Undocumented students have a degree of anxiety

This article is from the LA Times, I’m posting the entire thing. I embolden some letters for emphasis. My comments will be ( ) and italicized. Here is the link for the original article.

Undocumented college students endure hardships over their status, then see an uncertain future.

By Gale Holland, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 8, 2008

He took 15 AP classes (HOLY GOD, that’s amazing and insane) in high school, and kicks himself for passing up two others. Now, he is graduating from UCLA, with a double major in English and Chicano Studies and a B-plus grade point average.

But for all his success, Miguel does not share the full-bodied exuberance of the graduating seniors who marched last month five abreast into Pauley Pavilion, belting out the ’60s hit “Build Me Up, Buttercup.” A native of Puebla, Mexico, he is an illegal immigrant.

Around the UCLA campus, ubiquitous kiosk signs encourage students to “Jump Into Great Jobs!” But for Miguel, any employment will be difficult. Like many undocumented students, he may elect to prolong his studies to stave off an uncertain future.

“When you’re in school you have a place in society, you’re a university student,” Miguel, 23, said during an interview at a campus coffee spot on graduation day. “When you graduate, you’re just an immigrant again.” ( I know the feeling on that regards, it almost happened to me after high school).

Miguel and other students, who asked that their full names be withheld for fear that they or their families could face federal action, are caught between contradictory U.S. immigration policies.

A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision entitled illegal immigrants to public education from kindergarten through high school; 50,000 to 70,000 graduate from U.S. high schools each year (California’s share, by some estimates, is 40%), according to experts. But the students’ access to higher education has not been guaranteed by the courts and Congress.

Over the last seven years, California and nine other states have encouraged undocumented college students to pursue higher education by offering many who graduated from California high schools in-state tuition. California public universities do not ask about legal status on applications. Some private universities, including Loyola Marymount and Santa Clara, have scholarships tailored for illegal immigrants. They are not entitled to most financial aid or loans at public colleges.

Their numbers at the university level remain low. The UC system had an estimated 271 to 433 undocumented students, out of total enrollment of 214,000, in 2006-2007, the latest figure available, a spokesman said.

But attending college, and even doing splendidly, does nothing to alter these students’ illegal status. (I’ve met people who think me being at my university changes things, it doesn’t). A proposed federal law called the Dream Act would have offered a pathway to citizenship for many college students and members of the military. But supporters last year were unable to secure enough votes to prevent a filibuster of the bill.

Opponents said the students are looting limited educational resources that should go to citizens and legal residents.

“To these students, I say I hope you return to your home country right away,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), “and I hope you repay what you have spent of other people’s money. It’s a horrible crime.”

Students have come far

Advocates argue that it’s inhumane and counterproductive to ostracize students who have come so far with so little.

“These students have been here since they were small children, and we’ve done everything to encourage them to stay in school and help them prepare for college,” said UCLA Asst. Vice Provost Alfred Herrera of the Center for Community College Partnerships. “The sad reality is most of these students are the best and the brightest.”

And if history is any guide, they aren’t leaving. Some, instead, remain in school.

Living off academic stipends, scholarships and a steady diet of ramen, these students play out an endless “Groundhog Day” script of school applications, research projects and degrees.

“They mostly hang around colleges, assistantships, getting paid to do surveys. It’s not employment, it’s catch-as-catch can,” said Michael Olivas, an expert on immigrants in higher education who teaches at the University of Houston Law Center.

“I think continuing your studies is the best option for us now,” said Tam Tran, 24, who heads to Brown University this fall for a five-year doctoral program in American Civilizations.

Born in Germany to Vietnamese parents, Tran has a complex immigration history: a U.S. immigration board in 2001 found that her family faced political persecution in Vietnam for past anti-Communist activities, but ordered them deported to Germany.

Germany, however, would not take them. The nation only recognized as citizens children born on its soil to German parents.

She said she would have liked to stay at UCLA, maybe go to film school. But the public university can’t give her aid, while both Brown and Yale universities offered generous packages.

Robert Lee, professor in the Department of American Civilization at Brown, said the university is not bothered that Tran might be unable to work in the U.S. in her academic field. “Even as students, they’re producing important academic product,” Lee said. “We don’t train all students to become university professors; they might end up working for an NGO [non-governmental organization], or a film producer . . . or in government service, maybe not in the U.S.”

‘Miley Cyrus Americans’

Stephanie, 22, drops out roughly every other quarter towork at low-paying jobs like making cardboard boxes.

“The reason I don’t feel bad about it taking me so long to get through is that as long as I’m a UCLA student, I can say, ‘We’re on our way, we’re up-and-comers,” said Stephanie, over dinner recently at a Japanese restaurant.

Stephanie’s parents brought her here at age 4, after the disco craze dissolved in the Philippines, leaving her father, a lighting installer, without a job, she said. Her parents only told her she was undocumented when she tried to transfer to UCLA, she added.

“What people don’t get is we’re Miley Cyrus Americans,” said Stephanie, an aspiring writer and copy editor. “English is the only language I speak.”

A story about Stephanie in the Daily Bruin newspaper earlier this year drew scant sympathy. Stephanie “has a choice to make: become a legal resident or continue to live a life of deferring the task her parents should have taken care of years before,” a letter to the editor said.

Stephanie and Miguel said they would risk deportation if they sought legal status.

Even the most prestigious academic posting has not shielded students from immigration authorities. Dan-el Padilla Peralta, a classics scholar, Princeton salutatorian and illegal immigrant from the Dominican Republic, was able to pursue a masters at Oxford University without facing possible exclusion upon his return only through an intense legal and publicity campaign, his lawyer, Stephen Yale-Loehr said. Yale-Loehr is an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School.

As it is, Padilla was able to obtain only a temporary waiver and visa so he could travel to the U.S. during summer and vacations to work on a research project for Princeton.

“Naturally the uncertainty over my status has been a source of anxiety,” Padilla said in an e-mail from Oxford. “But I’ve tried to keep that anxiety quite separate from my academic and extracurricular pursuits. I feel enormously privileged to have studied first at Princeton and now at Oxford.“

This same optimism pervaded speeches at a small graduation ceremony arranged by the UCLA chapter of IDEAS, a campus support organization for students, documented and undocumented, who receive the in-state tuition exemption.

About 10 students talked about life as an “Underground Undergrad” (the title of a book undocumented UCLA students released this spring): the two- to three-hour commutes, crashing on couches, eating only if somebody could sneak them into the dining hall. Several said they were hopeful the Dream Act will be reintroduced soon, and this time pass, opening the door to legalization.

But mainly, they expressed gratitude for their education.

“I choose not to place the burden [of my situation] on everyone,” said Matias Ramos, another graduating senior, whose grandmother flew in from Argentina for the event. “I have had the blessing of encountering a lot of people who’ve helped me.” (So have I).

