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Schwarzenegger Says Don’t Blame Illegal Aliens
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger says those who blame California’s fiscal crisis on illegal aliens are bigoted and wrong.
I don’t think illegal aliens are the main cause of California’s economic troubles, but they’re certainly a significant player in it.
Arnold is either just playing politics or he’s an idiot.
Feds Investingating San Francisco For Subverting Immigration Law
San Francisco is one of a handful of left-wing cities that has decided not to follow federal immigration law. However, the true scope of the city’s law breaking is only now becoming evident.
San Francisco’s juvenile probabtion department are actively trying to protect Honduran juveniles caught dealing crack and other offenses by using tax payer money to fly them home. This allows the dealers to avoid official deportation which allows them to re-enter the United States.
Rather than have the drug offenders deported, they have recommended that Juvenile Court judges and commissioners approve city-paid flights home to Honduras for the offenders with the aim of reuniting them with their families.
The practice, federal authorities say, does nothing to prevent offenders from coming back, while federal deportation legally bars them from ever returning. Federal officials also say U.S. law prohibits helping an illegal immigrant to cross the border, even if it is to return home.
Federal officials recently detained a San Francisco juvenile probation officer at the Houston airport, where he was accompanying two Honduran juvenile drug offenders about to board a flight to Tegucigalpa.
Some offenders have been caught and given a free flight home 3 or 4 times on the tax payer’s dime. This is a serious violation of federal law punishable by prison time, and the feds are in the midst of a serious investigation into the city.
This is yet another stunning example of just how crazy San Francisco has become. The rule of law of has become nothing more than a joke as the far-left has tightened its grip on the city.
Geraldo To Chertoff: No Mas Immigration Raids!
Geraldo Rivera wrote a slightly shrill piece for the Huffington Post calling on Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff, to stop ordering immigration raids.
Geraldo refers to the estimated 12 million undocumented workers as “technically illegal” and calls raids by law enforcement as more appropriate for targeting Al-Qaeda than illegal immigrants.
He repeats a now discredited claim that during a raid in early March of 2007 in Massachusetts, “nursing mothers” were separated from their children.
At the time of the raid, liberal news organizations wrote hysterical stories claiming that nursing babies were torn from their mother’s teet and shipped back to Mexico.
Those claims were later discredited after an investigation and I’m almost certain Geraldo is aware of that.
Probably the most sensational charge in the piece is when Geraldo states that any latino who votes against “rational immigration reform” is an “Uncle Tom.”
I have previously written in His Panic, Why Americans Fear Hispanics in the U.S. that, “any Latino who votes for a Republican or a Democrat who opposes rational immigration reform is an Uncle Tom.”
It’s easy to give Geraldo grief about his immigration views, but I too am generally sympathetic to the illegal immigrants. If it weren’t for the terrorism issue, I really wouldn’t care about the illegal immigration thing. It’s not the thousands of Mexicans that pour over the border at will that really bother me. It’s the one Middle Eastern terrorist piggy-backing into the U.S. along with the thousands of Mexicans that worries me.
That hasn’t happened yet that we know of, but can you think of a better way for terrorists to enter the U.S.? I also agree with Geraldo that racism is playing a part in the immigration debate. That is certainly not anywhere near the main reason, but there’s definitely a small percentage of people who just don’t like Mexicans.
All that said, if we are a nation of laws then we should enforce those laws. If we as a country decide that we really don’t care about securing the border, then we should change the laws. No other country on earth allows people to just enter unannounced through the back door.
I believe the now defunct “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” package that President Bush and John McCain supported was the right idea.
Geraldo is dead wrong about the immigration raids. ICE has a responsibility to enforce Federal immigration laws, and they should continue to do so.
-Chris Jones
Spitzer Pulls The Plug on Drivers Licenses For Illegals
With his poll numbers collapsing, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer pulled the plug on his incredibly controversial plan that would have given drivers licenses to illegal immigrants.
The embattled governor made the announcement after he met with the state’s heavily Democratic congressional delegation, which had grown increasingly critical of the plan.
Spitzer aides said the decision was made because the firestorm over the issue was so fierce it was blocking the governor’s overall agenda, and there were serious concerns that various lawsuits, as well as threatened legislative action, would block the plan anyway.
