Thread: CA-Salinas man organizes anti-immigration protest, one of 50

Salinas man organizes anti-immigration protest, one of 50 nationwide

Monterey County Herald (California)
November 12, 2009
By CLAUDIA MELENDEZ SALINAS

A few months ago, when hundreds of pro-immigration reform advocates gathered at St. Mary of the Nativity Church in Salinas, resident Bill Carrothers was the lone voice against legalizing undocumented immigrants.

Now he gets to have a demonstration of his own.

Carrothers is organizing one of nearly 50 "Tea Parties Against Amnesty and Illegal Immigration," events being planned across the nation to protest the expected introduction of an immigration reform bill by Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Illinois.

"We want to really strongly emphasize that we are not interested in anybody who is a hate group or discriminatory toward Latinos," Carrothers said. "People who are out to bash other people, people who foment violence ... are not welcome. We're as against violence as anybody else."

As of Tuesday, only one person had signed up for the demonstration, which will take place 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Central Park behind Hartnell College. Carrothers is unsure how many people will show up.

At a national level, the Web site for Americans for Legal Immigration Reform Political Action Committee, the sponsor of the national campaign, shows nearly 3,400 supporters have signed up for the protests.

"This is our warm-up run to the larger amnesty battle in the spring," said the committee's director, William Gheen. "We are organizing citizens to call and e-mail Congress again like we did in 2007, when we shut down the capitol phone systems."

Like the Tea Parties organized to protest health care town halls, these events tend to succeed not in making converts but in mobilizing believers, said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California.

A statewide poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and USC revealed that 54 percent of respondents would favor immigration reform that allowed for undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship.

"Among self-described conservative voters, this option is less popular, " Schnur said.

Carrothers, a former chemistry teacher and strong opponent of amnesty, as anti-immigration groups often refer to the legalization of undocumented immigrants, said he sympathizes with the plight of those working illegally in the United States. But he believes there's no more room for them.

Yet he doesn't support massive deportation, he said.

"We should allow natural attrition to occur. If they can't get jobs here, they're going to have to think about where's the cheapest place to live: Mexico or America? And the answer is Mexico," Carrothers said.

However, in spite of the worst recession the country has seen in decades, there are no signs Mexicans are going home, according to an analysis done by the nonpartisan Pew Hispanic Center. Although the number of immigrants from Mexico into the United States has sharply declined in the past three years, the number of people who are staying put remains stable.

Mexico is the largest sender of immigrants to the United States, accounting for almost a third of all foreign-born residents in this country. Mexicans constitute 66 percent of all Latino immigrants.

"My position is this: America can't solve the political problems for Mexicans, only they know what's best for their country," Carrothers said.

Research shows that immigration is not just caused by "push" factors, such as poverty and political strife in the home country, but largely by "pull" factors, such as job availability and the differential in pay in the receiving country.

Carrothers insists that even though his ancestors benefited from the open immigration policy that existed in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, the time has come to close the door.

Immigrants "are going to have to accept the land they grew up in is their home. The time of mass immigration when there was just 100 million people 100 years ago, when the United States could take any healthy immigrant who could pick up a hoe or work in a factory, that time is gone. Hotel California has no longer plenty of room," Carrothers said.

Cesar Lara, executive director of the Monterey Bay Labor Council and an advocate for immigration reform, said newcomers should be seen as a resource and that the "teabaggers" should be part of the solution.

"Agriculture in our area would fall apart if not for the immigrant workers. The Social Security system would fall apart without their contributions," he said. "We have to come together and address the problem without politics getting in the way of common sense."

Immigration like health care needs to be reformed, Lara said, and the Tea Party should stop being the "Party of No."

"If they really want to tackle the issue, they should come with a realistic solution," he said.

Claudia Meléndez Salinas can be reached at 753-6755 or cmelendez@montereyherald.com .

Bill Carrothers holds a sign in a crowd waving United Farm Workers flags during an immigration forum at St. Mary of the Nativity Church in Salinas in July.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 17&start=2

Carrothers is a true patriot. We stand with him.