FBI reports don’t get a lot of attention, especially in the final days of a Presidential election season, but this week’s release reporting on a 40% increase in anti-Latino hate crimes should at least give us pause. The report’s findings are consistent with the swelling nativist movement that has become larger and more vitriolic in recent years and its impact undeniable as anti-Latino hate crime incidents reach unprecedented levels.
The nativists, ranging from skinhead extremists to your everyday politician or cable news anchor, and fueled by an administration myopic in its pursuit of deportation only proposals, are taking its toll on the immigrant and Latino community. A September survey by the Pew Hispanic Center shows half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, say that their situation in this country is deteriorating and is worse now than it was a year ago. One in ten Hispanic adults — native-born U.S. citizens and immigrants alike — report that, in the past year, the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, North Carolina’s candidate for governor, Pat McCrory, potentially isolated upwards of 83,000 New American voters in his state when his emails viciously attacking immigrants were leaked online.
According to the Daily Kos, McCrory–citing the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)–a fiercely anti-immigrant hate group that is known for its direct ties to John Tanton, a pioneer of the anti-immigrant movement and avid supporter of eugenics–wrote,
How would you like to be one of these kids who doesn’t get pregnant, works hard in school, doesn’t join a gang, goes to church on Sunday, but when they go down to the fast food restaurant, they are told we can’t hire you because we need bi-lingual employees.
What do the economy, health care, and foreign policy have in common?
They are all topics that are related to a critical issue that was not discussed in the election 2008 debates: immigration. Everyone from the Latino community to immigration advocates to probing journalists have been eagerly awaiting to hear more about what the two candidates plan to do about the 12 million undocumented people living in the United States. To date, they’ve heard very little.
Our immigration problem isn’t going to disappear just by not talking about it. As Barack Obama and John McCain were preparing for their debate last night, 300 workers were rounded up in an immigration raid at a chicken processing plant in South Carolina. In fact, as the two candidates were taking shots at one another, we can guess about 100 children in South Carolina–both citizens and non-citizens–were still left stranded, not knowing where their parents were or when they would see them again. Read the rest of this entry »
The current climate of undeterred public immigrant-bashing along with an immigration policy of “attrition through enforcement” has cultivated unfettered hatred and bigotry against an entire ethnic population. A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center shows its toll: half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, say that their situation in this country is deteriorating and is worse now than it was a year ago.
One in seven Latinos are reporting ethnic discrimination in finding or keeping a job and 10% said the same thing about housing. But the most stunning finding is that nearly one-in-ten Hispanic adults–native-born US citizens and immigrants alike–report that, in the past year, the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status. One in ten Latinos were stopped and asked for “papers.” What can that statistic represent other than a gross abuse of power by federal and local authorities?
Vicious public denunciations of undocumented, brown-skinned immigrants — once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists — are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, media pundits, and politicians and are surely fueling the problems that Latinos are facing. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as ‘invaders,’ ‘criminal aliens,’ and ‘cockroaches.’ In Virginia, a Prince William County and ardently anti-immigrant community task force appointee has suggested spending tax dollars to look into whether “illegal aliens have a preferred breeding season.” He has also referred to undocumented immigrants as “scourge that’s plaguing neighborhoods” and an “invasion of this country.” Read the rest of this entry »
When did extreme become mainstream?–That’s the question immigrant advocates, labor leaders, civil rights groups, and Latino organizations are asking in a full page ad in Capitol Hill newspapers this week as supporters of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) march into the offices of Congress, demanding an impractical and hateful agenda of mass deportations, worksite raids, and other expensive and ultimately ineffective approaches as part of their “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” gathering.
The September 10 broadcast of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight program will further stoke FAIR’s flames as it airs live from the site of the annual “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” event, along with dozens (or so FAIR claims) of radio hosts from across the country. Hateful extremism is a difficult challenge and sad reality that our nation faces. However, its appearance in mainstream politics and media marks a disturbing social regression for the United States as hate groups and extremists are allowed to define the debate on immigration. Read the rest of this entry »
Rep. Virgil Goode repeatedly used the derogatory term “anchor babies” during a Wednesday debate.
Last week, the habitually offensive Representative Virgil Goode (R-VA) callously attacked the US-born children of immigrants. Goode repeatedly used the term “anchor baby,” a notoriously derogatory term employed by anti-immigrant organizations and restrictionists to describe the children of non-citizens who were born in the US and therefore “facilitate” immigration through family reunification under the longstanding provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
In his attack, Goode claimed:
Only those who want to coddle and cater to the illegals say that they are beneficial to the workforce…And I gave you one very specific: the anchor baby. Which means you come over in this country, have a kid, and the kid’s an automatic citizen. A huge cost.
Yet Goode’s analysis is naive, simplistic and plainly misinformed. Aside from using dehumanizing rhetoric to suggest the government should repeal the 14th amendment which provides for natural-born citizenship, Rep. Goode overlooks the national benefits of family-based immigration: Read the rest of this entry »
The response of New Orleans’ immigrants to Hurricane Gustav is just another gross example of how attrition through enforcement doesn’t work. A growing number of immigration raids, arrests and deportations are driving immigrants deeper into the shadows–even if it means ignoring evacuation orders and braving a deadly tropical storm.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released a statement saying that it wouldn’t be conducting any immigration enforcement activities in conjunction with Hurricane Gustav evacuation procedures, but many immigrants were either unconvinced or unaware of ICE’s notice. Advocates said there was not enough time to prepare immigrant communities once the DHS press releases were issued. “We didn’t have enough people to go into the neighborhoods where we know Latinos are living,” Lucas Diaz told the Agence France-Presse. Many illegal immigrants became wary when they realized they would be asked to register at evacuation points for tracking purposes. “The government didn’t give people assurances that they would be returned to New Orleans” and not deported,” Jacinta Gonzalez, a day labor organizer with the New Orleans Workers Center for Racial Justice, said. “Just sending out press releases the day before the evacuation isn’t going to work.” Read the rest of this entry »
According to the anti-immigrant group, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), immigrants to the US are now to blame for extreme weather, rising sea levels, changing ecosystems, melting glaciers, and dying polar bears.
Forget conservation and sustainability, CIS has released yet another junk science report claiming that the key to reducing global CO2 emissions is lowering immigration levels in the US. CIS accuses environmentalists of frivolously focusing too much on energy conservation and efficiency and having “assiduously avoided the underlying issue of growing energy demand driven by immigration-fueled population growth.” Meanwhile, US government scientists say there’s insufficient evidence to draw any clear conclusion of immigration’s impact on the environment. In fact, it’s the DHS’ crude enforcement measures that have proved most environmentally destructive. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced its latest gimmick — Operation Scheduled Departure, a pilot program of voluntary deportation with no precedent, no incentives, and essentially no sensible basis. Meanwhile, on Wednesday the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a “think tank” that has been referred to as a “thinly disguised anti-immigration organization,” published a highly contested study claiming that severe enforcement measures are driving down the US’ “likely undocumented” immigrant population. Yet while ICE runs in circles, rounding up undocumented workers as CIS pats them on the back, the government fails to recognize that undocumented immigration is based more on the economics of survival than the politics of immigration enforcement–a costly misjudgment. Read the rest of this entry »
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