“TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras - While attention is focused on the U.S. battle to stem the tide of illegal immigrants from Mexico, a federal effort to crack down on Hondurans is threatening the Honduran economy and sparking a crisis in U.S.-Honduran relations.

Honduran President Manuel Zelaya visited Washington on Monday to lobby Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a moratorium on what he called “massive and selective” deportations of Hondurans in the U.S. illegally. He promised that the Honduran government would strenuously defend the rights of Honduran immigrants, without elaborating.

Deportations of Hondurans are expected to reach 40,000 this year if the current pace holds, a sharp increase since 2005, when fewer than 19,000 were deported.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency estimates that 70 percent of the roughly 1 million Hondurans in the United States are here illegally, making them the second-largest illegal population behind Mexicans. Federal statistics indicate that a Honduran national tries to slip into the country illegally about every 15 minutes.

Hondurans have become a significant part of the U.S. workforce, taking low-paying manual labor jobs that many Americans find unattractive. About 20 percent of Honduran immigrants live below the poverty line, according to census figures, but that is an improvement over their lives in Honduras, where half the population earns less than $3 a day.

Once here, they send most of their income back home to support their families, money that is vital to the Honduran economy.

The Honduran Foreign Ministry says legal and illegal immigrants in the United States are expected to send a record $2.8 billion this year — more than a quarter of Honduras’ gross domestic product.

More deportations means less money flows in from the United States, a blow officials in Honduras and other Central American countries say their economies are not equipped to absorb.

“Remittances are like an addiction,” said Juan Jose Garcia, a remittances consultant in San Salvador, El Salvador. “Remittances feed consumption, the banking system and the stability of society.”

In Honduras, “the situation is dramatic,” said Ramon Valladares, director of consular affairs for the Honduran Foreign Ministry. “We hope the number of deportations is not sustained, because America is sending at least 200 of our people home every day.”

But Zelaya also hoped to convince Rice that kicking out thousands of illegal Honduran immigrants would be bad for the U.S. economy, as well.

His argument is in line with a report issued this week in Tegucigalpa by the Central American Council of Human Rights Ombudsmen, which criticized he “illogic” of U.S. policies that target for expulsion the immigrants it needs to sustain its workforce.

Hondurans are a major part of the U.S. labor pool in vital industries like agriculture, construction, food service and transportation, and cracking down even harder could lead to labor shortages in cities where Hondurans are most prominent, activists said.

Some cities would be especially hard-hit, statistics suggest. Research by the Center for the Study of Urban Poverty at the University of California-Los Angeles found that Honduran immigrants, as many as 80 percent of them in the country illegally, make up nearly 3 percent of the day labor pool in Los Angeles.

Honduran workers are also an important part of the labor pool in Washington, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Houston and Omaha, Neb.

But signs are not promising that Zelaya will get his way. Thursday, three days after he made his plea, U.S. authorities flew two plane loads of illegal Honduran immigrants, more than 100 in all, back to Tegucigalpa.”

• Restoring America’s immigration system to more traditional numbers and encourages the assimilation of America’s most recent great wave in prioritizing nuclear family admissions, tightening the investor immigrant criteria, and tightening the employment-based green card category to ensure that prospective immigrants who will uniquely contribute to American society are admitted.
• Eliminates “chain migration” in accordance with the recommendations of the Jordan Commission.
• Eliminates the “visa lottery” in accordance with the recommendations of the Jordan Commission.
• Ensures that automatic birthright citizenship accrues to children born in the U.S. only if at least one parent is a citizen or lawful permanent resident.
• Makes voting in a foreign election a basis for potential loss of citizenship.
• Suspends the Visa Waiver Program until DHS makes certain certifications to the Congress.
• Prohibits states from granting in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens on the basis of graduation from a U.S. high school (in addition to residence) unless they offer the same rate to all U.S. citizens.
• Affirms the inherent authority of State and local law enforcement officers to enforce the immigration laws of the United States; requires Federal immigration authorities to respond to requests for assistance from State and local authorities.
• Appropriates funds necessary to fully reimburse providers of federally mandated emergency medical treatment of illegal aliens, but only if the individual provider collects and reports to DHS all citizenship information and other non-clinical information concerning each illegal alien treated.

http://www.teamtancredo.com/OVERDUE_immigration.asp

Put off or deferred until November:

1. Implementation of the resolution
2. Proffers
3. Numerous rezoning applications

Expires in November:

1. Moratorium on rezonings (not that they have lived up to it so far)

Getting the picture, a number of our supervisors take us for complete idiots and judging by the fact that most of them are running unopposed, or virtually so, they may be right.

In the end, aren’t we really saying that our very history, culture, and way of life are at stake here?

Is this something our Founders wanted to see? No way. Help Save America….