Forcing the issue on the public has given the Governor his lowest approval ratings ever, with only 25% of New Yorker’s saying they would vote to re-elect him if the vote were held today.
There was also anxiety about the negative impact the issue was having on Sen. Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
Homeland Security strikes deal with Spitzer on Driver’s Licenses
The Bush administration and New York cut a deal Saturday to create a new generation of super-secure driver’s licenses for U.S. citizens, but also allow illegal immigrants to get a version.
New York is the fourth state to reach such an agreement on federally approved secure licenses, after Arizona, Vermont and Washington. The issue is pressing for border states, where new and tighter rules are soon to go into effect for crossings.
The deal comes about one month after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer announced a plan whereby illegal immigrants with a valid foreign passport could obtain a license.
Shame: The Dream Act Fails
The DREAM Act was designed to reward students who have been in the United States for years, have graduated from high school and plan to go to college or join the military. The idea was that kids whose parents are illegal aliens should not be punished with deportation, because they had no choice in coming to the country at a young age. The eligible students would have received no federal funding or benefits but simply granted permanent resident status.
The DREAM Act was narrowly targeted and would benefit only high school graduates whose parents brought them to the country illegally years ago, but even this scaled-down legislation was derided as “amnesty” by opponents.
Somehow the Republican party has allowed the far-right to hijack the immigration issue and it’s tearing the party apart. President Bush received the largest number of Latino votes of any Republican President in 2004, but thanks to the hard line stance on immigration those voters have gone back to the Democrats.
There is no question that we must secure our borders and stop the flow of illegal aliens. However, the way the Republicans have handled the issue from a PR perspective is just horrible. Anything short of sending every last illegal alien back to Mexico is labeled as “amnesty” by the far right.
I believe the so called “amnesty bill” that was defeated a few months ago that gave illegals a “path to citizenship” and had the guest worker provision was the right way to go.
It wouldn’t bother me if amnesty was granted, I think it could work this time. When Reagan granted amnesty it was a failure, because he did nothing to secure the border.
If we could lock down the border completely by building a wall and securing it with National Guard, then granting amnesty would be appropriate.
The Republicans have allowed the lunatic fringe to speak for the entire party. The vast majority of Republicans are concerned with illegal immigration because of National Security issues. Unfortunately, their voices are being drowned out by the people who just don’t like Mexicans.
-Chris Jones
As Pace of Deportation Rises, Illegal Families Are Digging In
NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — The day after his wife was deported to their home country, Honduras, Lilo Mancía grieved as though she had died.
Neighbors arrived with doughnuts and juice for their two small children, while Mr. Mancía, an illegal immigrant like his wife, María Briselda Amaya, took telephone calls from relatives and tried not to break down.
“The first thing I thought of was the children,” Mr. Mancía, who is fighting his own deportation order, told the visitors gathered in his second floor walkup apartment in New Bedford a couple of weeks ago. “The future we imagined for them, it all collapsed.”
Last year on May 1, hoping to influence Congress to adopt legislation making illegal immigrants legal, hundreds of thousands of immigrants held marches and work stoppages across the country. This May 1 there will be another round of rallies and marches, but this time immigrants will also be protesting a surge in deportations.
The events are expected to be much smaller than a year ago, organizers said, as stepped-up enforcement by the authorities has made illegal immigrants wary of protesting in public and more doubtful that Congress will soon act to give them a chance at legalization.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, facing intense political pressure to toughen enforcement, removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the country over the last year, an increase of more than 37,000 — about 20 percent — over the year before, according to the agency’s tally.
While President Bush and many Democrats have called for a path to legalize some 12 million illegal immigrants, a significant number of Republicans in Congress reject the plan because they view it as amnesty for lawbreakers. They advocate a broader campaign of deportations that would expel many illegal immigrants and, they say, drive millions more to give up and go home.
“We are not calling for I.C.E. to become the Gestapo knocking on doors in the middle of the night,” said Rosemary Jenks, director of government relations for NumbersUSA, a group in Washington that seeks to curb immigration. “But we have to increase the likelihood that if you are here illegally you will be caught.”
So far, many of the deportations have caused illegal families to hunker down and plot ways to avoid detection and resist deportation, not run voluntarily for the border, immigrant advocates said. In Massachusetts, immigration agents have been challenged by lawyers, labor unions and state officials who question their raid tactics and are fighting trench by legal trench to block deportations.
