The federal government has delivered a stinging blow against The People, granting an injunction against key provisions of Arizona’s new immigration law, enacted to counter the federal government’s dereliction of duty in securing the border and upholding the law of the land.

Key legal provisions blocked by federal judge

• Officers to check immigration status of a person stopped, detained or arrested
• Immigrants to carry legal papers, or “alien-registration papers” at all times
• Undocumented workers not allowed to seek work

Source: MSNBC

Judge Rules to Block Provisions of Arizona Law

Judge grants injunction on part of Ariz. law (MSNBC, July 28, 2010) — A federal judge has granted an injunction on some of the most controversial parts of the Arizona immigration bill. NBC’s Pete Williams reports. (03:47)

By Jonathan J. Cooper and Michelle Price

July 28, 2010

Excerpts

PHOENIX — A federal judge dealt a serious blow to Arizona’s immigration law on Wednesday when she put most of the crackdown on hold just hours before it was to take effect.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton sets up a lengthy legal battle as Arizona fights to enact the nation’s toughest-in-the-nation law.

Republican Gov. Jan Brewer said the state will likely appeal the ruling and seek to get the judge’s order overturned. But for now, opponents of the law have prevailed: The provisions that angered opponents will not take effect, including sections that required officers to check a person’s immigration status while enforcing other laws.

The judge also delayed parts of the law that required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, and made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places. In addition, the judge blocked officers from making warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants. …

Other provisions of the law, many of them procedural and slight revisions to existing Arizona immigration statute, will go into effect at 12:01 a.m. Thursday. …

‘It’s a temporary bump in the road’

Lawyers for the state contend the law was a constitutionally sound attempt by Arizona — the busiest illegal gateway into the country — to assist federal immigration agents and lessen border woes such as the heavy costs for educating, jailing and providing health care for illegal immigrants.

“It’s a temporary bump in the road, we will move forward, and I’m sure that after consultation with our counsel we will appeal,” Brewer told the Associated Press. “The bottom line is we’ve known all along that it is the responsibility of the feds and they haven’t done their job so we were going to help them do that.” …

In a sign of the international interest in the law, about 100 protesters in Mexico City who had gathered in front of the U.S. Embassy broke into cheers when speakers told them about the federal judge’s ruling. The demonstrators had been monitoring the news on a laptop computer on the stage.

The crowed clapped and started chanting, “Migrants, hang on, the people are rising up!” …

‘Distinct, unusual and extraordinary’

Opponents argued the law will lead to racial profiling, conflict with federal immigration law and distract local police from fighting more serious crimes. …

“There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new (law),” Bolton ruled. “By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a ‘distinct, unusual and extraordinary’ burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose.” …

The law has inspired rallies in Arizona and elsewhere by advocates on both sides of the immigration debate. …

It also led an unknown number of illegal immigrants to leave Arizona for other American states or their home countries.

Brewer’s lawyers said Arizona shouldn’t have to suffer from America’s broken immigration system when it has 15,000 police officers who can arrest illegal immigrants. …

Full story

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MSNBC Interactive

Immigration to the U.S. Timeline: Immigration policy since 1790.

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Lindsey Graham: Birthright Citizenship is a Mistake

“There’s another problem we have in this nation that I think is novel and needs to be fixed. If you come across the border illegally and you have a child in America, automatically, that child becomes an American citizen. …  I may introduce a constitutional amendment that changes the rules if you have a child here. Birthright citizenship I think is a mistake, that we should change our Constitution and say if you come here illegally and you have a child, that child’s automatically not a citizen.”

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Related reports on this site

Brian Ochoa, left, and Gustavo Rocha, both from Phoenix, join hundreds of protesters as they rally at the Arizona Capitol on Friday, April 23, 2010 to protest the signing of an immigration bill by Gov. Jan Brewer. (Photo credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP) 

Position Statement on Illegal Immigration

Immigration Enforcement Surge (June 25, 2010)

AZ Tough on Illegal Immigration (April 23, 2010)

Immelman vs. Bachmann: Year 2 (July 15, 2009)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — July 28, 2009

Iraq-Afghanistan Casualties

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I provided my weekly report of U.S. military deaths in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), compiled from U.S. Department of Defense News Releases.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: Two Years Ago — July 28, 2008

Empty prison in Iraq a $40M ‘failure’ (Associated Press, July 28, 2008) — In this undated photograph released by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, the Khan Bani Saad Correctional Facility, about 12 miles northeast of Baghdad, is seen with unused building materials nearby. The site is a chronicle of U.S. government waste, misguided planning, and construction shortcuts costing $40 million …

On the Campaign Trail: Day 14

Two-year retrospective: Two years ago today, on the 14th day of my 2008 campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, I said that voters should see the Iraq war not only as a national security or foreign policy issue, but as a pocketbook issue, in that the war and occupation contributed to driving up the price of oil by weakening the dollar. In that context, he also pointed to a Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction report detailing billions of dollars lost on construction projects in Iraq.

Legislators Aim to Copy Arizona Immigration Law

Politicians in as many as 18 states seek to push similar measures

Kristin Olstrom, who is opposed to a proposed law that would ban hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants in Fremont, Neb., gives election material to supporter Bryan Henricksen on Saturday, June 19, 2010. (Photo credit: Clay Lomneth / AP)

June 25, 2010

BOISE, Idaho — Arizona’s sweeping new immigration law doesn’t take effect until next month, but lawmakers in nearly 20 other states are already clamoring to follow in its footsteps.

Gubernatorial candidates in Florida and Minnesota are singing the law’s praises, as are some lawmakers in other states far from the Mexico border such as Idaho and Nebraska. But states also are watching legal challenges to the new law, and whether boycotts over it will harm Arizona’s economy.

The law, set to take effect July 29, requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they think is in the country illegally. Violators face up to six months in jail and $2,500 in fines.

Lawmakers or candidates in as many as 18 states say they want to push similar measures when their legislative sessions start up again in 2011. Arizona-style legislation may have the best chance of passing in Oklahoma, which in 2007 gave police more power to check the immigration status of people they arrest.

Bills similar to the law Arizona’s legislature approved in April have already been introduced in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Minnesota, South Carolina and Michigan, but none will advance this year.

