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"Speakout: Many Hispanics Support Tancredo "

By Carmen Diaz, Corine Flores, Marlene Guerrero and Oralia Lopez, Special to the News September 30, 2002

Some critics of Rep. Tom Tancredo say he is attacking Hispanics. They're outraged he questioned the blatant continued presence in the U.S. of an illegal immigrant family.

We're outraged, too, but not by Tancredo. We're outraged that Hispanic activists and the media imply that all Hispanics favor sanctuary for illegal aliens. Hispanics demand legalization for Mexican illegals, Hispanics demand safe border crossings, Hispanics demand free tuition for illegals, we are told.

Absurd! We four Hispanics - and millions of others - want no such thing. We want borders brought under control and immigration reduced to historical levels. We want illegals sent home. We want politicians and others to stop pandering to self-appointed Hispanic "leaders" by working for mass amnesties or other forms of "regularizing" for illegal aliens.

The very core of our system of government is majority rule. Yet, we blatantly ignore the vast majority as a tiny minority of a minority manipulates the system and as politicians pander to this voting bloc while implying the ludicrous - that 35 million Hispanics think exactly alike.

Hispanic "leaders" don't speak for Carmen Diaz and Marlene Guerrero. We entered this nation legally and respect its laws and are determined that it not go down the same paths to overpopulation-driven poverty and environmental degradation as our native Honduras and Peru. Studies show the opportunity to emigrate keeps such countries from dealing with their own population and political problems.

Immigration and high immigrant fertility rates are driving a U.S. population boom that could mean our children will, by 2050, live in a nation of up to half a billion people. We are angry that politicians subvert the wishes of Americans who, through our replacement-level birth rates, show we want to stabilize our population growth rate.

Immigration - at five times historical norms, rates higher even than during the Great Wave of 1880 to 1915 - is sending our population exploding even as we struggle to come to grips with water shortages, sprawl, species extinction, failing schools, social problems and inadequate infrastructure.

Hispanic "leaders" don't speak for native-born Corine Flores and Oralia Lopez with roots deep in Texas and New Mexico. We work in the hospitality industry where employers brazenly hire illegals at substandard wages, telling us to accept similar pay or not work at all.

They and others then hide their shameful practices behind the insulting cliché, "Immigrants take jobs that no one else wants." We in fact want such jobs, but we need to earn enough to feed our families. Worse, illegal aliens compete for what little affordable housing there is.

A Sept. 27, 2001, Zogby poll showed that 70 percent of Hispanics said a dramatic increase in border enforcement is needed. The 2001 Zogby poll showed a majority of Hispanics thought an amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants was a bad idea. A March 2000 Wall Street Journal poll I showed three times as many Hispanics viewed immigration as "too open" as "too closed."

We are a nation of immigrants, but we are not a nation of illegal immigrants nor of unfettered immigration. Until 1965, legal immigration averaged 200,000 a year. Now it exceeds 1 million, plus hundreds of thousands illegal aliens added yearly to our population. American workers cannot compete where unfettered immigration serves as a government subsidy to business to keep wages depressed.

Hispanics, like other Americans, do not want to live in overpopulated misery, in a nation lacking opportunity or border security. Those issues, not safe harbor for illegal aliens, are our concerns. On immigration matters, Congressman Tom Tancredo speaks for us and many millions like us.

Corine Flores is a retired housekeeping professional residing in Santa Fe, N.M. Marlene Guerrero is a naturalized United States citizen from Honduras and a spokesperson for Colorado Alliance for American Immigration Reform. Oralia Lopez is a Texas native residing in Colorado and Carmen Diaz is a naturalized citizen from Peru residing in Colorado.

Thanks for the great article. My Hispanic friends in California are NOT pleased by the "non-amnesty" amnesty. Most of them consider themselves "Independents" and I know they voted for Arnold. It was a vote against Bustamante and Davis.

This is an excellent article. There are, indeed, Americans of hispanic background who are vehemently opposed to amnesty for illegals. They are likely the ones who played by the rules, followed the law, and immigrated properly; or, their families were here for 400 years already. It is a slap in the face to them, and to all legal immigrants, and to the American people in general that illegals are being coddled to (and it's not just the hispanic illegals who are causing all the problems, although that group certainly is by far the biggest problem: we don't see illegal immigrants from Norway or Mozambigue demanding we change our language, culture and society to placate THEM).

The very core of our system of government is majority rule.

Uh, no it's not. Good article otherwise.