“I’m a 19-year-old girl who’s a freshman at Arizona State University,” she said. “I declared myself as a pre-med clinical laboratory scientist major and I want to go to medical school and become a surgeon.”

Lizbeth now faces an uncertain future. The scholarship sponsor has run out of money and Lizbeth says there’s no way she can pay out-of-state tuition.

“If they could just have some compassion for the students who lost scholarships,” she said. “As of right now, we don’t know how we’re going to to to school next semester, or if we’re even going to be able to go to school.”

Lizbeth said she has worked hard at her schooling.

“I was on the honor roll for many years in high school, and I did just as well or better than a lot of students who were in high school with me,” she said.

She said she now feels that, “They’re making us seem like we’re criminals instead of just people that are trying to better our lives.”

Sanctions bill stands…for now.

The Arizona’s Employer Sanctions Law stands for now.

A federal appeals court refused Thursday to bar prosecutors from enforcing Arizona’s new employer-sanctions law while they hear arguments on its legality.

The judges of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected arguments by lawyers for business groups and their allies that they should not let prosecutors investigate, and potentially bring charges against, companies accused of knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

This is only a temporary victory. The 9th Circuit Court of appeals will hear the case, they just chose not to rush it. The case briefs are due in the spring with the trial taking place sometime this summer. Keep in mind the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is the most liberal court in America.

Meanwhile, the virtual border fence has been delayed.

Virtual Border Fence hits delay

From The Washington Post:

The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a “virtual fence” along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.

Why? Technical problems. But, a three year delay?

Technical problems discovered in a 28-mile pilot project south of Tucson prompted the change in plans, Department of Homeland Security officials and congressional auditors told a House subcommittee.

Though the department took over that initial stretch Friday from Boeing, authorities confirmed that Project 28, the initial deployment of the Secure Border Initiative network, did not work as planned or meet the needs of the U.S. Border Patrol.

Employers Sanctions Law is still alive

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to allow an emergency injunction to block the law. The court also denied an expedited schedule for the law. Instead, briefs will be due in the spring with the case being tried in the summer. That will be followed by a ruling.

In a previous agreement, the county attorneys said they wouldn’t prosecute a business until March 1st at the earliest.

The lawsuit is being brought by several Arizona businesses who formed together to form the group, Wake Up Arizona!. They are joined by Chambers of Commerce in both Arizona and the U.S. as well as a number of Hispanic groups.

Study: Immigrants don’t commit crimes

Reuters writes:

Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S.-born citizen to commit crime in California, the most populous state in the United States, according to a report issued late on Monday. People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California’s adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California showed.

Keep in mind this says immigrants, not illegal immigrants. There have been several stories and studies like this over the past few months. There is no doubt it is in response to the illegal immigration fervor.

Here is another one from April of 2007:

Legal and illegal immigrants are far less likely than nativeborn Americans to be incarcerated for crimes, according to a new statistical analysis of 2000 Census data.

The findings were released Monday by the Immigration Policy Center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that studies contributions by immigrants

I would expect nothing less. Immigrants who come here legally (and most illegals) want to make a better life for themselves. Why would they jeopardize that by committing crimes and potentially ending up in jail? It is hard to provide for your family if you are incarcerated.

The Public Policy Institute of California study also says:

Long-standing fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified. The report also noted that U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate more than 2 1/2 times greater than that of foreign-born men.

Most Americans don’t fear both legal and illegal immigrants. Sure, some do. But, most people just want to see the rule of law prevail. We have to follow the law, so should you.

Have we learned anything after the 9-11 attacks?

Brian Ross from ABC News reports apparently not much.

Under the new laws, American flight schools are only supposed to provide pilot training to foreign students who have been given a background check by the TSA and have a specific type of visa.

But in thousands of cases that has not happened, according to the documents and current and former government officials involved in the program.

A TSA Official, Richard A Horn complained in 2005 that students taking training courses didn’t have the proper background checks and visas,

“Some of the very same conditions that allowed the 9-11 tragedy to happen in the first place are still very much in existence today…Thousands of aliens, some of whom may very well pose a threat to this country, are taking flight lessons, being granted FAA certifications and are flying planes.

It has been over 6 years from the most dreadful day in modern history. Our borders remain wide open, we haven’t altered our visa policies enough to make a difference and the FBI is fast tracking more visa applications without thorough background checks. What really has changed then?

The candidates for the White House have been touting their experience as reasons to vote for them. But, if their experience only makes matters worse, why are we even thinking about voting for them?

LA Times: It’s getting hard out there for illegal immigrants

The Los Angeles Times writes this today:

It’s getting ugly out there for illegal immigrants. States and cities are cracking down with harsh new ordinances, and the courts are upholding them. Not only are deportations at record highs, but immigrants are being detained at places previously understood to be off-limits, such as schools. The debate about illegal immigration, labor, social justice and international trade has devolved into open season on illegal immigrants.

Let us remind ourselves that states and cities are cracking down on their own because the Federal Government and our Washington politicians will not lead on the issue. It’s clear people want something down about illegal immigration. State and city leaders know this. Even here in Phoenix, Mayor Phil Gordon recognized it. Our state lawmakers recognized it. And they did something about it. Other states are following. Oklahoma, New Jersey, Indiana, Missouri and several others are doing what they can to curb the problem.

