tdaxp

In celebration of Chirol's Dr. Seuss cartoon, I present it with a Barnettian riff

"Dearborn resident helped terror group," by David Shephardson, The Detroit News, 2 March 2005, http://www.detnews.com/2005/nation/0503/02/A05-105122.htm (from Michelle Malkin).

The ever-hot Michelle reports:

A Dearborn man pleaded guilty Tuesday to providing material support to Hezbollah, a foreign terrorist organization.

Mahmoud Youssef Kourani, 33, admitted to hosting meetings at his Dearborn home during Ramadan in 2002 and allowing a Lebanese man to solicit donations from people there for Hezbollah.

The U.S. government considers Hezbollah, a Lebanese group known as Party of God, to be a terrorist organization. The group's goals, the government says, include the eradication of "Western imperialism" from the Middle East.

Hezbollah has conducted many high-profile terrorist attacks, including the killing of a Marine lieutenant in 1989.

Under the plea deal with the U.S. Attorney's Office, Kourani faces no more than five years in prison. Under the original charge, he faced up to 15 years. He will be sentenced June 14 by U.S. District Judge Robert H. Cleland.

Federal agents found thousands of dollars and evidence of wire transfers when they searched Kourani in May 2003. He was then charged with housing an illegal immigrant.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Kourani bribed a Mexican consular official in Beirut to get a visa to travel to Mexico. Kourani and a traveling companion then paid another man in Mexico to be smuggled across the southern U.S. border Feb. 4, 2001, the government said.

And then comments:

I know, I know, just another "undocumented worker" who crossed the border to "do the jobs Americans won't do."

I'm a fan of Mrs. Malkin, but I disagree here. She's taking the wrong lesson. We shouldn't stop the flow of people from Mexico to America. It helps our economy and their people, and it begins the process of forming a block to meet Europe and China. But we should have a common frontier.

We should not hold our security hostage to labor protectionists or Euro-style anti-immigrationists. Here's to immigration, border security, and the coming victory.