Thread: Immigration on Autopilot - Kennedy's 'Legislative Legacy'

From The Dustin Inman Society

February 23, 2010

Immigration on Autopilot

Posted by Inger Ebernart at 6:36 pm

Ted Kennedy’s 1965 Immigration Reform Act opened the door to change the makeup of America as we know it. Kennedy himself said it would not, but it did. The video and corresponding transcript provides insight into the effects of immigration before and after his1965 legislation.

Video:
Online NewsHour PBS
Friday, Augist 28, 2009
Kennedy's Immigration Legacy Shaped Makeup of U.S.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/modul ... 1n2fa6qb44

Transcript

Report
Originally Aired August 28, 2009

Kennedy's Immigration Legacy Shaped Makeup of U.S.

Ray Suarez examines the impacts of the 1965 Immigration Reform Act, one of Sen. Edward Kennedy's earliest and most-enduring pieces of legislation.


JEFFREY BROWN: Over the past few days, much has been written and said about Edward Kennedy's imprint on a wide spectrum of issues, from health care, to poverty, to education, and more.

But one area of special interest to him has received little attention. That's immigration.

And it's the focus of this report from Ray Suarez.

RAY SUAREZ: As a first-term senator, Edward Kennedy championed the rewriting of America's restrictive immigration laws drafted in the 1920s. He fought hard for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 signed by President Lyndon Johnson.

And as America inches towards majority minority status, with the descendants of European immigrants a declining share of the population, the face of today's America is the one Kennedy's efforts helped create, for better...

CLARISSA MARTINEZ, director, Immigration and National Campaigns, National Council of La Raza: I think it is fair to say that Senator Kennedy was one of the architects of the America of the future.

RAY SUAREZ: ... or for worse.

DAN STEIN, president, Federation for American Immigration Reform: So, the '65 act essentially put immigration on autopilot.

RAY SUAREZ: By the time of the John Kennedy administration, America had absorbed the huge Ellis Island generations of immigrants, who poured in from Europe from roughly 1880 to 1920.

President Kennedy, whose great-grandparents came to Boston from Ireland, supported scrapping the existing quota system that used 19th century America's ethnic makeup as a template for letting in new arrivals, favoring Europeans, and effectively sealing off newcomers from the rest of the world.

On the Senate floor in 2007, Senator Kennedy looked back on his role in passing the '65 Immigration Act with pride.

SEN. EDWARD KENNEDY, D-Mass.: It was in this chamber, a number of years ago, that we knocked down the great walls of discrimination on the basis of race; that we knocked down the walls of discrimination on the basis of religion.

We knocked them down with regards to national origin. We knocked them down with regards to gender. We have knocked them down with regards to disability here in the Senate.


Changing face of immigration

ALAN KRAUT, history professor, American University: When Lyndon Johnson signed the bill at the base of the Statue of Liberty on October 3, 1965, he said that this bill was correcting a cruel and enduring wrong.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Alan Kraut is a scholar of American immigration history at American University.

ALAN KRAUT: The origins of who's coming to the United States as an immigrant has changed dramatically.

Yes, in the early part of the 20th century and even in the mid-20th century, it was largely Southern and Eastern Europeans who were coming to the United States in great numbers. Indeed, between 1880 and the 1920s, it was 23.5 million came, the great majority of them from Southern and Eastern Europe.

Today, it's very largely Southeast Asians, Latinos from Mexico, from Central America. It's a much different immigration.

RAY SUAREZ: Different, in part, because it was a chain migration, not only opening up to the developing world, but giving preferences to families with members already here.

Dan Stein is executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, FAIR, and a critic of current immigration law.

DAN STEIN: Historically, the view has been -- at least was through much of the 20th century -- and, certainly, we think it should be now -- is that, if you want to bring somebody here, they should bring their spouse and unmarried minor children.

But you have to use a rule of reason and say, listen, if you -- you know, in this day and age in particular, with the ease of transportation and mobility and other communications, if you want to go visit your aunt and uncle and your adult married brothers and sisters, siblings, go home and visit. You can't start a chain of migration that goes on years and years and years.

And, so, quickly, by -- certainly, by 1970, it had become apparent that the system of chain migration had become unworkable.


Evolution of chain migration

RAY SUAREZ: The new law made it easier for families like the Kims. Jina Kim's family began heading to America in the early 1970s.

