In the horrifyingly gruesome Robert Rodriguez movie "Machete," a white senator (Robert De Niro) guffaws as his vigilante sidekick (Don Johnson) shoots a pregnant illegal immigrant to death. Then the senator shoots a Mexican himself. "Welcome to America," he spits.
"Machete" does not reflect reality. It is a vicious attack on Americans who oppose illegal immigration, portraying them as racist Nazi-types who can't wait to break out their AK-47s for the next anti-Latino pogrom. Thankfully, nobody takes the politics from "Machete" seriously.
No one, that is, except President Obama.
Standing at the border with Mexico in El Paso, Texas, on Monday, the U.S. president scoffed at Americans who want a border fence. "You know, they said 'we needed to triple the border patrol,'" he laughed. "Well, now they're going to say we need to quadruple the border patrol, or they'll want a higher fence. Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they'll want alligators in the moat. They'll never be satisfied."
Beyond the obvious buffoonery of attacking law-abiding Americans as incipient murderers -- yes, if you build a moat filled with alligators around your house and somebody falls in and is eaten, you will be prosecuted for murder -- Obama is lying about the efficacy of his anti-illegal immigration program. In his e-book "How Obama is Transforming America Through Immigration," Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies says: "In fiscal year 2009, compared with 2008, administrative arrests of illegal workers fell 68 percent, criminal arrests fell 60 percent, criminal indictments fell 58 percent, and criminal convictions fell 63 percent."
Illegal immigration has dropped not because of better law enforcement efforts, but because the Obama economy is so poor that even people trying to escape drug-related beheadings aren't trying to jump the border anymore.
The Obama administration has crippled state law enforcement efforts at working in tandem with federal immigration authorities; it has attempted to shut down efforts to keep track of illegal immigrants who stay after their visas expire; it has attempted to cut the number of border patrol agents altogether (its original 2011 budget slotted a 1 percent reduction in patrol agents). Obama is not interested in shutting down illegal immigration -- he's interested in promoting it as far and fast as humanly possible.