Thread: Group's message stirs debate at Drake (my group CTB)...

Just made the DM Register, I haven't seen the hard copy but I heard we're on the front of the Metro section. There's a few pictures if you click the link.


http://dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art ... 40332/1001


Group's message stirs debate at Drake

A new student organization gets the campus talking about illegal immigration and free speech.

MEGAN HAWKINS
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

April 24, 2006


"Good Morning Drake Students! While you were sleeping: Over 8,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the United States undetected! Today's forecast calls for 8,000 more!"

So reads a poster distributed at Drake University by Citizens for Tight Borders, a new student organization. The group, formed this spring, is stirring up a campus where many outraged students have complained that the organization's messages are offensive.

But group leaders say that critics are too quick to judge their message, and that they only mean to educate, not hate.

The national debate over immigration policy has reached college campuses, where some students say freedom of speech and political expression are going too far.

Campus events across the country have ranged from diplomatic panel discussions to staged walkouts or more divisive events. At Pennsylvania State University, for example, one group drew scrutiny for trying to organize a "Catch an Illegal Immigrant" game for Illegal Immigrants Awareness Day, an idea that drew criticism from the university president, according to media reports.

At Drake, leaders of Citizens for Tight Borders maintain they are trying to raise awareness about illegal immigration and are expressing the views of many other Americans. Most of the literature the group presents focuses on the negative effects illegal immigrants have on wages and other aspects of society.

"I don't think we've gone too far at all," said sophomore Frank Beard , the group's co-founder. "I have no issue with legal immigrants, no problem with anybody coming to the country. I think most people don't understand the issue enough to see it's not about race or ethnicity, but millions of people breaking the law."

But the group's messages have caught flak on campus — students say half the posters were ripped down within 24 hours of putting them up.

"They were really offensive," said Luz Sacta , 19, a Drake freshman. "I understand freedom of speech, but at the same time I don't know the limit."

Sacta said she was especially struck by claims that illegal immigrants are attacking American culture.

"I'm questioning to myself, what American culture? I'm pretty sure it's a mixture of all cultures from all over the world," Sacta said. "That's what's so great about it."

Added Sonya Florez , a senior and president of La Fuerza Latina at Drake: "The wording seems like more of an attack than giving people information. . . . We're the educated immigrants, the children, and it touches home for me."

Drake President David Maxwell said he heard from enough offended students that he decided to write a letter to the group, reinforcing that its message is independent of the university.

"I spoke to several dozen very shaken young people who I felt needed to be reassured by the university that we did indeed want them here and want them to feel welcome and comfortable," Maxwell said. "My letter was not intended to be a statement on the political position of this group. It was simply reassuring a group of students who, whether they correctly inferred it or not, felt that this was a message to them that they weren't welcome.

"I felt it was my responsibility to assure them that they are."

The group's leaders said the letter undermines their rights to free speech as a group and was unnecessary. Sacta and other students said it made them feel better.

"People were very quick to judge and freak out about our message," said Danielle Sturgis , another group co-founder. "People are willing to admit that illegal immigration is an issue and a crisis, but as soon as you say it, you're labeled a racist.

"Our concern is first of all security of the nation, and second of all making the immigration process easier so people can come here and benefit from being a legal citizen," Sturgis said. "It has nothing to do with ethnicity. It's just an issue of illegality."

Nearly 5,300 students attend Drake, including 205 international students and 78 Latino students, according to the university's fall enrollment profile. Those two groups voiced the most concerns about CTB, officials said. About 86 percent of the campus is Caucasian.

To try and quell the conflict, the student senate will host an immigration forum on Wednesday, complete with professors of political science, international relations and sociology, and possibly student representatives from both sides of the issue. Student body president Bryan Klopack said he wants students to "come and learn."

"In one aspect, it upsets me that my constituents are so upset about this and I want to do something about it," Klopack said. "At the same time, these are international issues, and it's kind of nice being at a college to get students to talk about it.

"These posters, they make a lot of claims to get your attention, and once you really read it, they're just trying to educate people on these issues. I don't really agree with it, but they wanted to get our attention and they did a pretty darn good job, because we're all listening," he said.