Federal action

The debate is putting pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to act. In 2007, when states like Idaho and Kansas were making English their official languages as part of an immigration-related push, then-President George W. Bush failed to persuade even many Republican allies in the U.S. Senate to agree to combine increased border enforcement with a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

President Barack Obama has called Arizona’s law irresponsible, but Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer says it helped prompt him to send 1,200 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexican border, mostly to her state. She and Arizona Sen. John McCain say that’s not enough. …

Obama is asking Congress for $600 million in emergency funds for 1,000 more Border Patrol agents, 160 new federal immigration officers and two unmanned aircraft, but immigration is not at the top of his priorities this year. An Associated Press-GfK poll this month found that 85 percent of people now rank immigration as an important issue, and about half disapprove of how Obama has handled it. …

Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer, the presumptive Republican nominee, called Arizona’s bill “a wonderful first step.” …

And in Nebraska, where many Hispanics have found work at meatpacking plants, some blame illegal immigrants for draining community resources. Last week, the town of Fremont approved a ban on hiring or renting property to illegal immigrants.

State Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont vows to introduce an Arizona-style bill in 2011 and says foes of illegal immigration must gird themselves for a fight.

“They will use words like ‘racism’ and ‘profiling’ when we talk about enforcing our laws,” said Janssen, a Republican in Nebraska’s officially nonpartisan legislature. “But now is when we must stand together.”

Wish list

William Gheen, president of the North Carolina-based Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee, said the more states that sign on, the more likely Congress will be to act. Gheen has led a grassroots campaign to get legislatures to take up Arizona’s bill and believes the topic could become the litmus test in an election year when people are already slamming Washington.

“Any candidate that wants to survive the bloodbath that’s approaching this November needs to come out in support” of Arizona’s law, Gheen said. He sends regular e-mail messages urging about 30,000 recipients to contact their legislators to support similar bills.

Gheen claims that at least 18 states may pass Arizona-style reforms, but the National Conference of State Legislature calls this more a “wish list” than a reflection of likely success. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the issue is being pushed mostly by a single lawmaker.

There has been little sign that the other three states that border Mexico will follow Arizona’s lead. California, New Mexico and Texas have long-established, politically powerful Hispanic communities, and have seen less illegal immigration than Arizona since the 1990s, when the U.S. government added fences, stadium lights and more agents to the border in California and Texas.

Arizona, a state of 6.6 million with an estimated 486,000 illegal immigrants, has been affected by the issue more than other states, said Ann Morse, who heads the National Conference of State Legislature’s Immigrant Policy Project.

In three years, U.S. Border Patrol agents in Arizona arrested nearly 1 million illegal immigrants, about half of all arrests on U.S. borders. More slipped past, fueling a smuggling industry that has been blamed for a steady rise in kidnappings and immigrant safehouses. …

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Related links

News coverage: Illegal immigration and immigration reform

Obama could face impeachment if he pardons illegals
(Chris Wessling, Newsmax.com, June 26, 2010)

Supreme Court takes on Arizona immigration law
(Jerry Markon, Washington Post, June 29, 2010)

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Related report on this site

AZ Tough on Illegal Immigration (April 23, 2010)

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6/28/10 Update

Illegal Immigration Issue Keeps Getting Hotter

Opinion by Bobby Eberle
GOPUSA — The Loft
June 28, 2010

This was supposed to be an election year focused on the economy and the terrible job Barack Obama and the Democrats are doing regarding it. Well, it still is, but there is another issue in the mix: illegal immigration. On one hand, it is yet another example of Obama being in over his head and not putting the interests of America first. On the other, the residents of Arizona have had to take matters into their own hands in order to protect themselves.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has risen significantly in the polls since taking action against illegal immigration and the Mexican drug cartels. This has left Sen. John McCain in the hot seat since he had sponsored the bill that would have granted amnesty to illegal aliens. Now, he’s talking tougher, but still distancing himself from Brewer’s positions.

In the latest on the Arizona illegal immigration battles, Brewer was in the news over the weekend for saying, “I believe today, under the circumstances that we’re facing, that the majority of the illegal trespassers that are coming into the state of Arizona are under the direction and control of organized drug cartels and they are bringing drugs in.”

Tying illegal immigration to the drug cartels in such a way, brought knee-jerk reaction from the media and liberals, who were “stunned” by Brewer’s comments. As FoxNews.com reports, “Sen. Jesus Ramon Valdes, a member of the Mexican Senate’s northern border affairs commission, called Brewer’s comments racist and irresponsible.” Of course! Any time someone speaks out against illegal immigration, some liberal will call that person a racist. …

Read more

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — June 25, 2009
 
Video

Ahmadinejad demands apology from Obama (NBC Today, June 25, 2009) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is accusing President Obama of interfering in Iran. Meanwhile, the opposition vows to continue protesting the disputed election. (01:48)

Ahmadinejad: Obama Just Like Bush

One-year retrospective: One year ago today I reported that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused U.S. President Barack Obama of behaving like his White House predecessor George W. Bush, calling on Obama to apologize for what he called U.S. interference following Iran’s disputed elections. Against that background, I provided links to psychological profiles of Ahmadinejad, Bush, and Obama developed at my Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics.

Please Sign the Nominating Petition

Click on the image above for a downloadable (PDF) printable petition to help nominate Aubrey Immelman to run as an independent candidate against Rep. Michele Bachmann for the office of U.S. Representative in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

Minnesota Statutes require that anyone not running as a major-party candidate (Republican, DFL, and Independence parties) file by nominating petition to have their name placed on the general election ballot.

In my case — as an independent U.S. House of Representatives candidate unaffiliated with any of the major parties — 1,000 signatures are required from eligible voters in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District (Stearns, Benton, Sherburne, Wright, Anoka, and Washington counties) to gain ballot access.

The signatures must be collected during the filing period beginning May 18 and ending June 1, 2010 at 5:00 p.m.

If you are eligible to vote and would like to sign the petition, please contact my campaign by email for a copy of the petition or download the printable nominating petition (PDF) and mail it to the address below as soon as possible, but no later than Friday, May 28, 2010.

Immelman for Congress
P.O. Box 117
Sartell, MN 56377

Thank you for helping me gain ballot access as an independent candidate to challenge Rep. Michele Bachmann in the 2010 general election.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — May 22, 2009

The profile reveals that Dick Cheney has an amalgam of conscientious (obsessive) and dominant (aggressive) personality patterns, suggesting an “obsessive enforcer” leadership type.

Dick Cheney is Bashing Bush

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that when former Vice President Dick Cheney in a speech on national security delivered May 21, 2009 lambasted the change in security policy under President Barack Obama, he was not attacking the Obama administration so much as the Bush administration itself – considering he was essentially repeating many of the same arguments he had made unsuccessfully within the Bush White House as policy decisions increasingly went the other way in President Bush’s second term.

