Jose Alejandro Sanchez-Ramirez, Suspect in Oxnard Metrolink Crash, Previously Convicted of DUI

At LAT, "Pickup driver in Metrolink crash was previously convicted of DUI, traffic violations."

Plus, "Story So Far: Metrolink derailment."

'Long-Term English Learners'

The Hispanic demographic at my college is over 50 percent of student enrollment. Needless to say, for many, language issues create a major barrier to successful advancement through the curriculum.

At LAT, "California schools step up efforts to help 'long-term English learners'":

After more than 11 years in Los Angeles public schools, Dasha Cifuentes still isn't speaking or writing English at grade level. The U.S. native, whose parents are Mexican immigrants, was raised in a Spanish-speaking household and she acknowledges that the two languages get confused in her mind.

"I should be more confident in English because I was born here, but I'm embarrassed that I haven't improved myself," said Dasha, a junior at Fairfax High.

Now, however, she and other students like her are receiving more attention under a new state law and initiatives by L.A. Unified and other school districts. The law requires the state to define and identify a "long-term English learner," the first effort in the nation to do so.

In its inaugural data released Wednesday, the state has identified nearly 350,000 students in grades six through 12 who have attended California schools for seven years or more and are still not fluent in English. They make up three-fourths of all secondary school students still learning English.

Among them, nearly 90,000 are classified as long-term English learners because they also have failed to progress on the state's English proficiency exam for two consecutive years and score below grade level in English standardized tests.

"These kids need to be visible," said Shelly Spiegel-Coleman of Californians Together, a Long Beach-based nonprofit that promoted the legislation and released the state data. "In many instances, these students are sitting in mainstream classes and are not getting any specialized help."

A 2010 study by the nonprofit found that many students languished because schools failed to monitor their progress, provide appropriate curriculum or train teachers. Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union sued the state for allegedly failing to provide legally required services for students learning English.

In addition, Fairfax Principal Carmina Nacorda said, more than 70% of her 125 long-term English learners have educational disabilities. And many educators say that students who achieve fluency in their first language more easily learn English, but that Proposition 227, the 1998 voter-approved state initiative that severely restricted bilingual education, has impeded them from doing so.

The new focus on such students comes amid a shift in California's long-running language wars. Since Proposition 227, a counter-movement has grown promoting the teaching of two languages in dual-immersion classes. State Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens) has successfully placed a measure to repeal the proposition on the November 2016 ballot.

Shoot, we'll just have to require Spanish language proficiency for native Californians. That ought to level the playing field!

More.

Multicultural Explosion Brings Growing Pains Across the U.S.

Look, I'm for pulling back on immigration.

We need to assimilate those who're already here. But hey, mention that to the depraved leftist open-borders progs and RAAAAACIST!!

At USA Today, "Growing Pains: Multicultural explosion rattles residents."

RELATED: The late political scientist Samuel Huntington, more relevant than ever, Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity.

Latinos Get Their Own National Park to Befoul with Dirty Diapers — #SanGabrielMountains

See Five Feet of Fury, "Finally: Latinos get a National Park of their very own that they can throw garbage around in."

And following the link, from Steve Sailer:

You know, it’s not really the Evil White Man who is throwing his muchachos’ disposable diapers in the East Fork of the San Gabriel River, as this 2012 Los Angeles Times article “An Alpine Creek that Reeks” (and accompanying reader comments) makes clear.

Well, Obama calls this outdoor diaper dumpster an "awesome natural wonder."

Figures.

He's using his "pen and phone" to help out the Hispanic Huggies demographic. What a dirtbag loser.

California Drought Causes East Porterville Children to Go to School Unbathed

Now this is a bummer.

California, with the 8th largest economy in the world, and one of highest per capita income levels of the 50 states, can't even ensure that Central Valley residents have enough water.

At the Los Angeles Times, "'HI, DO YOU HAVE WATER?' IN A CENTRAL CALIF. TOWN, ANSWER IS OFTEN NO."

#Murrieta Mayor Alan Long: Illegal Alien Offloads Cost City $50 Thousand in Police Overtime

At the Los Angeles Times, "Murrieta's budget and image take a hit from immigration protests":

When it all blows over, Murrieta Mayor Alan Long says he might send the White House a bill.

