Thread: ALIPAC in the News Heated debate hot topic illegal immigrati

Opportunity, risk coexist as politicians seek solutions that work and win

Jack Hawke realized the political power of illegal immigration last summer...

illegal immigration, ALIPAC, Americans for Legal Immigration, state laws, campaigns, Republican, Democrat, Congress, Senate

8/21/2005
JIM MORRILL
Charlotte Observer

He was advising an N.C. congressional candidate when a rival, Republican Vernon Robinson of Winston-Salem, ran a radio ad. Over music from "The Twilight Zone," an announcer said, "The aliens are here, but they didn't come in a spaceship." Illegal immigrants, it went on, "sponge" off taxpayers and commit "heinous crimes."

Robinson's poll numbers jumped, helping push him into a runoff that he later would lose.

"It was over the top," recalls Hawke, a former state GOP chairman from Raleigh. "But he took off ... It's an issue that has great potential in moving elections."

For a growing number of Americans and North Carolinians, illegal immigration has gotten closer to home. And for a growing number of politicians, it's an issue to jump on.

DWI charges against an illegal Mexican immigrant in the death of a Mount Holly man -- and the failure of both the legal and immigration systems to keep him off the road -- inflamed passions.

"The main word is illegal, and if they're here illegally we need to be sending them back," Eddie Hartman of Huntersville told a packed meeting in Gastonia Tuesday night.

Bill Gheen, president of the Raleigh-based Americans for Legal Immigration, says illegal immigration "is the end of America as we know it."

But to many, such views are simplistic.

"Nobody defends illegal immigration. The question is, how do you fix the broken system?" says Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group. "(It's) going to require more than punchy sound bites. It's actually going to require political leadership."

This month President Bush signaled that, along with tougher border enforcement, he continues to favor some type of guest-worker program, such as he proposed last year.

Two other measures have gained attention. One, by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., would allow illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. Another by two border-state Republicans would force illegal immigrants to go home and apply for a visa to return.

The proposals are expected to be debated this fall.

The politics hasn't waited.

GOP divided

Democratic governors in New Mexico and Arizona this month declared states of emergency, freeing up millions of state dollars to combat illegal immigration. Some saw the actions as an effort to embarrass the Bush administration over policies widely acknowledged as unsuccessful.But the deepest divisions have been among Republicans.

In Virginia, Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore has loudly criticized plans by the Washington suburb of Herndon to build a gathering area for immigrants. Another Republican accused him of playing "on the politics of fear."

Republicans such as Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismiss Bush's guest-worker proposal as an "amnesty," a charge repeated last week by U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican. Tancredo would make illegal immigration a felony and punish people who employ illegal immigrants.

In North Carolina, which has the nation's fastest rate of increase in illegal immigrants, the issue has exploded. Debates erupted over giving in-state tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants as well as the ease of obtaining a driver's license. Last month's DWI death focused new attention on the lack of resources for immigration enforcement.

A poll released last week by the conservative John William Pope Civitas Institute of Raleigh showed more North Carolinians concerned about illegal immigration than taxes.

Myrick and other Republicans have blasted state Democratic leaders for what they call a failure to tackle illegal immigration. Mac McCorkle, a Democratic adviser to Gov. Mike Easley and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, accuses Myrick of "grandstanding."

Vocal hard-liners

Most of the passion has been one-sided.

"The intensity is with the door-closers," says pollster John Zogby, referring to those who favor hard-line measures such as this year's volunteer Minutemen border-patrollers.

"What changed in the last few years is the extent to which the debate is being dominated by extremes, especially on the anti-immigration side," says Cecilia Munoz, a vice president of the National Council of La Raza, a Hispanic civil rights group. "All the heated rhetoric makes it harder to move forward."

Republican Dan Ramirez, a former Mecklenburg County commissioner, says, "Everybody is jumping onto the bandwagon.

"Ninety percent of people and politicians really do not understand the issue completely. It is a lot more complex than just, `We have a whole bunch of illegal immigrants here.' Everybody that is here illegally would love to become a legal immigrant. But the tools are not there."

Ramirez, a citizen who came to America 30 years ago, says he's seen a backlash against other legal immigrants. So has Munoz.

"It's not hard for the anti-immigrant argument to get quickly anti-Latino," she says.

https://www.alipac.us/article-642-thread-1-0.html

Republicans such as Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado dismiss Bush's guest-worker proposal as an "amnesty," a charge repeated last week by U.S. Rep. Sue Myrick, a Charlotte Republican. Tancredo would make illegal immigration a felony and punish people who employ illegal immigrants.

Is this the same Sue Myrick that voted FOR CAFTA?
Tancredo has credibility. Myrick?????

a Democratic adviser to Gov. Mike Easley and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, accuses Myrick of "grandstanding."

I kind of got the same feeling...

Originally Posted by jp_48504

a Democratic adviser to Gov. Mike Easley and Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue, accuses Myrick of "grandstanding."

I kind of got the same feeling...

Grandstanding. Now there is good word. And to think I was going to use something more vile.

Yep Sixx, the same Myrick. the same Myrick that had her top people Jim Person and Matt Priest Call me and explain to me about CAFTA and Immigration. I am still working on that one. Myrick voted for the IRAIRA in 1996 which isn’t much different than the "Gardner Act" that she is proposing.

Now I know that many of our members are very upset about CAFTA, but I ask everyone to please keep an open mind. If we make hostiles out of everyone that voted for CAFTA then we will lose over half of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus that did vote for CAFTA. This includes Myrick.

Our main goal right now needs to be gathering any and all support we can to block Guest Worker and Myrick is with us on that one according to her ALIPAC survey from 2004 and her public statements to the press.

W

I submit that the public statements of politicians are at best worthless. I offer one Bill Richardson of New Mexico as a perfect example.
I don't live in N.C. and therefore do not have to listen to the duplicitous statements of your congressional "represenatives". As we say in TEXAS, "save a horse, ride a congress person".

Originally Posted by jp_48504

Yep Sixx, the same Myrick. the same Myrick that had her top people Jim Person and Matt Priest Call me and explain to me about CAFTA and Immigration. I am still working on that one. Myrick voted for the IRAIRA in 1996 which isn’t much different than the "Gardner Act" that she is proposing.

I love politicians that think "we the people" can't interpret OUR Constitution and know what OUR rights are . . . it is clear, Congress is to "repel invasion" NOT feed, clothe, educate and house the "illegal invaders"