Burlington, NC Paper is Biased towards Illegal Immigration
Burlington, North Carolina Paper is Biased towards Illegal Immigration
My local paper, The Burlington, NC Times-News has become a pro-Hispanic, pro-illegal-immigrant paper. It seems that every day now they have an article or two, sometimes more on the subject. Usually either written by or contributed to by Keren Rivas. I assume that she's a new reporter with the paper but I really don't know. However, there are a few other reporters that take the same pro-illegal-immigrant view point as she does. Most of these articles are front page articles as well.
Last week, the N.C. State Highway Patrol stopped a Mexican bus that was leaning to one side as it traveled Interstate 85. There were several people on the bus who were in the country illegally. The bus driver did not speak English - which is against the law. ICE was called in. The people were housed in a local hotel - some were detained by ICE and processed. The Times-News ran several articles on this and reported what appears to be the facts, however, the articles are slanted with a definite bias that favors the law breakers and tries to make the law enforcement officers look as bad as possible.
In addition the paper ran articles about the children of the illegal immigrants: an obvious attempt to say "look how bad and mean the legal system is for detaining people with children". They fail to acknowledge that the detainees are criminals and have broken the law.
What's more, in Friday's paper (August 15th, 2008), Rivas' wrote an article, again front page, about five illegal immigrants who were arrested for fishing without a license. She really tried to make N.C. Wildlife Resources Officer J.R. Brown look bad. I say he deserves a really big Thank You. In fact, the Governor should come down and shake his hand. But that will never happen.
Officer Brown used good judgment when he arrested the five men. They lied to him about not having any fish, they did not have fishing licenses, they did not have identification, and one even had a California ID that Officer Brown believed to be a fake. The law requires a fishing license. The last time I bought a fishing license, and it's been a little over a year, I had to provide a valid ID, and I seem to recall being told to have proper ID with me in case I was stopped by a wildlife officer.
Rivas' article and the quotes from others she uses, say the only reason the five men were arrested is because they were Hispanic. I would say that yes, Officer Brown was influenced by the fact that the men are Hispanic. He was also influenced by the fact that they were breaking the law, had no valid identification, and had lied to him. He put 2 and 2 together and made a good decision. The fact is, we are flooded with illegal immigrants: ignoring the fact that the men are Hispanic would, in my opinion, have been a dereliction of duty.
Try not having a proper ID and or proper permit/license for something in Mexico and see what happens...
Attorney Ehber Rossi, who is quoted in the article, and Ms. Rivas represent what is wrong with this country when it comes to illegal Immigration: they don't seem to get the fact that if you're in this country illegally, you're breaking the law. Mr. Rossi is also quoted as saying that he's "not aware of any requirements under the law to require someone to carry and ID". Huh? It depends on what you're doing. If you're driving a car, you need to carry a license... did these 5 guys just materialize there by the river with their car without driving it? I doubt it. They were also fishing which requires a license, and like I said before, I think you need to carry an ID as well. So Mr. Rossi, it depends on what you're doing. If you're just walking down the street, then no, you don't need an ID and won't be arrested for not having one.
In all probability the men Officer Brown arrested are harmless, however, they were breaking the law and Officer Brown did his job by arresting them. He may have saved one or more lives in doing so, or stopped some other crime from being committed. We will never know. Imagine how the tables would be turned if Officer Brown had only given them a citation and later they killed someone while driving without a license (one of the five men had been stopped previously for driving without a license). What if something worse had happened? If more law enforcement officers had instincts and guts like Officer Brown, and, if the judicial system would enforce all the existing laws, we would be much better off.
Officer Brown is not the "Bad Guy" here: he's not the one breaking the law.
This morning, Monday, August 18th, 2008 Rivas is at it again, with another front page article trying to make a candidate for a district court judge seat (Keith Whited) look bad because of his stance on Illegal Immigration. Rivas quotes one sentence from an open letter that Mr. Whited wrote. I know that Keith Whited is a fair minded person who wants to see that all the laws are enforced, not just some of them. He is running against an incumbent, who was not elected, but rather who was appointed by the Governor to fill a vacancy. I'm sure that Rivas has blatantly distorted what was in Mr. Whited's letter and that he'll not get any fair coverage by the Times-News during his campaign. I'm going to get a copy of his letter and post it here on this blog as well.
Below are links to some of the articles I'm referring to in the North Carolina Burlington Times-News:
Article about Keith Whited
Article about Officer J.R. Brown arresting five illegal immigrants without fishing licenses
Article 1 about the bus with illegal immigrants
Article 2 about the bus with illegal immigrants
Article 3 about the bus with illegal immigrants
Article 4 about the bus with illegal immigrants
Two additional recent articles showing the bias of the Times-News: I think their bias is shown by putting these on the front page - these are not really front page news items. The only reason they put them on the front page is because they're about illegal immigration.
Library worker who lied about her immigration status
Community colleges upholding ban on illegal immigrants
Until next time,
Recoil
http://www.doublebarreledopinions.com/117.htm