Updated May 4, 2010

Times Square Bomb Suspect Nabbed at Airport

Pakistani-born U.S. citizen attempted to fly from JFK to Dubai

Video

Suspect arrested in NYC bomb plot (NBC News, May 4, 2010) — Authorities arrest Connecticut man in connection with attempted bombing in New York City. NBC’s Pete Williams reports. (10:04)

NBC News, Reuters, and The Associated Press via MSNBC.com
May 4, 2010

NEW YORK – Authorities arrested a U.S. citizen in connection with the failed bombing attempt in New York’s Times Square as he tried to leave the country, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday.

Faisal Shahzad, 30, was arrested at 11:45 p.m. ET Monday night by Customs and Border Protection agents as he attempted to board an Emirates airlines flight to Dubai at New York’s JFK airport, officials said. …

Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, was accused of driving a car bomb into Times Square, authorities said. He will appear in Manhattan Federal Court later Tuesday. …

Trip to Pakistan

Earlier, officials told The Associated Press that the suspect recently returned from a trip to Pakistan, where he has a wife. …

Pakistani police told NBC News that Shahzad was a resident of Karachi and that he had flown from the U.S. to the city on July 3, 2009, before returning to the U.S. on August 8 last year. …

Shahzad was being held in New York and couldn’t be contacted. He has a Shelton, Conn., address and a phone number listed there wasn’t in service. Investigators were searching his home.

Worked on Wall Street?

Facebook Brenda Thurman, a former neighbor of Faisal Shahzad, said this Facebook photo shows Shahzad with an unidentified woman and child.

At Shahzad’s former home in Shelton, Conn., just outside Bridgeport, a neighbor told The New York Times that Shahzad and his wife, Huma Mian, spoke limited English, and kept mostly to themselves. The couple had two young children, a girl and a boy, said the neighbor, Brenda Thurman.

Thurman told the newspaper that the couple had lived at the house at 119 Long Hill Avenue for about three years before moving out last year. Shahzad left around May, she said, and his wife followed about a month later. …

Shahzad got up early every morning and left to work nicely dressed, and had told her that he worked on Wall Street, Thurman told the Times. “I think he caught the train to New York,” she said.

Law enforcement officials said Shahzad bought the SUV, a 1993 Nissan Pathfinder, that was parked in Times Square on Saturday from a person in Connecticut three weeks ago. NBC News reported he paid $1,300 in cash for the vehicle, which had been advertised on the website Craigslist. …

A man in his 40s who was seen in a security camera video apparently walking away from the SUV was initially a focus of the investigation.

But the New York police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, told the Times that while investigators still wanted to speak to that man, he might not be connected to the failed bombing. Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for the department, told the paper: “It may turn out that he was just somebody in the area, but not connected with the car bomb.” …

‘More desire than ability’

James M. Cavanaugh, a former bomb expert with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who investigated car bombs and tracked the Unabomber, told The New York Times that the device and the way it was designed speak to a “grandiose purpose.” …

Slide presentation Times Square targeted Police defused a crudely made car bomb found in a SUV parked in New York’s Times Square.

He said that whoever made the bomb had “more desire than ability.” …

Chris Falkenberg, president of Insite Security, which works with Fortune 500 companies, said the device, as described by authorities, “doesn’t differ much at all from ‘The Anarchist Cookbook’” – the underground 1971 manual for homemade explosives.

He said revelations that the fertilizer used could not have exploded suggested “this is amateur hour. My kids could build a better bomb than this.” …

The Washington Post reported Monday that an FBI-led terrorism task force had taken over the investigation because of indications it was connected to international terrorism, a senior law enforcement source said. …

The Taliban in Pakistan said Sunday it planted the bomb to avenge the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud, the recent killings of the top two leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq and U.S. interference in Muslim countries [links added].

Some officials voiced skepticism about the claim. But former CIA analyst Bruce Riedel, who last year oversaw an Obama administration strategy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan, cautioned against dismissing a possible role by the Taliban.

“They have said they want to attack inside the United States,” he said before the arrest was announced, adding there was “a very serious possibility” the incident involved “some Pakistani-American who has never built a car bomb before in his life but who is being coached either by phone or internet.” …

The location of the bomb suggests a number of possible targets. The SUV was parked near offices of Viacom Inc., which owns Comedy Central. The network recently aired an episode of the animated show “South Park” that the group Revolution Muslim had complained insulted the Prophet Muhammad by depicting him in a bear costume. …

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Times Square Bomb Suspect Indicted

Faisal Shahzad, the man accused of plotting a car bombing in New York’s Times Square, was indicted Thursday by a grand jury on terrorism-related charges. (Photo credit: U.S. Marshals Service / AP file)

June 17, 2010

Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad was charged Thursday with 10 terrorism and weapons counts in an indictment that accuses him of receiving explosives training and financial help from the Pakistani Taliban.

The indictment returned by a grand jury in U.S. District Court in Manhattan added five charges to the original case against the 30-year-old Shahzad and also detailed in greater depth his alleged financing, saying Shahzad had received a total of $12,000 from the militant group through cash drop-offs in Massachusetts and Long Island.

Shahzad is accused of plotting to build and detonate a homemade gasoline-and-propane bomb inside a used SUV among thousands of tourists on a busy Saturday night. He was charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction among several terrorism and weapons counts.

“The facts alleged in this indictment show that the Pakistani Taliban facilitated Faisal Shahzad’s attempted attack on American soil,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a release. “Our nation averted serious loss of life in this attempted bombing, but it is a reminder that we face an evolving threat that we must continue to fight with every tool available to the government.” …

Full story 

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Topical reports on this site

Baitullah Mehsud, commander of the Pakistani Taliban until he was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August 2009, said in March 2008 his group was planning an attack on the White House that would “amaze the world.” Mehsud’s death served as the apparent source of inspiration for the Jordanian suicide bomber and al-Qaeda double agent whose Dec. 30, 2009 attack at an American base in eastern Afghanistan killed seven CIA officers and contractors. In a chilling videotape released posthumously by the Pakistani Taliban and broadcast on regional TV channels, bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 32, called on Muslim holy warriors worldwide to avenge Mehsud’s death by attacking U.S. targets.” More

White House Attack Will “Amaze” (March 31, 2009)

Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, shown in a 2008 photo, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in August 2009. (Photo credit: The Washington Post / Associated Press)

Taliban Leader Vows Revenge (Oct. 5, 2009)

The purported new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, with his comrade Waliur Rehman, front center, vow to strike back at Pakistan and the U.S. for the increasing number of drone attacks in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan. (Photo credit: Ishtiaq Mehsud / AP)

Al-Qaida’s Next High-Value Target (Jan. 18, 2010)

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — May 3, 2009

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Bachmann: MN Press Pushes Back

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that the sheer weight and volume of U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s assault on reason may have reached critical mass, crossing the tipping point beyond which Minnesota media could no longer tune out Bachmann’s insanity or avert their gaze from “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in embarrassed silence.

