I have to admit, I love articles like this. Prince William County took an aggressive immgrant bashing stand last fall. Got them lots of national attention -- the wrong kind. It looks like a bastion of hate and that's not good for the economic climate. The butthead who is the county's top elected official isn't backing down:
Many blame Stewart (R), who put the county on the map nationally for its tough approach on illegal immigration. As the top elected official, Stewart is the most visible face of the county and nominally its biggest cheerleader. But his colleagues and some residents are starting to question his leadership....
...Stewart, who was elected to his first full term as chairman in November with 55 percent of the vote, is not fazed by the criticism. "They might not like my style, but it's been successful."
To his critics, Stewart's rhetoric on illegal immigration, although direct, comes off as intolerant in a diverse region that has assimilated thousands of newcomers in the past 20 years.
"If you violate the law and we catch you, we are going to do everything we can to have you deported," Stewart once said of immigrants.
He also called a group of county religious leaders "illegitimate" and "misguided" when they offered to serve as intermediaries between elected officials and the immigrant community. "They need to do what they do best: serve their congregants and attend to their denominations and not get involved in partisan politics," Stewart said.
Seems Mr. Stewart likes all the attention he garners. Seems like every time he opens his mouth to immigrant bash, he costs his county a lot of money. So be it.
Mr. Stewart is also helping the GOP lose votes every time he opens his mouth. As Markos documented earlier this month, immigration bashing is a political loser:
Pew surveys have tracked the GOP’s cratering popularity with Hispanics from a 49-28 deficit in voter identification in 2006 to 57-23 in 2007. All of this comes during a cycle when the Hispanic percentage of the overall vote is estimated to reach 14 percent, compared to 9.3 percent in 2004. (It was 12.8 percent in the 2007 off-year elections.)
What’s this all mean? Karl Rove gets it when he says, “I am worried. You cannot ignore the aspirations of the fastest-growing minority in America.” The GOP’s top tactician knows his party faces a world of hurt for years to come. The GOP thought they had their new wedge issue in immigration — instead, as NDN concludes, “the relentless demonization of Hispanics by the GOP has turned this community, the fastest growing part of the American electorate, against them.”
Ironically, even the GOP’s own supporters don’t buy the harsh rhetoric. According to exit polls from this year’s primary states, Republican voters oppose deportation in most states, from 54 percent in Louisiana, Georgia and Virginia to 61 percent in Texas.
The vocal anti-immigrant fringe promised electoral gold to Republicans. Instead, it’s delivering electoral annihilation.
A nice article about farmers who participate in the Fairtrade program and what it means to them. When it's possible I try to buy Fairtrade products. A few years back I visited some coffee plantations around the old US base at Khe Sanh and heard that coffee workers there made roughly $1/day, which at the time was the mandated minimum wage in Vietnam. Not long after I visited a coffee plantation along the Guatemala-Honduras border where workers received about $2/day but they were unable to compete so jobs were bleeding. The business was struggling to survive due to competition from Vietnam. The Honduran coffee workers had such a limited future and of course, other possible jobs such as garment factories were also disappearing due to overseas competition as well. Once the hotspot for US factories, that too had been abandoned for riches in China.
When local opportunity disappears in places like this, these workers head north to America or Europe, just as many of our forefathers did in the past. Many of these workers would not be leaving their home countries where they have friends and family if they had opportunities. Fairtrade is about helping build opportunity for people to live. If the people who complain the most about illegal workers did something to help people earn a decent wage (we are not talking about striking gold, but just a livable wage) we would have much less of a problem. Read on and hear from a few Fairtrade participants.
For all Bush's talk about democracy around the world, he has an uncanny way of working to prevent American citizens, yes citizens, from voting. A lot of it is the sheer incompetence of the Bush team, but with that crowd, you know something more nefarious is usually at play:
The Department of Homeland Security failed to prepare for a massive influx of applications for U.S. citizenship and other immigration benefits this summer, prompting complaints from Hispanic leaders and voter-mobilization groups that several hundred thousand people likely will not be granted citizenship in time to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election.
Bush administration officials said yesterday that they had anticipated applicants would rush to file their paperwork to beat a widely publicized fee increase that took effect July 30, but did not expect the scale of the response. The backlog comes just months after U.S. officials failed to prepare for tougher border security requirements that triggered months-long delays for millions of Americans seeking passports.
Bush is the worst president ever. The Bush administration can't even handle the basics. No wonder the big things are such a mess.
