My mother's maiden name was Eleanora Maria Marciano. That's about as Italian as you can get. And she certainly was. She came here – legally – as a seven-year-old child who spoke no English. And by the time she was 17, she was elected valedictorian of her graduating class.

You see my mother was Italian to the bone – and American to the core. She and my dad, the son of an English – legal – immigrant raised three children who have red, white, and blue blood running through our veins. My mother never bothered to teach us Italian (except for words like spaghetti, cacciatore, and, of course, Sinatra) because she wanted us to be American through and through, in thought, word, and deed.

After all, my mother did not come to America to be an Italian – anymore than my grandfather Clews came here to be British. They came to be Americans - to dip deeply into American traditions (like baseball, apple pie, motherhood, and waving the American flag on the Fourth of July). And to stand tall for a country built on liberty, free enterprise, and, yes, the rare brand of rugged individualism Obamunists abhor. more >>

If the goal of Monday's immigration hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee was to create the appearance of motion and evoke emotion then it was a success. I am not interested simply in motion, however. I want forward movement on comprehensive immigration reform.

I am in favor of compassionate, comprehensive immigration reform. And it's because I am committed to serious and substantial reform that I cannot support the 844-page bill proposed by the so-called "Gang of Eight."

Much like the current bill, the comprehensive immigration reform I envision includes: real border security, visa modernization, employment verification, robust guest worker programs for both high- and low-skilled workers, and a compassionate approach to dealing with those currently in the country illegally. But history teaches that each of these vital components must be addressed incrementally and sequentially in order to ensure meaningful results. more >>

The country is reeling from the latest terrorist attack, which killed three Americans and injured hundreds more at the Boston Marathon on April 15th. Two brothers who became radical Islamists have been implicated; Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed after an overnight shoot-out with police, and his 19-year old brother Dzhokhar, who was caught shortly after the bombing.

The Obama administration knew ahead of time about the brothers' ties to radical Islam. Russia warned the U.S. in 2011. The Russian government intercepted a communication between the bombers' mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaev, and someone who was probably her son Tamerlan discussing "jihad." The U.S. government added both names to its Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, database. Later, Tamerlan's phone number was traced to numbers that came up in two other investigations into terror suspects, according to a Senator who attended classified briefings about the Boston bombings. The FBI interviewed Tamerlan, but cleared him, finding nothing conclusive. Russian officials next tried to get the CIA to look into Tamerlan, sending the CIA a warning letter about him. Apparently their concerns were ignored by Leon Panetta, then head of the CIA and now known for gutting the defense department as Secretary of Defense.

Tamerlan frequented radical Islamist websites that promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories and advocated violence against the West. The brothers' uncle, Ruslan Tsarnaev, who has not spoken with the brothers since 2010, called the men "losers." Their parents came from an area in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe that has become home to radicalized Islam. Their father Anzor Tsarnaev is Chechen, and their mother Zubeidat is Avar, both minorities in the conflict-torn Caucasus region. The brothers grew up on welfare as children, and Tamerlan received welfare for his family through last year. Their mother says she believes the bombings were staged and fake. She is wanted on charges from 2012 for shoplifting and property damage in Massachusetts. more >>

In two weeks, May 9, the U.S. Senate will begin its formal revision of the immigration reform proposal recently submitted by a bipartisan group of senators.

In a presentation in the Senate on Thursday, one of the senators in that bipartisan group also known as the "Gang of Eight", Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) alluded to the timetable while urging his colleagues to work together to fix the immigration system he thinks is currently a "disaster".

"This is a country that doesn't need to be convinced of the benefits of legal immigration because virtually every single one of us including those watching here now in this building and across this country are all but a generation or two removed from someone that came here from somewhere else," he said in video clip posted on YouTube. more >>

Enough with Republicans invoking analogies to slavery and plantations to make their case for conservative policies or attract minority voters. News flash: it doesn't work! Not only is it offensive and distasteful but also shows a complete disregard for an AWFUL, painful part of our US history.

Alex Conant, spokesperson for Senator Marco Rubio, has stooped to the new low of comparing illegal aliens living and working in this country to the institution of slavery.

"@AlexConant @ConnCarroll We haven't had a cohort of people living permanently in US without full rights of citizenship since slavery." more >>

Support for immigration reform increases dramatically among white evangelical Christians if the polling question mentions that specific requirements must be met for current unauthorized immigrants to qualify for citizenship. This was the finding of new research conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Brookings Institution.

As The Christian Post previously reported using PRRI's poll, white evangelical Christians have the lowest level of support for immigration reform of any major religious and race or ethnic group. Last week, PRRI released the results of an experimental study that was included in the same survey.

For the experiment, PRRI divided part of their sample into three different groups. For each group, they asked respondents in three different ways if they supported a path to citizenship. more >>