Since July 1, when protesters turned away three buses of immigrant women and children scheduled to be processed in a local Border Patrol facility, Murrieta has become a focus of the debate over what to do with the thousands of detainees who have come across the border illegally since October, mostly from Central America.

City employees have worked long hours keeping residents informed, controlling protesters lined up in front of the station and fielding media inquiries.

That is taking an economic toll, said Long. City officials estimate they’ve doled out $50,000 in overtime pay.

“It’s a concern of ours from the very beginning,” Long said. “All of the resources and costs associated. … I joked about sending a bill [to the White House]. I think I will send it just to send it but I don’t anticipate being paid.”

To deal with crowds protesting at the entrance to the Border Patrol facility last week, the city’s police department increased its active patrol to 25 officers from the usual eight, at a time of the year when many officers typically go on vacation.

Several officers worked 18-hour shifts, six more hours than their usual workdays, police chief Sean Hadden said. And more officers have been assigned to mitigate the tensions at protest sites and city meetings throughout the week, Long said.

The city also has had to call for additional help from neighboring law enforcement agencies and the Border Patrol to quell the protests.

“It’s either going to cost you in money or efficiency of your organization because you’ve got to shift resources to something other than what you’re normally doing,” Long said.

More.

Muslim Prayer Rug Found in Arizona as Experts Warn of #ISIS Jihadists Slipping Through Mexican Border

At Blazing Cat Fur, "Muslim Prayer Rug Found on Arizona Border by Independent American Security Contractors."

And CBS News Dallas, "Iraqi Extremists Promising Attack Could Slip Through Mexican Border."

And here's Michael Maloof on the coming terrorist infiltration of the U.S.:



More, from Lt. Col. Alan West, "Congressman says ISIS will use southern border to enter US: Muslim prayer rug found on Arizona border."

Few Central American Illegals Will Ever Be Sent Back Home — #BorderInvasion

Of course not.

Rebecca Martinez can get f-ked sideways by a Brazilian drug gang, the freakin' idiot.

"Oh but it's only true if it's reseeeaaarrrcchh!!!" 

Screw that open-borders skank.

At the Wall Street Journal, "Few Children Are Deported: Clogged Courts Mean Young Migrants Face Low Odds of Being Sent Back Home" (at Google):

Thousands of children from Central America are undertaking a perilous journey to the U.S. border despite warnings from the U.S. that they will be sent back. In fact, many will get to stay.

Data from immigration courts, along with interviews with the children and their advocates, show that few minors are sent home and many are able to stay for years in the U.S., if not permanently. That presents a deep challenge for President Barack Obama and lawmakers as they try to shore up an overburdened deportation system.

In fiscal year 2013, immigration judges ordered 3,525 migrant children to be deported, according to Justice Department figures. Judges allowed an additional 888 to voluntarily return home without a formal removal order.

Those figures pale in comparison with the number of children apprehended by the border patrol. In each of the last five years, at least 23,000 and as many as 47,000 juveniles have been apprehended. Those totals include Mexicans, who often are sent home without formal deportation proceedings and so may not be among those ordered removed last year.

There are many reasons children end up staying. Some see their cases linger in backlogged courts and administrative proceedings. Some win the legal right to remain in the U.S. And some ignore orders to appear in court.

Children who enter the U.S. illegally often are trying to reunite with family members or escaping gang violence and poverty. The U.S. has been overwhelmed finding shelters for them, and Mr. Obama has repeatedly said that they won't be allowed to stay. But the reality on the ground—that so few are returned to their home countries—will continue to encourage more to make the journey north, said Doris Meissner, director of the Immigration Policy Program at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.

"They're here, and they're staying, and whatever else might happen to them is at least a year or more away," said Ms. Meissner, a former Immigration and Naturalization Service commissioner. "Until people's experience changes, more are going to continue to come, because they're achieving what they need: safety and reunification with their families."

Last fiscal year, immigration judges reached a decision in 6,437 juvenile cases, according to the court data. About two-thirds of the minors were ordered deported or allowed to leave the country voluntarily, and 361 were given legal status. In most other cases, the judge terminated the case, meaning the child wasn't ordered out of the U.S. but wasn't given explicit permission to stay, either.

