About the New York Times’ Pulitzer-winning illegal alien
Jose Antonio Vargas came to the US when he was 12 from the Philippines because his mother sent him here to live a better life. He obviously didn’t make that choice on his own, but he has made many choices since then that have kept him outside US immigration law. And of course, Mr. Vargas the spelling bee and Pulitzer winner who wrote for two of the nation’s top newspapers (the Times and the Washington Post) is utterly typical of illegal aliens. Utterly and totally, the typical illegal alien.
Well, obviously he isn’t, unless we have handed out between 12 and 20 million Pulitzers over the past decade or two to the millions of illegal aliens who have also worked across the big names in the liberal media. But in one respect at least, he is typical.
He took at least two jobs that otherwise would have gone to others who are here legally.
He used false documents — a fake green card, a fake Social Security card, and a fake passport to get the fake Social Security number.
Despite having lived in America for over 14 years, he has never bothered himself to get right with the legal system.
He even inadvertently screwed his school choir out of a trip to Japan.
After a choir rehearsal during my junior year, Jill Denny, the choir director, told me she was considering a Japan trip for our singing group. I told her I couldn’t afford it, but she said we’d figure out a way. I hesitated, and then decided to tell her the truth. “It’s not really the money,” I remember saying. “I don’t have the right passport.” When she assured me we’d get the proper documents, I finally told her. “I can’t get the right passport,” I said. “I’m not supposed to be here.”
She understood. So the choir toured Hawaii instead, with me in tow.
Lucky schoolmates!
He got a scholarship that presumably would have gone to someone else.
He established a network of friends who helped him continue to skirt immigration law, as an adult.
He even managed to get around the Secret Service and visited the White House as a journalist. If he can do that, who else can do that?
Look, I’m glad that Mr. Vargas has confirmed that America really is still the land of opportunity. He is obviously very smart, smart enough to land and keep good jobs, and smart enough to figure out how to game the system for years. But no one should kid themselves: Aside from the crimes he has committed to stay here, Vargas is atypical. Illegal aliens tend to be drains on our resources. I know of one small county here in Texas that has a 30-slot jail, and right now all five inmates there are illegal aliens awaiting transfers and perhaps deportation. INS ICE has left one of them languishing since November, on the county’s tab. How many other counties nationwide have similar problems? The state of California alone spends nearly $1 billion per year housing illegal alien inmates. So for every Jose Antonio Vargas out there, there are dozens and maybe hundreds of illegal aliens who not only flout immigration law as a matter of routine, as he did, but they also end up hurting America in other ways.
One last little factoid learned from the biography of Mr. Vargas: It’s evidently easier for an illegal alien to get a job at the Huffington Post, than it is for a conservative American citizen to keep a job there. Just ask Andrew Breitbart.
End all immigration. We have enough people. What is the deal with immigration. Do we wish to emulate India? What is the end game?
As someone who is married to a legal immigrant, I disagree with shutting down all immigration. It’s not feasible anyway, as long as we won’t even get a handle on stopping illegal immigration.
So there is no end game. We’re on a hapless ride into having 450 million people in 50 years and a billion 50 years after that.
This is the legacy we’re leaving. That we forgot what resolve was in favor of a view of America that is basically out of our hands and in the hands of every Third World person who wants to get out and come here.
Not much of a vision.
In another story here, they’re already having Friday prayers on the University of Minn. campus. Fun, fun, fun, fun.
I recommend everyone reads science fiction; it provides some scope and context and an awareness that there is such a thing as tomorrow and that we can control that tomorrow or let it control us.
So far, we have not had any leadership in America that seems even remotely aware of the problems of managing 300 million people and the strain on resources and the environment that puts on us. We should be managing this country like a preserve and with keep out signs and shrink our population while we still can.
I have long advocated for limited immigration based on economic needs in the hard sciences and engineering. Theres an abundance of ‘able-bodied’ American’s for most all other labor needs who need to be [forced] off the welfare roles regardless of education, gender and welfare babies in tow.
Consider this. If the only legal visa is for science and engineering and such a visa shows up to weed 800 acres of strawberries…well, one, you’re not allowed to hire such person and two you call law enforcement. That shuts down all the illegal non skilled immigrant workers. Then all you have left to round up from the borders, harbors and airports, are the hard criminals. Surely, those numbers could be effectively controlled and dealt with.
I certainly agree that population has become a critical problem for the U.S., especially the illegal population. Send them ALL home as they are found, no matter how long they’ve been here! They broke the law or otherwise are here illegally…PERIOD!
The deal with immigration is that the wholesale breaking of our Laws by both Government and other countries has infuriated 70-80% of the citizenship. I predict that this absolute unfairness and hypocrisy of lawbreaking will engender a reaction that will be quick and brutal. Immigration will be curtailed if not halted.
That’s it in a nutshell. I would also add that the fury of this American majority is largely directed against those who allow this to happen, rather than the illegals themselves.
