Dealing with Illegal Immigrants

Editor's Note: The following appeared in our May 13 issue and is written by State Representative Nita Jane Ayres.

Nita Jane Ayres has agreed to write a follow-up editorial which will appear in our print edition on June 24. The follow-up will take a close look at the state's legislation and how it deals with illegal immigrants.

 

We’re down to one week to go in the legislative session and bills are moving through the process at a remarkable pace. My goal is to keep you updated on all the pieces of legislation that may be of interest to you and your family. In the coming weeks, I hope to do that. However, this week I want to talk about an issue that Missouri has already addressed in a variety of ways – the issue of illegal immigration. I’m sure you’ve seen the headlines about Arizona’s new law aimed at dealing with those who enter our country illegally. It has been called the strictest immigration law in generations. While Missouri hasn’t gone to the same lengths as Arizona, our state has made significant policy changes that effectively deal with illegal immigrants who enter our state. Because of those changes, Missouri is ahead of the game when

compared to many other states that are now dealing with this issue.

In 2007, the Missouri General Assembly approved HJR 7 to place on the ballot a proposed constitutional amendment designating English as the official language of Missouri. Voters then went to the polls and approved the measure with nearly 90 percent voting in favor. With that, English became the official language for all governmental proceedings in Missouri. It also means no individual has the right to demand government services in a language other than English. A common language is the cornerstone of a cohesive and united state and country. Ensuring that English is our official language is simply common sense.

Another measure that directly addresses the issue of illegal immigration was passed in 2008. HB 1549 requires our Highway Patrol and other law enforcement officials to verify the immigration status of any person arrested, and inform federal authorities if the person is found to be here illegally. It also allows Missouri law enforcement officers to receive training to enforce federal immigration laws. Furthermore,

the bill makes it clear that illegal immigrants will not have access to taxpayer benefits such as food stamps and health care through MO HealthNet. With the passage of this legislation, Missouri sent a clear message that illegal immigrants are not welcome in our state, and that they are certainly not welcome to receive public benefits at the cost of Missouri taxpayers.

2009 saw another significant piece of legislation passed dealing with illegal immigration. HB 390 ensures Missouri’s public institutions of higher education do not award financial aid to individuals who are here illegally. The law also requires all postsecondary institutions of higher education to annually certify to the Missouri Department of Higher Education that they have not knowingly awarded financial aid to students who are unlawfully present in the United States. The bill represents another common sense approach to the issue as it ensures taxpayer dollars are not used to subsidize the education of someone who is in our country illegally.

So while Arizona has made national news for its new law, it’s important to remember Missouri has been proactive in addressing this growing problem. The laws we have on the books help ensure the rights and benefits of Missourians are preserved for actual Missouri citizens. It’s also important to remember that this country has always opened its arms to immigrants, which is why our nation is often referred to as the great melting pot. Immigrants from all parts of the world have helped make our country what it is today. However, our doors are not open to those who try to live in our country illegally. I believe Missouri’s laws make that very clear and give our law enforcement officials the authority they need to deal with the problem.

Thanks again for allowing me to represent you in the state capitol. Feel free to contact me with your concerns, suggestions and ideas. My office phone is 573-751-2492. Email address: nitajane.ayres@house.mo.gov Or write to: State Representative Nita Jane Ayres, House Post Office, State Capitol, Room 233-A, Jefferson City, MO 65101.

http://ozarkssentinel.com/missouri-ahead-of-the-game-in-dealing-with-illegal-immigrants-p1034.htm

Subject: Interesting Commentary

Thought you might like to read this letter to the editor of a British national newspaper. Ever notice how some people just seem to know how to write a letter? Here is a woman who should run for Prime Minister!  Written by a housewife, to her daily newspaper. This is one ticked off  lady.

Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores in July 2002, and in  New York Sept 11, 2001 and have continually threatened to do so since? Were people from all over the world not brutally murdered that day in London, and in downtown Manhattan, and in a field in Pennsylvania ? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they? And, I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency. I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11 and 7/7. I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by beheading in Afghanistan.

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat. I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children. I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of Nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs. I'll care when the British media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when  something happens.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a British soldier roughing up an Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:

I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take this to the  bank:

I don't  care.

When I hear that a prisoner - who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and 'fed special  food' that is paid for by my taxes - is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts:

I don't care.

And, oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and other times 'Quran.' Well, believe me. (you guessed it)

I don't care!

If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends. Sooner , or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous

Behaviour! If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should  you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities  committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great country! And may I add: Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. Our soldiers don't have that problem. I have another quote that I would like to add.

Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:

1.  The British Soldier.

2. The Canadian Soldier.

3. The  United States Soldier

4. The Australian Soldier

5. The Israeli Soldier

They died for your freedom!!!

Isn't it interesting that so many people in the Western World feel this way, but not one of our Politicians,  who are supposed to represent us, ever have the  guts to state the situation like it is?

Note to Parliament and the U.S. Congress: “GROW A BLOODY PAIR!”

The Civil War Is Still Being Fought, Civilly

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/19/132180688/The-Civil-War-Is-Still-Being-Fought-Civilly?sc=nl&cc=totn-20110119

by NPR Staff

December 19, 2010

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December 19, 2010

The war of words over the Civil War continues to this day. The Sons of Confederate Veterans are being criticized for controversial TV ads in Georgia and a "secession gala" in South Carolina to mark its break from the Union on Dec. 20, 1861. In advance of the sesquicentennial, host Liane Hansen talks to renowned Civil War historian James McPherson about why the Civil War continues to be a contentious issue even after 150 years.

Copyright © 2010 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

LIANE HANSEN, host:
The Civil War ended nearly 146 years ago, but the Sons of Confederate Veterans and its opponents are still fighting a war of words. The organization's Georgia division is taking heat for its take on the war, largely over a series of ads that have aired on local television and can be seen on YouTube.
(Soundbite of ad)
Unidentified Woman: The year 2011 will mark the 150th anniversary of the War for Southern Independence. And the Sons of Confederate Veterans encourage you to celebrate this noble time in our history when men and women of the South stood courageously for liberty, even in the face of insurmountable odds.
HANSEN: The ad goes on to equate secession with the American Revolution but there's no mention of slavery.
The South Carolina division of the group has also drawn criticism for its role in a secession gala organized by the Confederate Heritage Trust. The event will be held in Charleston tomorrow night, the 150th anniversary of South Carolina's break from the Union. It will include a reenactment of the signing of the Ordinance of Secession, but it won't focus on slavery. The NAACP plans to protest the gala.
Mark Simpson, commander of the South Carolina division, says there's no disrespect intended.
Mr. MARK SIMPSON (Commander, South Carolina Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans): None of us deny that slavery was an element, you know, of that period of time and it was abhorrent. None of us in the Sons of Confederate Veterans would wish to perpetuate slavery. That is an abomination.
HANSEN: He said the gala is not meant to glorify slavery or the Civil War.
Mr. SIMPSON: What we are celebrating and commemorating is the determination and the courage of the 170 signers of the Articles of Secession from South Carolina. This secession document was signed unanimously by everyone in attendance and, you know, in very much the same way that the Declaration of Independence in 1776 was signed by 56 men who put on the line their lives, their fortunes, even their sacred honor, as they dubbed it.
HANSEN: Mr. Simpson said it's all an effort to tell the Civil War story from a Southern perspective. Others say it's an effort to rewrite history.
James McPherson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who's an expert on the Civil War. He's at Princeton University to offer his perspective. Welcome back to the show.
Mr. JAMES MCPHERSON (Historian): Well, thanks for having me.
HANSEN: Why does the Civil War continue to provoke such controversy?
Mr. MCPHERSON: Many of the issues that the war was fought over are still with us today - the issue of slavery, which involved the issue of race and race relations, but also the issue of the balance of powers between federal government and the states and the local government. That's also very much an issue with us today, as we've seen in recent months.
We're still debating these issues and we project our perspectives from today back into the past. And since these issues of slavery, race, state sovereignty, states rights, provoked the greatest war, the most bloody war in American history, it arouses passions that echo down to our own time.
HANSEN: There is a lot of controversy over this secession ball to be held in Charleston tomorrow night. Organizers say it's a commemoration of the fight against an oppressive federal government and detractors say it ignores slavery is the cause of the war. What is history saying now about the cause of the war?
Mr. MCPHERSON: Well, history says, and I would say probably 98 percent of historians would say, that the basic and most deep-rooted cause of the war was slavery and the question of the future of slavery in the United States. A country that was founded on a charter of freedom had become, by the middle of the 19th century, the largest slave-owning country in the world.
HANSEN: Why was South Carolina the first state?
Mr. MCPHERSON: Sixty percent of South Carolina's population in 1860 were slaves. It had a higher percentage of white families owning slaves than any other state in the South. It felt that its fate was more dire if slavery was ended, and there's a consequence going all the way back to the 1830s and to their ideological leader, John C. Calhoun, who served in Congress in the Senate for many years.
They had formulated a philosophy of state sovereignty and of secession if an anti-slavery party took over control of the national government.
HANSEN: Did President James Buchanan and President-Elect Abraham Lincoln try to do anything to stop South Carolina's move toward secession?
Mr. MCPHERSON: James Buchanan made a rather feeble effort, and what he became concerned about was the fate of the 80 or so American soldiers in Fort Moultrie in the Charleston harbor. And then they moved over to Fort Sumter because they feared that the South Carolina militia would attack them at Fort Moultrie. Fort Sumter was more defensible.
And Buchanan finally roused himself to order the reinforcement of the troops there at Fort Sumter. But the South Carolina militia artillery fired on the civilian merchant ship that was bringing the reinforcements and drove it out of the harbor. And Buchanan thereafter pretty much gave up.
Once Lincoln became president, not only had South Carolina seceded but six other Southern states had done so also. And now the issue was if Lincoln reinforced the fort, would it provoke a war? His decision initially was to just resupply the fort, food for hungry men, for those 80 soldiers. But now the new Confederate government, in which South Carolina would play a leading role, decided to fire on Fort Sumter to force its surrender before the supply ships and the reinforcements could get there.
So, they did so on April 12th, 1861, and the war began there right in Charleston harbor.
HANSEN: What was Abraham Lincoln doing before he was inaugurated?
Mr. MCPHERSON: Lincoln worked on his inaugural address, which he knew would be of great importance in announcing his policy toward this crisis. And then his inaugural address on March 4th made clear, as far as he was concerned, states had no right to secede and therefore they were still legally and constitutionally part of the United States. The Confederates in Montgomery, Alabama - that's where they'd established their temporary capital - talked back about their determination not only to gain Fort Sumter but to maintain their independence.
And this increasingly hard line on both sides formed the context to the background for the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12th, 1861, which began this terrible four years' war.
HANSEN: James McPherson of Princeton University is a Civil War historian. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his 1988 book "The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era." He spoke to us from a studio at Princeton University. Thank you very much.
Mr. MCPHERSON: Well, thank you for having me.

