Dumb and dumber on immigration
Dumb…
Texas Governor Rick Perry, he of the Teabag Nation, has a new fun trick to appeal to wingnuts this election season: Sending Elite Texas Rangers to the border to fight the hordes of Mexican illegals rustling cattle. There’s just one problem. Local lawmakers have no idea what he’s talking about. The incidence of illegal aliens being apprehended is down by double digits in the areas where Perry has dispatched his Rinches. (So-called by Tejanos back in the days when Texas Rangers used to lynch Mexicans for fun.)
And dumber…
In a chapter in his new book purporting to explain to “idiots” what “our Founding Fathers really intended,” [U.S. radio ranter and Fox News commentator] Glenn Beck praises an obsolete provision of the U.S. Constitution that prohibited Congress from outlawing the slave trade before 1808 and capped taxes on the slave trade at $10 per slave. In his explanation of the provision, Beck does not mention slavery, saying instead that the provision means that the Founders apparently “felt like there was a value to being able to live here” and lamenting: “Not anymore. These days we can’t ask anything of immigrants — including that they abide by our laws.”
Mr. Beck’s laughable assumption that Article One, Section Nine of the United States Constitution had something to do with immigration was stupid. Not knowing that immigration fees are are considerable hardship on would-be immigrants is stupidity squared. Erwin at Latin Americanist (a smart cubed guy) writes:
In 2007, fees for citizenship and other immigration paperwork were dramatically boosted; the cost of applying for citizenship was $400 but is currently $675. Yet the new director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) said yesterday that fees may soon have to be raised again due to “financial challenges”. Alejandro Mayorkas blamed the economic slump and (ironically) the fee increase for a decrease in applicants and agency revenue.
The Mex Files 