9th Circuit Halts Deportation of Homosexual Criminal Who Fears Persecution in His Native Jamaica

A federal appeals court has overturned a Board of Immigration Appeals order to deport a 30-year old Jamaican homosexual man after he was convicted of sexual abuse and contributing to the sexual delinquency of a minor.

The three-judge Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel held that the U.S. is not entitled to deport Damion Nathanial Bromfield to his native Jamaica, despite his criminal convictions, because of the risk that he might be persecuted.

The U.S. Department of Justice argued that the Ninth Circuit has no jurisdiction over Bromfield's case because he was found removable on the basis of his conviction for an aggravated felony. But the panel cited the Ninth Circuit's own Ramadan v. Gonzales, 479 F.3d 646, 649 (9th Cir. 2007) (per curiam), to justify its intervention on behalf of the foreign man.

The appellate panel's order "will require the (Immigration Judge) to consider the Jamaican law criminalizing homosexual conduct and the frequency with which that law is enforced," in adjudicating his removal, and the removal of any future homosexual criminal who expresses a similar fear of persecution in his homeland.

Circuit Judge Betty B. Fletcher wrote the opinion. Circuit Judge Richard A. Paez also sat on the panel, along with a federal district judge for the Northern District of California, William W. Schwarzer, sitting "by designation."

The full text of the opinion is at http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/0575844p.pdf.

What happens when illegal aliens get arrested?

by Chad Groening
OneNewsNow.com

A public-interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption has presented oral arguments in two separate California appellate cases dealing with illegal immigration.

In the first case, Judicial Watch has filed an appeal on behalf of a San Francisco resident, challenging the sanctuary policy of that city's police department. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton says San Francisco police are prohibited from notifying federal immigration authorities when they arrest a suspected illegal immigrant for a narcotics offense.

"The appellate court heard arguments as to whether or not San Francisco's sanctuary policy should leave it immune from having to follow California state law that requires it to report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement anyone they suspect who's been arrested for narcotics offenses who is not an American citizen," Fitton explains.

The other appeal, according to Fitton, deals with an illegal alien day-labor site in Laguna Beach.

"We filed a lawsuit on behalf of taxpayers who object to tax dollars going to help illegal aliens get illegal jobs in violation of federal law," Fitton adds. "A lower court, unfortunately, didn't really want to address the issue in a way that we found appropriate, so we appealed, and the appellate court heard arguments there, too."

Fitton says California law requires the courts to publish their rulings within 90 days, so they should know something by Christmas.

Immigrant Immortalized in Rosenthal Photo, Iwo Jima Sculpture, Now Naturalized

Fred Edwards wrote Aug. 1 in Military Matters in Review that Czech immigrant Michael Strank, killed in action at Iwo Jima, has been posthumously awarded U.S. citizenship. Strank himself apparently never applied for citizenship before his death at age 25 leading a Marine Corps fire team against the Japanese.

But a fellow Marine serving in the security unit at the U.S. Embassy in the Slovak Republic filed on Strank's behalf last year, and an immigration official presented a certificate of citizenship to Strank's younger sister late last month.

Iwo Jima Flag-raising Hero Becomes an Official American
by Fred Edwards, Military Matters in Review

On July 29, Marine Sgt. Michael Strank was posthumously awarded a certificate of U.S. citizenship. Jonathan Scharfen, acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, presented the certificate to Mary Pero, 75, Strank's younger sister.

The ceremony took place in front of the U.S. Marine Corps War Memorial, often called the Iwo Jima Memorial. Sculptor Felix de Weldon crafted it from the famous photograph snapped by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal Feb. 23,1945.

De Weldon's work reproduced Strank -- and the other five men who raised the flag -- so meticulously that you can see their grime and smell their sweat. Strank, or Sergeant Mike, as his men called him, was the third from the left in the photo, and was barely visible.

Two of the six men would live to walk off the island. A third man would be carried off with shrapnel wounds. The other three would be buried in the sands of Iwo. This reflects the same casualty rate of the invading forces: during 36 days of fighting, the United States suffered almost 26,000 casualties, nearly 7,000 of them killed. Only one of every three who hit the beach left the island unscathed.

Until this year, the Marines listed Strank's birthplace as Pennsylvania. According to Scharfen, a Marine security guard at the American Embassy in the Slovak Republic was researching Strank's background and found no record that he was a U.S. citizen. So he filed an application for posthumous naturalization.

So who was Michael Strank? In "Flags of Our Fathers," James Bradley fills in details from interviews of Strank's family, friends, and fellow Marines.