Let’s set some realistic expections:
1. There is a federal mandate that all children in this country are entitled to attend our public school system. No relief for over crowding in schools or reimbursement to tax payers from the federal government.
2. Prince William does not have the authority to grant hospitals the right to deny emergency medical services to anyone. More overcrowding and abusive health care cost as we all shoulder the cost of this.
3. Anchor babies are eligible for food stamps, medicaid, and all other services in our county because they are citizens.
4. The county already denies services to illegal alien adults for food stamps, medicaid, housing assistance, etc.
5. When 5 families live in a home, the burden of proof that they are not related is on the county. Furthermore, the county is restricted by the Dillon Rule from entering the home to enforce ordinances.

The only thing we can legally do in addition to what the county already claims to do be doing, is deny illegal aliens use of our libraries and recreaction centers.

The Dillon Rule denies our county Board authority because the intent behind the rule is to prevent local government from competing against private and/or public businesses for profit. Yet, our county owns and operates for PROFIT:
a. Dale City and Chinn Center offer a gym, personal trainers, massage, yoga, pilates, swim lessons, a public pool, summer camps, party room rentals, racquet ball, and until recently day care.

b. Public golf courses, golf lessons, snack bar

c. SplashDown Water Park and Ben Lomond Park

So the debate begins about the Dillon Rule….should it stay or go?
Just as our federal government fails it’s citizens by not enforcing illegal immigration, our state government is failing us by not enforcing the Dillon Rule. The Dillon Rule is used as an easy out when it is convenient for our local government. This rule has never been enforced.

I say we enforce the Dillon Rule and make the county comply. For years I have been asking Marty Nohe to initiate an effort to sell our rec centers to a YMCA. The reason no action has been taken is because the county relies on the PROFITS to operate.

We’re clearly competing with Golds Gym, Bally’s, MinnieLand, Sport and Health Clubs, yoga and pilates studios, massage and wellness clinics, and other private businesses which clearly violates the law of Dillon Rule.

I am in full agreement with Anonymous, until we’re sure this resolution has teeth, we need to let the media attention die down, and decide what the next step needs to be.

Phase 2 The need for better laws.
Stop businesses in the Comonwealth from hiring illegals. They said the come here for jobs, right?

Decide whether to enforce the Dillon Rule, or abolish / reform. I vote to enforce it!

All state colleges and universities need mandates that require tighter controls of student visa’s and failure to comply results in denial of state funding.

Stiffer penalties on those convicted of providing false identification to illegals.

Churches cannot be safe houses for illegals

1. The BOCS basically did a CYA on this resolution. By taking the citizen right to sue out of the resolution they removed all its teeth. Since they now won’t be doing anything until after the November election, it is unlikely anything truly will get done. This was a ploy to lock in our votes by those who have opponents. To think Barg and Jenkins listened to us is ridiculous. This vote was easy for them with the right to sue taken out. After all, Barg is not running again and Jenkins doesn’t have an opponent. If the BOCS really wanted to end the illegal immigration problem they would have gone ahead with the proffer increase we wanted. Yes, the housing market is in bad shape, but that is the industry that supports the largest chunk of these illegals. Bottom line is that the BOCS is pushing this off until after the elections for the benefit of their developer buddies.

2. Be careful what you wish for on eliminating the Dillon rule. This is what Virginia Democrats like Gerry Connolly have been wanting for a long time. Thankfully, members of our state delegation like Scott Lingamfelter have been able to prevent it. If the Dillon Rule goes away our local government will be able to do all kinds of things, including potentially taxing us on our income like counties do in Maryland. Local politics is so corrupted by interest groups like developers that if we give up protection at the state level we are likely to get hosed.

3. Tancredo — please. That guy is a one trick pony who doesn’t have a chance to win the presidency. I realize now that we are hot on the immigration thing he seems attractive, but let’s work to nominate someone who can win or we will have a lot bigger problems than just immigration on our hands. After all, we’ve had the Republican congress we’ve wanted for a long time and they have seriously let us down on immigration in order to kowtow to their corporate buddies. Okay, maybe that’s an argument for Tancredo.

4. If we want HSM to grow we need to change the name. People in Woodbridge are not going to sign up in droves for a group named “Help Save Manassas.”

5. If we want HSM to grow beyond its base of people who live around neighborhoods that have had an influx of illegal immigrants then we are going to have to do something about the racism thing. It’s not racist for us to want to enforce immigration laws. Some of our critics just use the racism lable because it’s easy. But let’s be real, from some of the comments I’ve seen posted, we definitely have some racists among us. Even those who clearly are not racist miss the point that is going to be critical in court challenges. There is no way county employees and police are going to be able to stop and check everybody (BTW, I don’t get Deane at all, but he does have stones; illegals can’t vote for him and he had to know we were going to call for his head) so Hispanics will get inordinately stopped and we will get slammed in courts as a result because when it comes to discrimination on this basis, it is not intent, but impact that is important. I don’t know that there is a solution to this problem, which is one reason I think that the BOCS will never do anything about this.

