By John Ballard
Immigration reform may be the Next Big Thing.
Janet Napolitano fired the first shot yesterday speaking to the Center for American Progress.
We all know the story: A steady influx of undocumented workers, crossing our borders illegally in search of work and a better life. A market among employers willing to flout the law in order to hire cheap labor. And as a result, some 12 million people, here illegally, living in the shadows�a source of pain and conflict.
It is wrong. It�s an affront to every law-abiding citizen and every employer who plays by the rules.
Like the Administration�s other priorities, when it comes to immigration, we are addressing a status quo that is simply unacceptable. Everybody recognizes that our current system isn�t working and that our immigration laws need to change. America�s businesses, workers, and faith-based organizations are calling for reform. Law enforcement and government at every level are asking for reform. And at the Department of Homeland Security, we need reform to do our job of enforcing the law and keeping our country secure.
Over the past ten months, we�ve worked to improve immigration enforcement and border security within the current legal framework. But the more work we do, the more it becomes clear that the laws themselves need to be reformed.
Let me be clear: when I talk about �immigration reform,� I�m referring to what I call the �three-legged stool� that includes a commitment to serious and effective enforcement, improved legal flows for families and workers, and a firm but fair way to deal with those who are already here. That�s the way that this problem has to be solved, because we need all three aspects to build a successful system. This approach has at its heart the conviction that we must demand responsibility and accountability from everyone involved in the system: immigrants, employers and government. And that begins with fair, reliable enforcement.
Napolitano, as Secretary of Homeland Security can speak with clarity and authority, framing the issue in a way that concerned Americans will be forced to see the importance of documenting the undocumented millions among us for national security if for no other reason. What's not to understand about that?
Never to let reason get in their way, though, large numbers of anti-immigrant nativists will be assembling today in opposition to efforts to formulate solutions to what is fast becoming the biggest political elephant in the room.
The Southern Poverty Law Center keeps tabs on extremist hate groups. This is from �Tea Parties Against Amnesty� Planned in 50 Cities Tomorrow describing a response to immigration reform, one of the administration's next priorities.
Nativist leader William Gheen has joined the tea party frenzy by organizing �Tea Parties Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration,� scheduled for this Saturday, Nov. 14, in more than 50 towns and cities nationwide. Gheen, who heads Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, said in a news release that the event is just the prelude to more tea parties and other anti-amnesty campaigning in the spring. Also sponsoring tomorrow�s protests are the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a nativist extremist group, and RightMarch.com, according to the event website, AgainstAmnesty.com.
The local organizers of the anti-amnesty tea parties include some prominent nativists, according to AgainstAmnesty.com. In Chicago, Rosanna Pulido served as a regional field coordinator for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center lists as a hate group in part because of its ties to white supremacists. She also formed the Chicago and Illinois chapters of the Minuteman Project and represented the FAIR-financed front group You Don�t Speak for Me! In Hazleton, Pa., Dan Smeriglio heads the Voice of the People, which organized an anti-illegal immigration in Shenandoah, Pa., six weeks after Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez was murdered there.
Often featuring nativist speakers and signs, tea parties have provided a forum for anti-immigrant sentiment since their inception early this year. This spring, Gheen E-mailed leaders of allied organizations asking them to join a coalition of anti-immigrant groups planning to attend tea parties. But tomorrow�s tea parties are different in that they�re solely targeting illegal immigration. In addition, while the tea party movement has attracted some blatantly racist groups, such as the Council of Conservative Citizens, Gheen states on AgainstAmnesty.com that the protests are open to those who �share our nonviolent and nonracist multiethnic and bipartisan support for secure borders and immigration enforcement.� He added: �Any groups, individuals or materials that are not appropriate will not be allowed in our permitted areas.�
Let�s hope that�s the case. Information about the rallies appears on the websites of former Klan boss David Duke and the racist National Policy Institute in Augusta, Ga. Posters on Stormfront, the leading white supremacist website, are also urging members to attend. �This is great news!� wrote �ronatvan� on Tuesday. �All Stormfronters should join these huge Tea Parties! Prepare yourselves with big banners to spread our message.�
Anti-immigrant impulses are fed by racism and bigotry. I have watched it move smoothly into the South where the KKK has prepared the soil since the founding of that group in the Nineteenth Century. A group called the White Citizens Councils, formed in reaction to the Brown decision of 1954, was the progenitor of the Council of Concerned Citizens mentioned above. Private education, of sorts, was given a boost all across the South after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with the blossoming of private schools created exclusively for white students.
In these modern times it is no longer socially acceptable in most circles to speak in such terms, but something tells me the home schooling phenomenon is a closely-related phenomenon, driven along with other fears by anti-immigrant sentiments. Among President Bush's better qualities, perhaps because of the proximity of Texas and Mexico, was an understanding of immigration issues that was more nuanced than most. As the conversation again goes mainstream (and with Lou Dobbs no longer in his bully pulpit) perhaps the issue will fare better this time around. One can hope.
In addition to being the right thing to do it's a brilliant political move to drive the teabaggers over the edge and further marginalize the Republican party.