Separate data from the Department of Homeland Security show that in fiscal 2013, about 1,600 children were actually returned to their home countries—less than half the number who were ordered removed—suggesting that some are evading deportation orders...

Oh, some are evading deportation orders?

Nah. Impossible!! Where's the reseeeaaarrrcchh?!!!

Yeah, whatever, may the odds be ever in their favor.

More at that top link.

Democrats Won't Seal Border as Traffickers Exploit Left's Permiso System of Backdoor Amnesty

So, I've been getting a kick out of this exchange with Professor Martinez, who teaches women's and gender studies at the University of Missouri–Columbia. See, "Wave of Unaccompanied Alien Children Swamps the United States — #BorderInvasion." (Also, on Hatesac's trolling, lol, "Stalking Hate-Troll Repsac3: Still Stalking. Still Hatin'. Still Trolling.")

And then I crack open this morning's Los Angeles Times and the paper reports data on illegal alien children deportations based on numbers obtained through a freedom of information request. Not only are deportations way down, but most alien migrants end up staying in the United States for years while their cases work through the system. In other words, just as I argued yesterday, illegal alien migrants aren't sent back home, and thus those so-called "rumors" of immigration "permisos" drawing migrants north are largely true. This of course harshly debunks the leftist lies of the past couple of days. Facts are hard for idiot progs. Indeed, when faced with the facts, Professor Martinez cravenly blocked me on Twitter rather than deal with her literally criminal support for the Democrats' open-borders lawlessness.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Deportation data won't dispel rumors drawing migrant minors to U.S.":

President Obama and his aides have repeatedly sought to dispel the rumors driving thousands of children and teens from Central America to cross the U.S. border each month with the expectation they will be given a permiso and allowed to stay.

But under the Obama administration, those reports have proved increasingly true.

The number of immigrants under 18 who were deported or turned away at ports of entry fell from 8,143 in 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, to 1,669 last year, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data released under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Similarly, about 600 minors were ordered deported each year from nonborder states a decade ago. Ninety-five were deported last year, records show, even as a flood of unaccompanied minors from Central America — five times more than two years earlier — began pouring across the Southwest border.

Human traffickers are exploiting a 2008 law that allows lengthy legal proceedings for Central American migrants. President Obama would like to tighten the law, but congressional Democrats have rebuked the White House, holding out instead for massive "comprehensive" illegal alien amnesty:

A mounting backlog in immigration courts since then has allowed most Central American minors to stay for years while their cases wend their way through the legal system. Once they are assigned to social workers, as the law requires, the overwhelming majority are sent to live with their parents or relatives in the United States, officials said.

Organized crime groups in Central America have exploited the slow U.S. legal process and the compassion shown to children in apparent crisis, according to David Leopold, an immigration attorney in Cleveland.

He said smugglers, who may charge a family up to $12,000 to deliver a child to the border, often tell them exactly what to say to American officials.

"The cartels have figured out where the hole is," he said. About 60 criminal investigators have been sent to San Antonio and Houston to try to infiltrate these networks and prosecute the smugglers who bring the children into the United States, officials said.

Obama last week asked Congress to change the 2008 law to give the head of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, greater discretion to send children back to Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras more quickly. 

But Obama is likely to face stiff opposition from fellow Democrats, who have vowed to block narrow changes to immigration laws. Senate Democrats overwhelmingly backed a comprehensive immigration bill last summer only to see the measure die in the GOP-led House.

"He can't get it passed," a senior Democratic staffer in the Senate said of Obama's request.

As it now stands, the 2008 law guarantees unaccompanied minors from those countries access to a federal asylum officer and a chance to tell a U.S. judge that they were victims of a crime or face abuse or sexual trafficking if they are sent home. If the claim is deemed credible, judges may grant a waiver from immediate deportation.

"Word of mouth gets back, and now people are calling and saying, 'This is what I said'" in court, said a senior U.S. law enforcement official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "Whether it is true or not, the perception is that they are successfully entering the United States.... That is what is driving up the landings."

The increase has been dramatic. For most of the last decade, U.S. agents apprehended fewer than 4,000 ‎unaccompanied children from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras each year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures. ‎

The total jumped to 10,146 in fiscal year 2012. It doubled to 20,805 last fiscal year. It nearly doubled again, to 39,133, between last October and June 15 this year...