6. So where does that leave us. I, for one, think we should spend less time trying to get our faces on television and in the newspaper (in fact, I’m starting to worry some of our people are a little more interested in the limelight than getting their hands dirty on the ground) and more working on ground level grass roots efforts. Lafayette is one of the people who has had the best suggestions in my opinion. We need to harass county offices on all the enforcement things that have nothing to do with race and therefore are above challenge. We should be reporting trash in the streets, cars being fixed in the streets, overcrowded homes, loose animals, broken windows. In other words, all the petty-seeming neglect or potentially criminal activity that is taking place in areas we know are dominated by illegals. This is what Giuliani did in New York and it had a real effect on crime. Even if the police cannot deal directly with overcrowding, if the police or inspectors make a big splash in a neighborhood periodically then illegals will get the message.

7. Most importantly, we need to keep the pressure on the BOCS about proffers and overdevelopment. They all caved by putting off the proffer issue. If the housing industry is in a slump we do not want more houses built. The proffers should go up now and continue the slump until the glut on the market corrects. This will cut off the spigot that is drawing the illegals here. The only reason it is not being done is that wealthy developers want to keep feeding at the trough and, I fear, all of our supervisors are in their pockets.

8. I forget who it was who said this on an earlier post, but the Vikings were not here before the American Indians. Hopefully the person who said that was joking, or if not, is not part of our leadership group. lol

Regardless, the problems here are not the result of insufficiency of laws but of enforcement.

Excellent job on MSNBC!!!

FYI-the link provided by Batson above has this incorrect statement in the article. Supervisor Stirrup did not say the following:

John Stirrup, a member of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, said he authored the immigration resolution because about 20 percent of the county’s population is foreign born.

I have stated on here before, that I am NEW to this blog thing and getting involved with talking to others ( strangers !) about my opinons, beliefs, doing something, other than voting, etc, …but SOMETHING IS OUT OF CONTROL AND NEEDS TO BE DONE.

I am trying to keep up with what is going on as far as EVERTYTHING from crime, illegal aliens, taxes, TO WHAT I SAW ON TV TONIGHT ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING AND COWS GIVING OFF GAS AND NOW THEY HAVE TO LOOK INTO CHANGING THE GRASS THE COWS EAT! ( I think this is why I haven’t done so in the past……..
I don’t know how you all do this! ( I mean this in a good way!)

I don’t know if it is beacuse I am middle class, HANGNING ON BY A THREAD( My faults, as other’s and the cards that I have been delt with…….as I hear so many people are, EVERYONE HAS A STORY)
I don’t know what exactly to focus on but doing the right thing and that is why I and my family, friends have joined in HSM. I FEEL IN MY HEART this is the right thing, it is NOT about RACISM, ETC……illegal, is illegal and I have seen first hand the destruction of what is going on around me with out having to turn on the news, etc.
I just keep going back to the Bible, just like I always do, to keep things in check.(BECAUSE I BELIEVE THAT TO BE THE TRUTH and once you know the truth….you cannot hide from it) ( my belief)
I beleive in Jesus, the son of God, and I believe he died on the cross for us. John 3:16. I belive in the word of the Bible .
I see the “end times”- signs of him coming back. This I do have no doubt about. I see how everything, daily, is in place for his return.
The “one world nation,” etc…. BARE with me, these are my convictions of what I believe to be the truth.
I HONESTLY, don’t know what to do , but to do the right thing and it confuses me to try and be active when so much is going on.
It seems to drive me crazy, trying to figure this or that out, and agree with this or that and trying (to be who I am )to see it from the other person’s point of veiw.( trying to be fair and not opininated and jump on a bandwagon, when I am just a baby educating myself about what is going on around me, because, everything changes and it seems like everything is OUT OF CONTROL, AND I MEAN OUR GOVERNMENT TOO, ALOT OF RED TAPE ALOT OF BULL)

I know something has to be done.
Again, my statement above, I don’t know how you/ anyone does it.

It takes time to find out what is going on, the FACTS.

I do try to live my life with that statement my grandfather told me : believe not what you hear and half of what you see.

I have to ask America, what happened to ” One nation under God” or what is printed on OUR money, “In God we trust”?

Why has God been taken out of school? Out of Christmas? ( i.e) Xmas…now we can’t say Merry Christmas, you have to say Happy Holidays, to not offend anyone.
I want to know, what has America become? Politically correct, trying to make EVERYTHING / EVERYONE acceptable, , THAT WE FORGET what we were founded on?
I think these are vaild questions , that I am BLESSED to have the right to ask in America.

