In less than two generations, America has evolved from a nation of proud, courageous, freedom-loving citizens into a fragmented group of pandering, cowardly supplicants who spend their days pleading with ethnic “political piranhas” and their advocates in the media to forgive them for taking up space in their own country, speaking their own language, cherishing their own traditions and history, and, above all, having the temerity to ask that the laws of this land be obeyed. Proof that we are no longer a country of red-blooded Americans who brook no interference from any foreign country was the news report of a March 8, 1993, “hearing” held at Fort Mason, California, to collect testimony from “immigrant” (translate, “illegal alien”) women claiming to be the victims of everything from rape to inadequate wages.

Coordinated by organizations with names like the Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Services (and its Women’s Task Force), Equal Rights Advocates, and the Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, this illegal alien get together was championed by such people as Elissevet Stamatopoulou, Chief of the United Nations Center for Human Rights, who was quoted as saying, “[W]e have to shake things up.” At age 67, I can remember a time when someone like this U.N. interloper would have been first punched in the nose and then run out of town for daring to dictate the laws of this country to its citizens or to defend the people who contemptuously break them. As for those presumably American citizens who label themselves pro-immigrant rights advocates, the booing they would have received from their loyal American counterparts at such a meeting even 20 years ago would have sent them scampering as well.

It is inconceivable to me that true Americans can stand by and allow themselves to be chastised by members of foreign governments (like Ms. Stamatopoulou) for not putting a round-the-clock guard on female illegal aliens who walk over our borders uninvited. Yet they blinked not an eye at the “threat” of having the results of the March 8 inquisition turned over to the U.N. World Conference on Human Rights, held in Vienna last June.

What’s more terrifying than the fact that American citizens seem to have had their courage and loyalty sucked up by a giant political vacuum cleaner is that they are not even aware of what is really behind such “human rights hearings” for illegal aliens. Simply put, there has been a concerted attempt by those with a vested interest in opening our country’s borders to abolish the INS as a law enforcement agency and to utilize its personnel to expedite the relocation of more immigrants to this country. The next step will naturally be to disband the border patrol completely, since we will have no use for it with open borders.

If anyone views these comments with skepticism, I suggest he get hold of a copy of the October 26, 1992, Los Angeles Times and read an editorial entitled “Bush vs. Clinton: What Would Be the Best Immigration Policy?” This article describes how a “border-effort” consolidation would merge all of our immigration agencies into one and “focus more resources and attention on helping immigrants assimilate into U.S. life.”

The editorial also tells of “another good idea quietly working its way through government policy circles in Mexico City” that would have Mexico helping the United States regulate the flow of Mexican workers into this country. Yet there is nothing quiet about the individuals who are feverishly working to destroy America as a Western civilization—with our tax dollars. (You can be certain they have not spent money out of their own pockets to put on debacles like the one last March or to send an emissary to Vienna with a report on America’s cruelty to illegal aliens.) America is joining the ranks of those countries whose conquered citizens strew flowers beneath the feet of their invaders.

As one of the countless thousands of American citizens who vehemently opposed Zoe Baird’s appointment to the office of U.S. Attorney General, I too was highly gratified to find that our righteous protests were successful. Yet unlike most of those citizens who bombarded the switchboards and FAX machines of our capital to vent outrage at an individual who had brazenly violated our nation’s immigration laws, I was not ready for a victory parade since I realized that Baird’s rejection was just one small battle in the prolonged war against the growing invasion of illegal aliens and against those like Baird who aid and abet their presence in our country.

As a matter of fact, news of Baird’s rejection wasn’t even official before I had begun to find out how and why the employment agencies that recruit illegal aliens for American employers are allowed to profit from violating our country’s immigration laws. First, I contacted the agent in charge of the Hartford, Connecticut, Immigration and Naturalization Service and asked what steps, if any, had been taken to investigate the two employment agencies there that had been mentioned in the press as suppliers of illegal alien help. The answer: “Nothing.” The explanation? “There are only six INS agents in Connecticut to oversee a population of three-and-a-half million.”