“A lot of stereotypes that linger on, we break all of them,” said Miguel. “All of us are very assimilated and we’re very proud of it. . . . We’re driven by huge optimism.”

But as she cleared cut fruit from the refreshment table, Tran grew wistful.

“We’re always in a position where we’re oppressed and privileged at the same time,” she said. “I wonder if getting a PhD in American studies is going to prove I’m an American?”

Visas for Supermodels

I mean, seriously. Come on. Are these the priorities of the United States. Instead of actually tackling the problem that is plaguing millions, they do this. Where is the political will people???? This is straight from the LA Times.

Unable to muster the political will last year to pass comprehensive immigration reform and address the dearth of both unskilled and highly skilled labor that drags on our economy, Congress is now ready to act. Standing tall in the courage of their convictions, lawmakers are proposing to give supermodels their own category of work visa. This is especially bold because while easing the way for several hundred models to work during New York’s Fashion Week, they must resolutely ignore the pleas of high-tech businesses seeking more visas for well-educated workers.

The number of H1-B visas awarded each year to skilled foreign employees is 65,000 (plus 20,000 for foreign graduates of U.S. universities), despite the desperate demand. On the first day of the application period this year, H1-B visa requests exceeded 120,000. Meanwhile, the shortage of workers has inspired employers to put down roots elsewhere. Last July, Microsoft Corp. announced it would open shop in Vancouver, Canada, where U.S. immigration policies won’t hinder it from hiring the highly skilled people it needs.

Thankfully, Congress’ reform efforts don’t stop with models. Other bills in the pipeline would make it easier for athletes and entertainers to work in the United States. Our crops may go unpicked, but never again will Amy Winehouse have trouble getting a speedy visa. The key to amassing support for such legislation is to make the tough compromises necessary to ensure their minuscule social impact. Last year’s behemoth reform bill tangled with border security, guest worker programs, a pathway to citizenship — far too controversial. Now, even Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Gold River), who sponsored a bill to deny citizenship to babies born to illegal immigrants, is backing the bill giving the Department of Homeland Security 30 days to process visas for entertainers.

If, however, Congress does give — shall we call them catwalk engineers? — their own visa category, they will no longer have to compete with computer wizards for H1-Bs. That could free up to 1,000 slots for high tech. We’ll take them any way we can get them.

The Great Immigration Panic

I couldn’t say it better myself, from the NY Times, the following editorial.

Someday, the country will recognize the true cost of its war on illegal immigration. We don’t mean dollars, though those are being squandered by the billions. The true cost is to the national identity: the sense of who we are and what we value. It will hit us once the enforcement fever breaks, when we look at what has been done and no longer recognize the country that did it.

A nation of immigrants is holding another nation of immigrants in bondage, exploiting its labor while ignoring its suffering, condemning its lawlessness while sealing off a path to living lawfully. The evidence is all around that something pragmatic and welcoming at the American core has been eclipsed, or is slipping away.

An escalating campaign of raids in homes and workplaces has spread indiscriminate terror among millions of people who pose no threat. After the largest raid ever last month — at a meatpacking plant in Iowa — hundreds were swiftly force-fed through the legal system and sent to prison. Civil-rights lawyers complained, futilely, that workers had been steamrolled into giving up their rights, treated more as a presumptive criminal gang than as potentially exploited workers who deserved a fair hearing. The company that harnessed their desperation, like so many others, has faced no charges.

Immigrants in detention languish without lawyers and decent medical care even when they are mortally ill. Lawmakers are struggling to impose standards and oversight on a system deficient in both. Counties and towns with spare jail cells are lining up for federal contracts as prosecutions fill the system to bursting. Unbothered by the sight of blameless children in prison scrubs, the government plans to build up to three new family detention centers. Police all over are checking papers, empowered by politicians itching to enlist in the federal crusade.

This is not about forcing people to go home and come back the right way. Ellis Island is closed. Legal paths are clogged or do not exist. Some backlogs are so long that they are measured in decades or generations. A bill to fix the system died a year ago this month. The current strategy, dreamed up by restrictionists and embraced by Republicans and some Democrats, is to force millions into fear and poverty.

There are few national figures standing firm against restrictionism. Senator Edward Kennedy has bravely done so for four decades, but his Senate colleagues who are running for president seem by comparison to be in hiding. John McCain supported sensible reform, but whenever he mentions it, his party starts braying and he leaves the room. Hillary Rodham Clinton has lost her voice on this issue more than once. Barack Obama, gliding above the ugliness, might someday test his vision of a new politics against restrictionist hatred, but he has not yet done so. The American public’s moderation on immigration reform, confirmed in poll after poll, begs the candidates to confront the issue with courage and a plan. But they have been vague and discreet when they should be forceful and unflinching.

The restrictionist message is brutally simple — that illegal immigrants deserve no rights, mercy or hope. It refuses to recognize that illegality is not an identity; it is a status that can be mended by making reparations and resuming a lawful life. Unless the nation contains its enforcement compulsion, illegal immigrants will remain forever Them and never Us, subject to whatever abusive regimes the powers of the moment may devise.

Every time this country has singled out a group of newly arrived immigrants for unjust punishment, the shame has echoed through history. Think of the Chinese and Irish, Catholics and Americans of Japanese ancestry. Children someday will study the Great Immigration Panic of the early 2000s, which harmed countless lives, wasted billions of dollars and mocked the nation’s most deeply held values.

10 Ugly Things about the immigration debate.

This is an old post from my old blog but I also believe it to be important. This will also be the last thing I will re-post, from now on, everything will be new material from different articles. I’ll list the 10 things now but the article itself is quite good. Here it is. From CNN, commentator, Ruben Navarrette Jr.

• The hypocrisy. We have two signs on the U.S.-Mexican border: “Keep Out” and “Help Wanted.”

• The racism. With lightning speed, the debate went from anti-illegal immigrant to anti-immigrant to anti-Mexican.

• The opportunism. Too many politicians are trying too hard to portray themselves as tough on illegal immigration.

• The simple solutions. “Build A Wall.” “Deport All Illegals.” A quick rule of thumb: If it fits on a bumper sticker, it’s not a workable policy.

• The naiveté. People ask why Mexico won’t help stop illegal immigration. Hint: Last year, Mexicans in the United States sent home $25 billion.

• The profiling. Dark skin and Spanish surnames shouldn’t be proxies for undocumented status. Been to Arizona lately?

• The meanness. Nazi-produced Internet video games let players shoot illegal immigrants crossing the border. Fun stuff.

• The amnesia. Americans think grandpa was welcomed with open arms and that he plunged into the melting pot. Whatever.

• The buck-passing. Americans love to blame Mexico for their choices, yelling across the border: “Stop us before we hire again.”

• The double standard. The same folks who have zero tolerance for illegal immigrants easily tolerate those who hire them.

