By Izzy Lyman

The Victims of Illegal Immigration is the latest booklet (There are two others with immigration as the theme.) published by the Social Contract Press of Petoskey, Michigan. The booklet features 17 mini-essays, by an eclectic coalition of concerned writers, about individuals whose lives have been negatively impacted or who have paid the ultimate price with their lives, due to our country's unsecure borders and disheveled immigration policies.

The stories, as you can guess, are quite sad; in some cases, tragic. They constitute the flip-side of the "but they only come here to work" mantra routinely advanced by such self-serving entities as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois, Rupert Murdoch, George Soros, the National Council of La Raza, the ACLU, the National Restaurant Association, the Society of American Florists, and even members of the National Association of Evangelicals.

The booklet's contributors are not as formidable, in terms of clout and finances. But they are feisty and have the American people and truth on their side of a just cause. They include Tom Tancredo, the former Colorado congressman, who writes about Marten Kudlis, a three-year-old, who was killed in an automotive accident by a repeat offender illegal alien; Jim Olson, of the Arizona Cattle Grower's Association, who remembers Rob Krentz, the Arizona rancher murdered on his property by a suspected illegal and whose death was a catalyst for making SB 1070 (Arizona's controversial immigration legislation) law; Peter Gadiel, president of 9/11 Families for a Secure America, who honors his son, James Gadiel, who worked as an assistant trader for Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center in New York City; Tamyra Murray, a Michigan construction industry worker, who describes what it's like to be undercut by "cheap" illegal labor; Allan Wall, who writes about Lila Meizell, an elderly Maryland woman murdered by a pair of illegals whom she had hired to do yard work; and John Ryan, who offers a vignette about an undocumented UCLA student who advocates for the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act.

Admittedly -- and I say this as the editor of The Victims of Illegal Immigration -- the booklet hardly does the topic justice, in that there are countless numbers of Americans who are also victims and whose stories were not included due to space constraints (although they deserve to be). In fact, given how catastrophic the crisis has become, an ongoing series of these booklets could and should be published.

But activists, constitutionalists, and citizen journalists may find that a simple tool often more easily helps broadcast a message that can be summed up thusly: Americans have been hurt, are hurt, and will be hurt if elected officials refuse to enforce federal immigration laws designed to protect their constituents.

If you are interested in receiving a complimentary copy, please contact me at: ilyman7449@aol.com