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By S. J. Miller
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Americans in Arizona's Fifth Congressional District got a new congressman in the 2006 election: Democrat Harry Mitchell replaced Republican J.D. Hayworth. His campaign website position "I oppose amnesty but support a 'path to citizenship' " was a virtual parrot of what we heard from Senator John McCain touting his McCain-Kennedy Amnesty at his Sun Lakes Town Hall a year ago.
Hoping to start Mitchell on the right path, our "congressional visiting team" met with his district staff in February to specify clearly what we expect of our congressional representative. We delivered our Group Letter, signed by 25 other CD-5 constituents. With our clear and unequivocal statement that we recognized amnesty as "any legislation, regardless of the politically deceptive name attached, that allows illegal aliens to remain in the US," we didn't leave Congressman Mitchell much room to maneuver. I'm sure Congressman Mitchell recognized that the usual "not an amnesty" Party Line wouldn't get past us.
But it isn't only Mitchell's meant-to-be reassuring letter ("I oppose Amnesty") that parrots John McCain. Just as John McCain directed Arizonans after a Town Hall meeting where everyone who spoke opposed the McCain-Kennedy "Not An Amnesty" Bill), Mitchell tells those who disagree with his pro-illegal alien, pro-amnesty stand to "tone down the rhetoric."
My first question of Congressman Mitchell would be "And what was the response of Elias Bermudez, Somos America and La Raza leaders when you told them to 'tone down the rhetoric?"
Because you can bet he doesn't urge the pro-illegal alien groups to "tone down the rhetoric." I have no doubt whatsoever that Elias Bermudez and his cronies have Mitchell's full support to be as strident and "toned up" in their rhetoric as they find effective in pursuing their anarchist, open-borders agenda.
Sorry Congressman, but I rejected that baloney from John McCain when I got a chance at the mike last April and I reject it from you now.
You see, I'm one of those with enough time on this issue who recognize that the "toned-up" rhetoric of law-abiding Americans is the ONLY reason that illegal alien amnesty is stalled. Our toned-up rhetoric is the reason so many Americans are weighing on the issue for the first time, creating a fear and trepidation in the hearts of politicians who only a few years ago would have pandered without hesitation to the illegal alien lobby and voted for amnesty.
There's no doubt that the open borders lobby (both business and ethnic) and the politicians who pander to them would like to return to the good old days when Americans were intimidated into silence on the immigration issue. The possibility of being labeled "racist," "xenophobic," "mean-spirited," "anti-immigrant" or any of the tired old litany was enough to silence any public discussion of the issue.
The Good Old Days are gone, Congressman. Americans are speaking their opposition to the bungling and pandering of the immigration issue, and we won't be silenced. We're organizing rallies, writing letters and e-mails, and faxing our elected officials.
We're appearing at elected politicians' public events and going to the mike to pose embarrassing and pointed questions on their immigration voting records. We're placing outraged phone calls, and not only to federal officials. Despite state and local officials with their cop-out of "immigration is a federal issue," state legislators and governors as well as mayors and city council-members are both feeling the heat and passing state and local measures against illegal migration.
Local police forces are training their staff to identify and arrest illegal aliens, and turn them over to federal immigration agencies for deportation. Citizens are even "doing the job government won't do" and passing such measures by signature petitions and the initiative ballot, as Arizonans did in 2004 with Prop 200 and four more in 2006 with Props. 100, 102, 103 and 300. The threat of a ballot initiative has now become a viable way to galvanize recalcitrant Arizona legislators to vote for state measures to "do the job the federal government refuses to do:" Official English, employer sanctions, declaring illegal presence in Arizona as criminal trespass and others.
The open borders lobby must be terrified at this unexpected resistance from Americans they were sure had by now been beaten into submission. They were sure that by now Americans' cowed silence would have enabled passage of amnesty for all 20 million-plus illegal aliens in the US. The joint promises in the 2000 elections by George Bush and Vicente Fox to legalize Mexicans living in the US seemed an iron-clad guarantee.
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But Americans won't be again intimidated into silence. Nor will AZ legislator Kyrsten Sinema and her cronies at the Anti-Defamation League silence us with their smear and defamation campaigns to label us "domestic terrorists" just because we disagree with them and don't hesitate to both speak openly and appear publicly at Arizona legislative sessions. That applies to the Kyrsten Sinema-clones in the other 49 states as well as the original in Arizona's House of Representatives.
Americans are sick and tired of both the costs and destruction of illegal migration and the tired old mantras we hear to excuse it ("they do the jobs Americans won't do," "the economy would suffer without 'immigrant' labor" and the rest).
That politicians and elected officials are forced to recognize Americans' desire for immigration law enforcement is due only to our toned-up rhetoric. We no longer sit quietly and resign ourselves to seeing our lives and our futures sacrificed to the greed of the business and government elitists. It's clear to politicians that they pander at their own political risk when they try to ignore the immigration issue, as did Senator Brownback when he recently asked Iowans at the Town Hall to shift to another topic.
We've come a long way, and we didn't do it by toning down the rhetoric. Instead, we validated what my late Grandma Miller often said: "The wheel that squeaks gets the grease."
And we plan to continue squeaking. Louder and more often until illegal aliens are out of the US, and borders are closed to any more.
"Tone down the rhetoric?" Not a chance, Congressman.
April 1, 2007
~ About the author ~
S. J. Miller is a former veteran of the IT industry who sought another career rather than "follow the jobs" abroad, and a lifelong resident of border states, California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada.
© S. J. Miller, 2007. All Rights Reserved
"Published originally at FederalObserver.com: republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact."