RUSH: Here’s some shocking news for you. The violent MS-13, Mara Salvatrucha, that’s a street gang. Where are these clowns from? (Jack Kemp impression) El Salvador, as Jack Kemp says, Mara Salvatrucha, street gang, we’ve done updates on these clowns, they are following the migratory routes of illegal aliens across the country, according to the FBI. The FBI is now calling Mara Salvatrucha from El Salvador the new American Mafia.

“The violent MS-13 — or Mara Salvatrucha — street gang is following the migratory routes of illegal aliens across the country, FBI officials say, calling the Salvadoran gang the new American mafia. MS-13, which has a significant presence in the Washington area, and other gangs are spreading into small towns and suburbs by following illegal aliens seeking work in places such as Providence, R.I., and the Carolinas, FBI task force director Robert Clifford said. ‘The migrant moves and the gang follows,’ said Mr. Clifford, director of the agency’s MS-13 National Gang Task Force. ‘If you follow the construction trade, this is where a lot of these immigrants go.’ The FBI is operating a national anti-gang campaign out of its new National Gang Intelligence Center. The federal government last summer appropriated $10 million to set up the center at FBI headquarters. Mr. Clifford’s position was created when the Gang Intelligence Center opened in December, and MS-13 is No. 1 on the FBI’s hit list.”

But hey, this is still not enough to cause us to try to enforce the borders. So now we’ve got this bunch of clowns following the illegals through because they know nobody is going to stop them, and they’re setting up shop in the country as a new Mafia and what have we had to empower an FBI task force in order to follow these clowns around and keep tabs on them. This is unbelievable but it’s not shocking. It’s not a dumb move by Mara Salvatrucha from El Salvador. The floodgates are open. If you’re not going to close the borders to illegals, if you’re not going to enforce the border, you don’t have a country, you’re not going to have a country. It’s just that simple.

Here’s story number two in our illegal alien stack. “Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials said Wednesday they will share intelligence and resources to fight Central American gangs, whose wave of violence has spread to the nations’ common border.” Well, no, it’s gotten a little farther than that because I just had the story here about Mara Salvatrucha, street gang from El Salvador. So while we’re going into business with the Mexicans on the border, these clowns from El Salvador have already found their way to Rhode Island, the Carolinas and the Washington area. “Law enforcement representatives from the 10 Mexican and U.S. border states meeting in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, drafted a plan that calls for the exchange of information on the Mara Salvatrucha and the M-18, two of the most ruthless Central American gangs.” So while we’re meeting with the Mexicans on the border, the clowns from El Salvador are practically a continent away already in the country. How did we get the Mexicans to go along, what did we pay them?

From the New York Sun today, this headline alone is sort of mind numbing. “Lawmakers Debate Immigrants’ Effect on US Employment.” Really? “Lawmakers grappled yesterday with the impact of immigration on American employment at a time when President Bush favors a guest worker program that would match willing employers with employees from other countries. A recent study by the center for immigration studies, a Washington think tank that favors lower immigration levels, found that between March of 2000 and March of 2004 found that the number of unemployed adult Americans increased by 2.3 million while the number of employed adult immigrants increased by the same amount.” Whoa! Want to hear that one again, folks? Want to hear that one again? Mr. Snerdley does. This Washington think tank that favors lower immigration levels found that “between March of 2000 and March of 2004 the number of unemployed adult Americans increased by 2.3 million.” You could say lost their jobs, (gasping) while the number of employed adult immigrants increased by the same amount. So 2.3 million Americans became unemployed and 2.3 million immigrants became employed.

It’s a net zero when it comes to calculating the effect on the economy in terms of the unemployment figures, but it’s still an interesting stat. Now, “While not every immigrant takes a job that was lost by native-born Americans…” Why don’t you say American? “…the dramatic increase in the number of immigrants holding jobs certainly calls into question the wisdom of proposals to increase immigration levels,’ said Steve Camarota, the institute’s director of studies. For struggling American workers current immigration levels can approve challenging during good times. In bad times they can be devastating.” So anyway, there’s that.