More.

No Ethnic Studies Indoctrination in California Schools

The L.A. Times had this earlier, "Standardized ethnic-studies curriculum for high schools to be studied."

A monstrously bad idea, obviously.

So, I'm surprised the Times ran this letter today. Indeed, the editors highlighted it at the top of today's op-ed page.

See, "Ethnic studies and racial resentment":

A San Francisco State University professor says ethnic studies classes in high school will help young people "learn about themselves and the world about them and make the world a better place." The California Assembly seems to agree, having passed a bill that will require these courses in our public high schools. ("Standardized ethnic-studies curriculum for high schools to be studied," June 2)

If this follows the pattern we've seen elsewhere, what's almost certain to happen is that students will be taught to view America as a hopelessly racist place where everyone is either an oppressor or a victim, and those who belong to "privileged" groups should be viewed with suspicion and resentment

If our Legislature really wants to make the world a better place, why not start by rejecting divisiveness and indoctrination in our schools? Then lawmakers can make sure that kids are functionally literate and learn the basics of science, math and history before they walk across the graduation stage.

David J. Brackney 
Whittier

House GOP Sets New Push to Overhaul Immigration

The smell of desperation.

At WSJ, "Leadership's Broad Principles Will Include a Call to Grant Legal Status to Millions" (via Google):

.@Memeorandum Have a bad feeling about this. Won't help GOP while legalizing those who don't deserve legalizing. @MichelleMalkin @RSMcCain

— Donald Douglas (@AmPowerBlog) January 24, 2014

WASHINGTON—An effort by House lawmakers to overhaul immigration policy, which seemed all but dead for much of last year, is about to be revived and take center stage in Congress, with a new push by House Republican leaders and a fresh pitch by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address Tuesday.

House GOP leaders are expected to release broad principles to guide the chamber's immigration debate as soon as the coming week. They will include a call to grant legal status to millions of people now in the country illegally, people familiar with the plans say, a step that many in the GOP oppose as a reward for people who broke U.S. law.

Behind the scenes, Republican lawmakers already are writing detailed legislation, with the encouragement of House GOP leaders, that would also offer the chance at citizenship for many here illegally, as Republicans work to find a mix of proposals that can pass the chamber.

Mr. Obama, in his address Tuesday to a joint session of Congress and the nation, is expected to again call on lawmakers to pass an overhaul of immigration laws, building on the comprehensive bill that won bipartisan approval last year in the Senate.

Many Republicans have warned that the GOP faces political peril if it doesn't overcome the resistance of many in the party to new immigration laws. If the legislative effort fails, Democrats and their allies are prepared to use the issue to attack GOP candidates in this fall's elections and the 2016 presidential race.

In the House, the immigration principles—expected to be a one-page sheet—likely will be released in time for debate at a House Republican retreat late in the week in Cambridge, Md., to discuss the year's agenda. That will help House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) figure out if there is enough support among his members to move forward.

The GOP principles will embrace legal status for many of the nation's 11.5 million illegal immigrants, people close to the process said, knowing that Democrats likely will insist on such a plan in return for support needed to pass legislation. They will also offer citizenship for people brought to the U.S. as children, new enforcement provisions and fixes to the legal immigration system, these people said.

Still, the legislation faces a long road. It will be challenging for House leaders to win over enough Democrats without losing a substantial number of Republicans. Even if the House manages to pass a series of immigration bills, they still would need to be reconciled with the Senate's broad legislation, and Mr. Boehner has said he won't work off the sweeping bill that passed that chamber.

In a sign that the debate is imminent, opponents of an immigration overhaul have begun to organize. Staff members from about 15 House offices met Thursday with the staff of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.), a leading opponent of the Senate overhaul bill, to discuss their best arguments, an aide to Mr. Sessions said.

House leaders hope to bring legislation to the floor as early as April, the people close to the process said, after the deadline has passed in many states for challengers to file paperwork needed to run for Congress. Republican leaders hope that would diminish chances that a lawmaker's support for immigration bills winds up sparking a primary-election fight.

Supporters of new immigration laws said Friday that they were stepping up their activism. On Friday, the Partnership for a New American Economy, a group backed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, announced a campaign to urge entrepreneurs, farmers and students to press for the overhaul. That campaign was alongside the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan.

