Dec 24

Exactly how crazy are the nativists?

By Advocate Pro-Blogosphere View Comments
Hutto Correction Center where woman and children are housed in deplorable conditions

Hutto Correction Center where woman and children are housed in deplorable conditions

That is the question posed by our friend the Damned Mexican on his excellent site.

We had a chance to make a difference by urging Williamson County Commissioners not to renew the contract with CCA operators of the gulag like Hutto Family Detention Center. Sadly, hip pocket politics won out over common sense. Texas Civil Rights Review, has an opinion piece on their site on the subject. As they said,

Putting non-criminal families, including little children, in prison for infractions comparable to running a stop sign is immoral and un-American.

Imprisoning people charged with no crime, while they await decision re. applications for citizenship and asylum, is NOT effective immigration policy, does NOT secure our borders, and has NOTHING to do with patriotism. It is a corrupt means to enrich an already wealthy corporation by exploiting the weakest among us!

Well said. A sentiment we totally agree on!

Back to the nativists though.
Change.org has been running votes and discussion on ideas for change to present to the Obama administration following the swearing in of the new President on January 20.

Passage of the DREAM ACT is one of the ideas that will certainly be presented and we’re all confident it will become law.

What is the DREAM ACT.

The federal DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), is a bipartisan legislation that would permit a select group of undocumented students conditional legal status and eventual citizenship granted that they meet the following requirements:

  • if they were brought to the United States before they turned 16, are below the age of 30,
  • have lived here continuously for five years,
  • graduated from a U.S. high school or obtained a GED
  • have good moral character with no criminal record and
  • attend college or enlist in the military for at least two years.

All in all, a net gain for America at no cost to our citizens. 1492 respondents think it is a wonderful idea and that annoys the nativists to no end. True to form, they try to insert their nativist propaganda into the discussion with out much success.

One the other hand, the nativists have their own poll going entitled Enforce our Immigration Laws which not surprisingly, is not doing too well. Further proof that America is sick of the nativist propaganda as they try to survive in this recession, which by the way, was not in any way caused by the so-callled “illegals.

Good wishes come to all from Nezua at the Unapologetic Mexican

OVER HERE, you have people working together to overcome changes that scare just about everyone. And over there, people are taking advantage of the fear that often accompanies these changes. In this season of giving and love and familia, may you and yours be surrounded by those who fight with and for you.

Back at you brother, to you and yours, Feliz Navidad y Prospero Anos siempre!

Goodbye to that closet racist Rep. Virgil Goode (R) Va who was ousted in a close race by challenger Tom Perriello. Goode was once quoted as saying,

Goode has stirred controversy in recent years for his strong anti-immigration stances, including a 2006 letter he wrote to constituents criticizing a decision by Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota to use the Quran when he was sworn in. Goode warned that unless immigration was tightened, “many more Muslims will be elected.”

Goode also went so far as to blame the current economic mess on “undocumented immigrants”. Out the door Mr Goode! This is change America needs.

Separating fantasy from reality discusses the President recent action concerning farmworkers, an action that has ignited a firestorm.

Paco Fabian discusses Reuben Navarette’s view on this and concludes with,

Immigration reform that’s got a chance must be good for US workers, immigrant workers, and the economy. We needn’t choose between worker protections and real immigration reform, but we do need to separate fantasy from reality.

I’m looking forward to 2009 where we can confront the immigration debate head on while ignoring the nativist extremists. Perhaps we’ll see true common sense reform for a change. Change we can all live with, and the nativist can continue seeing illegals behind ever tree.

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Dec 19

The Hour is Now for Pro Immigrant Advocates

By Advocate Headline Comments Off

immigrat_reformWith Obama in office, a sympathetic Cabinet and more Democrats in Congress, supporters hope to revive a reform package next year. But the economic downturn sparks worry about protecting U.S. workers.

Immigrant advocates said Thursday that long-stalled efforts to legalize millions of illegal migrants, crack down on employers who hire them and win more family visas would be revived next year and could possibly succeed in early 2010 following sizable Democratic gains powered by record turnouts of Latino voters in the November election.

Frank Sharry of America’s Voice, a Washington-based immigrant advocacy organization, said that Democrats who favored a comprehensive reform approach beat Republicans advocating only border control and other enforcement measures in 20 of 22 congressional races in such battleground states as Colorado and New Mexico. Those results were in part driven by Latino voters, who doubled their turnout over 2000, supported President-elect Barack Obama over Republican nominee John McCain 67% to 31% and helped Democrats win, in addition to Colorado and New Mexico, other swing states such as Florida and Nevada, Sharry said.

“This is a defining issue among the fastest growing group of new voters in the country,” Sharry said of Latino support for immigration reform. “This is a huge priority.”

