Pro-immigration demonstrators at a rally outside City Hall in Los Angeles on Saturday. The majority of immigrants from Mexico and Central America believe that discrimination is rising, a poll says.
AP/Reed Saxon
Posted on 08/19/2007 10:06:46 AM PDT by Dubya
WASHINGTON -- The debate over illegal immigration has ceased in Congress, but almost nowhere else.
Widespread concerns about the impact of illegal immigration on jobs, social services and national security continues to generate intense rhetoric. And some see a dark side emerging, evident in growing discrimination against Hispanics and a surge of xenophobia unseen since the last big wave of immigration in the early 20th century.
"I don't think there's been a time like this in our lifetime," said Doris Meissner of the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Even though immigration is always unsettling and somewhat controversial, we haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said the number of "nativist extremist" organizations fighting illegal immigration has gone from almost zero about five years ago to 144; nine are classified as hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.
Some senators who participated in the midsummer debate over President Bush's unsuccessful immigration bill said they were barraged with some of the most venomous mail of their congressional careers. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who supported the bill legalizing undocumented immigrants, said he has received death threats.
"It is unbelievable how this has inflamed the American people," McCain said in an speech Thursday at the Aspen Institute in Colorado.
Eighty-three percent of immigrants from Mexico and 79 percent of immigrants from Central America believe that there is growing discrimination against Latin American immigrants in the United States, according to a poll conducted by the Miami-based Bendixen & Associates.
Instead of taking a downturn after the collapse of Bush's immigration overhaul in June, the debate over illegal immigration has seemingly escalated. As prospects for congressional action appeared increasingly in doubt, all 50 states and more than 75 towns and cities considered -- and in many cases enacted -- immigration restrictions, even though the courts thus far have declared such actions unconstitutional intrusions on federal responsibilities.
The slayings of three college students in Newark reignited calls for a clampdown on illegal immigration after the disclosure that one of the suspects, Jose Lachira Carranza, was an illegal immigrant from Peru who was free on bail awaiting trial on assault and child rape charges.
The case revitalized an argument made during the congressional debate that the flow of illegal immigrants, though predominated by job-seekers lured by the prospect of higher wages and better conditions, includes a criminal element.
A coalition of 15 anti-illegal-immigration groups accused Newark's and New Jersey's governments of "negligent complicity" in the deaths through inadequate law enforcement. The protest was organized by Dallas attorney David Marlett.
The Bush administration, in the absence of the sweeping overhaul sought by the president, moved this month to toughen enforcement of existing laws, threatening steeper penalties against employers and more vigorous work-site inspections.
Pro-immigration demonstrators at a rally outside City Hall in Los Angeles on Saturday. The majority of immigrants from Mexico and Central America believe that discrimination is rising, a poll says.
AP/Reed Saxon
I just like to know who I'm dealing with.
In fact, it has nothing to do with race, it's about not breaking the law.
The powers-that-be are licking their wounds from this last loss & they are still determined to advance their agenda. We may have won a battle, but we've still got a whole war to fight.
That people can come to this country illegally and march down our streets shaking their fists at us in a demand for rights is the biggest crime of all.
No matter where you stand on this immigration issue, the public at large is really getting fed up with iilegals killing, raping and committing other serious crimes against Americans when they could have and should have been deprted.
Xenophobia my a$$. 'Illegal alien rights' outrage surge more like it. I don't care if they're from Mars, if they ain't here legally, get the hell out.
Illegal immigrants cross the U.S./Mexico border.
WASHINGTON — Seven weeks after the collapse of legislation in Congress, the outcry against illegal immigration is louder than ever, manifested by proposed clampdowns at the state and local level and an uproar over the arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three New Jersey college students.
Scores of organizations, ranging from mainstream to fringe groups, are marshalling forces in what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "a war here at home" against illegal immigration, which he says is as important as America’s conflicts being fought overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.
EXCERPT
Behind this one-sided diatribe and race-baiting yellow journalism is this one fact, and it is a hopeful sign:
"The debate over illegal immigration has ceased in Congress, but almost nowhere else."
People are slowly waking up to this illegal invasion as it spreads into every corner of America. The 40 million illegals (forget the 12-20 million number that has been floated around since the 2000 Census, seven long years ago) are definitely NOT living in the shadows.
The amnesty ploy was an attempt to get this pass the public before they caught on to what was really going on . It failed.
Let's see how many politicians in next year's presidential and congressional races want to campaign on the issue "I support more illegal aliens and amnesty for those already here."
Accused my ass, the negligent complicity of their dingbat prosecutor is a fact.
You are right. It has NOTHING (zilch, nada, zero) to do with race. I don’t care if they’re Mexican, Honduran, British, Irish, or Martian. It has EVERYTHING to do with LAW. What part of “illegal” don’t they understand?
Illegal is not a race. Repeat as needed.
I agree. Sort of.
Never have we had 80% of our immigrants, legal or not, come from one culture/race.
Never have we had immigrants, legal or not, march in our streets waving flags from their home countries demanding capitulation from our social structure and institutions.
Never have we had a group of immigrants, legal or not, demand that our government cater to them in their own language.
Never have we had so many groups of people bent on using these immigrants, legal or not, to usurp the laws of our country.
Never have we had millions of illegal aliens invade our country en masse.
Never have we had our vote diluted by the presence of illegals used in counting population and determining representation in D.C.
Never have we had our social services, hospitals and schools systems stretched to the breaking point by illegals who see no need to learn English.
Never have we had our elected officials, so intent on remaining in power, that they have chosen to ignore the needs of the many for the needs of the very few.
Never before have we been told that our patriotism and love for our country is actually a negative to our national psyche.
She is right. Never before has the melting pot been, instead, a smelting pot used to divide us so as to weaken our national spirit in the name of politics.
KEERIST, what next?
Good analysis.
Sanctuary cities: getting what they deserve!
even if some of the victims didn’t have any clue that voting for Democrats
...or some bad Republicans...that supported santuary city-status was
just the same as signing their own death warrants.
I thought that was a musical instrument lol
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