Legislation being drafted would reject a "special path" to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which was included in the Senate bill, the people familiar with the process said. But it would grant legal status for all illegal immigrants who meet qualifications, allowing them to work and travel without fear of deportation.

I doubt this will help the Republicans. It's basically a Democrat voter registration effort.

Hoot! Life of Julia, Amnesty Applicant

This is great, at Twitchy, "Kevin Sorbo highlights spoof of Obama administration composite woman: ‘Life of Julia, Amnesty Applicant’."

At the comments, "Sadly, it's not a spoof. It's a road map."

And at the Center for Immigration Studies, here.

Senate Passes Immigration Reform

Laura Ingraham tweeted Sen. Jeff Sessions' "courageous" opposition to this shamnesty clusterf-k, seen at the clip.

And at NYT, "Immigration Overhaul Passes in Senate: 68-32 Vote Sends Bill to House, Where Odds Are Longer." (Via Memeorandum.)

More video here and here.

And more news at Memeorandum.

I can't imagine Speaker Boehner would even contemplating violating the Hastert bill on this, and somewhere earlier on Twitter I read that he's not even planning to bring the Senate bill to a vote in the House.

Other measures are planned, though, so it's never a good idea to rest easy. Folks should call their congressional representatives to make sure these people know how much grassroots opposition is out there. #StopAmnesty.

Added: I just saw this on Twitter, at National Review, "Comprehensive Rejection: House Republicans give the Senate’s immigration bill short shrift."

Hey, About That Hispanic Assimilation...

I think the view's a little different from the belly of the beast in Southern California.

This last couple of years I've been seeing more students than ever with English language difficulties at my college, and out and about around town it's like little Guadalajara everywhere you go.

In any case, FWIW, from the pro-amnesty editorial page at the Wall Street Journal, "America's Assimilating Hispanics."

RELATED: I'd say Samuel Huntington's "The Hispanic Challenge" is holding up pretty well, actually.

And the best of all is Victor Davis Hanson, "California at Twilight" (via Instapundit):

California has changed not due to race but due to culture, most prominently because the recent generation of immigrants from Latin America did not — as in the past, for the most part — come legally in manageable numbers and integrate under the host’s assimilationist paradigm. Instead, in the last three decades huge arrivals of illegal aliens from Mexico and Latin America saw Democrats as the party of multiculturalism, separatism, entitlements, open borders, non-enforcement of immigration laws, and eventually plentiful state employment.

Given the numbers, the multicultural paradigm of the salad bowl that focused on “diversity” rather than unity, and the massive new government assistance, how could the old American tonic of assimilation, intermarriage, and integration keep up with the new influxes? It could not.

RTWT.

BONUS: At Legal Insurrection, "O border fence, border fence! wherefore art thou border fence?"

Western Cultural Suicide

From VDH, at National Review:

Multiculturalism — as opposed to the notion of a multiracial society united by a single culture — has become an abject contradiction in the modern Western world. Romance for a culture in the abstract that one has rejected in the concrete makes little sense. Multiculturalists talk grandly of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, usually in contrast to the core values of the United States and Europe. Certainly, in terms of food, fashion, music, art, and architecture, the Western paradigm is enriched from other cultures. But the reason that millions cross the Mediterranean to Europe or the Rio Grande to the United States is for something more that transcends the periphery and involves fundamental values — consensual government, free-market capitalism, the freedom of the individual, religious tolerance, equality between the sexes, rights of dissent, and a society governed by rationalism divorced from religious stricture. Somehow that obvious message has now been abandoned, as Western hosts lost confidence in the very society that gives us the wealth and leisure to ignore or caricature its foundations. The result is that millions of immigrants flock to the West, enjoy its material security, and yet feel little need to bond with their adopted culture, given that their hosts themselves are ambiguous about what others desperately seek out....

At no time in our history have so many Americans been foreign born. Never have so many foreign nationals resided in America, and never have so many done so illegally. Yet at just such a critical time, in our universities and bureaucracies, the pressures to assimilate in melting-pot fashion have been replaced by salad-bowl separatism — as if the individual can pick and choose which elements of his adopted culture he will embrace, which he will reject, as one might croutons or tomatoes. But ultimately he can do that because he senses that the American government, people, press, and culture reward such opportunism and have no desire, need, or ability to defend the very inherited culture that has given them the leeway to ignore it and so attracted others from otherwise antithetical paradigms.