In a free society, it’s imperative that the press fulfill its proper watchdog function and hold Rep. Bachmann accountable by shining a bright light on her words and deeds.

Arizona Governor Signs Toughest Immigration Law

Bill removes ‘political handcuffs’ from police in dealing with illegal immigration, drug smuggling

Brian Ochoa, left, and Gustavo Rocha, both from Phoenix, join hundreds of protesters as they rally at the Arizona Capitol on Friday, April 23, 2010 to protest the signing of an immigration bill by Gov. Jan Brewer. (Photo credit: Ross D. Franklin / AP) 

April 23, 2010

PHOENIX – Gov. Jan Brewer ignored criticism from President Barack Obama on Friday and signed into law a bill supporters said would take handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration in Arizona, the nation’s busiest gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.

With hundreds of protesters outside the state Capitol shouting that the bill would lead to civil rights abuses, Brewer said critics were “overreacting” and that she wouldn’t tolerate racial profiling.

“We in Arizona have been more than patient waiting for Washington to act,” Brewer said after signing the law. “But decades of inaction and misguided policy have created a dangerous and unacceptable situation.”

Earlier Friday, Obama called the Arizona bill “misguided” and instructed the Justice Department to examine it to see if it’s legal. He also said the federal government must enact immigration reform at the national level – or leave the door open to “irresponsibility by others.” …

The legislation, sent to the Republican governor by the GOP-led Legislature, makes it a crime under state law to be in the country illegally. It also requires local police officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are illegal immigrants, allows lawsuits against government agencies that hinder enforcement of immigration laws, and make it illegal to hire illegal immigrants for day labor or knowingly transport them.

The law sends “a clear message that Arizona is unfriendly to undocumented aliens,” said Peter Spiro, a Temple University law professor and author of the book “Beyond Citizenship: American Identity After Globalization.” …

Video Immigration bill ‘misguided,’ Obama says (NBC Nightly News, April 23, 2010) – Telemundo’s Jose Diaz-Balart reports. (02:47)

The bill will take effect in late July or early August, and Brewer ordered the state’s law enforcement licensing agency to develop a training course on how to implement it without violating civil rights.

“We must enforce the law evenly, and without regard to skin color, accent, or social status,” she said. “We must prove the alarmists and the cynics wrong.”

Brewer, who faces a tough election battle and growing anger in the state over illegal immigrants, said the law “protects every Arizona citizen.”

‘Political handcuffs’

Anti-immigrant anger has swelled in the past month, after rancher Rob Krentz was found dead on his land north of Douglas, near the Mexico border. Authorities believe he was fatally shot by an illegal immigrant possibly connected to a drug smuggling cartel.

Arizona has an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants, and its harsh, remote desert serves as the corridor for the majority of illegal immigrants and drugs moving north into the U.S. from Mexico. …

The bill’s Republican sponsor, state Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, said Obama and other critics of the bill were “against law enforcement, our citizens and the rule of law.”

Pearce said the legislation would remove “political handcuffs” from police and help drive illegal immigrants from the state.

“Illegal is illegal,” said Pearce. “We’ll have less crime. We’ll have lower taxes. We’ll have safer neighborhoods. We’ll have shorter lines in the emergency rooms. We’ll have smaller classrooms.”

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MINNESOTA RESPONSE TO ARIZONA
IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT LAW

Governor Hopeful Emmer Calls Arizona Immigration Law ‘Wonderful’

Minn. State Rep. Tom Emmer

The Associated Press via St. Cloud Times
April 29, 2010

ST. PAUL – One of Minnesota’s leading GOP candidates for governor applauded Arizona’s strict new law against illegal immigration on Wednesday, calling the crackdown “a wonderful first step.”

State Rep. Tom Emmer said he supports Arizona’s efforts to make immigrants prove their immigration status and require police to probe if they have “reasonable suspicion” a person is an illegal immigrant. He made the comments in a debate with his chief rival, Rep. Marty Seifert, broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio.

“We have certain immigration laws in this country, and when you have laws and you have a civil society that is based on the rule of law, you enforce the law,” Emmer said. …

Seifert didn’t directly endorse Arizona’s law but said that state is moving in the right direction.

“In concept, I think that theyre moving in the right direction of trying to get control of the situation, which is out of control,” Seifert said of the Arizona law after the debate. “I think most people agree with that.”

Later Wednesday, he unveiled a list of immigration positions that stopped short of Arizona-style measures. It said he would work to end local policies barring police from inquiring about immigration status, let local law enforcement get training to enforce immigration laws, work with federal authorities to deport illegal immigrants who are caught and require government agencies to check the immigration status of welfare recipients.

Seifert said he modeled his proposal on laws in Oklahoma, which passed a tough immigration law in 2007, and other states.

Outgoing GOP Gov. Tim Pawlenty has pushed for tougher immigration laws with little success since 2006. Minnesota’s Democratic-controlled Legislature has rejected proposals to require police to turn over illegal immigrants to federal authorities and other measures.

Both Emmer and Seifert said they would like to make drivers licenses and state identification cards display a person’s citizenship status.

Emmer said he has tried for five years to pass bills that would require voters to show photo IDs before voting. One of the earlier versions would have made candidates for office provide proof of citizenship.

Seifert sponsored legislation to block illegal immigrants from getting college aid.

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — April 23, 2009

Shanoon Humoud, 70, sat weeping amid burned food packages scattered on the ground at the site of a suicide attack in Baghdad, April 23, 2009. Her husband, son, and two grandchildren were killed in the blast. (Photo credit: Ali Abbas / EPA)

Scores Killed in Iraq Attacks

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that suicide bombers struck a humanitarian aid distribution point and a crowded restaurant in separate attacks in Iraq, killing at least 78 people.