Mr. Mancía was amazed at the offers of help he received, including from the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, the state’s Department of Social Services and Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Mr. Mancía has been given emergency aid to pay his bills while his deportation case proceeds, and Elizabeth Badger, a public service lawyer in Boston, was still fighting his wife’s deportation after she was on the ground in Honduras.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Mr. Mancía declared defiantly to a downstairs neighbor. “I’m going to stand my ground here until I win.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say their priority is to locate and deport fugitive immigrants with criminal records or convicts who are finishing prison sentences. Still, thousands of illegal immigrants like the Mancías with no criminal history have been caught in raids, the officials acknowledge.
Also, new expedited procedures have allowed agents greater flexibility to deport illegal immigrants caught in border areas, bypassing court hearings. Many immigrants, when caught, agree to leave voluntarily because it means they are not barred from returning legally in the future.
Seen from the working class communities like New Bedford, the deportations are a blunt instrument. Frequently the deported immigrants were not alone in the United States, but came from families with a mix of legal and illegal members who were well settled in this country.
A growing number of deportee families have children who were born here and are United States citizens. (The Mancía’s younger son, Jeffrey, was born in Texas.) More than 3.1 million American children have at least one illegal immigrant parent, said Jeffrey S. Passel, a demographer at the Pew Hispanic Center.
Mr. Mancía and his wife were among 361 workers arrested on March 6 in an immigration raid at Michael Bianco Inc., a leather goods factory in this faded manufacturing town. She remained in detention while he was released to care for their boys, Jeffrey, 2, and Kevin, 5.
On April 18, Ms. Amaya was awakened at 4 a.m., driven by immigration agents to Kennedy Airport in New York and placed on a passenger flight to Honduras, Mr. Mancía said. Telephoning her husband as soon as she could place an international call, she said little, only that she was disoriented and more afraid of her home country than an American jail. She has no house, property or job in Honduras.
“She has no words right now,” Mr. Mancía said, explaining why his wife refused to be interviewed by telephone.
Mr. Mancía has been left to fight off his own deportation and face a series of difficult choices.
He must decide, he said, whether to press his case in the United States or declare defeat and take the boys to rejoin their mother in Honduras. If forced to depart, he will weigh whether to leave his sons with friends in New Bedford to get a quality of schooling he believes they will not have in Honduras. Mr. Mancía said he and his wife had decided to leave their home in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, for their safety, because criminal gangs used the streets as a combat zone. Ms. Amaya’s sister was on a public bus returning from Christmas shopping on Dec. 23, 2004, when gang gunmen shot it up, killing her and 27 other passengers, he said.
“We walked over dead bodies in Honduras,” Mr. Mancía said. “The children see that and they don’t grow up well.”
He was the first to come to the United States, crossing at night at Laredo, Texas. In January 2005 Ms. Amaya took the same route, carrying Kevin, then a toddler. Caught by the Border Patrol, she applied for political asylum and was released temporarily. After Jeffrey was born in Houston, they came to New Bedford. Her asylum petition was eventually denied.
Stitching military backpacks in the Bianco factory at $7.00 an hour, the couple achieved stability that felt almost like prosperity. They bought a white aluminum kitchen set and a microwave oven. Kevin was content in kindergarten, reciting his ABC’s and chattering in English, which neither parent speaks.
Soon they had a family cluster in New Bedford, as three other relatives from Honduras, drawn by word of jobs at Bianco, came to work there as well.
“We knew it would be hard to get legal papers,” Mr. Mancía said. “Since so many people were in the same situation, we learned to live like the rest.”
After the March 6 raid, immigration lawyers appealed Ms. Amaya’s asylum case and she became optimistic. But she remained in immigration detention in the Bristol County jail, unable to receive visits from the children.
“He is refusing to eat and needs to be coaxed to take sustenance,” Arthur Dutra, a teacher at the John Hannigan School, wrote in a March 15 letter about Kevin’s condition. “He asks for his mother repeatedly.”
A nurse at the Greater New Bedford Community Health Center, Jacqueline Arieta, wrote in a separate letter that Jeffrey was having recurring earaches and losing his appetite due to “acute sadness.”