That is a prescription for cultural suicide, if not by beheading or by a pressure cooker full of ball bearings, at least by making the West into something that no one would find very different from his homeland.

RTWT.

For Latinos, 'Wetback' is Just Like 'Nigga' — It's Only Racist When White People Say It

I find the term repulsive, and the backlash against Rep. Don Young is well deserved. That said, if "wetback" is genuinely racist, then it shouldn't be acceptable for discourse among any demographic, not just when uttered by those of the hegemonic "racist" white oppressor class.

Behold the hypocrisy, at the Los Angeles Times, "For Latinos, a Spanish word loaded with meaning":

When Boyle Heights shop owner Arturo Macias hears fellow Latinos use the Spanish word for "wetback," he doesn't necessarily take offense.

Macias, who crossed illegally into the U.S. through Tijuana two decades ago, has heard the term "mojado" for much of his life and sees it less as an insult than a description of a common immigrant experience.

"As a country of immigrants," he says in Spanish, "in one way or another, we're all mojados."

Macias is very offended, however, when he hears a non-Latino say "wetback." That distinction befuddles his 20-year-old daughter Karina.

"It definitely is a term to divide people," she said. "You can't use it as a term of endearment at all, whether it's someone outside of your culture or not."

An Alaska's congressman's reference to "wetbacks" during a radio interview last week stirred an uproar and he was forced to apologize. In Latino communities, the episode highlighted how cultural reactions to the word have changed through generations.

Everyone seems to agree that the English version of the term is highly offensive to Latinos when others use it. But when Latinos use mojado — which literally means "wet" but is also used to describe illegal immigrants in the United States — it's different.

"My grandfather, for all practical purposes, was a mojado. They call each other mojados," veteran Latino activist Arnoldo Torres said. "It's about understanding the complexity. Of seven, eight, nine, generations of Latinos that have lived in the United States."

Torres was already dealing with the fallout of the word 30 years ago.

In 1983, Ernest Hollings, a South Carolina senator running for the Democratic presidential nomination, used the English term at a dinner during a campaign stop in Des Moines. Hollings apologized and met with a group of Latino leaders, including Torres, then the executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens.

"We said, 'Look, this is why it's offensive.' We weren't looking for some astronomical apology," Torres said. "Our hope was very simple. If we're able to educate him, maybe he can tell others."

Each time the word resurfaces, it carries with it a long history and a nuanced reputation.

The English term, originally coined after Mexicans illegally entered the U.S. by swimming or wading across the Rio Grande, evolved to include a broader group of immigrants who entered into the country on foot or in cars. The Spanish translation espaldas mojadas, is typically shortened to just mojado or mojada, depending on the person's gender.

In 1954, as the U.S. economy sputtered to find its footing after the Korean War, the government launched the now-infamous Operation Wetback, a deportation drive that sent Mexicans back to Mexico in droves and roused complaints of racial profiling and fractured families.

During that decade, the term was still splashed across the pages of the country's major newspapers.

Yes, because you know it's okay when non-Latinos spew "wetbacks."

More at the link. And at Memeorandum.

Is the United States-Mexican border better secured than it used to be?

Asks the New York Times, at its very prominent front-page story on immigration, "Border Security - Hard to Achieve, and Harder to Measure":

PENITAS, Tex. — The border fence behind Manuel Zamora’s home suggests strength and protection, its steel poles perfectly aligned just beyond the winding Rio Grande. But every night, the crossers come. After dark and at sunup, too, dozens of immigrants scale the wall or walk around it, their arrival announced by the angry yelps of backyard dogs.

“Look,” Mr. Zamora said early one recent morning, “here they come now.” He pointed toward his neighbor’s yard, where a young man in a dark sweatshirt and white sneakers sprinted toward the road, his breath visible in the winter dawn. Three others followed, rushing into a white sedan that arrived at the exact moment their feet hit the pavement.

“I don’t know how the government can stop it,” Mr. Zamora said, watching the car drive away. “It’s impossible to stop the traffic. You definitely can’t stop it with laws or walls.”

