Thread: LA mayor Villaraigosa's opinion how the US should handle imm

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article ... 29,00.html

Monday, Apr. 03, 2006
How to Handle Immigration: The View from Los Angeles
In a TIME interview, LA's Latino mayor praises last week's demonstrations—and supports Kennedy-McCain
By SONJA STEPTOE

As the first Latino mayor of Los Angeles, a city that by some estimates is home to as many as 2 million undocumented workers, Antonio Villaraigosa has a unique perspective on the immigration issue. He spoke to TIME Senior Correspondent Sonja Steptoe about balancing personal and political considerations while setting policy.

TIME: How should the U.S. handle immigration?

Villaraigosa: Our nation, asevery nation around the world does, has every right to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders. In a nation founded on the rule of law, the idea that you can just break the law without consequences is untenable in our democratic notions of justice. I believe that our immigration laws should focus on a number of issues. I believe that the McCain-Kennedy framework is a good place to start. It includes tougher enforcement, tougher penalties for employers who hire the undocumented, smart border security working in concert and collaboration with our neighbors,and it gives the 11 million immigrants who are here a pathway to citizenship provided they pay a fine, pass a background check and learn to speak English. I think that framework makes a great deal of sense. It also stands in the best tradition of America's values.

What did you think of the immigration rights demonstration on March 25?

I've never been prouder, being the mayor of Los Angeles and having the honor of receiving a half-million people who came to City Hall to stand up for the mainstream values and the best traditions of our America. These people marched peaceably without one single incident. They came with their families, some of whom had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and most of whom expressed a love for this country and a desire to participate in the American dream. Their message was very clear: The Sensenbrenner legislation [which makes felons of undocumented immigrants and those who aid them] is extreme and divisive and we need to stand with Senator McCain to support comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform that works.

Some people are calling this pro-immigrant movement the next Civil Rights movement and comparing it to the Cesar Chavez crusade. What's your assessment?

The vast majority of the people who come to this country come here to work and come here for better lives for their children. They work in the toughest, dirtiest jobs—jobs that oftentimes most of us wouldn't accept. And they then go through great sacrifice so that one day their children can have a better life. That's central to what our country has been about from its very inception.

The supporters of the Sensenbrenner measure stress the fact that the bill targets people who have come here illegally, and comparisons to previous waves of immigrants are imperfect and inappropriate because of that. They also say their status as illegals justifies what others consider Draconian tactics, such as charging them with felonies. What about that?

As I said, our country has every right to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders. I support the McCain-Kennedy framework because it ascribes a penalty for coming here illegally. There should be consequences for breaking the law. Those consequences should be proportional, however. To make these people felons because they come here for a better life is Draconian.

Some Latino leaders contend the momentum has shifted to the pro-immigrant forces after the demonstrations. What impact do you think the marches will have on the debate going forward?

The law enforcement professionals whose responsibility it was to keep the public order were almost giddy in their response to how orderly and peaceful that demonstration was. Most of the people I spoke with throughout the week walked away with a very postive reaction to what has now been described as a historical occasion. I think there is a momentum shift that's palpable in part because more and more people realize that there is a sensible bipartisan alternative to legislation that would make 11 million immigrants felons.

Some political analysts say that as a Latino mayor in a large city with so many undocumented workers you have to walk a political tightrope on this issue — not being too preoccupied and identified with ethnic issues, while still showing camaraderie and support for your base and brethren. Do you agree?

I am a third-generation Angeleno, and so by definition I'm a third-generation American. I love this country and am so thankful for all it has given me. Rather than make political calculations I've found that it's important to just do the right thing. I think that in the best tradition of this nation we should provide a pathway to citizenship for people who work here, pay their taxes and live by the rules. I'm not worried about one constituency or the other. So I was honored to receive the 500,000 people who marched to City Hall in peace. But I also made it very clear to the young students [who continued to protest] two days later that it's inappropriate to walk out of school—that while they have every right to protest, they should do it after school, not during school. I learned a long time ago that if you call them as you see them, more often than not, doing the right thing is best.