To all the haters…

You are the minority. You have a loud bark but you will lose. Florida has shown us that. McCain being up front and if he wins Super Tuesday, than we will all know for sure what America’s stand on immigration is. As for the CNN poll, read ‘em and weep boys!

From the Indianapolis Star

To understand what happened with Republican voters in Florida, keep in mind four things:

No. 1 — The Hispanic vote went to McCain by an overwhelming margin of almost 4-1. According to exit polls, Hispanics made up 12 percent of Republican voters and, of those Hispanics who voted, 54 percent supported McCain. Romney got 14 percent of the Hispanic vote, despite spending heavily on ads in Spanish-language media.

No. 2 — With Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter out of the race, and Mike Huckabee having difficulty convincing GOP hard-liners that his lurch to the right on illegal immigration is sincere, Romney has become the de facto choice for nativists, restrictionists and closed-border enthusiasts. Tancredo, who endorsed Romney, had drawn the ire of Cuban-American voters for referring to Miami as a Third World country.

No. 3 — McCain has been criticized by the right-wing media for objecting to an amendment to the 2006 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill that declared English the “national language” of the United States. According to National Review Online, McCain scolded colleagues in the Republican cloakroom and accused the cultural conservatives pushing the measure of “insulting” Latinos, who have often objected to such declarations as divisive and unnecessary.

No. 4 — There is something of a McCain paradox developing in primary states where Republicans tell pollsters that immigration is a top issue and have the most trust in McCain to handle it, despite the fact that some conservative radio talk show hosts and members of Congress portray McCain’s views on the issue as unacceptably lenient. Some might say that this is because McCain now understands that he has to put border security first, but it’s a conversion that apparently his conservative critics aren’t buying.

What does it all mean? Since McCain beat Romney overall by just 5 percentage points — with 36 percent of the vote for the Arizona senator to 31 percent for the former Massachusetts governor — it’s likely that Hispanics contributed significantly to McCain’s margin of victory. And among Hispanics, it’s also likely that Romney was hurt by his hard line on illegal immigration and McCain helped by his more moderate position, since a majority of Hispanics support allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States in one capacity or another. And, lastly, it seems possible that — despite Republican voters listing immigration as a top concern — either they’re not taking such concern into the voting booth, or they’re not buying attempts by some right-wingers to depict McCain as soft on the issue, or they’re just not as fired up about deporting illegal immigrants as you would think from monitoring the conservative media.

Exit polling in Florida showed that nearly 60 percent of voters in that state would allow illegal immigrants to stay as temporary workers or on a path to citizenship. Among Hispanic Republicans, only 20 percent said illegal immigrants should be deported. Forty-three percent said they should be allowed to stay as temporary workers, and one-third said they should have a shot at citizenship.

Other polls from around the county tell us much the same thing — that, depending on how you ask the question and whether you use words such as “amnesty” or “earned legalization,” a majority of Americans support the comprehensive approach that McCain proposed. It’s starting to look as if the Republican Party’s anti-illegal immigration zealots may represent a loud and obnoxious faction of conservative voters, but a small one at that.

This is good news for McCain on the eve of Super Tuesday. Look for him to do well in California and the Southwest, where voters have lots of firsthand experience with both legal and illegal immigration, know the impact on their communities — both positive and negative — and remain skeptical of macho talk and simple solutions. It’s bad news for Romney, who seems to have become persona non grata with Hispanic voters. Many of them are frustrated because, while they don’t support an outright amnesty, they do think there is a middle ground. And they resent opportunistic politicians who try to scare up votes at their expense, and then attempt to cover their tracks with Spanish-language commercials.

Once again, out West, the sleeping giant is stirring. And he’s in a foul mood.

Editorial on Immigration

From the Daily Herald, an editorial I liked about the recent events taking place in Utah and their stupidity.

Two proposed Utah laws highlight — through their flaws, unfortunately — key ingredients in any legislation on immigration: practicality and fairness.

With many Americans simmering over a wave of illegal immigration, state lawmakers are feeling popular pressure to take action. Estimates put the number of illegal aliens somewhere between 7 million and 20 million.New laws addressing illegal immigrants are clearly needed, but they need to be carefully conceived.

A proposal (HB 239) by Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, would revoke “driver privilege cards” that are issued to about 35,000 drivers without Social Security numbers — mostly illegal immigrants. Donnelson said it aims to prevent people from misusing the cards for identification purposes, as in buying alcohol.

The main purpose of the cards is to provide a way for illegal aliens to take the state driving test and get auto insurance. A new study suggests the program is working. The Legislative Auditor General found that 76 percent of the card holders insure their vehicles, just slightly less than the 82 percent of licensed drivers who do so.

What would revocation of the cards do? Apparently take insurance away from at least 20,000 drivers, and keep thousands from studying the rules of the road to pass the license exam. Taking away driver privilege cards would only make it more likely that your car would be in a crash with that of an undocumented driver, and that he or she would not have insurance. That’s far from a useful step.

Another bill (HB 241) is patently unfair. Also sponsored by Donnelson, this bill would prohibit undocumented students from getting in-state tuition at Utah colleges. A 2002 state law gives such students the break if they attended a Utah high school for three years and graduated.

Efforts to change this law are misguided and harsh. Most of these students obviously had no say in coming to this country. We shouldn’t hurt kids to get at their parents. It’s wrong to punish them for studying diligently enough to be admitted to college and for desiring to make something of themselves. Passing this proposal would only result in more people working in lower-skilled jobs, rather than letting the economy make the best use of their talents.

We urge senators to put aside the bills cited above. One won’t work, and the other stains Utah’s honor.

Other aspects of illegal immigration have prompted other proposals. We are tempted to urge the Utah Senate to consider a resolution proposed by Sen. Howard Stephenson, R-Draper, asking that the state defer immigration legislation until Congress and the president approve a workable national policy. That sounds good, but we might be waiting a very long time. Congress doesn’t seem to have the stomach for this.

Utah needs to do what little it can in the meantime. And on this score we urge that any action be broad-minded and fair. LDS and Catholic leaders have recently urged Utah lawmakers to be compassionate about immigrants. These insights are timely. Most immigrants are law-abiding people who come here to work to help their families and improve their lives. Punishments should be reserved for genuine criminals.

Clearly, Americans must accept some responsibility for allowing the immigration problem to develop. Imagine you owned a beautiful beach-front property. The law allows you to ban trespassers. But now and then a few people sneak onto the beach. You ignore them for awhile. Then you decide to pay some of them a few bucks to pick up litter, watch the kids and perform other chores. Say this goes on for two decades. Then one day you decide there are too many people on your beach. You call the police and ask them to arrest those people for trespassing.

Would that be fair? Of course not.

