Black Box Report

When a single issue so dominates a group's focus as illegal immigration has to rightwing conservatives, you get an interesting glimpse into that group's priorities - or lack thereof. On Friday Rep. Tom Tancredo, presidential candidate and opponent to all immigration, legal and illegal, inserted an amendment into the Homeland Security Funding bill that would cut security and anti-terrorism funds from cities that employ a "sanctuary policy" towards illegal immigrants. The bill passed, and Michelle Malkin is pumped:

Is it a sign of things to come as the second Senate showdown looms...? We'll see. In the meantime, sanctuary cities are on notice: Defy immigration law, risk your homeland security funding. Too bad the White House refuses to send that message.

Needless to say, this sentiment is being echoed across the rightwing blogosphere, as they cheer on the idea that those big fancy "sanctuary cities" will get what's coming to them!!!1!!one!:

About time - I'm tired of cities deciding that they can ignore federal laws with impunity. If they want to make themselves an illegal alien magnet, it should come with a cost.

"...it should come with a cost."

If you're against illegal immigration, you might think this is a grand idea. Unless of course you happened to live in one of those so-called "sanctuary cities." You could agree with Tancredo 110%, but because you weren't politically active enough to get your city to drop it's "sanctuary" designation, then....tough cookies on ya', sport. You should've read Malkin's blog more!. Sadly, No! points out what kind of shortsighted overkill (no pun intended) this is:

Counter-terrorism funding including first-responder grants should be taken away from cities (the list also includes Seattle, Chicago, Houston, Portland, and Long Beach) that allow illegal immigrants to speak to the police without being reported to immigration authorities. As in, if something were to happen, too-bad-so-sad, and it seems we've learned an expensive lesson, haven't we?

Hey, if a few thousand eggs have to be broken for them to get their way on immigration, so be it.

And by eggs, I mean people. And by broken, I mean killed.

Fortunately for the rest of us that aren't quite as concerned with the second coming of Aztlan, there seems to be one small hitch with Tancredo's amendment: no one has a definition of what a "sanctuary city" is, or how to officially designate a city as such to take away it's funding (bonus points that I found this getting pointed out by a rightwing blog):

If the legislation...doesn't define a so-called sanctuary city, does it do anything at all?...Note that passage "stunned critics and supporters alike;" my first impression was that supporters were stunned because they hadn't figured it out: politicians who didn't really want to do anything about illegal immigration could vote for it, because it doesn't really do anything!

Guardians against the Reconquista: Dangerous, but fortunately not very bright.