ReplyDelete"... but something tells me the home schooling phenomenon is a closely-related phenomenon, driven along with other fears by anti-immigrant sentiments."
ReplyDeleteadd in a big whopping dose of that ol' time religion and a couple parts parental narcissim coupled with a bunch of dumm with a smattering of 'we don't wants our chillens to be sociatin' with that kind" and that would be your home schooling in the good ol' u s of a.
Dear Americans,
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I must agree with the pejorative comments about some organizations involved in the immigration law enforcement advocacy movement. Specifically, organizations like William Gheen's ALIPAC, his affiliate Brook Young of Immigration Watchdog (now defunct) and Jeff Schwilk's San Diego Minutemen(SDMM).
The original purpose of the Minuteman Project and Movement was to bring continued awareness to the chaotic lack of U.S. immigration law enforcement. It's second objective was to encourage a respectable resolve to the problem.
What the movement attracted, from a remote segment of what I call the darkside of society, were some whose intentions were other than altruistic. It attracted persons who used the immigration law enforement activist movement as a veil to cover their intentions of exploiting the movement simply to get money from naive donors. It also attracted outright racists, sexists, and some persons with criminal mentalities.
After several disappointing experiences with William Gheen (ALIPAC), Gheen's affiliate Brook Young (Immigration Watchdog), and Jeff Schwilk (San Diego Minutemen), I can honestly say that none of these persons should be involved in the immigration law enforcement issue. These organizations, and a few others, in my opinion, routinely engage in repulsive, defaming propaganda, or present themselves in a very physically hostile manner tantamount to racist groups like the KKK, the Brown Berets, Black Panthers, etc.
William Gheen, I firmly believe, has no interest whatsoever in encouraging the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws. ALIPAC is a fund raising company whose goal is to raise money off the latest frenzied trend...in this case, the immigration chaos. If there was more money to be made by supporting the pro-illegal alien invasion lobbyists, then he would probably be on that side of the argument...let the country be damned.
When I personally endorsed Mike Huckabee for president in 2007, much to the chagrin of some fanatical Ron Paul supporters like Gheen, Schwilk, and Young. Gheen, Schwilk, Young, and a few others, in what appears to be their "good ol' boys" white supremacy network, immediately launched a 'hate-the-Minuteman Project-and-destroy-Gilchrist' campaign that carried on for several months into 2008 over both the internet and talk radio.
After I sued him for malicious defamation, Brook Young shut down his vile web site, Immigration Watchdog, and fled the Los Angeles area. The cost of the suit was well worth the demise of Young's ugly, mean, supremacy web site.
The Minuteman Project has officially disassociated from these persons and their organizations because their actions are not compatible with the altruistic mission of the Minuteman Project.
Nothing in the Minuteman Project's mission includes hate, bigotry, or descrimination regardless of one's race, color, creed, or his/her support of "any" political candidate. We believe in equal rights and Constitutional protections to all. Unfortunately, some sour grapes in this movement do not.
Respectfully Yours,
Jim Gilchrist, The Minuteman Project
Nice try, Mr. Gilchrist, but I'm not buying it.
ReplyDeleteMy reaction to this robo-response, triggered by the term "Minutemen" (which makes no mention of the post content), to "Dear Americans" is to delete the comment. But leaving it as it reads serves to illustrate a level of duplicity that nothing else can show.
As recently as last Spring SPLC charitably wrote of him that ...Midway through last year, Jim Gilchrist, one of the principal architects of the modern nativist movement, sounded like a man burdened with regret.
"In retrospect, had I seen this, had I had a crystal ball to see what is going to happen� . Am I happy? No," Gilchrist told the Orange County Register last June 25. "Am I happy at the outcome of this whole movement? I am very, very sad, very disappointed."
Little more than three years had passed since Gilchrist and Chris Simcox, a kindergarten teacher-turned-Wild West gunfight reenactor, had co-organized the Minuteman Project, a month-long border "civilian border patrol" operation in April 2005. It mustered a few hundred volunteers, garnered international media hype, and inspired a slew of ragtag imitators whose militant rhetoric and confrontational methods rapidly exceeded Gilchrist's original vision of retirees in lawn chairs keeping a leisurely eye on the border.
"There's all kinds of organizations that have spawned from the Minuteman Project and I have to say, some of the people who have gotten into this movement have sinister intentions,"Gilchrist said.
Jim Gilchrist was right. Even as the total number of anti-immigration groups has remained more or less the same in recent years, the number of extremist groups within the nativist movement has continued to climb....
It's possible that he is having, like Georgie Wallace did before he died, a Robert McNamara moment. But with the old Southern Strategy still alive and well, dressed in newly-designed PC clothing, I'm looking for much stronger words and actions.
Before recovering even a shred of credibility Mr. Gilchrist has lots of past words and actions to wash away, starting with being recently UNinvied to appear at a Harvard University event. Google and YouTube are veritable sinkholes of muck about this man and the movement he started making this comment as irrelevant as a drop of water on a sidewalk.