Then I contacted the office of California State Senator Quentin Kopp (an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration) and requested his help in alerting the California State Labor Board (which licenses employment agencies) and the INS to the fact that California has numerous businesses that solicit illegal aliens as employees for affluent residents. I also asked that he immediately initiate an investigation of such businesses and that he encourage enforcement of employer sanction laws. For those of you unfamiliar with these laws, they are part of the 1986 Immigration Act, which declared amnesty for all illegal aliens who could prove continuous residence in the United States since before 1982, as well as meet certain other minimum requirements. This legislation entitled millions of illegal aliens to a “green card,” or work permit, which allowed them to work in this country indefinitely. It also subjected employers who hired immigrants without this legal proof of residency to varying fines.

Yet in spite of this law, the hiring of illegal aliens continues unabated. Patty Siegel, executive director of the California Child Care Resources and Referral Network, estimates that among California families with children under one year old where both parents are working professionals more than one-third rely on illegal aliens for their child care. In Los Angeles, by some estimates, 80 percent of all domestics are hired illegally. And, as the Los Angeles Times reported this January, INS largely allows such practices to go unchallenged. What we witnessed in the case of Zoe Baird was just a skirmish. The switchboards and FAX machines of our elected officials function every day: we must bombard them until the war against the invaders of our country (and those who assist them) is won.

Contrary to the popular belief that illegal aliens must become proficient in English, possess a general knowledge of our nation’s history, and understand government procedure to qualify for permanent residency, all that our amnesty program (a result of the 1986 Immigration Act) required until recently was that applicants attend certain “approved” classes for a minimum of 40 hours. Ask the average American what the amnesty program is and undoubtedly he will reply that it is funded by the federal government for the purpose of educating illegal aliens so that they can meet the qualifications for residency or citizenship. But nothing could be further from the truth.

For those illegal aliens who can’t (sometimes after more than 15 years of residency) answer, orally and in English, nine out of 15 questions (such as “Which office deals with immigration; the INS, the employment office, the social security office, or the post office?”) there was an even more simplified method of attaining the status of permanent resident. According to the January 29, 1989, issue of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, for those illegal aliens who had not miraculously developed a burning desire to become citizens, speak English, or learn American history, but wanted merely to avoid deportation, the amnesty program created an alternative. With this method, all that amnesty applicants were required to do was to show up for at least 40 hours of a 60-hour civics course. Upon fulfillment of this requirement, applicants were awarded certificates of attendance that automatically rendered them eligible for permanent residency.

For the most part, “instructors” in the “learning centers” providing the 60-hour course comprised those quick to jump on a gravy boat kept afloat with billions of federal tax dollars. Since the amnesty program provided for up to 190 hours of free “tutoring” to each illegal alien, these instructors were also quick to encourage their pupils to extend their classroom time from the minimum 40 hours to an average of 150 hours. Because instructors were paid for each hour a pupil spent in the “learning centers,” it doesn’t take a computer to figure out that transforming illegal aliens into legal aliens was a lucrative business. (One Los Angeles school had an enrollment of more than 3,000 pupils.) In fact, in 1989 California demanded $50 million in addition to the $354.1 million over five years already allotted the state for this program. While the last aliens to go through the amnesty program were to complete their courses by November 1990, this might well be the start of a vicious cycle whereby taxpayers periodically fund the transformation of illegal immigrants into “permanent residents.”

All this is in no way meant to imply that out of the millions of aliens who took advantage of the amnesty program to become legal, a small percentage won’t ultimately apply for (and acquire) citizenship after the required five-year wait. The very fact that a modestly intelligent ten-year-old could pass the qualifying test makes citizenship ridiculously easy to attain for anyone with a vocabulary of a few hundred English words and the ability to memorize the answers to a few simple questions.

In fact, as a result of the Immigration Act of 1990, it is now possible to become a citizen by mail. Before, new citizens had to attend a formal naturalization ceremony before a judge, in which they took an oath of loyalty to the flag. Constitution, and laws of the United States. Now, citizenship papers are mailed to our country’s new “citizens” upon request. Or, as in Tucson, Arizona, this past summer, Hispanic immigrants are welcomed to American citizenship in Spanish. Organized by Tucson’s INS office, which thought conducting citizenship ceremonies in a foreign language would be a “nice gesture” to recent immigrants, the city’s program demanded only that the oath of loyalty be recited in English (as required by law).