In a national teleconference Thursday, Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D-Ill.), said Obama had asked him to relay that he remains committed to a comprehensive solution to repair the nation’s immigration system. Advocates said Obama’s Cabinet appointments were a promising sign that he was assembling a strong team to deliver on reform promises, including New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as secretary of Commerce, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as secretary of Homeland Security and, announced Thursday, Rep. Hilda L. Solis (D-El Monte) as secretary of Labor.

All three are strong supporters of comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants.

“It’s another indication that immigration reform is going to be a high priority for the incoming administration,” said David Mermin, a pollster with Lake Research Partners. Mermin said that the majority of Americans he surveyed for America’s Voice support a comprehensive solution that would secure the borders, crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, and offer legalization to undocumented migrants who pay fines, learn English and meet other requirements.

But Ira Melman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a Washington-based restrictionist organization, said its own polling by Zogby International showed that the majority of Americans are concerned that legalizing immigrants during the economic downturn would hurt U.S. workers.

“It’s going to be very, very difficult to sell this to the American people when the economy is generally in a state of collapse,” Melman said.

Sharry said the recession would probably affect the outlines of a reform package. To protect American workers, Sharry said, the package might not include an increase in temporary visas for either skilled or unskilled foreign workers, for which business has long lobbied. An exception would be made for temporary farm workers, he said.

Sharry also said the reform package would probably include greater emphasis on aggressive labor enforcement to target employers who simultaneously violate immigration and labor laws by hiring illegal workers into jobs with poor wages and working conditions.

In Los Angeles, immigrant advocates said they plan to launch an appeal to Obama to stop immigration raids on homes and work sites.

In the Chicago area, Gutierrez said, Roman Catholic and evangelical churches have begun mobilizing thousands of citizens to support immigration reform by publicizing the hardship they face waiting for loved ones to receive entry visas.

Jorge-Mario Cabrera of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles said advocates are excited at the prospect of finally bringing to fruition efforts that began with massive marches and have led to a new Congress and White House administration seemingly poised to pass immigration reform.

“We feel very confident that the strong showing of Latino voters in November will show [people] that we are serious about getting involved in the civic process,” he said.

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Dec 19

Migra Matters – Hearts of Darkness: A journey into the nativist lair.

By Advocate Pro-Blogosphere Comments Off

A dark journey into a nativist lair

A dark journey into a nativist lair

A couple of weeks ago, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) held a press conference to lay out their agenda to throw a monkey wrench into the new administration’s attempt at a comprehensive overhaul package.

The publisher at Migra Matters decided to “take one for the team”, held his nose and listened in to the discussion. As he so adroitly puts it,

Little did I know that listening to the world according to FAIR President, Dan Stein, would be like falling down a rabbit hole where black is white and white is black.

Backed up by media spokesman, Ira Melman, and Executive director, Julie Kirchner, Stein managed in his 45min presentation to rewrite recent history, rehash long-discredited talking points, ignore or misinterpret reams of factual evidence, and flat out fabricate his own alternative reality.

As we’ve come to expect from far-right ideologues, Stein opened up his presentation with a statement intended to stir up maximum resentment and fear. He spoke at length about the changing political climate due to economic instability and how only strict enforcement and severe limiting of all new immigration would be accepted by the American people

I thought about joining the discussion but other matters had to be attended to and besides, I’m not good at keeping my mouth shut in the face of blatant misinformation.

You see what I mean if you read The Rest of the Story

And the anti-immigrant crowd is worried that their agenda of hate and bigotry with be doused with a dose of cold reality when President Elect Obama assumes the Presidency on January 20th, as evidenced by this memo circulating from nativist and Tanton protege’ Roy Beck. It seems now that NumbersUSA has changed their position to ZERO immigration, and of course, trying to wheedle money out of their sheeple.

We say, ‘Suspend immigration during crisis’
?From: www.numbersusa.com Roy Beck NumbersUSA (immigrationinfo@numbersusa.com)

As U.S. Job Market Collapses, NumbersUSA Takes the Gloves OffWe say, ‘Time to Suspend Most Immigration’With Millions Now Out of Work,

We’re Working to Block a Huge New Amnesty and to Temporarily Suspend New Work Visas

DEAR SHEEPLEl
Daily the economic news gets more grim. Layoff follows layoff, as companies and local governments slash their budgets, firing hundreds of thousands of people.

( SHEEPLE , keep reading to see how this affects you! )

The job market appears to be melting down before our very eyes. So how does it make sense for the federal government to bring in around 140,000 extra, additional foreign workers each and every month, to take American jobs? Yes, you heard it right. Your government is currently issuing around 140,000 new work permits and green cards each month—1.6 million each year—to foreign workers.