He was born Michal Strenk on the Marine Corps birthday, Nov. 10, 1919, in Jarabenia, Czechoslovakia. His father, Vasil, emigrated to the United States in 1920 and changed his name to Strank. Vasil worked in the Pennsylvania mines for three years, and saved enough money to bring his wife and 3-year-old son to America.

In 1935, he became a naturalized American citizen, but son Mike never received a certificate. When Mike sailed for Iwo Jima, he was a 25-year-old sergeant and combat veteran of the Pavuvu and Bougainville island campaigns. He shunned the sergeants' mess and ate with his troops, who he called "his boys."

His company commander had recommended him for platoon sergeant, but he refused, saying, "I promised my boys I'd be there for them."

Indeed he had promised. Often he would tell his squad, "Follow me, and I'll try to bring all of you back safely to your mothers."

Joe Rodriguez, a member of one of the three fire teams Mike led as squad leader, said "Everybody idolized Mike. He was a born leader, a natural leader, and a leader by example."

After Bougainville, Mike was exhausted from combat and couldn't shake a case of malaria, so he was sent home on leave to recover. He also couldn't shake the feeling that he had used up his share of survivability. One evening when he was out to say goodbye to friends Mike and Eva Slazich, he told them, "I doubt if I'll ever see you again. I don't think I'll be coming back."

He let slip his premonition to his family, and his father pleaded with him to seek a stateside assignment. Mike replied, "Dad, there's a war going on out there. Young boys are fighting that war. And Dad . . . they need my help." So he went to Iwo Jima with his boys.

Bradley describes the aftermath of the flag-raising as follows: Mike and a group of Marines had come under Japanese sniper fire, and he pulled them into an outcropping that was protected from all sides except the sea. He was drawing a diagram in the sand of the tactics they would use to break out when a shell "tore a hole in his chest and ripped out his heart."

Many accounts describe it simply as an artillery shell, and some describe it as an "enemy" shell. Bradley, on the other hand, states: "Almost certainly,the round had come from a U.S. destroyer offshore; it sliced through the only unprotected side of the outcropping. The Czech immigrant to America, born on the Marine Corps birthday, serving his third tour of duty for his adopted country, the sergeant who was a friend to his boys, was cut down by friendly fire."

No matter the source of the shell, Sergeant Mike died as a combat leader. He was a Marine's Marine. Now he's an official American. Semper Fidelis.

Fred Edwards is a journalist and a military columnist. To see his bio and archived columns, visit http://www.milmat.net

Universal Health Insurance Triage: Americans Will Queu Behind Illegals

Former Clinton political strategist Dick Morris is urging John McCain to make an issue of Barack Obama's intention to cover illegal aliens free under his universal health insurance plan. However, McCain is unlikely to do so, as he is ardently pursuing the Hispanic voting bloc.

O'S HEALTH RX: COVER ILLEGALS
By Dick Morris & Eileen McGann, New York Post

Democrats' single most important domestic proposal - universal health insurance - may blow up in Barack Obama's face when voters are exposed to the deadly details.

Obama has said, proudly and often, "I am going to give health insurance to 47 million Americans who are now without coverage." But are they "Americans?"

That 47 million statistic includes illegal immigrants - who virtually all lack insurance. In fact, about one in four of those lacking insurance is here illegally. And they are, by far, the group most in need of health insurance.

About 15 million of the remaining uninsured are eligible for Medicaid but haven't signed up - mainly because they haven't gotten sick. When they do, they enroll in Medicaid and we pick up the full tab for their health care relatively cheaply. (About 80 percent of each Medicaid dollar goes to nursing-home care for the elderly, only about 20 percent for the medical needs of the poor.)

The rest of the uninsured pool? Virtually all the children are eligible for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. Some aren't enrolled because the parents haven't bothered, but most are eligible. That leaves about 20 million uninsured adults who are US citizens or legal immigrants. There are far better ways to handle their needs than to turn our entire health-care system upside down.

Care for illegals is the biggest unmet medical need in our nation, and Obama's program targets it squarely. But do we really want to give them federally paid coverage equal to what US senators get, as Obama proposes?


Covering illegals adds dramatically to the cost of any program - and would encourage more folks to enter America illicitly.

Obama's plan will likely have a horrific effect on some local health-care systems.

Illegals now get free emergency-room treatment for life-threatening conditions - as any other American who's entered an ER in an area with lots of illegals recently well knows. (Three-quarters of the illegal-immigrant population is concentrated in five states: California, New York, Florida, Texas and Illinois.)

