1115.org

When I wrote on Monday about Zoila Meyer, little did I know that on Thursday I would be rubbing her story in the California Republican Party’s face.

To recap the basic lessons from Zoila Meyer’s story:
• Immigration law is implacable.
• You may have been a model citizen all your life. You even may have been elected to the city council. But if it turns out that you really weren’t a citizen like you thought, the law hath no leeway.
• Immigration officials will show up at your home, and tell you to appear at their office. There you will be handcuffed, frisked, processed and put in jail.
• That’s just how the system works. Implacable. No leeway. Even when everyone knows you’re an upright, outstanding, respected member of society.
• Everyone gets handcuffed, frisked, processed and put in jail first. Then, in the timeless words of Lori Haley, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: “People are arrested on immigration charges from all walks of life. (They) can plead (their) case before an immigration judge, if (they feel) that (they have) reason to seek release for removal. … Everybody has due process when they’re arrested.”

These lessons may or may not please Ron Nehring, chief boss-man of the California Republican Party, the one at whose desk the buck stops. Because he’s now going oops just like Zoila Meyer did. As the San Francisco Chronicle is pleased to inform us:

California Republican Party officials might have violated federal immigration law by hiring an Australian immigrant for a top finance post without ever demanding to see his proof of legal residence, immigration officials said Tuesday.

Ron Nehring, who heads the California Republican Party, admitted Tuesday that he — and as far as he knows, any party officials — never saw the green card that would prove that Michael Kamburowski, an Australian citizen hired as the state GOP’s chief operations officer, was a legal resident.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division said Tuesday the law is clear that “it is the responsibility of the employers to check and see that someone is legally in the country and eligible to work.”

So heartening that they are talking the same talk: the law is clear, the law is implacable. Because the eyes of the world are upon them. Are they also going to walk the walk? Nehring is a perp, just like Meyer was. Are they going to treat him the same? Or does the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in California work like the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, with different strokes for rich white folks?

Ah, but I see I clean forgot to mention why there’s so much attention focused on Michael Kamburowski, the chief operations officer of the California Republican Party:

The Chronicle reported Sunday that Kamburowski — an Australian immigrant who was hired as the GOP’s chief operations officer in March to oversee the party’s multi-million-dollar campaign accounts — was ordered deported in 2001, later was jailed on visa violations in 2004 and since has filed a $5 million wrongful arrest lawsuit against U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials, according to court documents on file in U.S. District Court.

He’s not exactly a fugitive from justice, but he’s certainly the next best thing.

Party officials said Kamburowski never disclosed his past legal troubles or his lawsuit against U.S. officials when he went to work for the Republican Party in the nation’s most populous state.

Well, telling truth to power is not exactly what the GOP is looking for in its hires, right? Why would the party of George Bush and Dick Cheney, the party of Tom Delay and Scooter Libby, the party of Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales expect honesty from the chief operations officer of the California Republican Party?

For some unfathomable reason, “Kamburowski resigned Sunday.” This is although both “Kamburowski and his attorney, Michael DiRaimundo, say that since he arrived more than 12 years ago, he has become a permanent and legal resident of the United States.”

Anyway, the “state GOP has hired an interim chief operations officer and is looking nationwide for a new director.” Presumably they’re going about it a little differently this time around?

The Republican National Committee has managed to distance itself from this state mess, but not without making the mess a little more juicy:

Tim Morgan, treasurer of the Republican National Committee — who said his calls for more vetting of Kamburowski’s hiring went unheeded by the GOP state board — wrote Tuesday in The Chronicle that earlier this year, when the state position was open, (Grover) Norquist “accompanied Kamburowski on his visit to California to meet (GOP) board members, providing Nehring’s ‘friend’ an unexpected element of gravitas” as a candidate.

Nehring, asked if Norquist had a role in introducing Kamburowski to Republicans here, said, “Not that I’m aware of.”
[…]
Nehring said he had never had any conversations with Norquist regarding Kamburowski or his hiring at the California GOP.

John Kartch, spokesman for the Norquist organization, Virginia-based Americans for Tax Reform, also maintained in an e-mail to The Chronicle that “neither Grover nor anyone from ATR introduced Mr. Kamburowski to anyone in California in connection with his employment there. No one at ATR was involved in getting Mr. Kamburowski interviewed or accepted for that job.”

But Jon Fleischman, publisher of the widely read GOP Web site FlashReport.org. and a member of the state GOP board of directors, told The Chronicle that he was invited to at least two meetings with Nehring, Norquist and Kamburowski in March, when the state’s chief operations officer job was open.

Those included a March 12 meeting of Nehring’s “San Diego Center-right Coalition,” held at the offices of the San Diego Republican Party, which Kamburowski attended and later an intimate lunch the same day with Norquist and other top party insiders.

“Grover was there, as was Nehring and Kamburowski and some of the other people who worked for Grover, and we spent a little time talking to him,” recalled Fleischman.

“It was very clear, it was a ‘Come on down to this meeting, meet Mike Kamburowski, say hi to Grover’ and all mixed together,” he said. “It was clearly part of the credentials that were presented — the work (Kamburowski) had done for Grover. Clearly.”

Nehring seems to be telling the truth about some things though (even loyal Republicans caught up in a scandal will do that from time to time):

Nehring told The Chronicle he worked with Kamburowski 7 years ago at Americans for Tax Reform, the Norquist organization, and believed him to be a talented and experienced political operative.

Interesting. Did Kamburowski actually have a green card 7 years ago? Even if he did, did Americans for Tax Reform also hire him without ever demanding to see his proof of legal residence?

Stay tuned! This should be a lot more fun than Wimbledon (which I almost got to watch live this year, but alas…)