The challenge has tied Congress in knots for decades, and as lawmakers in Washington pursue a sweeping overhaul of immigration, the country is once again debating what to do about border security.

A bipartisan group of senators has agreed in principle to lay out a path to American citizenship for an estimated 11 million immigrants in the United States illegally, but only after quantifiable progress is made on border security, raising thorny questions: What does a secure border mean exactly? How should it be measured? And what expectations are reasonable given the cost, the inherent challenges of the terrain and the flood of traffic crossing legally each year in the name of tourism and trade?

Some Republicans argue that the southern border remains dangerously porous and inadequately defended by the federal government. Obama administration officials, insisting there is no reason for delaying plans to move millions of people toward citizenship, counter that the border is already safer and more secure than ever. They say record increases in drug seizures, staffing and technology have greatly suppressed illegal traffic, driving down border apprehensions to around 365,000 in 2012, a decline of 78 percent since 2000.

Indeed, by every indicator, illegal migration into the United States has fallen tremendously — in part because of stricter immigration enforcement — and has held steady at lower levels for several years.

But all camps leave a lot out of the discussion. Visits to more than a half-dozen border locations over the past two years show that the levels of control vary significantly along the line in ways that Congress and the White House have yet to fully acknowledge.

It's not secure. Even asking if it's secure is a joke. Here's that Casey Wian report at CNN from last month, "Locals: Arizona border is not secure."

The Democrats don't want a secure border. They want to pad their Hispanic voting constituency. But we'll see how it goes. Thankfully the House GOP's lukewarm to immigration reform. But folks need to hold their feet to the fire. Boehner's on a roll right now, and he might used that momentum to cave to the White House, again.

Karl Rove Takes His Incumbency Protection Racket to California GOP

At the clip, Michelle Malkin slams Karl Rove's "incumbency protection racket" in a speech last week to the Lane County, Oregon, Republican Party.

And now it turns out Rove told the California GOP to turn it's back on "divisive" issues and elect candidates that reflect that state's diversity. At CBS News, "Rove: GOP needs candidates who reflect diversity":

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. GOP strategist Karl Rove said Saturday that rebuilding the Republican brand in California will be a tough task that will require them to diversify and create a strategy to spread their message to a wider audience.

Referring to the state party's deep losses in recent years, Rove said it needs to focus on larger themes of restoring jobs and reducing government spending.

He also said the party must recruit candidates who reflect the diversity of the country, and in particular, California. By next year, Hispanics will overtake whites as the state's largest demographic group.

"We need to be asking for votes in the most powerful way possible, which is to have people asking for the vote who are comfortable and look like and sound like the people that we're asking for the vote from," Rove said.

His message to delegates, activists and local party officials throughout California was in line with the philosophy behind his new political action committee, the Conservative Victory Project. The committee was established to support Republican candidates it deems electable, offsetting GOP candidates who might offend key parts of the electorate.

Screw principles. Just morph into the Democrats and you'll win!

Also at LAT, "Rove has blunt advice for California Republicans."

Walter Russell Mead on Joseph Stiglitz and Higher Education Reform

I mentioned Joseph Stiglitz's recent NYT commentary at my essay the other day on fatherhood at the Jordan Downs housing project.

Well it turns out Walter Russell Mead has some additional thoughts, "Blues Missing the Mark on Higher Ed Reform":

Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz has a wide-ranging piece in the New York Times addressing the problem of income inequality in America, arguing that the U.S. is actually falling behind the rest of the developing world when it comes to social mobility. The piece touches on many issues, but the most interesting parts to us are his comments about how skyrocketing higher-ed costs are depressing upward mobility for the nation’s poor:

Unless current trends in education are reversed, the situation is likely to get even worse. In some cases it seems as if policy has actually been designed to reduce opportunity: government support for many state schools has been steadily gutted over the last few decades—and especially in the last few years. Meanwhile, students are crushed by giant student loan debts that are almost impossible to discharge, even in bankruptcy. This is happening at the same time that a college education is more important than ever for getting a good job.

