Thread: Is Escondido the new anti-immigration idol?

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Is Escondido the new anti-immigration idol?

UNION-TRIBUNE
July 13, 2006

As is my custom of (very) late, I began yesterday with a quick online scan of the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, the newspaper serving Luzerne, Carbon, Schuylkill, Columbia and Monroe counties since 1866.

It was a pretty good news day.

The school district's board will consider three revisions to its dress code: allowing dresses in the classroom (presumably for girls only), killing a fussy provision that limits buttons on the front of shirts to five, and permitting logos on shirts, so long as the logos are “specific to the shirt's manufacturer” and are in the “upper left-hand corner.”

In another front-page story, a developer seeks approval for a parking lot atop a former landfill that's capped with dredged materials, a conceivable health risk for a proposed amphitheater that could be built nearby.

And rounding out the day's top copy, three stories (one main and two sidebars) on Hazleton's emergence as the American Idol of anti-immigration rage.

Hazleton, a Pennsylvania city of 31,000 built by European immigrants, is about to declare civic war against Latino residents from such faraway locales as Puerto Rico, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

If Hazleton makes good on its promise, English will become the official language within the city walls. (No more translations at City Hall. Solo Ingles.) Moreover, fines of up to $1,000 will be imposed for contracting with – or renting housing to – illegal immigrants, the widely presumed source of a recent spike in Hazleton's crime rate.

It's a carping detail, but no one in Hazleton, including the mayor, appears to have a clue how many illegal immigrants live in the city. The prevailing assumption is that there are enough to degrade the city's quality of life.

Tonight, the largest crowd in the Hazleton City Council's history is expected to witness a second yes vote on the celebrity Illegal Immigration Relief Act. A Latino group will be holding a candlelight vigil outside the council chambers. The media will constitute a “horde,” according to the Standard-Speaker.

Meanwhile, 11 pro bono attorneys have written Mayor Louis Barletta to express their intention to challenge the relief act.

The letter warned that the city was illegally co-opting the federal government's role in regulating immigration. “Though the City of Hazleton may not be satisfied with the job the federal government is doing in that regard,” the attorneys wrote, “neither Hazleton nor thousands of other cities and municipalities may lawfully take on that task.”

The mayor, a son of Italian immigrants, wasn't fazed.

“Obviously, they're trying to persuade or scare council into backing down,” he told the Standard-Speaker. “It didn't scare me and I don't believe it will scare council.”





Hazleton is a city of primarily Polish, Czech and Italian ancestry that clearly finds it hard to digest the huge chile relleno bobbing in the American melting pot.

Starting with its name, Escondido has a much different history. Take Latinos out of Escondido and it loses much of its flavor (but none of its political leaders, sad to say).

Nevertheless, despite their distant DNA, Escondido and Hazleton appear destined to become sister cities, bosom buddies in a Latino eradication project.

Councilwoman Marie Waldron, a losing candidate in the June GOP Assembly primary who's running for re-election to the council in November, has become remarkably adept at firing up the border troops over illegal immigration, the wedge issue that appears to have turned the tide in favor of Congressman Brian Bilbray and Supervisor Bill Horn in the June election.

Thanks to her compliant allies on the Escondido council – Sam Abed and Ed Gallo – Waldron can generate a hot stream of media seemingly at will.

Several months ago, for example, Waldron engineered the city's endorsement of a state police force to hunt down illegal immigrants. That initiative wasn't headed anywhere, but Waldron proved that she can deliver her city, no matter how fringe the issue.

In short, she's got major mojo.

Which brings us to our local story.

Waldron is proposing a Hazleton knock-off – fining Escondido landlords $1,000 for every illegal immigrant they rent to.

If the legally dubious code is ever implemented, two things could happen, both bad.

If the city takes a soft approach on enforcement, unscrupulous landlords could wield crushing power over tenants fearful of being summarily evicted.

If it were to take a hard approach, the city would have to employ sweeps of suspect housing. Extensive – i.e., expensive – document checks. A reign of terror largely targeting one ethnic group.

And then what? An exodus of displaced families to . . . where? Rancho Bernardo? Canyon camps?

Is this how Escondido wants to be celebrated in the news?