But now they'd be eligible for the entire range of medical services, all free of charge. That would trigger severe rationing: bureaucrats deciding who gets to see an oncologist, who can have an MRI - and even who can have bypass surgery and who'd die for lack of it.

These decisions would be made not on the basis of legal status but on the brutal facts of triage: Treat the 37-year-old illegal with his whole life to live before you spend scarce resources on an overweight, diabetic, 80-year-old citizen with high blood pressure who smokes.

John McCain hasn't raised this issue, perhaps for fear of offending the Latino vote. But polling suggests the case against rationing of health care would be as persuasive to Hispanic-American citizens as it is to the rest of us. Nobody wants to die waiting in line - especially not behind someone who snuck in ahead of us.

McCain needs to hit the Obama plan for treating illegal immigrants to free, federally subsidized health insurance - and hit it hard.

Invasion Protest at Denver Planned, Budgeted by Sovereignty Activists

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps (MCDC) has announced plans for a "massive pro-American, pro-sovereignty, pro-border security, anti-illegal immigration rally" at the Democrat National Convention next month.

They hope to get their anti-illegal immigration message across to 15,000 reporters there, in addition to an estimated 20,000 others, including delegates, alternates and elected officials.

The Convention will be held August 25-28 in Denver, Colorado.

"This will be one of the biggest meetings of pro-amnesty, pro-illegal alien politicians in a long, long time," write the Minutemen, "all eager to push their agenda against American sovereignty in front of fifteen thousand reporters and their television cameras from across the country."

The sovereignty activists predict that the politicians will pander "to the open borders special interest groups, like La Raza and MALDEF, for a whole week."

The national Minuteman organization is "teaming up with local activists on the ground in Denver to stage this huge rally," it reported in a fundraising letter, "which will feature dozens of prominent speakers and leaders in the fight for border security. We've secured a location at a large park near the Pepsi Center where 35,000 people will be attending the convention.

"Our allies on the ground in Denver are putting the final details in place for a rally on the first day of the convention, plus more protests, pickets, counter-protests, media blitzes, and more the rest of the week."

The Minutemen have committed five thousand dollars to initial expenses, and expect the overall event to come in under $15,000, according to the fundraising letter.

"That's amazing, especially with having to cover application fees, the park fee, damage deposits to the city, off-duty police security, portable stages, power generators, property insurance, port-a-potties, waste bins, sound systems, and even shuttle buses that will travel between the park and a designated commuter lot to prevent traffic and parking problems."

DOJ Collaborates with ACLU on Trafficking Policy

Human trafficking is probably the most troubling aspect of mass, uncontrolled immigration, whether illegal or fully documented. Yet the anti-trafficking constituency is feeble, underfunded, and preoccupied with other issues.

Opposing human trafficking is almost entirely an altruistic project. There's no financial windfall involved, and there are no fat cats willing to underwrite it like California Agriculture does for Mexican labor.

In the end, even public servants in the Department of Justice have no stomach for defending the defenseless, as Paul Weyrich writes below in a TownHall.com column. The young women and children forced into prostitution on the fruited plain are dismissed as collateral damage.

They are, arguably, analogous to unborn children: they can't protest, they can't organize, they can't litigate, they can't vote; therefore they don't matter. And the American Civil Liberties Union is their deadliest adversary.


The Fight to Abolish Human Trafficking Within the United States
by Paul Weyrich

Without doubt the Federal appointee who was most effective dealing with sex-trafficking was former Representative John R. Miller (R-WA). President George W. Bush has sought to end sex slavery within the United States and provide international leadership on the issue. Miller was appointed Director of the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons for the U.S. State Department and became an Ambassador-at-large on the issue of modern slavery. Miller elevated the fight to a high priority in the Bush Administration.

Recently, Miller wrote an op-ed in The New York Times which suggested that the effort to oppose sex slavery has met opposition in the Department of Justice (DOJ). Miller also made a presentation to a group with which I am involved. Upon hearing Miller's presentation I realized that the situation is worse than he described in The New York Times.

After nurturing the 21st-Century abolitionist movement from 2002 to 2006, Miller believed that President Bush supported him despite objection to his efforts from numerous Ambassadors who did not want their host countries criticized. Miller stated that the President made it clear that his work was important. While he did not win every battle, he prevailed, often thanks to White House support.

One could imagine Miller's surprise when he learned that DOJ initiated a campaign to oppose a new Congressional bill which would strengthen the Federal Government's anti-trafficking efforts. In a 13-page letter, DOJ blasted nearly every aspect of the proposed legislation. In its annual report which rates how well countries are combating sex slavery, DOJ does not want to consider whether governments put traffickers in jail, nor does it want the Departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services to streamline their efforts to help the victims of sex-trafficking acquire visas and assistance. DOJ does not want to pool data with the Departments of State, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services on sex-trafficking and to devise prevention strategies.