Then from the New York Times today, remember we told you the story about this poor sad sack illegal immigrant driving along, been here for 13 years driving along, and the cops stopped him, bad taillight, and they found out he was illegal and so the cops arrested him for trespassing because he’d been here 13 years as an illegal immigrant and nobody had done anything to find him and of course the cops arrest this guy for trespassing when they find out that he doesn’t have valid driver’s license, his Social Security number and all this stuff. You know, he’s been here 13 years, and the immigration and customs agency then ripped the cops for trying to make a big show out of the problems we’re having with illegal immigration. Well, lo and behold, and right on schedule, we have a story from the New York Times that creates sympathy for the illegal immigrant. (Headline) Routine License Check Can Mean Jail and Deportation. “Congress is still a few days away from establishing sweeping federal requirements for a driver’s license, including proof that an applicant’s presence in the United States is legal. But as Jorge Medina-Gonzalez discovered late last year driving from a Home Depot with a can of paint, the rules of the road in places like Nutley, N.J., have already changed.

Mr. Medina, 42, was close to home when two Nutley police officers stopped his Jeep Cherokee because of a broken taillight. They asked for his license and registration, then his Social Security number. In the few minutes it took them to search a national database in a curbside version of the kind of checks that Congress is about to require nationwide, the American life Mr. Medina had built over 13 years began to crumble.” (Gasping.) Oh, not a dry eye in the house. So it’s time to dredge up sympathy. This is one of the obstacles that the whole cause of getting a handle on illegal immigration faces. Sob stories from the New York Times make it hard enough as it is.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I would be remiss, it would be talk show host malpractice if I did not play for you these two sound bites coming up next since we’re discussing immigration. Let me set this up. You people remember I told you I was out in Palm Springs when I had to go out for my ear doctor appointment. I took the opportunity, because I can, to stop in Palm Springs and play golf with some friends. And on the Saturday night of the weekend, we’re going to the club where my friend is a member. And we’re scheduled to have dinner and one of the invited guests is a famous American liberal whose name you would know, it doesn’t matter who, I don’t divulge these kind of personal things without permission, I didn’t get permission. But I will tell you what this liberal said. The subject of immigration came up, no matter where you go in California that’s the subject, that’s the topic and not government. Well, government is not doing enough I guess you could say is a corollary to it. So our good friend the liberal, it was astounding, folks, if it’s not in the New York Times, he didn’t know it. My friend and I were peppering him with statistics such as over 90% of the outstanding arrest warrants in Los Angeles County are for illegal immigrants, that 11 hospital emergency rooms have shut down because nobody pays.

They are frequented mostly by illegal immigrants. Nobody was paying up. There was no recompense, so they couldn’t stay in business. Telemundo and other Spanish-language stations out there are advising illegals on how to get free health care in the American system such as, “Don’t call a cab, you’ll have to pay for that. Call an ambulance, an ambulance never takes cash. They won’t bill you on scene, even if it’s not emergency. So do it that way.” So we were peppering him with all these numbers, plus the drop in circulation of the LA Times. The LA Times just that weekend had done a big story on the growth in the southern California region, this unbridled growth and at the same time more people are leaving the state than ever before, and not once was the whole topic of immigration, legal or otherwise, mentioned as why the population remains the same even though a lot of people are leaving the state.

So we’re running through all this and our good friend — it was a very friendly conversation — but our good friend the liberal got very frustrated at the end of the evening and he said, “All right, look. Let me explain it to you. I love my country. I love my country more than anybody thinks I ever I love my country, and if there was anybody out there who wants to come to my country that I love to make my life better, to improve their life, they want to come here and experience what I’ve experienced as an American, I say, ‘Let them in.’ I don’t care who they are or where they’re from, let ’em in.” Well, my host about lost it, put down his fork and said, “Did you hear what you just said?”

“Yes, I’ll say it again.” Do you mean this? No controls whatsoever? “I love my country, and I want everybody who wants to come here to experience this country the way I have, to be able to get in here, yes.” So later in the evening, we are driving home. My host still can’t get over this. So in my confident and assured manner I said, “Look, let me explain this to you. Let me tell you what the guiding premise was behind our friend’s comments. The last thing he wants anybody to think of him is that he is mean-spirited, cold-hearted, or discriminatory, because that’s what he thinks and his people think of conservatives and people like us. So you will not get him to criticize any illegal immigrant, anybody who’s poor, anybody, because he will not want it to be said by us to other people that he was critical of these people.” My host said, “My God, you just nailed it! You just nailed it!”