And I am sorry Mrs. Blauvelt ( SJHS english teacher, back in the 80’s) you always told me I had a problem with RUN ON PARAGRAPHS, ETC……
SEE , EVEN TODAY, I JUST HAVE SOOOOOOOOOO MUCH TO SAY

I think it’s time to consider the motto: Better to ask forgiveness, than permission!!

What EXACTLY is the risk in declaring a state of emergency locally and suspending that asinine rule??

Did our founding fathers continue to ask the tyrant for permission to breathe??

Be BOLD!!

At the same time, inflation-adjusted wages and incomes in the U.S. are falling. The gap between those at the high end of the income spectrum and the low end is widening, and our middle-class is struggling for survival. The current generation is the first in U.S. history expected to have a lower standard of living than their parents.

Shortages occur when prices are kept artificially low. The oil companies tell us all the time that to avoid gasoline shortages and long lines at the pumps we need to let the “free market” determine prices. Then there will be plenty of gas for everyone! The same should apply to skilled jobs. Our government subsidizes corporations through countless programs to send jobs overseas. This artificially depresses wages here at home. Where is the incentive for an American to work and study hard to earn a degree and develop skills when they know that employers have an eager pool of workers in developing countries willing to work for a fraction of the wages needed to continue living as generations of Americans who have gone before them?

Some jobs can’t be exported. You can’t build a McMansion in China and ship it to Manassas. The solution for them is to ignore our immigration and labor laws and bring the third-world labor here. As long as we have a president and other political leaders who are beholden to corporate interests above those of the middle-class, this system works.

The result is an America becoming something we won’t recognize. Our workers and middle class are suffering declining real wages and a plummeting quality of life as, among other things, our neighborhoods are turned into barrios filled with boarding houses for the illegal aliens who provide the cheap labor.

I am concerned and discouraged in many ways. However, the citizen uprising that killed “comprehensive immigration reform” in the Senate and got a unanimous vote for John Stirrup’s resolution this week has given me reason for encouragement.

We should all now dispel ourselves of any illusions that we can sit by idly and trust our government to act in our best interests. That was possible for previous generations whose leaders were connected to and cared about those who elected them. Ronald Reagan and John F. Kennedy come to mind. However, great public servants such as them are not at the helm of our government any more.

I, personally, am fortunate economically and will likely never worry about enjoying a comfortable standard of living. However, I have children and don’t want them to grow up in “corporate America” competing with the third world for jobs. I see also other Americans (citizens and legal residents) who are not as fortunate as I am being denied their American dream by those who would ship it overseas or give it to people coming here illegally to steal it.

We can win but it will take effort on the part of all of us. I can’t adequately express how proud I am of the work John Stirrup and Greg Letiecq have been doing recently, and of those in Congress who opposed “comprehensive immigration reform” from the beginning. They can’t do it alone, however.

Contact your Congressman now to support Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007 (HR 1940) Has 57 Co-Sponsors Bug Your Congressman To Sign On

The Tenth Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that, “[t]he powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In Virginia, local governments (or “municipalities”) include towns, cities, and counties. Current law regards municipalities as “creatures of the state” and dictates that municipalities must look to the state constitution, the municipal charter, or state laws for authorization to exercise powers. Consequently, a municipality has no powers whatsoever unless the state decides to give the municipality power. (From “MadisonMatters.com”)

This is no longer a workable system in today’s day and age as we witnessed county after county submit lists last December to their delegations to the General Assembly in preparation for the 2007 session, hoping that the state will grant them the authority to do the simplest of things. It is time to bring the Commonwealth into the 21st century in this regard, kicking and screaming if we have to.

“Those best fitted by their intelligence, business experience, capacity and moral character” usually do not hold local office, Justice Dillon suggested, and conduct of municipal affairs generally was “unwise and extravagant.” So in Clark v. City of Des Moines in 1865, Dillon ruled that local governments were creations of the state and, therefore, had only those powers granted by the state. That state governments might discover their own ways of being unresponsive and ineffective apparently did not occur to the justice. (from “Bacon’s Rebellion”)

Dillon had it exactly backwards. Municipalities are not in essence creations of the state. It is the state that derives its power from the governed and the closest representatives to the citizens are their locally elected leaders. If one is to trust the people to make the best decisions for themselves, then one must reject the very premise of Dillon.

http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2006/12/05/down-with-dillon/

http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2006/12/06/moratorium-on-rezoning-wont-halt-construction/

http://virginiavirtucon.wordpress.com/2006/12/28/bringing-va-into-the-21st-century/

Judge Dillon was an elitist moron and his 1865 thinking should go the way of the Dodo Bird.

What can be done about Deane? Does he have a contract with the BOS? Can they move to terminate it early?