DOJ opposes the creation of Presidential awards for groups leading the struggle against this modern-day slavery. It is against a citizens' task force to develop a pamphlet for victims. It does not want the State Department to give the telephone numbers of American anti-trafficking organizations to visa applicants at American Consulates worldwide.

Miller believes the vehement opposition by DOJ to this proposed legislation goes far beyond the usual turf battle which usually rears its ugly head in Washington, D.C. Miller states that DOJ opposes changes which would expand its own authority to combat trafficking. For example: Should they prosecute American tourists who create the demand for sex-trafficking in foreign countries? Should Congress provide increased penalties for Americans who sexually abuse children abroad? Should American jurisdiction extend to Americans who traffic human beings aboard? Should the Attorney General include information in his annual report on his department's efforts to enforce anti-trafficking laws against federal contractors and employees? No, it should not do any of these.

Miller believes this letter is the product of the mostly male DOJ staff working with the Erotic Service Providers Union and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). He does not believe the President saw or approved the 13-page letter. In the House of Representatives there is a Caucus on Human Trafficking, co-chaired by Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Debbie Price (R-OH). They have been trying to coordinate a meeting with the President but have been unsuccessful. Regardless of one's opinion of President Bush, it is impossible to dismiss his sincerity and determination on such issues. I am willing to wager that this letter went to Capitol Hill without his approval. There is time for President Bush to reverse this injustice.


Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Research and Education Foundation.

Daughter of Immigrants Denounces National Council of La Raza

Syndicated columnist Michelle Malkin has called the National Council of La Raza out in this recent column published on the Town Hall site. Malkin is, herself, the daughter of Filipino immigrants. Like Michelle Obama, she is an Ivy Leaguer.

15 Things You Should Know About "The Race"
By Michelle Malkin

Only in America could critics of a group called "The Race" be labeled racists. Such is the triumph of left-wing identity chauvinists, whose aggressive activists and supine abettors have succeeded in redefining all opposition as "hate."

Both Barack Obama and John McCain will speak this week in San Diego at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the Latino organization whose name is Spanish for, yes, "The Race." Can you imagine Obama and McCain paying homage to a group of white people who called themselves that? No matter. The presidential candidates and the media have legitimized "The Race" as a mainstream ethnic lobbying group and marginalized its critics as intolerant bigots. The unvarnished truth is that the group is a radical ethnic nationalist outfit that abuses your tax dollars and milks PC politics to undermine our sovereignty.

Here are 15 things you should know about "The Race":

15. "The Race" supports driver's licenses for illegal aliens.

14."The Race" demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students that are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.

13. "The Race" vehemently opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state and federal authorities.

12. "The Race" opposes a secure fence on the southern border.

11. "The Race" joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent the feds from entering immigration information into a key national crime database -- and to prevent local police officers from accessing the data.

10. "The Race" opposed the state of Oklahoma's tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions and strengthened local-federal cooperation and information sharing.

9. "The Race" joined other open-borders, anti-assimilationists and sued to prevent Proposition 227, California's bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.

8. "The Race" bitterly protested common-sense voter ID provisions as an "absolute disgrace."

7. "The Race" has consistently opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.

6. Former "Race" president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton's Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: "U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks." He was referring to U.S. English, the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States. "The Race" also pioneered Orwellian open-borders Newspeak and advised the Mexican government on how to lobby for illegal alien amnesty while avoiding the terms "illegal" and "amnesty."

5. "The Race" gives mainstream cover to a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, led by Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA). The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized the organization as "a radical racist group … one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West."

4. "The Race" is currently leading a smear campaign against staunch immigration enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves -- in addition to pushing for Fairness Doctrine policies to shut up their foes. The New York Times reported that current "Race" president Janet Murguia believes "hate speech" should "not be tolerated, even if such censorship were a violation of First Amendment rights."

3. "The Race" sponsors militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal education grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: "We don't want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don't need a White water fountain … ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction."

2. "The Race" has perfected the art of the PC shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal "mortgage counseling" grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.

1. "The Race" thrives on ethnic supremacy -- and the elite sheeple's unwillingness to call it what it is. As historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: "[The] organization's very nomenclature 'The National Council of La Raza' is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of 'race' in Spanish, not 'the people' -- and that's precisely why we don't hear of something like 'The National Council of the People,' which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism."

The fringe is the center. The center is the fringe. Viva La Raza.