This is not to say we must despair of reinvigorating the law and controlling U.S. borders. But it does suggest that we should be smart about it. For example, it may not be necessary to build hundreds of miles of border fence. Physical barriers won’t work, as pointed out in a prize-winning report by the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson.

So what will work? We return to the suggestion of a virtual fence in the form of severe punishments for employers — severe enough to remove all temptation to provide jobs to illegals. Allowing for some sort of transition period, the future would look like this: No jobs; no illegal immigration; end of story. Such a virtual fence would be cheaper to build, more effective than other options, and both fair and humane. Everyone would know the rules and there’s little room for gaming the system.

Respect for the rule of law is a fundamental American value. To flout this most basic principle shows a colossal disregard for what this country is all about. Those who do so don’t deserve to be here. But in addressing the problem of illegal immigration we should be careful to retain the moral high ground.

Drivers willing to buy insurance should not be prevented from buying it. Aspiring college students should not be treated the same way as day laborers who sneaked into the country last month.

When it comes to immigration, there is no reason for vindictiveness, only clarity.

The Dream Act and the candidates

Where Do Presidential Candidates Stand on The DREAM Act?

by Dina Horwedel
Jan 27, 2008, 22:30

As the presidential race heats up, a segment of the non-voting population as well as voters on both sides of the debate to help undocumented students access college will be watching to see where the candidates stand on the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act).

This failed federal legislation would have provided permanent legal residency for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children, under the age 16, by their parents. Under the latest version, they would need to complete two years of college or enroll in the armed forces and would need to have lived in the U.S. for five years before applying for such status. The law would have also made it easier for undocumented students to access in-state tuition, rather than the higher out-of-state tuition that keeps many students from fulfilling their higher education dreams.

Because the U.S. Congress failed to pass the law, the DREAM Act has been a distant dream, and a crazy quilt of laws remain at the state level. In Arizona this month, voter-approved Proposition 300 took effect, and nearly 4,000 students at universities and community colleges were denied in-state tuition after failing to prove legal residency, according to the state’s Joint Legislative Budget Committee report.

Although undocumented residents can’t vote, citizen on both sides of the debate are considering where the parties stand on immigration. Fifty-seven percent of Latinos, the nation’s largest and fastest growing minority group, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, self-identify as Democrats or are leading towards the Democratic Party, according to a newly released nationwide survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center. The center states that although Latinos only comprise approximately 9 percent of voters nationwide, their votes could swing the presidential election because of their numbers in states that are expected to be hotly contested, including Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico.

Following are the presidential candidates and their positions on the DREAM Act.

Democratic Candidates

Sen. Hillary Clinton

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York supports the DREAM Act, according to her official Web site. Clinton notes that U.S. immigration laws are inadequate and poorly reflect national values of respect and compassion. She advocates a strict but fair immigration policy that provides a way for undocumented residents to obtain legal residency while working towards citizenship. As part of that policy, Clinton “strongly” supports the DREAM Act, which she says “provides a path to citizenship through military service or higher education for children who were brought to the U.S. by their parents.”

Clinton also provided the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) with a statement voicing her support of the DREAM Act: “I will continue to strongly support the DREAM Act, which enables undocumented students to pursue higher education, attend college legally, and pursue legal residency. Access to college is part of the American dream and we have to make it easier for all individuals to get there, and to graduate… As President, I will work even harder to build a stronger America for everyone. I am committed to a diverse administration that reflects America. Diversity is not a campaign slogan or a catchy phrase… it is a commitment to government that reflects the people it serves,” she says.

Sen. John Edwards

Sen. Edwards’ camp released this prepared statement to Diverse, made in October 2007, about Edwards’ support for the DREAM Act. “Immigration is central to the story of America, but today our immigration system needs a fundamental overhaul. Our security is threatened by borders we cannot control. Our economy is harmed by an underground economy featuring a large and unprotected labor force. And our values are violated when 12 million people live in the shadows of our society, vulnerable to abuse and fearful of deportation,” he said.

“We need to overhaul our immigration laws and that should include giving children who grew up here the opportunity to build a better life. I co-sponsored the DREAM Act when I was in the Senate to give young people who consider the United States their home, have worked hard in school, and have stayed out of trouble, the chance to go to college and pursue their dreams.

“And it simply should not even be a matter for debate that young men and women who proudly wear our nation’s uniform, who demonstrate their willingness to fight and die for this country, should receive all the opportunity that America has to offer,” Edwards said.

Sen. Barack Obama

Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois supports the DREAM Act. Obama’s campaign headquarters provided the following quote from a statement about his support for the DREAM Act to HACU: “Our immigration policy should be legal, orderly, humane, and safe. And we should give immigrant children the chance to attend college. I supported and helped pass the Illinois state version of the DREAM Act, and I have worked hard with Senator Durbin to move the federal version of the bill through the Senate. I believe that all students, regardless of national origin, deserve an equal opportunity to a high quality public education. Under current law, students who were brought to the United States years ago as undocumented immigrant children and who have stayed and excelled in and out of school have no hope of attending college with affordable in-state tuition.”

Republican Candidates

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani

When it comes to immigration, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani states on his official Web site: “Real immigration reform must put security first because border security and homeland security are inseparable in the Terrorists’ War on Us. The first responsibility of the federal government is to protect our citizens by controlling America’s borders, while ending illegal immigration and identifying every non-citizen in our nation. We must restore integrity, accountability and the rule of law to our immigration system to regain the faith of the American people.”

Giuliani does not state on the site where he stands on the DREAM Act, and his team did not return calls to Diverse.

Gov. Mike Huckabee

Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, has a hard-line stance regarding the DREAM Act and any other immigration policy that would allow undocumented students to pay in-state college tuition.

Huckabee states on his official Web site: “I oppose and will never allow amnesty. I opposed the amnesty President Bush and Senator McCain tried to ram through Congress this summer, and opposed the misnamed DREAM Act, which was a nightmare because it would have put us on the slippery slope to amnesty for all. Because once we open that door even a crack, we’ll never get it closed again.”

Sen. John McCain

Arizona Sen. John McCain is on the front lines of immigration reform in his home state. McCain has served as an advocate for educating undocumented students and allowing students in good standing to obtain a college education while paying in-state tuition.

McCain was a co-sponsor of The DREAM Act of 2007, and an earlier
Senate bill that provided for comprehensive immigration reform, including the DREAM Act of 2006. McCain was a co-sponsor of the DREAM Act of 2005.

Gov. Mitt Romney

On his official Web site, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accuses fellow candidates Giuliani and Huckabee, and Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, for being soft on immigration. His record as governor of Massachusetts includes vetoing a plan that would have permitted undocumented students to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities.

Yet, Romney advocates immigration law reforms that would allow undocumented college graduates to remain legally in the United States. He says on his Web site that this would keep American globally competitive by providing for an educated workforce.