All right, that’s the setup for these next two bites. None other than the fabulous and great Sheila Jackson Lee, who, while one day watching the Mars rover roam around Mars, asked NASA scientists said, “Will it go to where the astronauts left the flag?” And, of course, the NASA scientist looked around and said, “Well, how do we deal with this? Because the astronauts went to the moon, they planted a flag on the moon, and Sheila Jackson Lee is asking us about the Mars rover.” It’s kind of like the moment when Al Gore walked into Thomas Jefferson’s place (Video). Monticello. There were all these busts up there. Gore is out there walking around with Clinton with the curator of the place, and Gore is looking thoughtfully, like he’s in this great vast museum, and he has one hand on his (imitating for Ditto-camers) like this and his finger is on his chin, and he points to, “Who is that?” and the curator says, “That’s George Washington.” “Who is that?” “That’s Benjamin Franklin.” In fact, we have that sound bite from our archives. Here’s how that went.

GORE: Who are these people?

CURATOR: This is George Washington on the extreme right, and Benjamin Franklin on the left, and then we have Lafayette and John Paul Jones. And John Adams… (unintelligible) Well, let’s head briefly into the guest bedroom.

RUSH: Now, you should have seen Clinton when Gore asked the question. The beauty is the video. Clinton just kind of turns away, “Oh, my. I can’t believe he asked that.” Because even Clinton knew who George Washington was. So, I mean, these are the smartest people in the world, all right. So here comes Sheila Jackson Lee. This was on C-SPAN this morning, Washington Journal, the host Peter Slen. And Slen says, “In your immigration bill, Madam Jackson Lee, you say undocumented immigrants can seek legal status after five years in the US.”

JACKSON LEE: Those who are here want to stay here, want to work here, and want to be legitimate citizens, and want to be able to vote legitimately. The problem of illegal immigration has been created —

RUSH: Hold it. Hold it. Did you catch that, folks? They come here because they want to vote legitimately. Ha-ha-ha. Yes. They come here because they want to vote Democrat. So that’s the premise under which you have to listen to the rest of her sound bite.

JACKSON LEE: Because we have created no pathway for these individuals over the last 15 years to access legalization. My bill also allows Haitians who have been left in limbo to have parody with the Cuban Adjustment Act. What it says is not to invite throngs of individuals over to the United States. My bill is to give order to those who are already here so that people are voting legally, so that people are driving legally, so that people are working legally.

RUSH: And in that order. And as long as you vote, we don’t care if you drive or get a job, but as long as you vote. So what is her solution? Her solution basically is to legalize them all. So they can vote because that’s why they come here, folks, these illegals are coming here to vote. Now, it’s the same type of thinking, as animated the thinking of my liberal friend at dinner out in Palm Springs. Now, we have one more bite because once Sheila Jackson Lee makes them legal, then she wants to raise the minimum wage. Listen to this.

JACKSON LEE: America has always been a country of immigrants and of laws. The workforce of the next ten to 50 years will be based upon the emerging immigrant population because many of our other populations are not growing.

RUSH: Hold it, hold it, hold it. Why, why is that, why are some of our other populations not growing, Sheila? The immigrant population is growing, gotta make a combination, they’re going to be the majority of the workforce, did you hear that, did you hear her say that? The workforce for the next ten to 50 years, based on the emerging immigrant population, because many of our other populations are not growing. Why is that, Sheila? Word begins with an A. Second letter is a B. Then there’s an O. Then there’s an R. Then there’s a T. I hope I haven’t lost you. Then there’s an I, then there is an O, and an N. What does that spell? “Abortion.” That’s why. You Democrats are aborting yourselves, so bammo, let’s open the floodgates bring in some illegals and make sure first and foremost they vote. But we’re not through with the bite here. Listen to the rest.

JACKSON LEE: And economic engine that will benefit everyone. And what we need to do is to make sure that we increase the minimum wage, we provide Americans with jobs, we look for Americans for the workforce, and that we don’t discriminate against Americans as it relates to immigrants. But we cannot hide the fact that immigrants are here and that they’re going to work.

RUSH: And we want them to vote. So you open the floodgates, the ones that are here you legalize them, make sure they can vote and then you raise the minimum wage. That is Sheila Jackson Lee, congressperson from Texas, with her thoughts on the immigration problem. We’ll be back after this — (laughing) — I tried to do this with a straight face. I just couldn’t.