When you were a high school student, you were in a somewhat analagous situation, participating in student protests during the 1968 Chicano rights movement that is depicted in the current HBO film by Edward James Olmos, Walkout. How do you respond to those who point out that you did the same thing when you were young?

That's a question that's been asked by the students and reporters all week. This was my answer: I particpated in walkouts surrounding the unequal distribution of resources in schools in minority areas some 30 years ago. When I did, I understood then, and I believe now, there were consequences for those actions. What I said to the young people was that I would never discourage their right to protest and the expression of free speech. But that should be done before or after school, not during. I also said that my son participated in the Saturday march. He told me the students from his school were participating and asked if he could join them. I said absolutely. If he had asked me if he could leave school on Monday to do it, I would have said no.

There's talk of a May 1 boycott by immigrant workers and others to show their economic impact and power. Good or bad idea?

I think the most important thing we can do right now is support the McCain-Kennedy framework and to rally the nation around the idea that we need tough, sensible and effective immigration reform. That's the best way to take advantage of the momentum shift taking place across the nation.

He's a smooth talker with a pearly white smile on the surface, but a racist Mexican loyalist on the inside.

He needs to be flushed.

My response to Time Magazine...

I was sorely disappointed in the kid glove treatment you gave Mr. Villaraigosa in your latest interview. I would have thought that a magazine with your reputation would have tossed more than under-handed softballs to L.A.'s current mayor.

Antonio Villaraigosa was Chair of MEChA (student wing of Aztlan movement) at UCLA. Why didn't you ask Mr. Villaraigosa what MEChA was, or what it's motto is? Maybe even the preamble to their 'Constitution'? Let me provide you the answers to the questions you neglected to ask.

What is MEChA?

1.(From their homepage)
El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán

In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal "gringo" invasion of our territories, we, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny.

We are free and sovereign to determine those tasks which are justly called for by our house, our land, the sweat of our brows, and by our hearts. Aztlán belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans. We do not recognize capricious frontiers on the bronze continent

Brotherhood unites us, and love for our brothers makes us a people whose time has come and who struggles against the foreigner "gabacho" who exploits our riches and destroys our culture. With our heart in our hands and our hands in the soil, we declare the independence of our mestizo nation. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America, before all our brothers in the bronze continent, we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán.

Por La Raza todo. Fuera de La Raza nada.

Translated... "For the Race, everything. For those outside the Race, nothing."

Here's what they say about nationalism.
Nationalism as the key to organization transcends all religious, political, class, and economic factions or boundaries. Nationalism is the common denominator that all members of La Raza can agree upon.

My only question is "Which nation?"

Why is Time Magazine not willing to ask the questions that NEED asking. I am sorely disappointed at your journalistic incompetence.

Regretfully,

A little more about the mayor.

http://www.bruinalumni.com/antonio/antonioindex.html

Chapter 1
“Born to Raise Hell” – at UCLA



Antonio Villaraigosa, a one-time juvenile delinquent still tattooed with the slogan “Born to Raise Hell,” entered the UCLA campus as a transfer student from East Los Angeles Community College in 1972. Known then simply as Tony Villar, he would not successfully graduate by the time he left in 1975.(1) But Villar did leave a wide swath of influence in other, more radical ways.

While on campus, Villar joined the UCLA chapter of Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA), and was part of its leadership by 1974. MEChA had only been founded as a regional movement in 1969, and in many ways, the UCLA chapter, and the radical Chicano student left today, is a direct product of Villar’s work then.

Fellow MEChA alumni from the period remember Villaraigosa’s exploits well:
"He was one of the guys that would go out there and start the slogans because he was the loudest one," said Arturo Chavez, a fellow activist in college. "He was one of the people who would make sure people were riled up."

Chavez underemphasizes what young Tony Villar did on the UCLA campus. Archives from the campus newspaper The Daily Bruin of 1974 have revealed that Villar led a campaign to ensure an advisory role in the UCLA Chicano Studies Center for a communist Chicano community group, and successfully engineered the dismissal of the Chicano director of the Center who stood in the way of this goal.