Haitians in U.S. Illegally are Allowed to Stay 

Obama administration gives temporary reprieve because of deadly quake

Bodies of earthquake victims lie outside the morgue in Port-au-Prince, Friday, Jan. 15, 2010. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti on Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2010. (Gregory Bull / AP)

Jan. 15, 2010

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration said Friday it will allow Haitians who are in the United States illegally to remain because of this week’s catastrophic earthquake.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano granted the temporary protected status on Friday, two days after she temporarily halted deportations of Haitians, even those already in detention. The protection is available only to Haitians already in the country as of last Tuesday, when the quake struck their home island. They will be allowed to stay and work for 18 months.

Act of compassion

Napolitano told reporters that the temporary legal status is an act of compassion. …

Temporary protected status is granted to foreigners who may not be able to return safely to their country because of a natural disaster, armed conflict or other reasons.

Haitians in the United States illegally have pleaded for years for permission to stay, work and send money home to their loved ones in need after disasters at home, the treatment the federal government gave Central Americans in 1998 after Hurricane Mitch devastated their region.

The Haitians have been denied despite four tropical storms in 2008, massive floods almost every other year since 2000 and the long-running political strife that has prompted thousands to seek asylum in the United States.

 About 30,000 Haitians have orders to leave the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security statistics. Many others are appealing their cases. Thousands of others live underground. …

Federal law permits Homeland Security to grant [illegal] immigrants temporary protected status in the event of a natural disaster or civil war. …

‘Backdoor to granting amnesty’

Those who favor a stricter U.S. immigration policy have in the past vehemently opposed giving temporary protected status because they argued it is a backdoor to granting amnesty. TPS given to Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Hondurans following Mitch was extended repeatedly for more than a decade, presumably long after those countries were able to rebuild. About 350,000 Central Americans have the designation, as do about 950 Somalis and Sudanese in the United States since 2001 and 2004.

“TPS was invented for this kind of situation, but it has been turned into something much more permanent” said Mark Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies. “And while we probably should grant TPS to Haitians who were here before the earthquake, we really need to make sure it’s temporary.”

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1/25/10 Update

Debate Grows in Aftermath of Quake: Should U.S. Let More Haitians Immigrate?

A man stands in a crowd of several hundred people hoping to gain access to the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince on Friday, Jan. 22, 2010. (Photo credit: Julie Jacobson / AP)

By Amy Goldstein and Peter Whoriskey

January 25, 2010

Excerpts

[...]

Now that the earthquake’s initial shock is giving way to the realities of trying to cope in the ruins, a growing number of Haitians — and their relatives in the United States — are starting to chafe under the Obama administration’s edict to resist, as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has put it, “an impulse to leave the island and to come here.”

The tension between U.S. policy and the desperation to leave is spawning a debate in Washington over whether the government should let more Haitians in. Immigration advocates and several members of Congress have begun pressing the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department to ease the rules. So far, the focus is on two groups: Haitians with relatives legally in the United States and a few hundred injured children who, in the judgment of doctors doing relief work in Haiti, could die without sophisticated medical care.

In the first days after the Jan. 12 quake, Napolitano announced that the government would admit Haitian children already on the cusp of adoption and that it would allow Haitians who were in the United States illegally to stay for 18 months. The administration has not eased restrictions for children newly orphaned or injured by the disaster, Haitians who had already been seeking U.S. visas, or any other earthquake victims who want to come. …

[A] groundswell is building in favor of letting certain Haitians emigrate. Advocates’ immediate focus is Haitians who, before the disaster, had applied — and in some cases been approved — for a kind of visa available to foreign relatives of U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents.

About 19,000 Haitians have pending applications for such visas, according to DHS. Nearly 55,000 Haitians have been approved for family visas but are on waiting lists to enter because Congress has set limits on how many may come each year, the State Department says. Given the quotas, “it can take years and years for families to be reunited,” said Cheryl Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center.

A spokesman for Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services said the agency would “put at the head of the line” applicants for relative visas from Haiti. But he and a State Department spokeswoman acknowledged that quicker visa approvals would not mean those Haitians could enter the United States more quickly unless Congress alters the quotas — something lawmakers are not discussing.

Lavinia Limon, president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, said that letting Haitians join U.S. relatives would relieve at least some of the humanitarian burden in Port-au-Prince. The United States, she said, has airlifted foreigners out of other emergencies, such as Albanians from Kosovo and refugees from the Vietnam War.

Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank that favors tighter controls on immigration, countered that “poverty and underdevelopment can’t be criteria we use to pick immigrants. There are too many of them.” And he said that Haitian earthquake victims could consume U.S. social services and displace American workers — without generating enough income to send back to Haiti “to make a difference” there.

Still, Elliott Abrams, a deputy national security adviser under President George W. Bush who is now at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that if the United States doubled for the next five years the 25,000 Haitians who have been coming to the United States annually, it would substantially increase the remittances sent back, providing critical help as the nation tries to rebuild. Such help streaming home to families is more reliable and more likely to be spent efficiently than the ebb and flow of foreign aid, he said. Abrams suggested that to satisfy critics of increased immigration, the United States could offset the influx of Haitians by temporarily slowing immigration from elsewhere.

Among Haitians and their U.S. relatives, Limon predicted, pressure on U.S. immigration policy will escalate in the coming weeks and months. “You need a boat, a captain, money. Nobody has that,” she said. “But in two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, they will.” …

——

Related report

Fear of chaos grows in Haiti’s capital … Looters roam streets of Port-au-Prince; death toll mounts …

Click for the latest news:

Gerald Herbert / AP

——

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago – January 15, 2009

War on Terror ˜Mistaken

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that British foreign secretary David Miliband said the phrase “war on terror” — though capturing the urgency of the situation immediately following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 — is ultimately “misleading and mistaken,” because it gives the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida.

Arrests Suggest U.S. Muslims, Like Those in Europe, Can Be Radicalized Abroad 

Video

FBI interrogates American Muslims (MSNBC, Dec. 11, 2009) – Five American Muslims accused of using the Internet to organize a plot to attack U.S. military forces in Afghanistan are interrogated by the FBI. (02:10)

By Mary Beth Sheridan and Spencer S. Hsu

December 12, 2009

A spike in terrorism cases involving U.S. citizens is challenging long-held assumptions that Muslims in Europe are more susceptible to radicalization than their better-assimilated counterparts in the United States.