National education officials said that they have only heard of anecdotal evidence of the immigration issue on campuses, but that it is an issue from how it affects first-generation college students from immigrant families to international students who have a hard time getting clearance to stay in the United States after college. They also say teaching all students to work together in diverse environments is a key part of the college experience.

"On campuses, we should have students that graduate that are comfortable working with people different from themselves, who are comfortable in an international kind of arena," said Peter McPherson , president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. "That's 21st-century America."

Kudos Bulldog!!! Get Dr. Tom in the debate and people will listen

Go Bulldogs, Go Salukis, and Go LEGAL immigration!!

http://www.pardonmyenglish.com/archives ... ht_zo.html

Illegal Immigration Bait and Switch
It was only a matter of time before someone floated the notion that the term "illegal alien" was a racial slur. The are no doubt, at least several million illegal aliens and their sympathizers that agree with the shyster attorney Domingo Garcia who floated this notion on a radio talk show earlier this week. It's not surprising however: This is just the latest version of the open-border wackos bait and switch on the illegal alien issue.


"Illegal alien as racial slur" is just an extension of the "wanting to call illegal aliens what they are and treat them appropriately by closing the borders and tossing them out of the country is offensive" argument -- the only argument the open border radical Latino statist nutcases have. The facts and common sense are not on their side in this debate over sensible immigration policy so they have attempted to twist the debate from what it actually is -- a debate about whether or not we need to have control over our own borders for our national and economic security -- to something that it isn't -- a conversation about who might or might not be "offended" by someone else's free speech.

One of our very own here at PME is intimately familiar with the bait and switch that the open border wackos in collusion with their sympathizers in the liberal media, are playing with the immigration debate.

Danielle Sturgis, one of the co-founders of the group Citizens for Tight Borders, can tell you firsthand how heavily this debate is slanted in favor of the open-border nuts and their criminal comrades in arms they affectionately (and deceptively) refer to only as "immigrants". In the past few weeks, we've seen manifold evidence in every liberal media outlet in the country that they are firmly on the side of the criminals in this debate.

Nothing proves how slanted this debate is better than a feature on Danielle's group on the front page of the metro section of the Monday, April 24 Des Moines Register. The open border bias of the piece pretty much leaps off the page and slaps you in the face, but allow me to present some of the more salient passages from this heavily slanted "news" piece.

You know you're in trouble when you read the headline: "Group's message stirs debate at Drake". Fact is, there is really no debate on the actual issue: As immigration law stands right now, folks that are in this country are criminals and every day they add to their crimes as they live and work in this country illegally.

In keeping with their pro-criminal slant, and the bait and switch in the debate, the Register a couple weeks ago didn't find the spectacle of 5,000 to 6,000 people, many of them illegal, marching in the streets whining that "no human being is illegal" one bit controversial. In fact, the Register approved of this whiny, purely emotional plea so much, they used the clichéd refrain as the headline of the story about the brown-skinned people who "just want a better life":

In a sea of brown skin, American and Mexican flags, and signs that proclaimed "No human being is illegal" and "Imagine a day without nice lawns," one message was clear.
The estimated 5,000 to 6,000 immigrants who rallied in Nollen Plaza in Des Moines on a breezy Sunday afternoon just want a better life.

Immigrants like Daniel Garcia, 25, who drives to his Des Moines construction job every day without a driver's license. Garcia arrived in Des Moines illegally from Mexico six years ago to support his mother and pay for college for his two sisters in Mexico.

"I miss my family, but I want to give my sisters a good future," he said.

No controversy or "debate" being stirred here. In this story, co-written by Megan Hawkins, the same reporter who saw “debate” being stirred by Danielle and the co-founder of her group, Frank Beard, it is apparently assumed to be perfectly natural that this law-breaker should be in our country driving without a license and presumably without insurance, endangering everyone he shares the road with, simply because he feels he's entitled to access -- illegally -- in our country, the opportunity that doesn't exist in his native country.

Contrast this with the lead Hawkins wrote for the feature on Citizens for Tight Borders:

"Good Morning Drake Students! While you were sleeping: Over 8,000 illegal immigrants crossed into the United States undetected! Today's forecast calls for 8,000 more!"
So reads a poster distributed at Drake University by Citizens for Tight Borders, a new student organization. The group, formed this spring, is stirring up a campus where many outraged students have complained that the organization's messages are offensive.

