Posted on 03/21/2008 11:32:49 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
WASHINGTON — In a response to anti-immigrant sentiment and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos, a Hispanic rights group launched an effort Thursday to debunk myths espoused by media talk shows and political campaigns.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund unveiled the "Truth in Immigration" campaign to rebut legal and factual inaccuracies about immigrants, particularly Latinos, in the United States.
"Right now the airwaves are dominated by a few that speak very negatively and falsely about immigrants and immigration," said John Trasviña, MALDEF president and general counsel.
Trasviña said the Web site — www.truthinimmigration.org, which will be updated several times a week — will provide scholarly studies and reasoned rebuttal.
"There are facts, and law, on our side in terms of these issues," he said.
The impetus for the campaign was a report released March 10 by the Southern Poverty Law Center that found a correlation between recent anti-immigrant rhetoric and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos.
More coverage •Visit the Truth in Immigration Web site.
That report, "The Year in Hate," said there were 888 hate crimes against Latinos in 2007, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2005. It cited a separate FBI study showing a 35 percent increase in such crimes against Latinos from 2003 to 2006.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, identified in the report as a hate group, accused the civil rights organization of playing with hate crime numbers to serve its political purposes.
"The SPLC manipulates the data to reach deceitful conclusions, tosses the term 'hate group' at highly respected organizations like FAIR, and then mixes the two in an attempt to stop our national debate over immigration reform," FAIR President Dan Stein said after the report's release.
MALDEF, meanwhile, said the upcoming debate in Congress on border enforcement measures, as well as political campaigns this fall, could fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric and an increase in bigotry and violence against the Latino community.
"This comes at a time when we have legislation coming up in the House and the Senate that would take us backward on immigration, rather than forward," Trasviña said.
House Republicans are pressuring Democratic leaders for a vote on a bipartisan bill called the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act. The measure calls for an e-verification system for employers to check on the immigration status of workers, and would provide more Border Patrol agents to crack down on illegal immigration on the Southwest border.
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gmartin@express-news.net
You want “truth in immigration?” OK.
You’re here illegally. Go home, get out, and take your anchor babies with you, or we will arrest you for breaking our laws and throw you out.
And that’s the truth. In my ideal world, anyhow.
}:-)4
There is no "anti-immigrant sentiment." There is, however, anti-ILLEGAL alien sentiment. And rightly so.
and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos
I'm going to need to see some hard numbers here. I honestly don't believe this claim is true. If there were truly an increase in "hate crimes" against Latinos, it'd be splashed across the front page of every liberal paper every day. But it's not. That in itself speaks volumes.
a Hispanic rights group launched an effort Thursday to debunk myths espoused by media talk shows and political campaigns.
Here's an idea: how about they criticize Mexico's immigration policies? If you're an illegal in that state, you get no rights, no health care, no jobs, no welfare, no advocacy, and no help whatsoever. In fact, the only thing you get is a beatdown by the federales and an unceremonious deportation back to your homeland. And they don't give a tinker's damn about your sob story.
But if the U.S. does even 1/10th of 1% of that to the illegal invaders here, we're somehow the bad guys.
Here's a clue to you pro-illegal types: how about you clean up the hellhole of your own nation instead of trying to transform our nation into one? Thank you and please leave.
If I may generalize, it’s not that Americans are anti-immigration, anti-immigration, anti-immigration....(repeat as much as possible), it’s that Americans are against illegal immigration.
But of course they want to leave the word 'illegal' out. They can't make it a race issue as long as that word is in there.
Illegal Alien Activity Tracking System.
http://illegal.globalincidentmap.com/home.php
Blacks are just 13 percent of the population but they commit more than half the muggings and murders in the country. Hispanics commit violent crimes at about three times the white rate.
Crime Rates
• Blacks are seven times more likely than people of other races to commit murder, and eight times more likely to commit robbery.
• When blacks commit crimes of violence, they are nearly three times more likely than non-blacks to use a gun, and more than twice as likely to use a knife.
• Hispanics commit violent crimes at roughly three times the white rate, and Asians commit violent crimes at about one quarter the white rate.
Interracial Crime
• Of the nearly 770,000 violent interracial crimes committed every year involving blacks and whites, blacks commit 85 percent and whites commit 15 percent.