–Dina Horwedel

A Person’s Words

So, this is another editorial like the one yesterday. It poses someone else’s opinion because right now I’m too busy to post my own. This editorial also agrees with my views. I don’t know where it comes from though, maybe the NY Times but I don’t have a link. Sorry. I’m just saying that the following are not my words. I’ll try to write something of my own later on but I can’t make any promises. School is taking over.

EDITORIAL; Ain’t That America

Published: October 22, 2007

Think of America’s greatest historical shames. Most have involved the singling out of groups of people for abuse. Name a distinguishing feature — skin color, religion, nationality, language — and it’s likely that people here have suffered unjustly for it, either through the freelance hatred of citizens or as a matter of official government policy.

We are heading down this road again. The country needs to have a working immigration policy, one that corresponds to economic realities and is based on good sense and fairness. But it doesn’t. It has federal inertia and a rising immigrant tide, and a national mood of frustration and anxiety that is slipping, as it has so many times before, into hatred and fear. Hostility for illegal immigrants falls disproportionately on an entire population of people, documented or not, who speak Spanish and are working-class or poor. By blinding the country to solutions, it has harmed us all.

The evidence can be seen in any state or town that has passed constitutionally dubious laws to deny undocumented immigrants the basics of living, like housing or the right to gather or to seek work. It’s in hot lines for citizens to turn in neighbors. It’s on talk radio and blogs. It’s on the campaign trail, where candidates are pressed to disown moderate positions. And it can be heard nearly every night on CNN, in the nativist drumming of Lou Dobbs, for whom immigration is an obsessive cause.

In New York, Gov. Eliot Spitzer has proposed allowing illegal immigrants to earn driver’s licenses. It is a good, practical idea, designed to replace anonymous drivers with registered competent ones. In show after show, Mr. Dobbs has trained his biggest guns on Mr. Spitzer, branding him with puerile epithets like ‘’spoiled, rich-kid brat” and depicting his policy as some sort of sanctuary program for the 9/11 hijackers. Someday there may be a calm debate, in Albany and nationally, about immigrant drivers. But with Mr. Dobbs at the megaphone, for now there is only histrionics and outrage.

Let’s concede an indisputable point: people should not be in the country illegally. But forget about the border for a moment — let’s talk about the 12 million who are already here. What should be done about them?

A. Deport them all.

B. Find out who they are. Distinguish between criminals and people who just want to work. Get them on the books. Make them pay what they owe — not just the income, Social Security, sales and property taxes they already pay, but all their taxes, and a fine. Get a smooth legal flow of immigrants going, and then concentrate on catching and deporting bad people.

C. Catch the few you can, and harass and frighten the rest. Treat the entire group as a de facto class of criminals, and disrupt or shout down anyone or any plan seen as abetting their evildoing.

Forget A. Congress tried a version of B, but it was flattened by outrage.

And so here we are at C. It’s a policy that can’t work; it’s too small-bore, too petty, too narrow. And all the while it’s not working, it can only lead to the festering of hate. Americans are a practical and generous people, with a tolerant streak a mile wide. But there is a combustible strain of nativism in this country, and it takes only a handful of match tossers to ignite it.

The new demagogues are united in their zeal to uproot the illegal population. They do not discriminate between criminals and the much larger group of ambitious strivers. They champion misguided policies, like a mythically airtight border fence and a reckless campaign of home invasions. And they summon the worst of America’s past by treating a hidden group of vulnerable people as an enemy to be hated and vanquished, not as part of a problem to be managed

What part of illegal don’t you understand?

This is an editorial from the NY Times that I really liked. It is kind of old though, but it is still a good read. The link to the paper is here.

By LAWRENCE DOWNES

Published: October 28, 2007

I am a human pileup of illegality. I am an illegal driver and an illegal parker and even an illegal walker, having at various times stretched or broken various laws and regulations that govern those parts of life. The offenses were trivial, and I feel sure I could endure the punishments - penalties and fines - and get on with my life. Nobody would deny me the chance to rehabilitate myself. Look at Martha Stewart, illegal stock trader, and George Steinbrenner, illegal campaign donor, to name two illegals whose crimes exceeded mine.

Good thing I am not an illegal immigrant. There is no way out of that trap. It’s the crime you can’t make amends for. Nothing short of deportation will free you from it, such is the mood of the country today. And that is a problem.

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

“Illegal” is accurate insofar as it describes a person’s immigration status. About 60 percent of the people it applies to entered the country unlawfully. The rest are those who entered legally but did not leave when they were supposed to. The statutory penalties associated with their misdeeds are not insignificant, but neither are they criminal. You get caught, you get sent home.

Since the word modifies not the crime but the whole person, it goes too far. It spreads, like a stain that cannot wash out. It leaves its target diminished as a human, a lifetime member of a presumptive criminal class. People are often surprised to learn that illegal immigrants have rights. Really? Constitutional rights? But aren’t they illegal? Of course they have rights: they have the presumption of innocence and the civil liberties that the Constitution wisely bestows on all people, not just citizens.

Many people object to the alternate word “undocumented” as a politically correct euphemism, and they have a point. Someone who sneaked over the border and faked a Social Security number has little right to say: “Oops, I’m undocumented. I’m sure I have my papers here somewhere.”

But at least “undocumented” - and an even better word, “unauthorized” - contain the possibility of reparation and atonement, and allow for a sensible reaction proportional to the offense. The paralysis in Congress and the country over fixing our immigration laws stems from our inability to get our heads around the wrenching change involved in making an illegal person legal. Think of doing that with a crime, like cocaine dealing or arson. Unthinkable!

So people who want to enact sensible immigration policies to help everybody - to make the roads safer, as Gov. Eliot Spitzer would with his driver’s license plan, or to allow immigrants’ children to go to college or serve in the military - face the inevitable incredulity and outrage. How dare you! They’re illegal.

Meanwhile, out on the edges of the debate - edges that are coming closer to the mainstream every day - bigots pour all their loathing of Spanish-speaking people into the word. Rant about “illegals” - call them congenital criminals, lepers, thieves, unclean - and people will nod and applaud. They will send money to your Web site and heed your calls to deluge lawmakers with phone calls and faxes. Your TV ratings will go way up.

This is not only ugly, it is counterproductive, paralyzing any effort toward immigration reform. Comprehensive legislation in Congress and sensible policies at the state and local level have all been stymied and will be forever, as long as anything positive can be branded as “amnesty for illegals.”

We are stuck with a bogus, deceptive strategy - a 700-mile fence on a 2,000-mile border to stop a fraction of border crossers who are only 60 percent of the problem anyway, and scattershot raids to capture a few thousand members of a group of 12 million.

None of those enforcement policies have a trace of honesty or realism. At least they don’t reward illegals, and that, for now, is all this country wants.