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We're so broke, we can't pay attention!

Someone please tell me what the

HELL is wrong with all the people

that claim to run this country!     
We're "broke" and can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.?  In past months, we have provided aid to:  Haiti, Chile, and Turkey.

And, now, Pakistan, home of bin Laden.  Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!  Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries! We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of     foreign orphans. AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter,  children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment, etc. YET...they have a 'Benefit'  for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and planes lining up with food, water, tents clothes, bedding,  doctors and medical supplies. Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.
                                                Sad isn't it? 

Recent e-mail read thusly:

About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.  The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer; how much oil does the U.S. have in the ground?"  Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the Middle East put together."  The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oilmen knew was coming, but man was it big.  It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ...... check THIS out:
The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil.  The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels.  Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion. "When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.," says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst. "This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.'  It stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada.  For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end.  Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago.  However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access to up to 500 billion barrels.  And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL! That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.  Moreover, if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006!
                   Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006
          U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World
Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lays the largest untapped oil reserve in the world.  It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels.  On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction.  In three and a half years of high oil prices, none has been extracted. With this mother load of oil, why are we still fighting over offshore drilling? They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.  Here are the official estimates:
          - 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
          - 18-times as much oil as Iraq
          - 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
          - 22-times as much oil as Iran
          - 500-times as much oil as Yemen
          - and it's all right here in the Western United States.
HOW can this BE?  HOW can we NOT BE extracting this?  Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil!  Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy.....WHY? James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped.  That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post. Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again!  It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?
                                      Got your attention yet?  

The Difference When You Marry A New York Girl

   The first man married a woman from North Carolina. He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning. It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away. 

   The second man married a woman from South Carolina. He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking.  The first day he didn't see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.

   The third man married a girl from New York. He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot food on the table for every meal. He said the first day he didn't see anything.  The second day he didn't see anything.  But, by the third day some of the swelling had gone down, he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a Sandwich and load the dishwasher.  He still has some difficulty when he pees.

Congressional budget cuts?

It's right around the bend! Very shortly, we are going to see a bipartisan attempt at drastically cutting budgets at the DoD and the VA. These cuts will be primarily aimed at our fighting men and women, and our Veterans. I am therefore proposing a Bill, let's call it HR-I81U812, allowing for the charge of Treason to be brought on any person, or persons, who, in the adjudication of their official tasks, deems it appropriate and lawful to freeze, or reduce, any and all benefits earned and accrued by past and present members of the Armed Forces of the United States of America.

Live Poll

Should Active Military and Veteran's benefits be off-limits to Congressional budget cuts?