just drive down the street with a big speaker that says LaMigra... LaMigra... ondalay!!! ondalay!!! and see how many lacucurachas scury away.
Posted on 04/24/2006 2:21:10 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Rumors of a federal crackdown on illegal immigrants in the Madison area spun out of control Sunday, causing fear and panic in the Hispanic community and keeping many children out of school today.
Mayor Dave Cieslewicz said that Mario Mendoza, a Spanish-speaking aide, was preparing a statement for Spanish-language media.
"There's no truth to the rumors," Cieslewicz said. "People should just go about their normal daily lives."
"We don't know how it started, but it ran like wildfire in the Latino community," said Luis Montoto, program director for La Movida radio, the area's only Spanish-language station.
School officials reported absences this morning as parents called schools to report they were keeping children home because of the accounts they had heard of Latinos being arrested.
Absenteeism for Latino students was at nearly 50 percent at Cherokee Middle School, 41 percent at Sennett Middle School, and 33 percent at Leopold Elementary School, spokesman Ken Syke said after making a spot check at the request of The Capital Times.
Absentee rates district-wide are ordinarily less than 10 percent.
Syke said the school district would be contacting parents of absent Latino students today to tell them that the rumors of raids were not true.
At one workplace employing many Latinos, a spokesman for Springs Window Fashions in Middleton said that perhaps a dozen Latino workers did not report today "as a result of the message out there."
Craig Hanson, the spokesman, said absences in any area were not heavy enough to cause production problems. The absences would be handled by the normal attendance guidelines, he said.
Pepe Villegas, a waiter at La Hacienda restaurant, said that after workers called Sunday to say they were afraid to come to work, owner David Herrera held a special meeting early this morning to reassure everyone that the stories of arrests were false.
"Only two workers did not come in," he said. "We are open."
At the radio station, Montoto said many first-shift workers, mostly with landscaping, factories and construction companies, would likely stay home today after hearing horror stories of vans rounding up illegals at local businesses, at highway stops and homes.
"It was all completely false," he said.
Montoto began dispelling the rumors when he went on the air this morning for his regularly scheduled shift at 6 a.m., fielding calls from workers scared to go to work.
"Most, I think, first-shift employees that have a lot of Latinos will see a lot of employees not show up today," Montoto said. "I think second and third shift will be all right. People are really upset right now."
Hundreds of calls: Monoto said he was busy Sunday evening scrambling to at least a half-dozen businesses, including Wal-Mart and Woodman's East, Copps on Park Street, La Hacienda restaurant and other Hispanic businesses, after receiving reports of vans rounding up employees. He was skeptical but felt he had to see for himself before he went on the air today.
"I got at least 200 calls last night on my cell phone," he said today.
Organizers of a April 10 demonstration against immigration policy changes, and a rally planned for May 1, are calling the message that spread through the community a "hoax."
"We don't know what happened," demonstration organizer Alex Gillis said today.
He and other organizers and community leaders drove around the city Sunday evening visiting the locations of reported raids and were not able to confirm that any immigration officers had been active in the city.
Still, the telephone calls with accounts of arrests and questions about what to do.
"We had 200 or 300 calls, it didn't stop until midnight," Gillis said. "It's been crazy."
He said that one Latino couple the group spoke to on the east side on Sunday evening swore they saw arrests with their own eyes, but their story could not be confirmed.
State and local police today said they knew nothing of a crackdown on illegal immigrants.
"We were surprised to hear it," said Madison police spokesman Mike Hanson. "We were not participating in anything."
Officials with regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Milwaukee and Chicago did not return phone calls. The service is now a bureau of the Department of Homeland Security.
"It spread like wildfire throughout the community," said Victor Arellano.
Arellano said his phone was ringing until the early morning hours today, but he had been unable to confirm any activity in the city by immigration officials.
Staying home: "When a community is on pins and needles, any rumor gains momentum on its own and runs wild," said Peter Munoz, executive director of Centro Hispano. He said today he hoped employers would not punish those who missed work."
Alfonso Zepeda Capistran said that news reports of stepped-up arrests by the Department of Homeland Security in areas of the country near the Mexican border may have ignited fears here.
"That may have caused people to panic," Capistran said. "Now a lot of people seemed to have stayed home from work and that will cause more havoc."
Snowball effect: Gillis wondered if there are people within the Latino community opposed to recent immigrations rights that might be working to discredit the movement by scaring people from reporting for work and testing the willingness of employers to accommodate absences for demonstrations.