I just read that Obama issued an executive order making the DREAM Act “law of the land.” This is insane, and illegal (if the Constitution is still valid). The Democrat-controlled Senate turned it down last year. We not only do not have a Republic anymore, we will soon not even have a “democracy.”
Eighteen years, and there was no way at all in all that time for him to actually become legal, despite intervening amnesties and despite his having high-level media friends? I find that hardly credible.
And I note that the Times gets a two-fer by not only having a reporter who shills for amnesty, but who gets to do it during Gay Pride Month while “coming out.”
I came here ‘legally’, and this guy should have as well. Just because he was more adept in using forged documents does not make him any better, regardless of his so-called ‘pullitzer’.
For the longest time I’ve heard that there are app 20+ millin illegals in this country; well it’s more like 50 million illegals, and when will it stop?
today’s pulitzer’s and nobel prizes are statist equivalencies to the “little yellow smiley faces” found around internet discussion sites
the old anti-semitic racists who head these organizations are simply giving kudos to individuals who toe the collectivist line
John Derbyshire and Mark Steyn are both familiar with the American immigration law and both agree that it is overly complex, and too ridden with red tape. Of course, that is the fruit of decades of political meddling. And that is the story of every bureaucracy in the West.
Now, of course, all the chickens are coming home to roost. The illegal immigration from the south is no longer ‘immigration’, it is ‘invasion.’ Politicians like McCain and Bush have supported this for years, because (I expect) they have had sympathy for people like Cesar Millan, and because all those illegals provide a handy cheap labour pool, definitely NOT unionized either.
The legal immigration system is purposefully choked with red tape, because those who have been writing the policies PREFER law-breakers to the law-abiding. Law-breakers are more accepting of corruption, and see little reason to support the rule of law.
Also, the efforts of such as ACORN, enabling voting without id, is ensuring that people in the US illegally can vote. Interesting, eh?
My stepdaughter’s fiance is from Bulgaria. He’s here legally and would like for his family to come over for the wedding. His brother, who is to be his Best Man, was just refused a visa for a one week visit. The guy is in school and has no intention of staying here. The parents were granted visas. And yet our southern border is wide open to those who would come here illegally and live off “the fat of the land” (us). The Federal gov’t is completely irresponsible.
Yeah, he went to “Disneyland”, all right…
The INS doesn’t exist anymore. Good try, brah.
Duh, my bad for using old lingo. But what’s the “nice try” you’re insinuating? That the illegal aliens aren’t really in that jail? They are.
Oh, and when will this guy be arrested and deported? He’s publicly admitted to multiple crimes, including identity theft.
The New York what?
Obviously, this is a story revolving around implications – starting with the title … which includes the word “undocumented.” To me, that’s liberal-speak for “we know this person is illegal, but since we don’t respect law and order in this country anyway, we’ll just call it something else that’s more ‘PC’.” The other implication in the way the story is written and phrased is the message, “Look, if we just leave these folks alone and stop insisting they obey our laws, we’ll have lots more folks like this guy!”
I understand some of the things immigrants are faced with in this country; an unfamiliar language and culture, the fear of being sent back to a country that is far worse to live in, and the uncertainty that they will be able to stay here.
However, illegals can make more of a dent in the perspective of those like me who want secure borders and immigration laws that are fair and enforced by coming forward A LOT EARLIER IN THE GAME to turn themselves in, demonstrate that while here they haven’t burdened the system, committed any felonies, and have otherwise proven to be viable candidates for citizenship … and ask forconsideration. If this story had ended THAT way, and had taken place long before the author had received his Pulitzer, then it would have more meaning for the rule of law in the US.
As it is, while I applaud the author’s efforts and understand his history, he hasn’t demonstrated enough respect for law in this country in order to gain my total respect. Let a court (other than an Obama-selected one) decide.
And I’m willing to bet that he got all kinds of affirmative action help along the way that could have gone to legal residents.
By writing well at the Times and Post and by winning a spelling bee, Senor Vargas is doing the jobs Americans can’t do. Why criticize someone who can do what your own countrymen can’t? Recognize his superiority.
I, for one, would approve of firing every native American at the Times and Post. Wouldn’t you?
It’s a shame he was awarded a Pulitzer putting him in the company of Duranty and Blair. Isn’t there a respectable award for him in recognition of his achievements?
If having forged documents is such a big deal, most of the people I went to high school and college with should be in prison too. Getting a fake ID is common, hell its a rite of passage, I don’t really see that as that big of a deal.
“He took at least two jobs that otherwise would have gone to others who are here legally.”
Two less qualified people doing his job, otherwise they would’ve been given it in the first place. In a capitalist system, I think skill and merit is far more important than an arbitrary concept like immigration status. If we deport the next Andrew Carnegie or Bill Gates, is someone else going to replace their creativity and brilliance? Of course not.
You’re a racist.