Philip Cummings (who is African-American, a relevant factor here), stole the credit card information from 30,000 clients of Long Island's Teledata. He sold this information to a "mostly Nigerian" crime ring in New York.
The "Nigerian con-man" is another ethnic stereotype with a lot of truth in it. That's why you keep getting those emails offering to share ill-gotten loot in exchange for your bank account details. David Simcox wrote in 1993,
As many as 100,000 Nigerians are now in the United States. Nearly half of them originally entered the United States with nonimmigrant (temporary) foreign student visas. Citing Nigerian sources, U.S. law enforcement officials estimate that 75 to 90 percent of them have been involved in an impressive and innovative variety of fraud schemes, often using extensive Nigerian networks across the country.
But Philip Cummings? With a name like that, surely he must be an American African-American - rather than an African African-American?
Well, it turns out that he too, is an immigrant. But not from Nigeria.
According to the U.K. paper The Scotsman, he's a "Briton." (See "Briton on $2.7m fraud charge," by David Cox, November 28, 2002)
A change in attitudes may be happening on the subject of free education for illegal aliens. The Attorney General of Virginia has told colleges and universities not to enroll illegals, and to report them to the authorities. In one case, [Illegal Immigrants Still Being Enrolled at NVCC by Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, November 29] a community college is still enrolling illegals. But at least it's charging them out-of-state tuition.
"'We're not trying to open our doors to terrorists or people who were trying to sneak across our borders,' said Max L. Bassett, vice president of academic and student services at NVCC. 'We are trying to serve residents who have been here for many years.'"
Apparently, the decision to admit illegals in 1989 was caused by an earlier legal problem.
"In 1989, according to Bassett, the college denied admission to undocumented students. But then a valedictorian from a Northern Virginia high school, a longtime resident who was undocumented, applied. She was denied admission and a debate ensued.
"After consulting with the attorney general's office then, the college soon after abandoned its prohibition on undocumented students. The undocumented high school valedictorian was admitted.
"'We were advised that it was more defensible from a legal perspective to admit this person rather than deny this person,' Bassett said. He noted that times have changed."
Times have changed, although the Bush administration doesn't seem to want to change with them.
At least universities are legally able to refuse illegals. Public schools aren't allowed to because of the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Plyler vs. Doe.
Justice Brennan wrote that denying free education to the children of illegal aliens would impose a "lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status."
Of course, this would only be true if they spent their entire lives in the United States. What if they went home?
Jonathan Farley, an African-American mathematician at Vanderbilt University [send him mail], recently (November 20) wrote an incredible piece in the Nashville Tenneseean saying that
"Every Confederate soldier, by the mores of his age and ours, deserved not a hallowed resting place at the end of his days but a reservation at the end of the gallows"
And that
"Indeed, the race problems that wrack America to this day are due largely to the fact that the Confederacy was not thoroughly destroyed, its leaders and soldiers executed and their lands given to the landless freed slaves."
1.4 million men served in the Confederate Army. Executing all of them would have been unprecedented.
Erin O'Connor's blog says
"Isn't it wonderful how readily the fight against racism becomes indistinguishable from the worst sorts of supremacist thinking? How quickly the demand for tolerance and inclusion becomes a call for extermination?"
Apparently what inspired Farley was the dispute over Vanderbilt's decision to change the name of Confederate Memorial Hall despite the fact that it was paid for by the United Daughters of the Confederacy when it was donated in 1935.
Farley's article has produced a "backlash." People made more
"…than 1,000 phone calls and e-mails and demanded that professor Jonathan Farley be fired in the weeks since Farley's essay appeared in The Tennessean."
The University is standing by him. (Of course.) He's committed the One Permitted Hate. If he were to malign Arabs or fly the American flag, he could be firmly dealt with by University authorities.
Farley is himself the child of West Indian immigrants - an example of the fresh perspectives that immigration brings.
ABC News reports (December 2) a statement by the pope under the headline "Pope Asks Catholics to Welcome Immigrants | Pope John Paul II Denounces Racism, Xenophobia and the 'Terrible Crime' of Human Trafficking"
However, the headline could have been different if the reporter's focus had changed a little:
Pope Tells Immigrants To Obey The Law
At the same time, the pope said immigrants must "honor the countries which receive them," respecting the laws, culture and traditions.
Pope warns of immigration related prostitution crisis
The pope lamented that the most vulnerable immigrants, especially women and children, are often victims of "the terrible crime of human trafficking."
Pope condemns "reconquista" movement
"Even in the recent past we have witnessed tragic instances of forced movements of peoples for ethnic and nationalistic pretension, which have added untold misery to the lives of targeted groups," John Paul said.
Of course, the Catholic Church is a big factor in American immigrationist politics (see my article on Catholic Bishops And Immigration). But open immigration is not actually an article of the Catholic faith, as Pat Buchanan and Chilton Williamson could tell you. For a perspective on this, and on the virtue of prudence as it applies to nation-states faced with massive immigration (like Italy), we suggest that the Holy Father should read Chilton's St. Augustine and the National Question.
The appointment of "Iran-Contra Figure" Elliot Abrams to a member of the National Security Council gives me an excuse to mention that we're posting a number of older Brimelow pieces in his archive. So, for example, when you hear people who should know better referring to Abrams as a felon, you can refer to Peter Brimelow's 1992 story on Abrams' persecution by Lawrence Walsh, with insights into the last days of the Reagan administration, and the Buchanan-Podhoretz quarrel.
But make sure to check the date when you're reading archived articles. When Peter referred to the "conservative movement's one chance to escape from the Bush catastrophe" it's not the Bush catastrophe you're thinking of.
December 04, 2002