Montoto said he thought several factors fed the panic.
First, he said, the rumors actually started about last Wednesday, when the federal government announced the arrests of nearly 1,200 illegal immigrants in 26 states at plants operated by IFCO Systems, a major producer of wooden pallets and crates.
"They have nothing to do with Wisconsin, but people got scared," he said.
A day later, he said, Madison area police officials announced a crackdown on unsafe and inattentive driving the Beltline, and La Movida aired numerous warnings about police on the highway.
"People might have gotten confused and thought it was about immigration," he said.
Having some knowledge about how the federal government conducts its immigration enforcement, he said he began telling people not to believe the rumors last week.
"We didn't think it would snowball like it did yesterday," he said.
He added that he thinks the storm has blown over.
"I don't think it's going to happen again," he said. "Honestly, we've learned our lesson."
Someone should look into the revenue sharing that makes the mayors want so many illegals. It has to be about money.
No kidding. Unless a legal immigrant is extremely ignorant, they'd know they have nothing to fear.
This shows that these schools districts are over budgeted by 50, 41, and 33 % respectively. The best way to put a stop to this social drain is to quit funding it in the first place.
When these school board cry about lack of funding, put your feet down tell these touchy feely teacher's union controlled school boards to quit teaching illegal immigrants for free, at the expense of our children's educations. We pay to sent American children to school, not the children from every other nation.
Fight back with the one tool everyone seems to understand- the dollar.
Hate to burst the bubble, but the fact that absenteeism was up for Latino's by X% does not mean that absenteeism was up by X% of the total. No doubt there are a lot of illegals everywhere.
For example: If there are 30 kids in the class. 6 are Latino. That is 20%. If 3 don't show up, that is 50% absenteeism for Latino students. Total absenteeism is 10%. You also do not know which are legal and which are not.
You patrole that end of the country, and I'll patrole this end and we'll meet in Kansas or Nebraska one day, LOL! :)
Recycle them into rags, first. I find a good scrubbing of the toilet with a Springs product helps to cleanse the soul, LOL! ;)
I'll take a guess and say all of them, and cut the budget anyways. Teachers can take a pay cut, or better yet, teach kids reading, writing, and arithmetic instead of gay sexual experiences, and ensure every child enrolled is in America legally. Better yet, get rid of the public school system, school taxes completely.
Did you hear the rumor about the new top-secret facial recognition satellites that will be deployed over the May 1st protests?
just drive down the street with a big speaker that says LaMigra... LaMigra... ondalay!!! ondalay!!! and see how many lacucurachas scury away.
start another rumor saying everybody who didn'e show up for work or school that day will get a visit from ICE... so MAYBE, they just might want to vamoooose!!!
I heard unmanned drones using optical cloaking that can make them appear invisible will be used over Latino neighborhoods. Don't let it get around...
"It has to be about money."
You nailed it. In Wisconsin, money is THE defining factor, for sure. WEAC and MTI (Teacher's Unions) OWN the Governorship of this state and Madison is in their pocket, too. Gotta keep pumping State and Federal dollars into our Public School system and our University system to keep everyone happy and perpetuating the Socialist Agenda. ;)
Between the Hmong students, the illegals and the legal immigrants of every stripe it's getting to the point where you're lucky if a few kids in any classroom are white.
And yet, the majority of our teachers are white liberals.
Gee, if that isn't a mirror image of how the Dems run the state and Nation when they're in charge, I don't know what is! Give the "minorities" who really are no longer the "minority" a voice and screw the rest of us that pay the bills.
You know, I'd like to think that the socialists in this state are dumb...but they are frighteningly efficient about maintaining the 'Plantation Mentality Status Quo.'
"Fight back with the one tool everyone seems to understand- the dollar."
Excellent advice. Now if the WI GOP will only give us a few credible candidates, we'll get right on that. ;)
Related thread:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1620767/posts
Easily. :(
Had I heard about his earlier, I would have rented a white passenger van for the day to do some cruising.
"There's no truth to the rumors," Cieslewicz said. "People should just go about their normal daily lives."
Yeah, that's the ticket. Don't believe that there's going to be an immigration sweep...just keep at your business, don't bother hiding....
Well, I think it's brilliant. I think one of these raids could occur at any moment, almost anywhere in the country. I think anyone who is here illegally should keep a sharp eye out at all times....
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