The Irony of the Wall

Another editorial of what would really happen if the wall was built. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Once again I am using another editorial by Jorge Ramos, the best news anchor in the Hispanic network of Univision. Also, at the end I will post once again the video from Penn and Teller that shows the the wall in fact only causes a delay of three minutes to undocumented immigrants in their journey here. The wall alone is not a solution. It is a simple and ignorant solution to a complex problem, and complex problems require complex thinking, compromise and ultimately, a complex thought out answer. Here is the editorial, translated from Spanish to English by me.

The Wall: Three minutes of delay
Hunger stronger than fear

By Jorge Ramos Avalos

There are presents that are not wanted. They are uncomfortable, and far from being good for those who get them, they are things that are only enjoyed by those who give them away. This is the case of the wall between Mexico and the US.

A gift not wanted

Bush’s government is giving away a very expensive wall to different border town, but the problem is that the cities don’t want accept that gift.

It is true. The mayors of the border towns like Eagle Pass and Del Rio, both from Texas, don’t want a wall.

“The way to protect the border is not with the wall” Efrain Valdez told me, the mayor of Del Rio. The undocumented ” will just take 3 more minutes to cross over, but either way, he is going to come here.”

Three minutes of delays. That is all. But either way all undocumented will still cross. With tunnels, ladders, hiding in vehicles, swimming and jumping. Hunger is stronger than fear.

Expensive wall

Last year 265 miles of the wall were constructed, according to the Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff own report. Y he hopes to get the total of almost 700 miles this year.

The price? Beyond the sky. Some 70 millions for every mile. And all of that to cause a delay of three minutes to undocumented.

“The wall will give everyone a false of security”, Chad Foster commented in an interview, the mayor of Eagle Pass. Why construct a wall?” asks Foster. “If we already have a natural division called Bravo River (or rio Grande, like it is called in the US.

They already have cameras

Effectively the river has divided the countries since 1848 some 1,254 miles of the border between Mexico and Texas. Also, Mayor Foster assures us, that there are already agents from the sheriff’s office, customs, the National Guard and ICE patrolling the border.

“We ask to protect the Texas border with more technology”, not with a wall, commented Foster.

Careful. It is not that either mayor, along with a lot of others from Texas, want open borders with Mexico. But they don’t believe that the border will do anything to deter the flow of immigrants minute by minute.

Why do they come?

The wall is forceful action against an economic problem. As long as there is hunger and unemployment in Latin America, and food, jobs, an education, and better opportunities for immigrants in the US, they will continue to risk everything and cross illegally.

Last year 400 immigrants died as they tried to cross. The number is lightly less than the year before. But the number is still terrible and important.

Nothing -no the wall, not the California fires, not the raids, not anymore agents at the border and the anti-immigrant sentiments in the rest of the country- is stopping undocumented.

Dry Land

It is important to find another solution. And it is a clear one: legalize those who are already here and give visas to the those who coming behind them (and the US needs them).

The wall is not working to stop undocumented, only delaying them or sending to pass through more difficult routes, there is another important matter: water.

“That worries us”, Mayor Valdez told me, “because the wall will take away our use of the rio Grande; it will take away the water.”

95 percents of those who share the river with Mexico are private owners. Those ranchers would not be able to take their animals to the river so they could drink water. And it would be more complicated for Texans who want to use the river rater to irrigate their crops, since there would be a wall dividing them.

Mexico would win

There is more. The mayors are afraid that the precise moment the wall starts getting built, the river will automatically belong to Mexico.

The international treaty between Mexico and US establishes that the border line is exactly in the middle of the river. But by constructing the wall in the American side, the mayors believe that the US would be giving away territory (and their part of the river) to Mexico, not on the legal sense but very much a physical one.

That is why, like Mayor Foster told me. “We are ready to fight until the very end so that there is no border wall in Texas.

A wall in the border between Mexico and Texas, like it is talked about in by the Bush administration, would affect commerce, the environment, distribution of war, the physical boundaries in between both countries and the most ironic of all, it won’t comply the promise of stopping undocumented in their tracks.

It will only delay them on their way three minutes. Three.

The following video contains profanity throughout the entire thing and nudity at the very end.

The Times We Live On

Immigration is the biggest civil rights movement at the moment. The marches in 2006 showed the American people the underclass that is living in the shadows. They want to come out and embrace America, not fear it. That’s really all they want, to embrace Americans, specially the students who study in American schools and are Americans in every sense of the word. The following editorial shows us the nature of the movement.

PROVIDENCE - To people such as Keith W. Stokes, the plight of illegal immigrants is perhaps the biggest civil rights issue of the day.
And in Stokes’ view, the United States must find a way to bring these people on a pathway to citizenship.

“I will offer the conclusion that the newest wave of foreign born in America and Rhode Island, with the proper supportive national and state public policies, will become the next wave of significant social, political and economic contributors to our great country and state as did the immigrants of the pat 400 years.”

Stokes’ job is executive director of the Newport County Chamber of Commerce, and his passion is history, particularly Newport history and black history.

Stokes spoke last week at the Rhode Island Civil Rights Roundtable, which was sponsored by Rhode Island for Community Justice and held at the Providence Black Repertory Theater. The event celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

In his talk, Stokes refused to use the term “illegal aliens,” saying it is better suited to science fiction movies like “ET” and “War of the Worlds.”

“The most description I will use is simply undocumented residents,” Stokes said. “The facts are clear that the undocumented residents that have entered and reside in our country and state illegally are mostly law abiding citizens and have come for the same reasons as nearly all of our ancestors before us - seeking to build a better life for themselves and their families. Those that break laws should be dealt with as all lawbreakers are - with all due process.”

Stokes traced Rhode Island’s history of tolerance to 1658, when a group of Sephardic Jewish families landed in Newport. They fled Brazil after the Portuguese conquered it and demanded that all citizens become members of the Catholic Church.

“They came to Newport because they heard of the rare opportunity for religious toleration,” Stokes said.

Eventually, West African slaves were shipped to Rhode Island, he said, and were emancipated in 1784, with the state becoming the fourth to provide such freedom.

Illegal immigration has been a hot topic in the 2008 presidential campaign, and a congressional immigration reform bill died in 2007, after voters sent an angry message to Capitol Hill about provisions to offer citizenship options.

However, Stokes said he believes most Americans oppose rounding up families and sending them back to their original countries. “Rational persons would also agree that building more prisons and security walls encircling America are not rational and affordable solutions,” he said.

Stokes was preaching to the choir - literally, as the Prism to Praise gospel group later performed. Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island American Civil Liberties Union, echoed Stokes’ thoughts.

“I like what Keith had to say,” Brown said. “We not only need to remember history. We also need to examine it.”

Editorial about SC

This is in response to an anti-immigrant ad by someone running for the Senate seat in South Carolina.

KERRY HOWLEY: An ad like this can really challenge your sense of fourth grade geography. Is a state 1,300 miles from the Mexican border really under threat from an onslaught of polite, grateful Spanish speakers?