Four investigations disclosed in the past 12 months, including the arrests of five Northern Virginia men in Pakistan this week, underscore what the Obama administration asserts is a domestic threat emanating from Americans training overseas with al-Qaeda and related terrorist groups in Pakistan. “We have apprehended extremists within our borders who were sent here from the border region of Afghanistan and Pakistan to commit new acts of terror,” President Obama said this month in announcing plans to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. …

Several U.S. and international terrorism analysts say that American Muslims, as a group, remain more prosperous, assimilated and moderate than those in Europe. But the analysts also note that immigration trends, the global spread of a militant Islamism and controversial actions by the United States and its allies since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks increase the chances that U.S. Muslims could carry out a domestic attack.

“The U.S. is experiencing what countries like the U.K. have gone through several years ago,” said Sajjan Gohel, director of international security at the Asia-Pacific Foundation, a research organization in London. “The worry for the U.S. is there will be a similar blow-back of homegrown terrorism.” …

“As we continue to get enmeshed in these conflicts, it’s naive to think our population is not going to be affected by the global rhetoric surrounding this,” said Christine Fair, a Georgetown University professor specializing in Pakistan.

Worse in Europe?

Still, several analysts said the problem in the United States still appears to be an order of magnitude less than in Europe. For example, British domestic intelligence chiefs warned in 2006 and 2007 of 200 terrorist networks, at least 2,000 individuals who posed a direct security threat and perhaps 2,000 as-yet unknown would-be terrorists.

But just as British authorities identified disenchanted elements among its 800,000-strong Pakistani community, several Pakistani Americans have been detained this fall in cases linked to extremists in Pakistan. At least three of the five Virginia residents were in touch with a Taliban recruiter, according to Pakistani authorities. …

Najibullah Zazi, 24, a Denver airport shuttle driver and U.S. permanent resident who was born in Afghanistan and reared in Pakistan, was charged in September of testing explosives for an attack, possibly in New York.

The cases of radicalization are not limited to Pakistani Americans. In January, Bryant N. Vinas, 26, a Hispanic American convert to Islam, pleaded guilty to receiving training from al-Qaeda in Pakistan last year.

Daniel P. Boyd, a white Muslim convert who lives in North Carolina, was accused this summer of plotting to attack U.S. military personnel at Quantico, and of leading a group of seven men to fight in the Middle East after Israel’s 2006 war with the group Hezbollah.

Last month, U.S. authorities announced the latest of 14 indictments related to the alleged recruiting of more than 20 Somali American youths from Minnesota to join an Islamist insurgency in Somalia. U.S.-backed Ethiopian forces toppled an Islamist government in Somalia in 2006.

Concern about Somalis

Somali Americans are among the youngest, poorest and newest immigrants to the United States, with 60 percent having arrived since 2000 and 51 percent living in poverty.

“We have to look very hard at those who arrived in the last 10 or 15 years,” said Charles Allen, a veteran CIA officer and chief intelligence officer for the Homeland Security Department from 2005 until this year. “We’re having this problem with Somalis, and we’re having it with Pakistanis, and there will be other nations as well.”

U.S. authorities said the American Muslim community is central to countering extremism. In the Minnesota and Virginia cases, parents and community leaders sounded the alarm when the youths disappeared. …

——

Related reports on this site

FBI Probing Somali Terror Link (March 12, 2009)

Minnesota Somalis Jihad-Bound? (Jan. 26, 2009)

——

12/13/09 Update

Terrorist Recruiters Leverage the Web

By Griff Witte, Jerry Markon and Shaiq Hussain

December 13, 2009

Pakistani authorities on Saturday were searching for an insurgent figure believed to have aided five Northern Virginia men who allegedly tried to join al-Qaeda, saying the case could help unravel a growing network of terrorist recruiters who scour the Internet for radicalized young men.

Investigators have identified the man, known as Saifullah, as a recruiter for the Pakistani Taliban and said he contacted one of the American men on YouTube, exchanged coded e-mails with the group, invited them to Pakistan and guided them once they arrived.

But the men, all Muslims from the Alexandria area, failed to reach the remote tribal zone that is al-Qaeda’s home because the terrorist network’s commanders thought they were sent by the CIA to infiltrate al-Qaeda — and Saifullah could not convince them otherwise, a Pakistani intelligence official said Saturday. …

Full story

Obama’s War

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FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago — December 12, 2008

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (center) with Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski (left), who was responsible for military jails in Iraq.

Rumsfeld Fingered on Abu Ghraib

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, I reported that an investigation by the Senate Armed Services Committee found that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials share much of the blame for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Meanwhile, a suicide bomber struck a crowded restaurant near the northern Iraq city of Kirkuk where Kurdish officials were meeting with Arab tribal leaders, killing at least 55 people and wounding about 120 in the deadliest attack in Iraq in nearly six months.

The Washington Post reports in its Sunday edition that a NATO fact-finding team estimates that about 125 people, many of them civilians, were killed in a U.S. airstrike called in by German forces in Afghanistan, guided by a lone informant. Excerpts from that report will be posted here when it becomes available.

Afghans bury some of the victims of an airstrike in a mass grave near Kunduz on Friday, Sept. 4, 2009. (Photo credit: Reuters)

Sole Informant Guided Decision on Afghan Strike

From left, Col. Georg Klein, left, commander of the German base in Kunduz, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Rear Adm. Gregory J. Smith, NATO’s chief of communications in Kabul, visit the site. (Photo credit: Anja Niedringhaus / AP – Washington Post)

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran

Sept. 6, 2009

Excerpts

HAJI SAKHI DEDBY, Afghanistan, Sept. 5 — To the German commander, it seemed to be a fortuitous target: More than 100 Taliban insurgents were gathering around two hijacked fuel tankers that had become stuck in the mud near this small farming village.

The grainy live video transmitted from an American F-15E fighter jet circling overhead, which was projected on a screen in a German tactical operations center four miles north of here, showed numerous black dots around the trucks — each of them a thermal image of a human but without enough detail to confirm whether they were carrying weapons.

An Afghan informant was on the phone with an intelligence officer at the center, however, insisting that everybody at the site was an insurgent, according to an account that German officers here provided to NATO officials.

Based largely on that informant’s assessment, the commander ordered a 500-pound, satellite-guided bomb to be dropped on each truck early Friday. The vehicles exploded in a fireball that lit up the night sky for miles, incinerating many of those standing nearby.

A NATO fact-finding team estimated Saturday that about 125 people were killed in the bombing, at least two dozen of whom — but perhaps many more — were not insurgents. To the team, which is trying to sort out this complicated incident, mindful that the fallout could further sap public support in Afghanistan for NATO’s security mission here, the target appeared to be far less clear-cut than it had to the Germans. [...]

