Thread: ALIPAC in the News! Immigration discussed by Panel

Immigration discussed

By Jimmy Ryals
The Daily Reflector

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Five panelists shared a table, if not the same ideas, at the Brody School of Medicine on Wednesday night.

The quintet offered ideas about U.S. immigration policy during a forum sponsored by the East Carolina University sociology department and the Pitt County League of Women Voters.



William Gheen, an ECU graduate and president of the Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, broadly endorsed enforcement of existing immigration laws, while his four counterparts advocated varying levels of reform. The forum drew about 80 people to the Brody School of Medicine auditorium.

By levying fines on companies that employ illegal immigrants and ending catch-and-release policies among the U.S. Border Patrol, Gheen said, the federal government can reverse the tide of unlawful immigration.

"Eventually, the word will get back to their countries of origin that Americans" will not stand for "invasion" by illegal immigrants, Gheen said.

Jeremy McKinney, a Greensboro immigration lawyer, countered Gheen's suggestion, which he referred to as a "smoke them out" strategy. That plan, McKinney said, supposes that making life harder in America would force immigrants to leave.

As long as the U.S. offers more opportunity than their home countries, McKinney said, illegal aliens won't leave.

McKinney favored a U.S. Senate-approved plan that would allow more guest workers into the U.S., but also would track them and force them to pay back taxes and fines. The plan would "bring millions out of the shadows and into the mainstream of American life."

Two existing guest-worker programs allow roughly 145,000 undocumented aliens to take seasonal work here now, said Leticia Zavala, an organizer for the AFL-CIO's Farm Labor Organizing Committee.

Zavala said she immigrated to the U.S. illegally 20 years ago, riding her father's shoulders as he walked across the U.S. border with Mexico. Her father still talks regularly about going back home, she said.

"None of us want to stay," she said. "We all just want to be able to come, improve our lives a little bit and go back to where we came from."

U.S. economic growth depends on a steady supply of low-skill labor, said Adelcio Lugo, an ECU graduate and loan officer with Self-Help Credit Union. An easier path to citizenship — which can take years, McKinney said — or a guest worker program would keep a steady stream of the workers companies need, Lugo said.

"Isolated measures such as building a fence ... (or) enforcement through employers, those measures alone would not solve the structural problems that we have in immigration policy," he said.

Lee Maril, the head of ECU's sociology department, echoed arguments he made in a book about the U.S. Border Patrol and before the House Judiciary Committee last month. He called for better training and equipment for the Border Patrol and dismissed a planned fence along the border as "a total waste of time."

"It's not about (adding) thousands more agents, it's about the quality of agents we get, how they are recruited and maintained," Maril said. Currently, the Border Patrol resembles the pre-World War II military, he said.

The panelists disagreed regularly, but the forum's tone was generally cordial. One exception centered on Maril's response to an audience question about racism's role in the immigration debate.

Not all anti-illegal immigration activists are racist, Maril said, "but I think it is true to say that if you scratch the skin of most Minutemen, you would find a (Ku Klux) Klansman." Maril was referring to the Minuteman Project, whose southwestern U.S. members patrolled the border with Mexico in 2005.

"I am a member of the Minutemen defense corps, and I understood that there would be no personal attacks" at the forum, Gheen said.

"Well, I didn't know that," Maril said.

"Well, now you do," Gheen said.

http://www.reflector.com/local/content/ ... forum.html

this is indeed GOOD NEWS!

The did not print my entire response.

I said "Well, now you do," and I have a work history of Civil Rights campaigns right here in the 1st Congressional District (while pointing at the ground)

Great job (as always) William!!!

Zavala said she immigrated to the U.S. illegally 20 years ago, riding her father's shoulders as he walked across the U.S. border with Mexico. Her father still talks regularly about going back home, she said.

"None of us want to stay," she said. "We all just want to be able to come, improve our lives a little bit and go back to where we came from."

Obviously, she wants to stay if she has been here for 20 years, she doesn't seem to be wanting to go back to Mexico. I cannot believe how they seem to say one thing but do the opposite.

These people that think the minutemen and anyone that is anti-illegal are racist seem to have some type of problem. I think they are the ones that have no loyalty to their country. If things are bad here they will just move somewhere else, this country means nothing to them, I really believe this is where the difference is. It is not about racism, it is about patriotism. Those who feel an attachment to this country and those who don't, without the attachment you don't mind selling the country out.

Has anyone noticed that the KKK has all of a sudden become the BUZZ WORD over the past week or two?

Good for you W., You answered her with dignity. I heard Pat Bucanan say on the O'reilly show tonight in response to a personal assult from the NY times I think, He made this statement. " A personal insult, is the last recouse of an exhausted mind." This woman made a personal insult to the Minutemen who were not there to defend themselves, thank God, you were there W. and managed to put her in her place!

Has anyone noticed that the KKK has all of a sudden become the BUZZ WORD over the past week or two?

I know a lot of "us" have likened La Raza to the KKK...now they seem to be turning it toward the Minutemen. They will do anything to play the race card! What else do they have...what they are doing is wrong and the whole world knows it!

You rock W. You were outnumbered and did great.