This story must make immigrant bashers, like Presidential candidate Lou Dobbs, just giddy. Actually, Dobbs should turn this into a t.v. ad to show just how tough he wants to be on immigrants -- ripping breast-feeding illegal immigrants mothers from their American citizen children:
Federal immigration agents were searching a house in Ohio last month when they found a young Honduran woman nursing her baby.
The woman, Saída Umanzor, is an illegal immigrant and was taken to jail to await deportation. Her 9-month-old daughter, Brittney Bejarano, who was born in the United States and is a citizen, was put in the care of social workers.
The decision to separate a mother from her breast-feeding child drew strong denunciations from Hispanic and women’s health groups. Last week, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency rushed to issue new guidelines on the detention of nursing mothers, allowing them to be released unless they pose a national security risk.
National security risk. Yeah, the Bush administration is so good at sorting out national security risks.
This article in today's Washington Post should make CNN's Lou Dobbs, Rep. Tom Tancredo and the rest of the immigrant bashing Republicans so proud. Their angry, ugly rhetoric against immigrants is being transformed into angry, ugly attacks on immigrants. It's even got a nickname only a Republican could love: Amigo shopping.
The political immigrant bashers want to victimize immigrants. It's happening for real:
Hispanic immigrants are being targeted, often in gratuitously violent attacks by non-Hispanics, because they are thought to carry cash rather than use banks and to be reluctant to report crimes to police, the officials said.
The attacks are occurring with such frequency that police in Prince William County have created a task force, and Montgomery police have assigned a specialized unit to tackle the problem. The crimes are having profound effects in the neighborhoods where they occur, causing some residents to alter their routines.
"Everyone leaves with someone else, in groups of two or three," said Woodbridge resident Joaquin Rodriquez, describing the change that has occurred since the fatal shooting of a Mexican immigrant during a robbery in September 2006.
Authorities say the teenage assailants in that case targeted Serafin "Pedro" Alvarez Negrete after agreeing to "get an amigo." They attacked Negrete, 32, as he walked home from a shopping center.
"Like alligators waiting for the gazelle to cross the river," Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney John B. Arledge said as one of the men was sentenced last week.
Police say recent immigrants, particularly laborers who return home on foot at night, are most vulnerable. Assailants have been known to lurk between shopping centers, even sometimes outside of cash-checking businesses on payday, police say.
Policing experts expressed concern that attacks on immigrants, already believed to be under-reported, might be reported less and less as local police agencies become increasingly involved in enforcing immigration policy.
So, this is what happens when bad policy is combined with hate rhetoric. Again, Tancredo, Dobbs and the immigrant-bashing brigade must be thinking "Mission Accomplished."
The Swiss People's Party, the party that ran with a hard line anti-immigrant platform, rolled to victory yesterday capturing 29% of the Swiss vote. The party, locally known as SVP, was infamous for their campaign posters showing three white sheep and one kicking out a black sheep. Anti-immigrant fever in Europe continues.
Lou Dobbs, Tom Tancredo and all their immigrant-bashing friends must be apoplectic right now. A federal judge ruled against the Bush plan to target illegal immigrants:
A U.S. federal court judge on Wednesday blocked a key part of the Bush administration's stepped-up efforts to crack down on illegal immigrant workers and those who employ them.
Judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted a preliminary injunction against a program that would force employers to verify Social Security numbers and fire workers whose numbers did not match official records.
The federal program developed by the Department of Homeland Security is at the heart of a new crackdown on the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the country, after Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform.
But the "no-match letter" program was challenged in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, the AFL-CIO and other labor groups claiming it was unlawful and hurt all workers, including legal ones affected by errors in the data base.
Wait, you mean banishing illegal immigrants from a town can have negative consequences? But Lou Dobbs told me all illegal immigrants are evil and have pernicious effects upon our entire society! He told me they're killing our economy, not helping parts of it! Oh my, what will the children think.
This article is interesting for two reasons: First, it shows the logical result of the kinds of policies that rabid anti-immigration zealots support:
With the departure of so many people, the local economy suffered. Hair salons, restaurants and corner shops that catered to the immigrants saw business plummet; several closed. Once-boarded-up storefronts downtown were boarded up again.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, it shows that for all the hysteria about illegal immigrants, it's actually pretty easy to solve the problem, at least at a local level:
A little more than a year ago, the Township Committee in this faded factory town became the first municipality in New Jersey to enact legislation penalizing anyone who employed or rented to an illegal immigrant.
