Thread: Idaho county bills Mexico for cost of Illegals

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/30/natio ... nted=print

May 30, 2005

A Battle Against Illegal Workers, With an Unlikely Driving Force
By TIMOTHY EGAN

CALDWELL, Idaho - To hear people who call into Idaho's leading conservative talk radio station, Robert Vasquez is a hero: one of the few politicians to tell it straight.

Mr. Vasquez, 55, a Republican county commissioner and Mexican-American in a region where Latinos are ascendant, has been on a crusade against illegal immigration, what he calls "an imminent invasion" from south of the border.

Mr. Vasquez has tried to have Canyon County declared a disaster area because of the strain from illegal immigrants. He has also sent a bill to the Mexican government for more than $2 million; that is the cost, he said, of Mexicans who are in the county illegally.

Mr. Vasquez says the newcomers overwhelm public services, bring gang violence and drugs, spread diseases like tuberculosis and insist on rights that should not be granted to noncitizens.

His latest salvo, a plan to sue employers who hire illegal immigrants, has angered the solidly Republican business community and many of the senior political leaders in this heavily Republican state. The plan would make Canyon County the only local government in the country to use federal racketeering statutes against people who employ illegal immigrants, said Howard Foster, a Chicago lawyer advising the county.

As a result, Mr. Vasquez has forced a sharp fight on an issue that poses difficulties for Republicans, pitting people and business owners who rely on illegal immigrants for labor against people who see them as a threat to jobs and security.

The struggle here is contained to Canyon County, west of Boise with a population of 151,000. But it is part of a broader clash taking place across the country in the Republican Party; President Bush is pushing a guest worker program for illegal immigrants, while other Republicans are supporting private efforts to patrol the border and calling for additional muscle to seal it off.

Mr. Vasquez says it is a fight the party needs to have. "Some people say I'm a racist, that I'm a traitor to my heritage," he said. "There is nothing racial about this. The only color involved is green - for money."

Such talk has brought many people to the commissioner's side. "We talk a lot about Mr. Vasquez on the air, and most of our listeners are on his side," said Paul Schneider, a morning host of KBOI News Talk, Idaho's leading talk radio station. "But he's a real thorn in the side of the mainstream business Republicans."

With both parties trying to court Hispanic voters, politicians who have jumped into the immigration debate, like Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, have found the issue to be perilous. Mr. Schwarzenegger was criticized by many Latinos after he praised a group of citizens patrolling the border.

Many farmers and construction contractors here say they could not survive without the pool of workers from Mexico. They have lined up behind a proposal by the state's senior senator, Larry E. Craig, a Republican, to allow illegal immigrants to stay in the country under certain conditions, a variation of a similar plan offered by President Bush.

While promoting his bill this year, Mr. Craig said that 72 percent to 78 percent of the agricultural work force was here illegally and that without these workers "we could literally collapse American agriculture."

Farmers and contractors also accuse Mr. Vasquez of painting an overly harsh picture of Mexican workers.

"If he wasn't a Mexican-American himself, he would be labeled a racist and no one would listen to him," said Keith Esplin, executive director of the Potato Growers of Idaho. "He's attacking good people, good workers. You've got to have that population, because they're doing the jobs that no one else wants."

In response, Mr. Vasquez says the wing of the Republican Party represented by Mr. Craig has sold out on the immigration issue to business interests. Mr. Vasquez is exploring a run for governor or Congress next year, with this issue as his central theme.

Whether Mr. Vasquez can make headway in a statewide election is an open question. Many of the agricultural interests are big Republican donors, and Mr. Vasquez said he was likely to have trouble raising money from them. He is also likely to face stiff resistance from the Latino community, which is small but fast growing.

In Canyon County, for example, nearly one in five residents is Hispanic, census figures show. Statewide, Latinos make up 8 percent of the population, but they represented only about 4 percent of the voters in last year's election.

Leaders in both parties have generally shied away from calling for strong measures against illegal immigrants, fearing a backlash. Whether the political dynamic would change with a Latino leading the way would be one of the things that a statewide run for office by Mr. Vasquez would test.

"Mr. Vasquez does have populist support," said Garry Lough, executive director of the Idaho Republican Party. "But I have to believe that this issue is going to go against him among Hispanics."

To stroll around Canyon County, which grew by 45 percent from 1990 to 2000, is to see the transformation that is taking place throughout the West. The business district in Caldwell has been revitalized by bakeries, clothing stores and restaurants owned by relatively recent arrivals from Mexico.

But Mr. Vasquez points to figures that he says show how much of a drain those arrivals can be on public services; for example, according to crime statistics for April, about one in eight people arrested in the county was from Mexico.

"If I were governor, I would close the borders of Idaho and mobilize the National Guard to secure checkpoints against all illegal aliens," he said in an interview.

Latinos dominate the crews putting up drywall in big new houses; they mow, weed and water the half-acre lawns; they work the fields and dairy farms; and they staff many fast food outlets.

"We know we can't get workers any other way," said Ann Bates, executive director of the Idaho Nursery and Landscape Association.

Last year, Mr. Vasquez persuaded Idaho counties to pass a state resolution requiring people to be citizens of the United States before applying for indigent medical care.

At the same time, Mr. Vasquez has attacked Senator Craig, accusing him of "conspiring through legislation with the enemy" with his bill that would grant conditional amnesty to Latino workers.

Dan Whiting, a spokesman for Senator Craig, said: "The question is what does Mr. Vasquez want to do with the 10 to 12 million people who are here illegally now? What we're trying to do is offer a workable solution."

