sharing and database integration, and interior enforcement that remains a joke.

What is the point of this? Simple. The same old song-and-dance from the administratyion doesn't hold up to scrutiny. People who are completely unqualified are in positions of power, or have been in such positions, and they're not doing their job. As we can see in Michelle's superb investigative reporting, the administration has failed in respect to immigration. And we know why, as well.

We have two sides to this debate that seem to be sucking all the oxygen out of the debate. We have those in favor of illegal immigration that wants this nation to shut up, and let them come and go as they please without any sort of enforcement or oversight. And we have the Pat Buchanan followers that want everyone rounded up and shipped home. Oh, and there are the ones out there shouting at people like us, and Michelle Malkin, proclaiming that they know more than we do. These are usually made up of those connected to the government, ICE, and the border patrol.

Let me remind those people that we have never ripped up the border patrol for their jobs. It's thankless, tedious, and tough, and they do the best they can with what they have. However, I hold nothing back on ICE. It's a joke, and a bad one at that. As to our detractors, yes, we do know what we're talking about. WE--Marcie and myself--are on the "front lines" of this war on illegal immigration. We live in Arizona, and we have seen what has happened over the last ten years. It isn't getting any better, and if it's not addressed in the right way, as quickly as possible, the outcome on this subject will be an absolute disaster.

Call your representatives, and let them know what you think. This is the only way they're going to know how ticked you are, and what you really want.

Publius II