JINA KIM, Attorney: The oldest son, my uncle, he and his wife came because his wife's family had invited her as a sibling. So, they -- after they came in 1971, they sponsored and invited their parents, which is my grandparents. That -- they came, and then next, it was us, and then my dad had five brothers under him.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

RAY SUAREZ: So, beginning with her uncle less than 40 years ago, the Kim family now numbers more than 60. Dan Stein insists , the 1965 reforms were needed and rooted in human rights, but complains that Senator Kennedy was never willing to go back and fix his legislative handiwork.

DAN STEIN: Because immigration is often fashioned in the Judiciary Committees by lawyers, who are completely detached from the actual consequences and costs associated with medical care and housing and infrastructure issues, you have this detachment that made it possible for people like Ted Kennedy to never come back and say, you know, the spirit of the '65 act was fine, it was noble, but, as a practical matter, it needs some tweaking.

RAY SUAREZ: Professor Kraut says the unintended consequences don't stop there. While changing the makeup of America, the 1965 law helped create the pitched battles over immigration today.

ALAN KRAUT: Prior to 1965, Mexican immigrants could come to the United States virtually at will. After 1965, because of the hemispheric quotas, it was much less easy for Mexicans to come across. The result is large numbers came across in an undocumented fashion. And, today, one of the issues that faces the Congress and faces the president is how to deal with the problem of unauthorized or undocumented immigrants.


Immigration as a domestic issue

RAY SUAREZ: Clarissa Martinez came to this country from Mexico as an undocumented immigrant, and became an American citizen. Now director of immigration for the National Council of La Raza, the country's largest Latino civil rights organization, she looks at the Kennedy record and recalls that 1965 was the middle of the Cold War.

Today, she says, immigration is debated largely as a domestic or economic issue.

CLARISSA MARTINEZ: But, at the time, these steps on our immigration policy had to do with increasing America's standing in the world, and demonstrating that, if the country had an open door, people in other countries who had systems that we didn't agree with would choose to come here, and that would demonstrate that the American way of life was a desirable system.

JINA KIM: And this is a picture taken probably about 20, 25 years ago with all the grandkids.

RAY SUAREZ: At the time of the Senate debates over the Immigration and Nationality Act, Senator Kennedy reassured his fellow senators that the new law would not bring immigrants pouring into America's cities, and would not change the ethnic makeup of the country. He was wrong.

Without realizing it, Jina Kim and her large and now prosperous family is part of a new America created, in part, by Senator Kennedy.

JINA KIM: It's definitely impacted my life. And now that I know who started it all, I have renewed respect for him. And I do thank him and his family, I guess, for having sponsored that bill. I think I am the direct beneficiary of that bill.

RAY SUAREZ: Congress is now waiting for the president's proposal for comprehensive immigration reform. It will be the first major immigration law debated without Senator Kennedy in half-a-century.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics ... elatedlink


Home
http://www.thedustininmansociety.org/index.html

RAY SUAREZ: Clarissa Martinez came to this country from Mexico as an undocumented immigrant, and became an American citizen. Now director of immigration for the National Council of La Raza,

I never knew that!! How come the general press never points out that LaRaza is run by former illegal aliens???!!!

They are all anti-American legalized aliens or illegal alien sympathizers.

Undoubtedly, Ms. Clarissa was given amnesty in 1986, and has since turned on the country willing to overlook her law violations and sins.
What is peculiar is I can't find anything about her on any website that includes her bio, like what year she was born, where, or when she "immigrated" to the US.

Clarissa Martinez/NCLR's offensive, misleading pro-illegal immigration editorial

Clarissa Martinez of the National Council of La Raza (her bio) offers an offensive editorial called "Think Latinos are ambivalent about immigration?" (link). It's a response to an earlier editorial from Ira Mehlman (link), and it starts with this:

At the height of his hubris, Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)-- an anti-immigrant organization designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center -- decided that he is better qualified than Latino civil rights leaders to speak to Latino views. What's next, David Duke writing about African American views on affirmative action?

See their name's link for more on the SPLC. See the ethnic conformity for the "better qualified" bit. See hispanic civil rights for that part. As for the last sentence, if she'd written "Ward Connerly" that would have just been very inaccurate; the use of Duke is despicable.

...Coinciding with the rise in vitriol in the immigration debate, FBI statistics show a nearly 40% increase in hate crimes committed against Latinos between 2003 and 2008. The Southern Poverty Law Center attributes the 48% rise in the number of hate groups in the U.S. between 2000 and 2007 almost completely to anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The first sentence is based on the SPLC misleading about hate crime statistics. And, the "number of hate groups" represents the number of groups on the SPLC's list, it isn't some official or widely accepted figure. It was also obtained by adding non-"hate" groups to the list, and it almost assuredly reflects the SPLC's attempts to scare up donations by finding something to oppose as their original opponents wane.