Within months, hundreds, if not thousands, of recent immigrants from Brazil and other Latin American countries had fled. The noise, crowding and traffic that had accompanied their arrival over the past decade abated. The law had worked. Perhaps, some said, too well.
Not surprisingly, if you penalize *the people who employ* illegal immigrants, the job market dries up and they go somewhere else. As we saw when the Congressional immigration debates last year nearly split the Republican party in two, businesses are in no hurry to see a major workforce (and even, to some degree, customer base) evaporate. But hey, if people want it done, it can be done.
I should say, I think illegal immigration is a problem in a variety of instances, and certainly border issues are a matter of physical as well as economic security. What I dislike, though, is the dishonesty that infuses the illegal immigration debate. If people want to really work through the economic (and even cultural) issues involved -- some of which hurt American citizens and some of which help us -- that's great. If they just want to yell about brown people, well, not so much.
This explains why the Bush administration isn't worried about global warming. According to the head of Homeland Security, illegal aliens are the biggest threat to the environment:
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Monday defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying it's actually better for the environment than what happens when people illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico line.
"Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I've seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas," Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment."
So in that fight to save the environment and bash illegal aliens in one fell swoop, Rudy was pandering at an infamous cheesesteak stand:
Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani campaigned Monday at a landmark South Philadelphia cheesesteak stand that grabbed headlines when it posted signs telling customers to speak English.
In June 2006, Geno's Steaks garnered national attention for posting two small signs stating, "This is America: When ordering 'please speak English.'"
The Republicans can't find enough ways to alienate the minority vote.
I guess I'm not the only one to mock Giuliani and Romney for their recent turnarounds on immigration:
Are Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani competing for the Republican Presidential nomination, or for the job of vacation replacement for Lou Dobbs? It's hard to tell these days as the candidates attempt to one-up each other's anti-immigration rhetoric.
Mr. Romney has faulted the former New York City mayor for not directing the local police to harass illegal-alien janitors, cooks and bus boys, thus making the Big Apple a so-called "sanctuary city" for the undocumented. Mr. Romney apparently doesn't think the NYPD has anything better to do with its time, though given the record drop in violent crime during the Giuliani years, which coincided with an increase in immigrants to the city, he might reconsider that notion.
Mr. Giuliani has responded by slouching toward Tom Tancredo, unveiling plans to tackle the immigration problem with ID cards, physical barriers and patrols along the Mexican border. But Mr. Giuliani's previous support for these newcomers, who've helped to revitalize New York over the past two decades, makes his more recent rhetoric seem like a gambit to neutralize Mr. Romney's appeals to the restrictionist right. At least Mr. Giuliani still stresses his interest in giving foreigners more opportunities to enter the U.S. lawfully.
This sentiment comes from that liberal rag, The Wall Street Journal (sub required). Giuliani and Romney both have a history of supporting immigration and they should not be allowed to shed their past just to sate the anti-immigrant passions of the right-wing base.
It was only a few days ago that I pointed out Mitt Romney's flip-flops on the issue of immigration. Now, Rudy Giuliani is doing the same thing. I guess one good turn deserves another.
These are the two US Border Patrol agents who CNN's Lou Dobbs is trying to set free. I have to admit, I watched Lou Dobbs talk about these guys and never did I see him mention the real facts of this case. Here they are:
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., told members of a conservative political action committee that the two agents are serving harsh sentences because they "winged" a fleeing drug smuggler. That is false, and Duncan no doubt knows it. The agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, are in prison because they failed to report the shooting, lied to investigators, tried to conceal evidence and filed a false report with their supervisors.
The sentences are harsh, but the agents, knowing their guilt, could have pleaded guilty to lesser charges and received lighter sentences. As the prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, has explained over and over to anyone who would listen, the former agents chose to roll the dice in a jury trial. The clear-eyed jurors convicted them. One of the counts against them, obstruction of justice in a case involving a firearm, carries a mandatory 10-year sentence....
Some members of the public rail that the brave agents are in prison while the drug dealer they shot goes free. As Sutton noted, the reason the suspected dealer is free is because the agents shot at him 15 times, wounded him, then tried to cover up the incident and lied.
Yes, but remember, Republicans have no problem about lying about a crime in an effort to cover it up.
The right wing has been flogging John McCain incessantly for his support of the failed immigration proposal on the Hill. Now that his campaign is in a death spiral and the fundraising is drying up, he's had a "change of heart."