The Times goes even further:

With the spirit of Dred Scott hovering over his pen, Judge James H. Payne wrote that illegal immigrants do not have the right to sue: “An illegal alien, in willful violation of federal immigration law, is without standing to challenge the constitutionality of a state law, when compliance with federal law would absolve the illegal alien’s constitutional dilemma.”

Wow. Did they really just do that? This is what has become of the illegal immigration debate. Scary. Should we mistreat people because they are here illegally. Of course not. Should we remind them that there are legal processes to come to the United States?

Indiana Fights over Illegal Immigration

Arizona isn’t the only state to be fighting over illegal immigration (remember that issue?). We have our Employer Sanction’s Law. Indiana “Republicans walked off the floor in protest of procedural moves” made by Democrats to prevent them from voting on anti-immigration measures.

From the Indy Star:

Republicans accused Democrats of using a sneaky maneuver to prevent them from offering changes to legislation that could penalize employers who hire illegal immigrants. Republicans left the floor around 6:30 p.m., and Democratic House Speaker Patrick Bauer declared around 8 p.m. that the chamber was in recess until Monday.

Still don’t think this is a nationwide problem?

‘Revolution’ one of the R’s taught in Tucson

Arizona Republic Column

Doug Maceachern

Feb. 16, 2008 04:49 PM

Last in a three-part series.

Augustine Romero, director of Tucson Unified School District’s ethnic-studies department, is nothing if not candid about his program.

Traditional history and civics courses, Romero argues, have “been highly ineffective to children of color.” He has a better way.That better way, as presented to students in Romero’s increasingly influential program, is, effectively, revolution. Or, if that “R-word” strikes you as too edgy, resistance - a resistance against history and civics as traditionally taught, which Romero considers the product of “ultraconservatives.”

“With the ultraconservative orientation, people want to believe that if you offer a naive, simplistic, color-blind orientation, that’s the only truth.

“We transcend indoctrination because we offer multiple perspectives. It’s a higher level of thinking.”

If Romero’s words sound politically anchored, they should. Romero happily acknowledges that he and all his instructors are “progressives,” and he is contemptuous of teachers who resist admitting that all history instruction is political.

“Our teachers are left-leaning. They are progressives. They’re going to have things (in their courses) that conservatives are not going to like,” he told me.

“Their concern is that it’s not their political orientation. To sit here and say teachers don’t walk into the classroom with a political orientation, that’s the furthest (thing) from the truth.”

Romero is a confident man. Not unlike that self-assured aide-de-camp of Fidel Castro, Ché Guevara, whose romantic portrait has been hung in Romero’s ethnic-studies classrooms.

Ché, too, believed the world was divided between progressives and ultraconservative reactionaries, many of whom he imprisoned and shot.

In one of Romero’s TUSD classrooms, in fact, a video posted for a time on the Internet Web site YouTube showed at least four separate posters of the beret-capped Ché decorating the classroom walls. And a poster of Pancho Villa. And, yes, one poster of the godfather of the revolution himself, Fidel.

Romero’s confidence about his program and its future at TUSD is justified. It is growing rapidly.

The $2.6 million “ethnic studies” program in the Tucson school district is an umbrella program for four separate departments: “raza” (Hispanic) studies, African-American studies, Pan-Asian studies and Native American studies. Raza studies are by far the largest.

At Tucson High School, the department offers 12 separate literature and history courses. Districtwide, it offers 25 course sections in four high schools, all at junior and senior levels. According to Romero, TUSD may offer an “intercultural proficiencies” course next fall to freshmen. And, he adds, it may be a required course.

Romero’s program has raised some eyebrows. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who had a devil of a time even learning about the program’s curriculum, has seen the program’s texts (at last). He concludes they are steeped in leftist ideology and race-based resentment.

But the real horrors of Romero’s program are closer to home.

In the past several weeks, messages have filtered out from teachers and other TUSD employees (some directed to Horne; others who have contacted me, following two previous columns on this subject) about what an officially recognized resentment-based program does to a high school.

In a word, it creates fear.

Teachers and counselors are being called before their school principals and even the district school board and accused of being racists. And with a cadre of self-acknowledged “progressive” political activists in the ethnic-studies department on the hunt, the race transgressors are multiplying.

One school counselor, who wrote to Horne, described an entire counseling department being decried as a racist after one of Romero’s activists saw an “innocuous notation” on a draft paper drawn up from a department brain-storming session.

The ethnic-studies teacher “grossly misinterpreted” the notation to have racist meaning, the counselor said. The teacher wrote a letter to the parents of his students “telling them the school’s counselors are racist” and encouraged his students to sign the letter.

“I can tell you that the weeks that followed were difficult ones for the counselors,” the TUSD school counselor wrote.

“There were many tears. Most of us lost sleep. All of us experienced heightened levels of anxiety. Through no fault of our own, we were being perceived differently by our students and their parents.”

Ethnic-studies director Romero points to the confidence his program instills in its students. And, allegedly, the better grades they get, once imbued with his program’s “multiple perspectives.”

But to every revolution - or, if you must, every resistance to oppressors - there is a dark side. There are victims.

Ché would understand.

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