How does the United States strike a balance between security and freedom? How do we protect society without losing our civil liberties?
Since 9/11, the country has been walking a fine line. According to some, American rights are slipping away.
But at the same time, the "rights" of illegal aliens have never been so secure. Amazingly, a parallel and more lenient legal system is emerging for illegal alien foreigners.
Examples:
Yet, every day, illegal aliens—criminals by definition—are simply released into the US after only brief detention. No thought of applying the Hiibel ruling to them.
The Carmichaels stand up for what they believe in. David was even kicked out of the Navy over the issue.
In 2002, the Virginia DMV denied the Carmichaels driver's licenses when they would not provide their social security numbers.
Later, Leslie Carmichael was convicted of driving without a license. She appealed, but the circuit court recently upheld the lower court decision. (Couple suffers legal setback over Social Security number, Kim O'Brien Root Daily Press, April 24, 2004)
The Carmichaels are U.S. citizens who reside in Hampton, Virginia. However, if they were illegal aliens living in North Carolina, they could easily obtain a driver's license without a social security number—let alone proof of legal residence. In fact, North Carolina makes it easy for illegal aliens, by accepting the Mexican matricula consular as a proof of in-state residency. (Check out the North Carolina DMV website.)
Or, as illegal aliens, the Carmichaels could have traveled from Hampton to Maryland, another state that issues driver's licenses no questions asked.
There are 20 other states which require no proof of legal residence for a driver's license: Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.
Meanwhile Los Angeles has proposed the prohibition or at least the restriction of what it considers a real public menace—Silly String.
That's right, the same city where Special Order 40 prohibits cooperation between the police and immigration authorities, making LA a haven for illegal alien criminal gangs, has decided that while immigration law may not be worth enforcing, Silly String merits a crack-down.
In other words, LA officially encourages the open violation of immigration law, but may just crack down on Silly String.
Apologists for amnesty tell us that illegal aliens "live in the shadows." Wrong! They walk about openly and constitute a protected class. They reside in an alternative legal universe, immune from the rules that govern regular citizens.
On the rare occasions illegal aliens may be apprehended, they are often released under orders from immigration authorities. Some are assured, as they recently were in Houston, that they will not be deported.
Illegal aliens blatantly, and in the full light of day, line up at their local Mexican consulate to receive a matricula consular card, a document used exclusively by illegal aliens.
Incredibly, even the U.S. government, at various levels, accepts the matricula consular as de facto proof of legal residence!
The matricula consular's defenders (principally the Mexican government and its American collaborators) insist that it should be accepted in complete confidence anywhere in the U.S.
Just ask Gil Cedillo, a California state senator who campaigns tirelessly for driver's licenses for illegal aliens. Within the legislature, Cedillo is called "One-Bill Gil."
Cedillo might as well be working for the Mexican government. He certainly does its bidding. Cedillo attended last year's Mexico City meeting for pro-Mexican Latino officials from the U.S.
This year Cedillo, still at it, met with Mexican Foreign Minister Derbez for yet another discussion about driver's licenses for illegal aliens.
But the "security" Cedillo claims for the matricula consular would be for Mexico only—not the U.S.! The matricula consular database is controlled by the Mexican government. It cannot be accessed by U.S. authorities. (See my previous articles on the matricula consular: Abolishing America (contd.): Mexico Ceded Right To Say Whom U.S. Can Deport and Good News And Bad News On The Matricula Consular.)
In Mexico, the matricula consular is rarely used. No major Mexican bank accepts it. That should tell you all you need to know.
Mexico's official ID is the Mexican voter registration card.
The proven success of the Mexican voter ID in elections is that it is used in conjunction with a book of photographs of every voter in the precinct. When a Mexican citizen comes to vote, election workers already have a book with the photo of every voter in the precinct. If the photos match, they vote. It's much better than our slipshod Motor Voter registration system.
The Mexican voter ID card, widely used throughout the country, is the de facto Mexican national ID.
Even I have been asked to produce it. Of course, I have to explain that I don't have one. As an American citizen, I don't vote in Mexico. (Nor do I meddle in Mexican politics.)
Once, I received a check from the U.S. Treasury that I tried to cash at a local bank. At the currency exchange, I was told that to cash it I needed a Mexican voter ID card. When I explained to the young cashier why I don't have one, and he smirkingly told me "You're in Mexico."
So I couldn't cash a U.S. Treasury check because I wasn't a Mexican citizen.
Mexican law discriminates too—but against foreigners, not in favor of them.
(There must be a lot of U.S. treasury checks making their way to Mexico. In the currency exchange booth, there was a sign explaining the procedure for cashing them! Just imagine what it will be like when Social Security totalization really gets rolling!)
Meanwhile, don't imagine that massive illegal immigration is going to transform our nation into some sort of libertarian anarcho-Arcadia.
What we have emerging now is one law for American citizens, another—and more lenient—for illegal aliens.
American citizen Allan Wall has been living and working legally in Mexico, where he held an FM-2 residency and work permit and is married with two children. But his Texas Army National Guard Brigade, where he serves in a unit composed almost entirely of Americans of Mexican ancestry, has been now mobilized and may be in Iraq for up to two years. He wrote this before he left.
Wall's VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his FRONTPAGEMAG.COM articles are archived here; his website is here. Readers can contact Allan Wall at allan39@prodigy.net.mx.