But group leaders say that critics are too quick to judge their message, and that they only mean to educate, not hate.

Conservatives don't like to see themselves as victims, but clearly the "victims" in this debate are Danielle, Frank and, of course, the truth of the common sense message the CTB is trying to get out. A law-breaking alien is revered as hard-working (a point that isn't relevant to the debate in the least) as he marches with several thousand of his like-situated brethren through the streets of Des Moines demanding "rights" and citizenship simply by virtue of the fact that they sneaked into the country illegally. Meanwhile two young, ambitious, politically aware college students have "outraged" students with an "offensive" message presumed to be "hateful" because they are trying to inject some facts and reason into the debate over illegal immigration.

It gets worse.

Hawkins, apparently too lazy or not interested in finding diversity of opinion or, God forbid, the truth on the Drake campus, finds instead a couple of obvious ignoramuses who are more than willing to validate the "offensiveness" of Danielle and Frank's message with more empty-headed blather:

But the group's messages have caught flak on campus — students say half the posters were ripped down within 24 hours of putting them up.
"They were really offensive," said Luz Sacta , 19, a Drake freshman. "I understand freedom of speech, but at the same time I don't know the limit."

If she's talking about the limit of her intellectual vapidity, there quite obviously is none. But it's a good thing that Hawkins didn't do her job and ask this bimbo just what is "really offensive" about the truth in the illegal immigration debate, because I'd bet money that she wouldn't be able to come up with any substantial argument.

Sacta said she was especially struck by claims that illegal immigrants are attacking American culture.
"I'm questioning to myself, what American culture? I'm pretty sure it's a mixture of all cultures from all over the world," Sacta said. "That's what's so great about it."

Apparently, this young chic isn't familiar with the term "melting pot". We have a fine tradition in this country of bringing a variety of different cultures together -- legally, I might add -- and developing our own unique American culture, while at the same time retaining certain traditions and customs of the cultures we came from.

Some of my ancestry is German, but I don't see Americans of German ancestry marching in the streets waving German flags and screaming into megaphones that Americans are dying and aren't reproducing and if the Germans just hang around long enough, they'll become the dominant group in the country.

If this gal actually stopped watching American Idol or The Real World long enough to tune into the news, she would have known that attacking American culture is exactly what militant Hispanic groups were and are doing in cities all over the country. They only stopped carrying the Mexican flags because of the backlash against them and, of course, started passing out American flags for the illegals to carry, most of which were promptly discarded and trampled when the TV news cameras went away. These folks are militant Latino/Mexican statists, many of whom want to "reclaim" the Southwestern U.S. for Mexico. They have no interest whatever in "melting" into American culture -- they want to hijack it and make it their own. We will, no doubt see yet another display of this anti-American militarism this coming Monday, this time to the accompaniment of a bastardized version of our National Anthem.

But diligent lefty reporter Hawkins continues to advocate for the criminals with more opinions from yet another ignoramus:

Added Sonya Florez , a senior and president of La Fuerza Latina at Drake: "The wording seems like more of an attack than giving people information. . . . We're the educated immigrants, the children, and it touches home for me."
So the facts aren't just offensive now; they are "attacks". Well here are a few more "attacks":

• $353 million: The amount of health care bills mostly attributable to illegal aliens written off by hospitals in Los Angeles County alone in 2004.

• 85: The number of hospitals in California that have gone belly-up in the past few years due to unpaid medical bills run up by illegal aliens.

• 20 million under Sen. Frist's bill (S. 2454), 25 million under the McCain/Kennedy bill (S. 1033), 30 million under the Specter proposal (no bill number): The estimates from Numbers USA, a group dedicated to sensible immigration policy, of the numbers of NEW immigrants entering the country in the next ten years based on analyses of each of the above "immigration reform" bills.

• 8 million+: The number of illegal aliens that have entered the country since Ronald Reagan "fixed" this problem by giving illegals amnesty 20 years ago.

• $68 billion: The amount illegals cost just the federal government in social programs, to say nothing of what the cost is to the individual states.