A gaunt man with a mild voice, Mr. Mancía said he did not mind cooking for the boys or washing their clothes at the Laundromat. He said he and his wife, balancing two factory jobs, had learned they both had to do housework.
The help he has received in fighting his deportation has allowed him to believe that he might avoid his wife’s fate, even though he has no papers, no job skill to offer other than hard work and very limited legal avenues to pursue. Although Jeffrey is an American citizen, he would not be able to petition for his parents to be admitted to the country legally until he was 21.
Mr. Mancía said he was preparing for any outcome, even the prospect of a separation from one or both sons so they could remain at least temporarily in the United States.
“My son is an American,” Mr. Mancía said “He needs to be educated in American schools, to speak English. He needs this country.”
Ms. Jenks, of NumbersUSA , said the responsibility for the impact on children of the deportations rests with their parents.
“If parents are going to come here illegally, unfortunately the child faces the consequences as well,” she said.
[NY Times]
Immigration Rallies Planned Nationwide
LOS ANGELES (AP) – Hispanic and other civil rights groups wrapped up plans for immigration reform marches and rallies Tuesday in dozens of cities, but conceded that a replay of last year’s huge turnout was unlikely.
Still, organizers said the demonstrations reflect a robust movement determined to win a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country.
“There was a sort of energy last year,” said Gordon Mayer, a vice president of the Community Media Workshop, which helped groups organize the Chicago march. “This year that boulder has split up into a lot of smaller rocks.”
Marches, meetings and voter registration drives were planned from Oregon to Florida.
In Miami, Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean planned to speak to immigrant groups. In Washington, D.C., about 400 members of Asian groups from across the country were set to lobby lawmakers. Two large demonstrations were planned in Los Angeles County – home to an estimated 1 million illegal immigrants.
Last year’s May 1 boycott brought out more than a million protesters across the nation. But later rallies failed to produce large turnouts, as legislation stalled in Congress and bipartisan proposals for illegal immigrants to gain citizenship have become more conservative.
The developments have disheartened many would-be marchers, but organizers said the frustration with Congress also brought out new supporters.
“It used to be that Hispanic immigrants, those who came legally, were more conservative on the issue,” said Joe Garcia, a Cuban-American who heads the Democratic Party’s Miami-Dade County chapter.
“But now it’s become so wrapped up with issues of racism and identity, even Puerto Ricans and Cubans care about immigration,” he said.
Yet stepped-up raids in recent months have left many immigrants afraid to speak out in public – a major change over rallies in 2006 when some illegal immigrants wore T-shirts saying “I’m illegal. So what?”
“The raids are intended to terrorize people and make President Bush look tough,” said Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “But they are not a solution.”
Some Los Angeles area groups called for an economic boycott and hoped for a repeat of last year, when thousands of immigrants and students stayed away from work and school in a sign of solidarity.
Others have rejected the boycott, arguing that it puts immigrants’ livelihoods at risk and deprives children of valuable classroom time. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, urged students to stay in school.
“This is a very decentralized and organic movement, so in all different cities people will be doing what they feel is important in their area,” said Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, a major organizer of rallies.
Among the events planned:
- In New York, groups are planning an “American Family Tree” rally, where immigrants will pin paper leaves on a large painting of a tree to symbolize the separation of families because of strict immigration laws.
- In Chicago, demonstrators will march more than three miles through downtown, ending at a lakefront park.
- In Fresno, Calif., organizers planned a rally focusing on children whose parents had been deported. The San Joaquin Valley is home to thousands of seasonal workers who cross the Mexican border illegally each year to work in the fields and construction industry.
- In Milwaukee, Ricardo Chavez, the brother of famed agricultural labor leader Cesar Chavez, was expected to speak, as protesters demanded a stop to immigration raids. A raid last year in Whitewater, Wis., saw the arrests of 25 workers and the owner of a packaging plant. Mothers were separated from their children.
- In Florida, voter registration drives and vigils were planned in Miami, Tampa, Orlando and West Palm Beach, along with after-hours rallies in agricultural towns in the Everglades.
- In Los Angeles, marches will include demands for a legalization program, a stop to the raids and an anti-Iraq war message. City and transportation officials were planning for as many as 500,000 people in downtown, believing it could be the largest in the city so far this year.
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