In Kabul, the Afghan capital, relatives of two severely burned survivors being treated at an intensive-care unit said Taliban fighters forced dozens of villagers to assist in moving the bogged-down tankers.

“They came to everyone’s house asking for help,” said Mirajuddin, a shopkeeper who lost six of his cousins in the bombing — none of whom, he said, was an insurgent. “They started beating people and pointing guns. They said, ‘Bring your tractors and help us.’ What could we do?” [...]

The decision to bomb the tankers based largely on a single human intelligence source appears to violate the spirit of a tactical directive aimed at reducing civilian casualties that was recently issued by U.S. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the new commander of the NATO mission in Afghanistan.

The directive states that NATO forces cannot bomb residential buildings based on a sole source of information and that troops must establish a “pattern of life” to ensure that no civilians are in the target area. Although the directive does not apply to airstrikes in the open, NATO officials said it is McChrystal’s intent for those standards to apply to all uses of air power, except when troops are in imminent danger. [...]

The incident has generated intense disquiet among Afghans, many of whom say military operations since the fall of the Taliban government in late 2001 have resulted in an unacceptably high number of civilian casualties. Local media reports have been filled with people alleging — some with little proof — that scores of civilians were killed in the airstrike. [...]

Full story

9/6/09 Update

U.S.-German rift over Afghan deaths case (AP, Sept. 6, 2009) — An airstrike by U.S. fighter jets that appears to have killed Afghan civilians could turn into a major dispute between NATO allies Germany and the United States, as tensions began rising Sunday over Germany’s role in ordering the attack. … The German Defense Ministry, meanwhile, pushed back against a story published in the Washington Post that German officials said painted their commander in a poor light and played up the U.S. version of events. … More

11/26/09 Update

German military chief removed over airstrike (AP, Nov. 26, 2009) — The German military’s top official has been removed for failing to properly pass on information to political leaders about a September airstrike in Afghanistan that killed civilians. The new defense minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, told parliament that the military’s inspector general, Gen. Wolfgang Schneiderhan – the equivalent of chief of staff – had asked to be relieved of his duties. … More

——

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago Today – September 5, 2008

On the Campaign Trail: Day 53

With two young supporters, Michael (6) and Steven (10), at Lakeside Memorial Park, Forest Lake.

One-year retrospective: One year ago today, on the 53rd day of my campaign against U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination as House of Representatives candidate in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, I reported on my campaign stops the previous day north of the St. Paul metro in the cities of Wyoming and Forest Lake in Washington County on my way to the final night of the Republican National Convention, where I observed the action outside the convention hall. I also featured information from the St. Paul Pioneer Press voter guide regarding my campaign platform and issue positions.

Campaign SUV — my 1989 Jeep Cherokee in Wyoming, Minn.

On the Sidelines of the Republican National Convention

John McCain and George W. Bush impersonators in Rice Park, St. Paul, outside the Xcel Energy Center, venue for the 2008 Republican National Convention, Sept. 4, 2008.

The MSNBC outdoor set in Rice Park outside the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, venue for the 2008 Republican National Convention, Sept. 4, 2008. 

Pioneer Press Voter Guide

Party: Republican Age: 52 Incumbent: No Occupation: Psychology professor, military/security consultant Address: P.O. Box 117 Sartell, MN 56377

I recently had an interesting exchange with a writer on a progressive blog that put into sharp relief the challenges and travails, the trials and tribulations of mobilizing a cross-partisan majority in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District to defeat U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in the September 14, 2010 primary.

But first, for those eager to see Bachmann disappear from the political landscape but unfamiliar with Minnesota’s political system, it’s important to understand that Minnesota does not have party registration. Yes, that’s right — Minnesota has no registered Democrats or Republicans. Stated differently, on paper Minnesota has no Republicans or Democrats — only registered voters; party-political affiliation is strictly a matter of self-identification.

This has important practical implications, the most important of which is that in a primary election every voter gets an identical ballot, irrespective of personal party identification. The ballot has three colums, one for each political party with major-party status in the state of Minnesota: Republican, Democratic-Farmer-Labor, and Independence Party — and voters are free to vote in the primary of their choice. The only legal constraint is that they select one column and vote only in that column. 

Sample primary ballot. Click to see larger image.

The strongest weapon we have at our disposal to defeat Bachmann is Minnesota’s open primary system. Bachmann’s Achilles’ heel is the open primary, where nothing prevents self-identifying Democrats or independents from voting against Bachmann in the primary election.

The fact that Bachmann received only 47 percent of the primary vote in September 2008 shows just how vulnerable she is. If voters who marked their ballots for the unopposed Democratic and Independence Party candidates had voted for Bachmann’s primary challenger instead, Bachmann would have been defeated even before she made her October 17 “anti-American” remarks on Hardball with Chris Matthews.

Back to the progressive blogger.

To defeat Bachmann, he proposed the “offbeat strategy” of endorsing former Independence Party lieutenant governor candidate Dr. Maureen Reed as the Democratic candidate for Congress in an effort to deter someone else from filing on the IP line and creating a three-way race, which would favor Bachmann.

Now, we know that that particular strategy is unlikely to work, because in 2008, when the IP chose not to run a candidate, cross-endorsing Democratic endorsee Elwyn Tinklenberg instead, political unknown Bob Anderson went and put his name on the IP ballot to create a three-way contest in which he won 10 percent of the vote in a race on which he spent just a few hundred dollars. (Bob Anderson has already expressed an interest in running again in 2010.)

In response the the blogger’s suggested strategy, I commented that “the only viable strategy to defeat Bachmann is to shut her down in the September Republican primary,” but that “that cannot happen if there are contested Democratic races in the 6th District U.S. House or Minnesota gubernatorial races.”

I added, “Bachmann’s Achilles’ heel is not her outrageous political rhetoric or delusional conspiracy theories,” which endear her to her base, but “Minnesota’s open primary system, which allows Democrats and Independents to vote along with reasonable Republicans against Bachmann in the Republican primary.”

Referring the blogger to my website for a more detailed analysis of how to beat Bachmann, I concluded: “In 2008, barely 19,000 of the 6th District’s more than 430,000 registered voters turned out for Bachmann. Anyone with the means and ability to mobilize 20,000 voters from across the political spectrum in the Republican primary can beat Bachmann.”

The progressive blogger responded by concurring that I’m correct that Bachmann could be eliminated by a coalition of anti-Bachmann Republicans, Democrats, and independents, but then summarily denounced it as “a strategy of election trickery” and “foolishness.”