• Blacks commit more violent crime against whites than against blacks. Forty-five percent of their victims are white, 43 percent are black, and 10 percent are Hispanic. When whites commit violent crime, only three percent of their victims are black.
• Blacks are an estimated 39 times more likely to commit a violent crime against a white than vice versa, and 136 times more likely to commit robbery.
• Blacks are 2.25 times more likely to commit officially-designated hate crimes against whites than vice versa.
Gangs
• Only 10 percent of youth gang members are white.
• Hispanics are 19 times more likely than whites to be members of youth gangs. Blacks are 15 times more likely, and Asians are nine times more likely.
Incarceration
• Between 1980 and 2003 the US incarceration rate more than tripled, from 139 to 482 per 100,000, and the number of prisoners increased from 320,000 to 1.39 million.
• Blacks are seven times more likely to be in prison than whites. Hispanics are three times more likely.
The Color Of Crime And The New Orleans Nightmare: George W. Bush vs. Jared Taylor
Among them: They're here only to do jobs that Americans won't. They have great family values, and they are net contributors to our prosperity.
Ooh, I want in on this, too. They pay taxes. Social Security would sink without them.
A visit to my local E R tells me all I need to know.
If the organization's people don't have the courtesy and intellectual honesty to acknowledge (and make clear to all that they do understand) that our anti- sentiment is anti-ILLEGAL aliens then screw 'em.
Another group wants to splain themselves.
What a joke.
Actually, if you are here legally but have no intent to stay permanently (e.g., on a work, student or tourist visa), then you’re not even an immigrant.
Now, now, now, Swinney, let’s not talk about that. But thanks for the incoming MALDEF alert - incoming racist propoganda alert!
Given that they define FAIR as a hate group, I’d like to see their definition of a hate crime.
I haven’t heard of any “hate” crimes against Latinos due to anti-illegal alien rhetoric.
Do I live under a rock or something?
Do I need to get up to speed here?
Their real game plan is get advertisers to boycott Rush, Hannity and others that are anti illegal immigration. You’ll hear the phrase “hate speech” a lot as they try and stifle their opponents
They will pressure various media claiming they can mobilize consumer boycotts by Hispanics. They are scum and the Mexican Gov’t might be involved
Sssshhh.... don’t you know you’re not supposed to talk about that stuff here?
Quote:
Ooh, I want in on this, too. They pay taxes. Social Security would sink without them.
Comment:
Right!
Social Security Agreement with Mexico Released After 3-1/2 Year Freedom of Information Act Battle
Illegal Mexican Workers Could Receive Billions of Dollars from U.S. Social Security System
January 4, 2007 (Washington, DC) – After numerous refusals over three and a half years, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has released the first known public copy of the U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement. The government made the disclosure in response to lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act by TREA Senior Citizens League, a 1.2 million member nonpartisan seniors advocacy group.
The Totalization Agreement could allow millions of illegal Mexican workers to draw billions of dollars from the U.S. Social Security Trust Fund.
A loophole in current Social Security law could allow millions of today’s Mexican workers to eventually collect billions of dollars worth of Social Security benefits for earnings under fraudulent or “non-work authorized” Social Security numbers, putting huge new pressures on the Social Security Trust Fund.
If an illegal worker working in the United States today gets a “work authorized” Social Security number through guest worker immigration legislation, the Totalization Agreement, or perhaps just over time, that worker could eventually apply for Social Security benefits once he or she has met eligibility requirements.
In addition, that worker could be able to claim credits for work performed while in the U.S. illegally. The SSA maintains an “earnings suspense file,” which tracks wages that cannot be posted to individual workers’ records because there is no match for a name and Social Security number. Once an immigrant gains access to a work authorized Social Security number – whether a legal citizen or not – wages earned while in the U.S. unlawfully could be reinstated to the worker’s new Social Security account.
The Congressional Research Service reports the earnings suspense file currently stands at approximately $520 billion. According to the congressional testimony of SSA Inspector General Patrick P. O’Carroll in February 2006, “We believe the chief cause of wage items being posted to the earnings suspense file instead of an individual’s earning record is unauthorized work by non citizens.”
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