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain on Thursday backed a scaled-down proposal that imposes strict rules to end illegal immigration but doesn't include a path to citizenship.
The move away from a comprehensive measure is an about-face for the Arizona senator, who had been a leading GOP champion of a bill that included a guest worker program and would have legalized many of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. It failed earlier this year.
McCain's immigration position has been a campaign liability among Republican voters and hurt his efforts to raise money. Other GOP presidential candidates, fellow Arizona Republicans and immigration opponents throughout the country have loudly decried his position.
Observers said McCain's switch was political. "He recognizes his position on the issue is killing him," said Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors vigorous immigration enforcement.
I hate to break it to The Tool, but this shift isn't going to make one iota of difference to the fundraisers -- or the Freepi. One choice comment:
McCain has been insane for some time now. He needs to be put in a place where there are no sharp objects and people will look after him, give him three nice meals a day and change his diapers.
Just a few months ago a colleague from Eastern Europe had a similar experience, when he was denied an H1B visa and instead of working in the US, it was an easier solution to move to Canada. It's silly that the US loses out on highly educated people like this and forces jobs to move abroad when they could just as easily be in the US. This has been a major problem for years and has pushed aside time after time.
Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it will open a software development center in Vancouver, giving it a place to employ skilled workers snagged by U.S. immigration quotas.
It may signal the start of a new hiring trend, with other U.S. high-tech firms following in Microsoft's footsteps to Canada, where lawyers say it is easier for foreign nationals to obtain work credentials.
When is the US going to have a grown up discussion about immigration instead of what we have today?
Oh well, the Republicans couldn't muster enough votes for George Bush's bill. Now they know how it feels when the GOP filibusters everything - they even filibuster themselves.
Today's NY Times analyzes the latest Bush failure:
The breakthrough on the “grand bargain” on immigration a few weeks ago had brought new life to a White House under siege, putting a long-sought goal suddenly within reach. After many grim months, there was almost giddiness at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
But that early euphoria only made the grand bargain’s grand collapse on Thursday night all the more of a blow, pointing up a stubbornly unshakable dynamic for President Bush in the final 19 months of his term: With low approval ratings and the race to succeed him well under way, his ability to push his agenda has faded to the point where he can fairly be judged to have entered his lame duck period.
In all, 38 of the 48 Senate Republicans effectively voted against the White House on the crucial procedural vote on the immigration bill, leaving the president’s No. 1 domestic priority somewhere between stalled and dead.
Since the beginning the of the first term, team Bush has viewed every single decision through a political lens: Iraq, Judicial appointments, Terri Schiavo. Whenever good governance or good policy has been required, they've been abject failures. Witness Katrina.
The immigration debate was one of the first times that Bush was pushing a true policy initiative. But, the Bush staff doesn't know how to do policy. They only do politics (and they're not doing politics so well these days either.) Bush has conditioned his base to think politics first - and on immigration, that's what the base, and most of the GOP Senate caucus, did. The Republicans did not and could not make the pivot from politics to policy, because that is not how they play the game. And, it's surely not what they expect from their leader, George Bush.
This politics first mindset is endemic to the GOP. It's what they do. Democrats tend to put policy before politics. Sometimes that's truly maddening (like during the 2000 and 2004 Presidential debates). On immigration, Bush suffered a major political loss on a policy issue.
Looks like George Bush's top domestic agenda item is just about finished:
A tenuous compromise to overhaul the nation's immigration laws collapsed tonight when senators from both parties refused to cut off debate and move to a final vote, handing the unlikely alliance of Democratic leaders and President Bush a setback on a major domestic priority.
The defeat came after months of painstaking negotiations and weeks of debate as a 45-50 procedural vote fell well short of the 60 needed to break the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) then pulled the bill from the floor, while holding out hope that the Senate could resurrect the measure within weeks.
Every single thing Bush does turns into a disaster. Heckuva job Bushie.
A fragile bipartisan compromise that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants suffered a setback Thursday when it failed a test vote in the Senate, leaving its prospects uncertain.
Still, the measure — a top priority for President Bush that's under attack from the right and left — won a brief reprieve when Majority Leader Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record), D-Nev., said he would give it more time before yanking the bill and moving on to other matters.
His decision set the stage for yet another procedural vote later Thursday that will measure lawmakers' appetite for a so-called "grand bargain" between liberals and conservatives on immigration.
If that fails, Reid threatened, "The bill's over with."