I find it difficult to understand the thought process that it’s “trickery” and “foolishness” for voters outraged by Bachmann to break loose from the shackles of party politics and unite as Minnesotans to put country first and vote Bachmann out of office.

Indeed, the wise legislators who gave us open primaries had the foresight and judgment to recognize that occasionally the need might arise for a backup failsafe mechanism that enables us to form broad cross-partisan coalitions to recall rogue elected officials.

To be perfectly blunt, there’s no good reason for 6th District constituents to subjugate their own best interest to the dictatorship of partisan consciousness.

——

Related report

Aubrey Immelman Ponders Another Run Against Bachmann

By T.W. Budig
ECM Capitol reporter
Oct. 14, 2009

Aubrey Immelman, the Republican academic who trudged across the 6th Congressional District last year as part of his primary challenge to Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, hasnt yet decided whether hell attempt to unseat the congresswoman again.

“I expect 2010 to be a Republican year, with the GOP taking back around 20 of the seats they lost to Democrats in 2006 and 2008 – a climate in which Bachmann will do very well if she advances to the general election, said Immelman in a recent e-mail.

“Im hanging around the ballpark, so to speak, in case an opportunity opens up for a walk-on, wrote Immelman in part. …

Full report and alternative link

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SIDEBAR

Chuck Todd

MSNBC political director  Chuck Todd reports:

As first reported by the Watertown Daily Times, the Republican nominee in the New York 23rd Congressional special election, Dede Scozzafava, announced this morning she’s suspending her campaign. Her exit leaves Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, who had garnered plenty of national GOP support, as the favorite to win what was a hotly-contested 3-way race. …

(Posted: Sat., Oct. 31, 2009 at 11:09 AM on First Read)

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago Today – August 5, 2008 

On the Campaign Trail: Day 22

One year ago today, I launched my campaign against incumbent U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann for the Republican nomination in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

On the first day of the campaign I issued my position statement on illegal immigration, one of the three core issues in my congressional campaign. My other key issues were law enforcement and national security (with a focus on my opposition to the Iraq war, which I believe weakened U.S. national security and which Rep. Bachmann enthusiastically supported).

Following is my blog post for the first day of the campaign. Over the next few months, I will regularly post “One Year Ago Today” excerpts from my 2008 campaign blog entries.

FROM THE ARCHIVES: One Year Ago Today — July 15, 2008

On the Campaign Trail: Day One

Today, the first day of the campaign, I roll out my policy statement on immigration and am available to respond to constituent and media queries regarding my position.

Next week, I will address vital U.S. national security issues.

The following week, I will comment on pressing issues of law enforcement and public safety.

After that, I will physically hit the campaign trail, traveling the district to meet with and listen to the concerns of constituents.

Please join me on this journey to restore the common-sense voice of reason of ordinary Minnesotans in our nation’s capital.

——

RELATED MEDIA REPORTS

KEYC TV 12, Mankato (July 4, 2008) — Sixth District congresswoman Michele Bachmann will face a challenge from a fellow Republican. Fifty-two-year-old Aubrey Immelman is an associate professor at St. John’s University. He says he’s running to restore conservative values, including fiscal responsibility and strong national security. Immelman opposes the Iraq war, saying it has further destabilized the Middle East, strengthened Iran and hurt the United States.” …

——

SJU Professor Challenges Bachmann for Republican Nomination

By David Unze
St. Cloud Times
July 4, 2008

A St. John’s University associate professor of psychology plans to seek the Republican nomination for the 6th District congressional seat occupied by Michele Bachmann.

Aubrey Immelman, 52, announced his candidacy Thursday. He said he will run on a platform of restoring conservative values, which includes fiscal responsibility and national security.

Although he’s opposed to the war in Iraq – saying it has hurt the United States, further destabilized the Middle East and empowered Iran – he’s not an anti-war candidate, he said.

Immelman, who first came to the U.S. in 1968, was an infantry paratrooper in the South African military.

One of the courses he teaches is on profiling, and he has gained a national reputation for his personality profiles of U.S. presidential candidates, world leaders and terrorist leaders.

Immelman worked as a U.S. military consultant on nuclear counter-proliferation and reducing the weapons of mass destruction threat against the United States, he said.

——

Bachmann Faces Primary Fight from Little Known Candidate

By Tim Budig
ECM Capitol reporter
July 7, 2008

Sixth District Congresswoman Michele Bachmann will be facing a primary election challenger.

Aubrey Immelman, of Sartell, has filed with the Secretary of State’s Office as a Republican and has a website proclaiming his candidacy for Congress.

A July 2 entry states that the candidate is currently in Europe to conduct military training and attend meetings.

It states Immelman’s campaign for the 6th District will begin on July 15.

Bachmann, whose heard that Immelman is an educator, indicated she welcomed the contest.

“Im excited about that challenge,” said Bachmann of the primary tussle, speaking at Inver Grove Heights City Hall this morning (July 7).

“I look forward to the challenge. I believe its great. Welcome him,” she said.

“I haven’t met him. He’ll have to introduce himself to the public and let people know where he stands,” she said.

There has been indications that a candidate forum bringing Bachmann and her Democratic challenger Elwyn Tinklenberg to Monticello in late September has been in the offing.

But Bachmann Monday morning said she didn’t know anything about it.

——

Bachmann Challenger: Sleeping in Paris

By Paul Demko
The Minnesota Independent
July 8, 2008

The St. Cloud Times reported last week that Rep. Michele Bachmann now has a challenger in the Republican primary. St. John’s University psychology professor Aubrey Immelman has filed to run against the freshman legislator.

Immelman’s area of expertise is analyzing the personalities of politicians and criminals — two professions that conveniently overlap on occasion. He told the Associated Press that he’s opposed to the Iraq War and that he wants to restore conservative values and fiscal responsibility to Congress.

But little more is known about Immelman’s views on issues or how vigorous a campaign he intends to run. So I called him up to ask a few questions. Unfortunately, the professor is in Paris[*] all week. According to Immelman’s Web site, he’s there “to conduct military training and attend meetings.” The campaign will officially launch on July 15.

* Note: The military training was conducted in Brussels, following which I attended the annual scientific meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in Paris.

Dr. David G. Winter of the University of Michigan delivers his keynote address, “Taming Power: Should We? Can We? How?” at the 2008 annual meeting of the International Society of Political Psychology in Paris, July 12, 2008. (Photo: Aubrey Immelman)

——

SIDEBAR

Twister Sisters Video of Tornado-Warned Storm

St. Cloud, Minn.
July 14, 2009