At least 10 million Latinos turned out to vote on Nov. 4, a stunning increase from the approximately 7 million who voted in the 2004 general election.

Shortly after the election, the Pew Hispanic Center said, "8% of the electorate was Latino, unchanged from 2004"; see the discussion here. See also the Hispanic vote compared to the full electorate.

And where immigration was concerned, Latinos supported the candidate that was more clearly in favor of reform. They did this during the primaries (Latinos were a deciding factor in Sen. John McCain's primary victory over other Republicans, delivering Florida at a crucial juncture of the campaign) and in the general election (They helped President Obama in key states such as Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia).

Why Hispanics mostly voted for Obama isn't known; not even a "Latino civil rights leader" is able to read minds.

In the absence of a thorough discussion of immigration during the general election at the presidential level, what informed the sensitivities of Latino voters on this issue was the overall tone of Republican candidates during the primaries and in races at the local level. McCain suffered the consequences of being a member of a party that wholeheartedly embraced anti-immigrant rhetoric and the scapegoating of Latinos to score political points. There are, of course, some notable exceptions, including McCain. The party's strategy backfired

She continues her mind-reading, and ignores the fact that the GOP leadership was more than willing to completely pander to Hispanics at every opportunity and that there are no national GOP politicians who "embraced anti-immigrant rhetoric and the scapegoating of Latinos", unless one defines those terms extremely broadly to include a fact-based discussion of the impacts of massive/illegal immigration.

She then discusses some pro-border Republicans who lost their races; finding counter-examples is left as an exercise. Then, she finishes with this:

The next time Mehlman decides to chime in, he should stick to discussing what he knows best: how his group has stood in the way of our nation solving its immigration problem.

Earlier she said that Mehlman isn't qualified to discuss Latino issues because of his race, and that bit has more than a bit of a racist tinge such as one might have heard coming out of a Mississippi politician in the 50s.

http://24ahead.com/clarissa-martinezncl ... legal-immi

Clarissa Martinez De Castro
From Uncovered
Jump to: navigation, search

From Historic Nationwide Campaign Launched for Comprehensive Immigration Reform:

a well-known figure in the immigrant advocacy world, has come over to the campaign from the National Council of La Raza where she has been working as the Director of State Policy and Advocacy. A U.S. citizen and immigrant from Mexico herself, she has degrees from James Garfield High School in Los Angeles, Occidental College, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

From her bio (nclr.org/section/audience/media/media_guide/clarissa_martinez):

Master's degree, public administration, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; bachelor’s degree, diplomacy and world affairs, Occidental College; Salzburg Seminar Fellow... Manager of the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, a broad network of national, state, and local organizations committed to advancing policy solutions on immigration; NCLR Director of State/Local Public Policy, managing state policy advocacy efforts and civic engagement work; Public Policy Coordinator, Southwest Voter Research Institute (William C. Velasquez Institute); Assistant Director, California-Mexico Project at the University of Southern California; Organizer, Ladies' Garment Workers Union; Union Representative, Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union (HERE) Local 11 (Unite Here).

Retrieved from "http://wiki.24ahead.com/wiki/Clarissa-Martinez-De-Castro"
Views

http://wiki.24ahead.com/wiki/Clarissa-M ... -De-Castro

Thanks, w4c. Nothing in her bio says if she was brought here illegally as a kid and got amnesty(while she admits she arrived "undocumented") although the kid has done well in our society, studying hard and then turning against the people that gave her that opportunity. So she is an American citizen now, but how did that happen? I guess these details are not important to La Raza, which hopes to work for the next amnesty for 40 plus million illegals (including smugglers, drug and arms dealers....)

although the kid has done well in our society, studying hard and then turning against the people that gave her that opportunity. So she is an American citizen now, but how did that happen?

This reminds me of the San Patricio Brigade during the Mexican American War. There were US Citizens of Irish descent who deserted the USA Army and joined the Mexican Army, to help their fellow Catholics. They were traitors who switched sides and fought against Americans. After the war they were rounded up and hung for treason. I wish we could still do that.

deleted by me

Kennedy sure screwed up a lot of things, but I will say that guy had charisma. Everybody liked him. Men. Women. Everybody. The Marilyn Monroe thing was a trip. He was a screw up, but a likable screw up nevertheless.