Only three in 100 South Carolinians are Hispanic or Latino, and far fewer are undocumented. But small as it is, South Carolina’s Mexican-born population increased six times over in 15 years. When communities unused to newcomers sense a growing population, politicians can whip up a sense of impending crisis. Even a “thank you” is suddenly sinister. According to a study by the Immigration Policy Center, almost 80 percent of the localities that have discussed anti-immigrant ordinances had below the national average of Latino population share in 2000. In other words it’s often not the places with massive immigrant populations that seem most worried, it’s the places with new immigrant populations.

It’s easy to assume the worst about the immigrants who lead the pack. They’ve got less of a support network to lean back on, so assimilation can take longer. They’re still working to gain the human capital and social networks that newcomers always accumulate over time, but as states with established Latino communities have shown repeatedly, rates of English acquisition, educational attainment and homeownership skyrocket with successive generations.

If South Carolina wants to gauge the benefits and costs of migration across its borders it might look to Arkansas, another Southern state with a new and growing population of immigrants. Even taking into account the costs of education and health services immigrants have had a positive impact on the state’s budget. The immigrant population has provided a pool of young, highly productive young laborers. These workers have boosted the state’s manufacturing output to the tune of $1.4 billion.

We should be liberalizing our immigration policies, not scaring away entrepreneurial people who will pay taxes, provide jobs and support local businesses. As South Carolina’s immigrants adapt and prosper, the state will increasingly need to thank them.

Kerry Howley is a senior editor at Reason Magazine.

Another editorial

Another editorial from Jorge Ramos, translated by me. Hopefully I didn’t make too many mistakes. Unfortunately I’m suffering from a cold so that sucks. Anyways, Mr. Ramos is the most famous of news anchors in the Latino network of Univision.

The New Enemy
By Jorge Ramos Avalos

The new enemy for many Americans is the undocumented immigrant. Behind are Osama Bin Laden and the Al Qaeda’s terrorists. All that is history.

The new target

The old enemies are not longer so threatening. Saddam Hussein was captured, humiliated and executed. It happened. Iran is not the threat it was once thought to be, according to the last espionage report from the government. North Korea’s dictator is being very tame around these days. And Hugo Chavez, well, his own students are taking care of him.

The Shiites and Sunni rebels, that have violently oppose to the American military occupation , have lowered their profile to the considerable amount of new troops. Iraq is still hell, but it is important to see that less soldiers are dying and less civilians for the last 6 months. Iraq, for the first time since 2003, has stopped being the only priority.

However, as if it was necessary to find a new enemy so that the US can flex it’s muscles, it has become fashion to made undocumented the new target.

Everyone mentions them

Listen for a bit to the majority of the presidential candidates or to the politicians from Washington, Arizona and any other corner of the country, and you will see that they spend more time criticizing immigrants than terrorist. And many people are falling for it.

A little while ago, in Maquoteka, Iowa, a 5^th grade child (who couldn’t have been older than 12), asked presidential candidate Barack Obama what he would do as president if illegal immigrants were to commit a terrorist attack. Where did the child get this from? Since when did undocumented become terrorists?

This incident, reported by the paper Los Angeles Time, shows very clearly that in the minds of many children and adults, undocumented are being seen as terrorists and a threat to the nation.

They are not terrorists

It is a grave error. Let’s check the reality of the argument. None of the 19 terrorists who killed almost 3 thousand people in 2001 in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania entered illegally from the Mexican border or was of Latino decent. None. There is no reason-absolutely none-to think that immigrants who feed us and build our homes can be terrorists.

Why than are there so many attacks against undocumented? Because it is easy, because no one defends or represent them, and because politicians exploit nationalist sentiments to win points in the polls.

Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderon, has complained publicly at least in two occasions of how some candidates seem to be in a contest to see who is more anti-immigrant or more anti-Mexican. But those candidates pay no attention to Calderon, they prefer their polls than to have a good relationship with the neighbor to the south.

A phrase

All of this situation reminds me of a phrase I read in La Suma de los Dias (*I’ll try to find the English equivalent of the title*), the latest book from Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende: “Americans love the idea of immigration, it is the foundation of the American dream-that some poor guy reaches this shores with a suitcase made of cardboard who becomes a millionaire-, but they hate immigrants.

Despite all this, I refuse to think that the actual anti-immigrant sentiments will be permanent. A beacon of hope: six out of ten American (according to a poll from the Los Angeles Time and Bloomberg) are in favor of legalization, with some restrictions, of the 12 million undocumented immigrants.

I want to think that the unrelentless rise of the hate speech and xenophobia are products of the electoral campaigns and will calm down once the US elects a new president.

Sooner or Later

American history is filled with examples of immigration being rectified.

Americans, sooner or later, will realize that they too are responsible for the current immigration situation. The undocumented are here because millions of Americans and thousands of companies employ them and receive the benefits of immigrant workers.

What many Americans don’t know is that the supposed to enemies can be their best allies. Immigrants believe in the opportunities that the US offers even more so than many citizens.

That’s why they risked their lives; that’s why they left everything behind to come here. And the US is a better country thanks to them. Even while they are being hunted down.

The Sound of Silence

Hear that? Nothing. Nothing has happened. In Arizona where the toughest laws against immigrants have been enforced has done nothing. Maybe its because it is just the beginning of the year. After, isn’t what people wanted, tougher laws. It has been said that immigrants were leaving to try their luck someplace else, and yet nothing has happened. The American people have their chance to turn against all those unpatriotic businessman who are keeping jobs here for those ‘criminals’ and fueling the local economy instead of doing the right thing, outsourcing those jobs to god knows where. No, the American people are not doing that. The American people cannot turn his neighbor, cannot go to schools and break up families. The American people are compassionate I believe and wouldn’t take part in something heartbreaking.

But maybe, just maybe, Numbers USA and FAIR were wrong about their numbers as this editorial brings up. It is very illuminating…

A new study out by the conservative think tank Americas Majority Foundation (www.amermaj.com) suggests a possible explanation why more Arizonans aren’t rushing to run off illegal workers. It turns out Arizonans may be better off — not worse — because of the presence of so many immigrants in the population.

This sounds counterintuitive, at least if you believe current political rhetoric and tendentious research by anti-immigrant groups like the Center for Immigration Studies, NumbersUSA, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. But the Americas Majority Foundation data are pretty persuasive. States with the highest percentage of immigrants or the largest recent influx of immigrants —19 High Immigrant Jurisdictions (HIJs) in all — are wealthier, have better employment numbers and most have better crime figures than those with fewer immigrants.

In Arizona, for example, personal income is higher, as is the gross state product, the measure of all economic activity in the state. Unemployment is lower, as is household poverty. And crime is lower than both the national average and the average among states with fewer immigrants.