Young people from families of modest means face a Catch-22: without a college education, they are condemned to a life of poor prospects; with a college education, they may be condemned to a lifetime of living at the brink. And increasingly even a college degree isn’t enough; one needs either a graduate degree or a series of (often unpaid) internships. Those at the top have the connections and social capital to get those opportunities. Those in the middle and bottom don’t. The point is that no one makes it on his or her own. And those at the top get more help from their families than do those lower down on the ladder. Government should help to level the playing field.

As time goes on, we’re seeing a growing consensus of the left, right and center that something is seriously wrong with our higher education system. But while Stiglitz gets the problem right, his solution, that government should be responsible for “leveling the playing field,” leaves much to be desired.

Continue reading.

Recall though that while Mead focuses on other problems at issue besides funding, I'm concerned about improvements in higher education that begin at the level of the family. Our problems are largely cultural. Sure, the state-led bureaucratization of education is enormously wasteful and ineffective, but that doesn't mean that even with moderate reforms it can't be made to lift and improve the lives of more people. Until we work on restoring a culture of learning in society, along with strengthening the centrality of traditional families in the economy, we'll continue to flail away on college success and higher education reform.

BONUS: My good friend Norm has some additional comments on Stiglitz, at the link.

Jordan Downs' Project Fatherhood

When I read Joseph Stiglitz's piece at the New York Times, "Equal Opportunity, Our National Myth," I thought, "Okay, I agree. We have these enormous problems. It might not be as bad as you say --- where's the comparative historical data for advancement, for example? --- but no doubt we have problems. But does more government expansion --- so much more --- always have to be the answer? What about helping to change the cultures of poverty that prevent social mobility?"

Then a later I read this piece at the Los Angeles Times, and thought, "Okay, if only we had more of this, a lot more?" See, "REMAKING JORDAN DOWNS: The father of all support groups":

It started in 2009 on a patch of grass outside the Jordan Downs gym. A group of ex-Crips gave haircuts and grilled hamburgers, hoping families and fathers would show up, relax and begin to talk.

"Growing up the way we did, during the time we did, a lot of the dads might as well have been in some other world," says Andre "Low Down" Christian, one of the leaders. "It's a big reason why things ended up as rough as they did here."

He tells of getting into a fight and tracking down his father for advice. His father gave him brass knuckles and a sawed-off shotgun.

"There had to be a better way of looking at being a dad," he says. "That's what we wanted people to think about."

Those initial weeks in front of the gym, five people came. The local fire station donated steaks and a barbecue. Time passed. Twenty arrived. Then 25.

John King, the Los Angeles Housing Authority official who oversees the community center, was already trying to change the culture in Jordan Downs as preparations were made to rebuild the 700-unit apartment complex. He offered his support and told the men to use his conference room.

By the summer of 2011, backed by a $50,000 grant from the nonprofit Children's Institute, the loose amalgamation of men became something more formal. Now they had a name, Project Fatherhood, and were part of a regional network of meetings the institute sponsored, focusing on men and their kids.

The Watts group has the feel of an urban barbershop: full of jokes and jealousy, grace and anger. Early on, two street toughs entered the room as the men spoke. Wearing trench coats, not saying a word, they walked around the oval of tables, suspiciously checking out the scene.

"They were wondering what exactly was going on with these older dudes," says the UCLA professor, Jorja Leap, who, assuming the toughs were carrying shotguns, followed the fathers' lead and didn't say a word. "They had to see for themselves what this meeting was about. Was it a threat to them? When they found out what we were doing, they gave their OK."

Project Fatherhood became part of the fabric of Jordan Downs. As the Wednesdays piled up, the men grew comfortable talking about their problems. They "were carrying deep troubles, questions and fears about being dads," Leap says. "Problem was, they didn't have many examples of good fathering, so they were coming up with answers from scratch."

RTWT.

But in the public community colleges, I see first hand the kind of investments the state is making in public education. I'm sure we could do more, but it all costs, and the economy can't support increasing "investment." On the other hand, when students are attending classes, they're not bringing anywhere near the needed social requisites for success in college education. And they come to us without those skills, from the K-12 system. More government spending isn't the solution to all of the problems Stiglitz identifies. But he's a big government progressive. Talking about the culture for people like that is "racist." In turn that consigns generations of Americans to poverty. Start changing the culture --- combined with making equal opportunity truly available --- and you'll see more upward mobility. We should be talking about it. From the president on down, we should be talking about it.