As first reported May 9, 1974, a group of approximately 50 Chicano students (out of the 1,500 with Hispanic surnames on campus at that time) called on the Chicano Studies Center Director Rudolfo ‘Rudy’ Alvarez to resign from his post. Villar accused Alvarez of “trying to alter the concept behind Chicano studies.” The article paraphrased Villar’s further accusation “that the center has drifted away from its initial direction of research conducted in conjunction with the community.”

After the protest by the group of students, the Bruin further reported:
“When CSC staff members arrived at the center Monday morning, they found locks inside and out of the offices jammed with toothpicks and matches, file cabinets also jammed, and the mouthpieces of the phones removed. It is not known who was responsible or whether this was connected to the demonstration Friday. Leaders of the demonstration deny any knowledge of the incident.”

Not content with petty vandalism, Villar’s group engineered, with the cooperation of a like-minded staff, a shut-down of the Center with the stated threat that it would not to end until Alvarez resigned.(2)

But it is the article from June 25, 1974(3) that explains the real roots of the controversy and shows the true agenda that belied Villar’s posturing about Alvarez’s supposed “lack of leadership and incapability as an administrator.”(4)

The Daily Bruin on that date reported that “Chicano students are considering filing a class action suit against Rodolfo Alvarez, Chicano Studies Center (CSC) director, according to student leader Raoul Garcia.

“Students criticized Alvarez’ mishandling of the Steering Committee in 1973. “Where at one time the Steering Committee composed of students, faculty, and community people was the policy making body of the Center, now Rudy is its sole dictator,” said Tony Villar, another leader in the movement against Alvarez.

“Both Villar and Garcia attacked the Alvarez-directed CSC for working only with government-sponsored drug programs “instead of community organizations like the National Committee to Free Los Tres.””

The “National Committee to Free Los Tres,” it must be understood, was a Los Angeles group created by former MEChistas to defend three members of the militant Chicano organization Casa Carnalismo who were convicted of assaulting a federal narcotics officer posing as a drug dealer in East Los Angeles. Even more telling about this “community organization” that Villar favored is that by 1974, a Marxist-Leninist faction emerged within the NCFLT seeking to deemphasize the social-service aspect of the organization, and hoping to transform its parent group Casa Carnalismo into a "revolutionary vanguard" dedicated to the "liberation of the Mexican people."(5) In a direct and unmistakable way, Villar was advocating for nothing less than a Communist place at the table within UCLA’s Chicano Studies Center.

The Bruin ended the story with a final quote from Villar:
“As Chicanos going to University they’re demanding relevant education that they have some input into.”

The term “relevant education” is Orwellian code used by minority political activists to describe their vision of a network of non-academic interests that both feed from, and direct, the university. The ideal network includes, but is not limited to, labor unions, minority racial affiliation groups, and members of the public taking direct action to aggregate political power. Stripping away Villar’s self-justification about ‘relevant education,’ it becomes clear that the fight was a proxy power grab by militant Chicano organizations. Their goal: to turn an academic unit at a proud university into a mere ideological factory to support and undergird a drive for exclusive minority power accumulation.

Villar was ultimately successful in his fight for his vision for a relevant education. On July 19, 1974, the Daily Bruin announced in a brief notice that Professor Alvarez had resigned from his directorship following internal private deliberations with higher administration figures.

Villar’s goals, and the actions which made it possible, are instructive in understanding the man who desires to be the next mayor of Los Angeles. Not only did Villar himself harbor radical ambitions, he proved willing to destroy both an innocent man and a fellow Chicano by turning his staff, his students, and eventually, his employer, against him.

You can read the rest at the Bruin Alumni Association page referenced above.

I will NEVER under any circumstances buy a Time Magazine again. They have been so far off base from the truth in their reporting of illegal immigration that it isn't even funny. Yet one of the regular networks, CBS, NBC, ABC the other night used Time Magazine info to base their report.