When our economy is losing millions of jobs, and nearly 20 million Americans are unemployed or working at reduced hours, why should the feds and their corporate campaign contributors bring in ANY new foreign workers to take American jobs?

At NumbersUSA, we’ve decided to take our stand. I’ll be even more personal—I’m putting my reputation on the line with this.

We’re calling for a temporary suspension of most new immigration.
Press Here To Donate It makes sense, doesn’t it, SHEEPLE ?

I know that some NumbersUSA members have focused almost entirely on illegal immigration in the past, even though our organization has always favored major reductions, legal and illegal, for reasons clearly stated in our web site. But I think we can all agree that conditions are even more compelling for deep reductions now.The economic survival of millions of unemployed Americans is on the line. It’s time for a time-out on most new foreign workers.Imagine the fight we’re going to have now . . .In the short time since major news media have started reporting NumbersUSA’s call for a “Suspension,” the nation’s immigration lawyers already are lashing out at us. And they’ll fight with everything they have because their very livelihoods depend on importing masses of foreign workers.

Apologists for cheap-labor industries are attacking us as having no idea how the economy works; they claim that foreign workers only take jobs that Americans won’t do and that every time a foreign worker takes a U.S. job, he/she creates another job for an American.

Some of the nation’s religious leaders have joined various leftist special interest groups in suggesting that we are immoral for favoring unemployed Americans and their families over immigration.

Most newspaper editorial writers and the academics who often appear in the media are sure to do what they always do when we start to make progress in fighting open-borders policies—try to marginalize us with character assassination and name-calling.

Yes, opposing the open-borders coalition is going to cost us a fortune (YOU HAVE NO IDEA BUSTER). We’re going to have to send millions of faxes, we’re going to have to do even more top-notch lobbying.

Our expenses are going to go way, way up. But I believe we have no choice.

Now that millions of Americans are being thrown out of work, opposing illegal immigration is not enough. And favoring only modest reductions in legal immigration is also not enough. We believe that practically every new foreign worker brought into this country at this time throws a working American out of a job or blocks an unemployed American from getting a job. That’s just not right.

I wrote about this topic last week on our web site, and this is the response I got from David of California:

“This is terrible that so many Americans are losing their jobs now! How absurd to now let immigrants, both legal & illegal, pour into our country?!!! Our elected officials need to come down out of their ivory tower and wake up to the reality of the average American worker. “I work in the I.T. industry and we’ve been losing our jobs to both immigrants coming here to the U.S. and to the offshoring industry. I’ve been writing to my senators & congressman for years regarding this issue, all to no avail. They don’t care.”—David of California

Well, David’s right. Many in Congress seem not to care. As I’ve been telling you, Senate Majority Leader Reid says he plans to help President-Elect Obama and Sen. McCain with the immigration deal they’ve just forged. Far from putting new immigration on a sensible time-out, Obama and McCain are cooking up a plan to give a sweeping citizenship amnesty to millions of ILLEGAL aliens already stealing jobs. Press Here To Donate In other words, they want to shove 1.6 million new foreign workers (or more) into U.S. jobs next year at the exact same time they officially permanently take 7 million jobs out of reach of unemployed Americans by giving permanent greencards to the illegal aliens now occupying those jobs.It’s outrageous, and we’re opposing them.

You’ll help us, won’t you?

To get Congress to NOT pass any illegal alien amnesties, and to get them TO PASS a temporary suspension of most new immigration, is going to take incredible financial resources. We’re going to need you—this month. SHEEPLE , thank you very much for all your activism.

Sending faxes and making phone calls are the most important thing you can do to protect your country’s future.

But we cannot defeat the amnesty and get the required enforcement bills passed early next year if our finances dry up this year. SHEEPLE , did you know NumbersUSA is uniquely dependent on first-time donations to meet our monthly obligations? It’s true. So if you’ve never had a chance to give financially, could you help out with $10 or so? I know these are hard financial times, and some people are unable to give. Many others must be more careful about where they give. That’s why those who still have resources really need to chip in now, so that we can defeat this Amnesty and at least slow down foreign worker imports.

Press Here To Donate
THANK YOU,
ROY BECK
NumbersUSA
PRESIDENT

P. S. Remember, if you are ill, unemployed, fearful you may soon be unemployed, or living on a small fixed income, please do not contribute. We only ask for help from those able to help.

Numbers USA1601 N. Kent StreetThu 12/18/08 5:25 PM

Disgusting isn’t it? Gimme gimme gimme! The sky is falling!

There is a revolution afoot and it is not the one these nativist’s invision. It is a revolution of those of us that are immune to their fear tactics, their lies and their desires to take this country back to the era of Jim Crow.

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