There is no longer any difference between an American “citizen” and a “naturalized” voter. Latino and other ethnic organizations (like the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials) are feverishly engaged in setting up “learning centers” of their own, in which “their people” are instructed in how to apply for citizenship—and thus attain “political power.” Power over whom is not entirely clear, but the implication is that they wish to lord it over citizens of the country that offered them hospitality and freedom to begin with.

In none of the thousands of articles I have read or the endless harangues I have heard from the leaders of organizations with names like the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the National Council of La Raza (“The Race”), and the League of Latin American Citizens (LULAC) has the word “privilege” been used in connection with the concept of American citizenship. Nor have I heard anyone explain that citizenship consists of more than rushing off to the voting booth to elect the candidate of one’s choice—or rather of the aforementioned ethnic organizations’ choice. Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an affiliate of La Raza deemed eligible by the INS to administer American citizenship examinations, actually incited Mexicans in California to break the laws of this country. In the summer of 1992, the Hermandad—or “Brotherhood” (which reportedly received $8.3 million in federal grants for “educational programs” in 1991-1992)—organized a strike of drywall workers, which involved numerous illegal aliens and which resulted in violent scufflings with police officers on more than one occasion.

To these organizations, and to all the apathetic American citizens who continue to ignore their bid for ethnic dictatorship, I offer the words of James Baldwin: “The making of an American begins at that point where he himself rejects all other ties, any other history, and himself adopts the vesture of his adopted land.” This should be required reading for every elected official and for every individual responsible for reducing the requirements for citizenship and voter registration to no more than an inconvenient formality.

The January 19, 1993, issue of the San Diego Union laid out details of a mindboggling plan to send Mexican teachers into our country’s tax-funded public schools to instruct Mexican students in the history and culture of Mexico. This comes at a time when American teachers in California have had to agree to a devastating salary cut in order to keep their jobs, yet the plan has to date gone unchallenged.

While dedicated American citizens are working tirelessly to secure our country’s borders against the invasion of millions of illegal aliens, our school and civic leaders have been making plans to give Mexico carte blanche to run this country’s schools by remote control. Actually, there is nothing “remote” about permitting Mexican teachers with Mexican textbooks to teach (in Spanish) Mexican history, Mexican culture, and, for all I know, Mexican cooking to teenage Mexican students in taxpayer-funded American classrooms: sponsored by the Mexican Ministry of Education, the San Diego program includes esteem-building talks by psychologists and professors so teens can “value themselves and their rich culture” and learn that “to be Mexican is not to be bad, not to be stupid.”

There is also nothing remote about the possibility that a large number of these Mexican students are illegal aliens. Nor is there anything remote about the possibility that, since the Mexican instructors will be responsible for determining who qualifies for a high-school equivalency diploma, all students will be promptly registered as voters. For if California Assemblyman Joe Baca is successful in having his proposed legislation enacted, all California students 18 years or older will be registered to vote as part of their U.S. government and civics courses.

This insidious plan on the part of the Mexican government and its American allies to indoctrinate Mexican expatriates in undying loyalty to the country from which they so willingly fled is unconscionable as well as of dubious constitutionality: the Mexican government has admitted its political motives behind the adult and teen education programs, citing concern about the number of Mexican immigrants in the United States still voting at home and influencing events there.

Political motives also lie behind the recent demands of Latino and other ethnic students for “cultural studies” departments. The hunger strike and violent protest (which caused $30,000 in damage) for a Chicano studies department at UCLA and the demonstration for an Asian-American studies department at the University of California-Irvine earlier this year illustrated that student interest in ethnic studies is not purely intellectual. “It’s no longer just an academic question. It has become a symbol,” said California Senator Art Torres, who threatened to block state funding to UCLA if the demands of Latino students were not met. As Latinos on campus waved Mexican flags and banners reading “500 Years of Resistance,” true Americans had to ask: A symbol of what?

I close with an excerpt from a letter written by historian Lord Macaulay to H.S. Randall (biographer of Thomas Jefferson) in 1857: “As I said before, when a society has entered this downward progress, either liberty or civilization must perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reigns of government with a strong hand or your Republic will be as fearlessly plundered and laid waste by the barbarians in the 20th century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth, with the difference that the huns and vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without, and your huns and vandals will have been engendered within your own country by your own institutions.”