The last thing Escondido needs is to march in lockstep with Hazleton, a poor, bewildered city on its way to making itself poorer and more bewildered.



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Logan Jenkins can be reached at (760) 737-7555 or by e-mail at logan.jenkins@uniontrib.com.

It's a carping detail, but no one in Hazleton, including the mayor, appears to have a clue how many illegal immigrants live in the city. The prevailing assumption is that there are enough to degrade the city's quality of life.

It's sort of difficult to know how many you have when you can't ask them if they're illegal (that would be racial profiling). The author of this article obviously isn't the brightest lightbulb in the box.

If it were to take a hard approach, the city would have to employ sweeps of suspect housing. Extensive – i.e., expensive – document checks. A reign of terror largely targeting one ethnic group.

The alternative will be MUCH more expensive. What about the reign of terror against our rights, freedoms and way of living in America? Our husbands, dads, grandfathers and forebearers GAVE us our rights, bought and paid for by fighting and dying in battle after battle. If the illegals are truely being terrorized then that would make them gluttons for punishment. Do no be terrorized, PLEASE LEAVE!

This is the typical kind of articles we read in the UT.

The last thing Escondido needs is to march in lockstep with Hazleton, a poor, bewildered city on its way to making itself poorer and more bewildered.

Mr. Jenkins, maybe you need to do a little more research so you'll know what you're talking about. Hazelton will certainly not be poorer (less healthcare and free schooling), and they certainly won't be bewildered. Whatever you mean by that?
One thing they will be is a hell of a lot safer!

I agree with Jean, this is exactly the type of coverage we get regarding illegals in the UT and for that matter, all the local news outlets. ALL of the San Diego TV stations refuse to call illegals aliens what they are, illegal aliens, they are always referred to as 'undocumented workers' or 'undocumented immigrants'. Although every single TV news program starts out with a dozen or so stories of Mexicans (not Hispanics, not Latinos, but Mexicans) commiting crimes, everything from murder, rapes, molestations, DUI pursuits and crashes, carjackings, robberies, home invasion assaults, kidnappings, drug and alien smuggling, the list is endless, they never mention if a suspect is an illegal alien. Even when they know for a fact, that the perpatrator is an illegal.

When the cold blooded murderer of Escondido police officer Anthony Zepatella was tried, convicted and sentenced to death, not a single news station mentioned the fact that the scumbag, Adrian Jorge Camacho was a multiply convicted, multiply deported Mexican gang banger, junkie, thief, thug who returned to commit even more crimes. It was always "Escondido resident Camacho was convicted today...", or "local resident Camacho was senteneced to death for murder today...", and so on. They never mentioned that the reason he killed Zepatella was because he knew that being stopped again by police would lead to his being arrested yet again, and wind up with another deportation back to Mexico. They just spouted the defense line that he was under the influence of drugs and not responsible for his actions, almost defending him in the murder.

And of course when the pro-illegals marched through San Diego earlier this year, mobs waving Mexican flags and chanting in Spanish, carrying signs calling for us "Pilgrims to go back to Europe" and "You stole this land from us" and "F*$k the Alamo" type garbage, they totally ignored those aspects and played it as "they are merely showing their pride in the homeland" crap.

In fact, it is well known by nearly everyone in San Diego that thousands of Mexican Nationals and their children cross the border daily to attend local San Diego district public schools, use local hospitals to deliver their thousands of anchor babies or to obtain other free (to them) medical care, yet they never report on these travesties.

It is well known that thousands of cars drive throughout San Diego with Mexico license plates, with NO CA DL's, NO CA car registration, NO CA insurance, NO CA smog requirements, causing DUI and Hit & Run crashes on a daily basis, most ending up with the susptects fleeing on foot, even when there are innocent people killed or seriously injured. The top five-word phrase heard on every San diego newscast are: 'the suspect fled the scene'.

Virtually every month, if not weekly, alien smugglers use our local freeways to elude capture by driving 100 mph, going in the wrong direction in the fast lane with their headlights off at night, putting innocent drivers at risk of injury or death. Yet the local news report these incidents as simple wrong way driver stories.

But that's why they call San Diego, Mexico's Finest City.

Make sure you send Mr Jenkins an e-mail and let him know how wrong he is and what an ass he is.