And, the trends for HIJs are every bit as good as the absolute numbers. Not only are GSP, personal income, per capita personal income, disposable income, per capita disposable income, median household income and per capita median personal income higher than in other states, but they have been growing at faster rates between 1999 and 2006 than in other states.

In the area of crime, the trends are especially encouraging for HIJs. The 10 high influx states, those that experienced the most dramatic percentage increases in immigrant population from 2000-2007, had the lowest rates of violent crime and total crime, according to FBI figures. In 1999, the 19 HIJs did have higher crime rates, but the rates declined much faster than they did in lower immigration states over the next seven years: 13.6 percent faster compared with 7.1 percent in total crime and 15 percent compared with 1.2 percent in violent crime, leading to lower crime rates overall in HIJs in 2006.

These statistics don’t suggest that illegal immigration is not a problem for many jurisdictions. Illegal immigrants do impose costs, including increased health care and education expenses. Ironically, one of the growing costs is for incarcerating illegal aliens picked up in immigration raids or for offenses that usually don’t justify jail time. These increases are a direct result of efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. And if states like Arizona decide to vigorously enforce their new laws, we can expect to see these costs go up without much, if any, offset in savings to those jurisdictions.

The immigration debate is likely to continue untempered by the facts the Americas Majority Foundation has pulled together, at least through the political primary season. But the overwhelming majority of Americans — two-thirds to three-fourths, according to most polls — have no wish to see most long-term illegal alien residents rounded up and sent home. What they do want is a more concerted effort to secure the borders so the numbers don’t keep increasing.

Citing a November Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll, the Manhattan Institutes’s Tamar Jacoby noted recently that “63 percent of Democrats, 64 percent of Republicans and 57 percent of independents favor allowing illegal immigrants who meet certain conditions — registering, being fingerprinted, paying a fine and learning English — to earn citizenship over time.”

Jacoby points out that the politicians don’t seem to be listening. But if we can get through 2008, maybe the sound of silence emanating even from places like Arizona will finally be heard.

Linda Chavez is the author of “An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal.”

But wait…that entire article is saying all the opposite things that all the haters are saying. But I know those figures are wrong, after all the crime statistics from the FBI must be wrong! Its the FBI and we all know that is not a reputable source, phff! But maybe, just maybe…immigrants are not as bad as everyone thinks. That’s a shocker, I know, from everything you hear about them. Don’t let the manipulators use you!

Exposing immigration hypocrisy

Here is an article I found, I think it makes a good point.

By Laurie Muelder

The Register-Mail

GALESBURG -

GUEST COLUMN — It is a given in human history that governing is simplified by identifying and blaming an “other.”

The word barbarian comes from a Greek word for those who didn’t speak Greek. Any time a society is struggling, whether from the heavy hand of the powerful, from rapid change, or from economic distress, the rulers/leaders can distract their subjects/citizens by raising fears of some group they describe as different. For the Russian czars and Hitler the others were the Jews. Here in the United States (in addition to African Americans) the others have been, successively, those whose ancestry was not English, not northern European, not western European, and, finally, not southern or eastern European, which for nativists is where we are today.

In the 1700s colonial population grew rapidly as Scottish, Irish and German immigrants joined the English settlers and African slaves. Between the 1840s and the Civil War Irish immigrants were increasingly maligned; the Know-Nothing Party formed to resist continued German immigration and the sudden rise in Irish immigrants after the potato famine in Ireland. The Know-Nothings promised to stop what they described as a “cultural invasion” by the Catholic Irish who were portrayed as lazy, promiscuous drunks whose first loyalty was to the pope.

Before 1880, Germans, Irish, English and Scandinavians made up 85 percent of immigrants arriving in the United States. After 1880 there was a dramatic shift — by 1896 Italians, Hungarians, eastern European Jews, Turks, Armenians, Poles, Russians, and other Slavic people accounted for 85 percent of all immigrants.

Prejudice also shifted from the Irish to southern and eastern Europeans. Then, as now, politicians were able to use resentments and suspicions of immigrants to divide and govern. Between the 1880s and the 1920s, nativists passed immigration restrictions they claimed would preserve the purity of the nation’s “racial stock.” Under the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, immigration from southern and eastern Europe was choked off and the immigration of Jews trying to flee Germany was blocked. The perception of racial difference also hurt Chinese immigrants in the west. Recruited to work on the railroads in the 1860s, they became the target of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

Cheap, or free, immigrant labor built the United States economy into the most powerful in the world. Our immigration has been both voluntary and forced. We had forced immigration both in the slave trade and in the annexation of half of Mexico by the Treaty of Guadaloupe Hidalgo in 1848, which ended the Mexican-American War. This, far more than traditional immigration, is the reason that a significant number of Latinos in the Southwest live in the United States rather than Mexico — we absorbed the land they lived on.

Periodically in the 20th century, we initiated guest labor programs, bringing Mexican workers into the southwest as non-citizen farm workers. In the 1990s, we imposed the NAFTA treaty, which devastated the Mexican economy. More than a million Mexican jobs were lost in the first year of NAFTA; more than a million peasant farmers have lost their land. Some of these people are heading north to save their families from starvation.

The lies told about earlier immigrants are now aimed at Mexicans and Central Americans. Anti-immigration groups must endorse historical immigration because nearly all citizens are descended from immigrants. Their objection is to the source of today’s immigrants. In 1900, the overwhelming majority (85 percent) came from Europe, and only 2.5 percent from Latin America and Asia combined. By 1990 Latin and Asian immigrants accounted for two-thirds of all immigration.

Demagogues like Lou Dobbs, Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh misrepresent reality, railing against immigrants as “them,” describing them as an economic drain and a cultural threat. Dobbs sounds as if hordes of brown people are pouring across our borders daily. In fact, the Census Bureau says less than 1.5 percent of the population is undocumented and most didn’t sneak over any border, but came on a visa staying when it expired. Dobbs rants about the cost to U.S. taxpayers, but according to Business Week, immigrants receive about $5 billion in welfare benefits and $11.5 billion in primary and secondary education benefits, but pay more than $70.3 billion in taxes. Our new immigrants are learning English and assimilating just as our relatives did. Those who fulminate about immigration are hypocritical.

One part of the Republican coalition (and some Democrats) wants an ongoing supply of cheap, easily exploitable labor while another wants to keep the U.S. safely Anglo. The president wants permanent status for those here illegally because they contribute so much to the economy, and simultaneously says they are so dangerous we need to fence our southern border to keep them out. As former Texas Congresswoman Barbara Jordan suggested, we need to honor our mottoes, act as an accepting and caring people, and deal reasonably, rationally, and fairly with the real issues of immigration.

Laurie Muelder of Galesburg taught English and social studies for 20 years at Churchill Jr. High and now substitute teaches for the Galesburg School District. She’s a former writer on the Community Roundtable.