• $311 billion: The amount of uncollected taxes on the estimated wages of 12 million illegals aliens.

• Two dollars for every dollar earned: The amount it is estimated that each illegal alien takes out of the economy.

Notice how Sonya isn't asked by Hawkins to clarify exactly what the "attack" part of CTB's message is. Is it he message on their "did you know" #1 that "illegal immigrants get free medical care and we as taxpayers are paying the bill"? Perhaps the one on their Illegal Immigrant Myth #1: "illegal immigrants take jobs Americans don't want". Sorry if Sonya can’t handle the facts, but it requires more than the ignorant opinion of the uninformed to transform facts into "attacks; it takes an effective counter-argument on the other side which she couldn't provide even if she wasn't ignorant because one doesn't exist. That doesn't seem to trouble the Register and their reporter because they obviously aren't looking for balance in this story -- only people offended by the facts.

Perhaps Sonya and Luz, ignorant bimbos that they are, were a couple of the folks Drake President David Maxwell had in mind when he provided reporter Hawkins with this breathtakingly idiotic quote:

"I spoke to several dozen very shaken young people who I felt needed to be reassured by the university that we did indeed want them here and want them to feel welcome and comfortable," Maxwell said. "My letter was not intended to be a statement on the political position of this group. It was simply reassuring a group of students who, whether they correctly inferred it or not, felt that this was a message to them that they weren't welcome.
"I felt it was my responsibility to assure them that they are."

Shaken?????? Shaken by what, exactly? Unless these folks are in this country illegally, why in God's name would the common-sense message CTB is trying to convey make them feel unwelcome?

The letter Maxwell refers to is available on CTB's web site and makes this assertion, among others as it attempts to "reassure" students who felt they weren't "welcome":

But academic freedom does not guarantee anyone the right to express their views without response and without consequence. The appropriate response of a university community in this instance is reason, knowledge, facts, and respectful, civilized debate. There is nothing more powerful than accurate, complete information and carefully reasoned argument to confront those with whom we may disagree.

Thanks to Drake's president for injecting the biggest bunch of unmitigated BS into this phony controversy in the name of looking out for the "feelings" of the questionable "dozens" of Drake students who are "shaken" by the truth and to whom the truth makes them feel "unwelcome".

The real "truth" is that David Maxwell isn't interested in "reason, knowledge, facts and respectful, civilized debate" in regards to the illegal immigration issue: He's only interested in doing the politically-correct thing and shielding the ignoramuses, liars and criminals to make sure they feel "welcome" and their tender feelings aren't bruised by the actual facts in the matter. As Danielle pointed out in an email to me, damn the facts; it's all about diversity with Maxwell:

"He is trying to appease his minority groups to keep the diversity-worshipping crowd happy and in doing so, he has dismissed the CTB."

She also points out that this is not the "free speech" issue that is being represented in the Register and in the debate on the Drake campus: The open border leftists side is a deliberate exclusion of the facts in order to switch the debate from real issue. They don’t want to discuss the real economic and national security costs involved in the federal government's stubborn refusal to secure our borders so they bait the issue with a phony, divisive “free speech debate”, “offended” ignoramuses and sad-sack stories about “immigrants” (criminals) in this country illegally just trying to make it in the cold cruel world of opportunity.

You can have your opinions on the illegal immigration debate but the facts, many of which are listed above, are entirely on one side of the debate. They are the facts that Danielle Sturgis and Frank Beard are trying to use to begin a "respectful, civilized debate" about a serious issue that will have grave implications for our country if we aren't willing the confront facts and deal with the issue head on instead of lying and demagouging it as the open border folks do.

Because the radical open-border Latino statists can't go head to head with the two young people from CTB or any of us who have the facts on our side, they prefer instead to whitewash the debate, ignore the facts, and transform this important issue into a superficial "controversy" on free speech, diversity, and "feelings". and they do so with the enthusiastic and active support of the liberal media. Bravo to Danielle and Frank for trying to keep the conversation focused on the real issues and injecting some common sense into the deliberate PC ingnorance that exists on the Drake University campus and in the liberal media.


Posted by Steve at April 29, 2006 12:22 PM