In March, at Mr. Vasquez's request, Canyon County asked Mr. Foster, who specializes in civil racketeering cases, if it would be possible to use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to sue businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

Mr. Foster has sued companies like Tyson Foods, accusing them of hiring illegal immigrants as part of a plan to depress wages.

"I think it's imperative that we go after employers," Mr. Vasquez said. "If you removed the illegal aliens, these industries wouldn't collapse, but their profit margins would probably be reduced."

Opinions in Canyon County are mixed on what would happen if the illegal labor pool were cut.

A longtime drywall installer, Lonnie Apperson, 67, said he had not lost any work to competition from illegal immigrants.

"There's a lot of work everywhere right now with this housing market," said Mr. Apperson, who lives in the Caldwell area. "A good drywall man can find work anywhere, anytime."

Mr. Apperson said the going rate for drywall subcontracting has held steady, but he feared that if illegal immigration increased too much, it could start to drive wages down.

"My relatives in Arkansas said the Mexicans down there have pretty much driven everyone else out of business," Mr. Apperson said.

A roofer, Ken Parise, said he moved from Portland, Ore., to Idaho because there was so much work here. He said illegal workers had not hurt his business.

"I just don't think it's that big of a problem," Mr. Parise said.

But Mr. Vasquez has made it his top issue since becoming in 2003 one of three commissioners who govern this county, after spending years working on behalf of veterans rights groups.

Born in El Paso as the grandson of a Mexican immigrant, Mr. Vasquez joined the Army at 17, he said, and was wounded during a tour of duty in Vietnam. He earned two Purple Hearts and became active among groups for disabled veterans. He has lived in Caldwell for 27 years.

"The people I speak for are the working people," he said.

But others here say Mr. Vasquez speaks for no one but himself.

"He's an opportunist," said Corrine Tafoya-Fisher, the leader of a group that took out newspaper advertisements, with community leaders, opposing Mr. Vasquez.

"What he's done is cause a lot of divisions within this community," she said. "If you're brown, you're targeted. But the Latino community is united against him."

Mr. Vasquez bristles at criticism from other Mexican-Americans. But as an old soldier, he said he feared only the hits that he could not see coming.

"With incoming fire, the one that gets you is the one you never hear," he said.

I like this guy.

Great Post culion!

I will call Robert Vasquez and thank him on Tuesday.
Commissioners Office
208-454-7507

http://www.canyoncounty.org/comm/index.php

Great Post!
We all need to drop him a note of support!

Robert Vasquez Commissioner
Canyon County
115 Albany
Caldwell, ID 83605
(20 454-7507
rvasquez@canyoncounty.org

He has also sent a bill to the Mexican government for more than $2 million; that is the cost, he said, of Mexicans who are in the county illegally.

I have been saying this all along. Let us see Foxie put his money where his big mouth is. We should cut off their aid and apply it to the expenses
caused by illegals.

I will send him a "thank you." Mr. Vasquez, that is.

E-mail sent today to Mr. Vasquez with the link to my article FOR REPORTERS: THE TRUTH ABOUT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. (Thought it might help his attorney to see the BIG PICTURE).

https://www.alipac.us/ftopict-3968.html

Dear Mr. Vasquez:

I read an article today posted in the Americans for Legal Immigration Forum about your lawsuit and billing the Mexican Government for the mess their citizens are creating in Canyon County, Idaho!!

THANK YOU and many thanks to your attorney from Chicago for taking this bull by the horns.

You are absolutely correct to hold the Mexican Government responsible for the cost of their citizens they sent and encouraged to emigrate from Mexico to the United States such that they ended up in your county and our country with their hands out.

The above link takes you to a piece I prepared for a reporter. It is a compilation of articles that connect the dots to the Truth about Illegal Immigration.

Please feel free to forward it on to him as it may help him to see that there were intentional acts of collusion between the Mexican Government and individuals within our Government that led to massive illegal immigration into the United States in recent years (Bush Years most predominantly).

I have more articles from my research, but these were the highlights compiled to TRY and get a reporter from the Main Stream Media to investigate this issue, find all the facts, and report them to the American People.

WE ARE WITH YOU 100%!!

Also, on May 6, 2005, CNN Lou Dobbs interviewed a Harvard University Professor, on his Lou Dobbs Tonight Show. This Economics Professor from HARVARD had completed a study evaluating the impact of immigration on the American Worker. The Harvard Study shows that excess immigration has cost the American Worker over $200 Billion a year in deflated wages and salaries, and of this number $50 Billion was attributed to Illegal Immigration.

This doesn’t include costs of services and benefits paid for with public tax monies.

The cost to the American Public, American Citizens, of excess unwarranted legal immigration and illegal immigration are draining our country into a Third World Economy. Americans have the highest personal debt in the history of the United States and the lowest personal savings in our history. The national debt likewise is the highest in history with states all running shortfalls and counties facing exorbitant increases in costs for services and benefits including increases in their Medicaid claims.

The goal of the policies has been to flood the United States with aliens to change the political demographics of the voters to impact the outcome of elections and gain approval for an Open Borders Policy with Mexico and Canada…a Great Continent. Open Borders would be the end of a sovereign physical territory and the end of the United States. We would become but part of a new nation run by a Trilateral Commission called the Americas.

Americans don’t know anything about this, even though it’s been planned and schemed and is this year in its final stage of implementation. We haven’t known because for some reason the Main Stream Media has failed to report it.

I met a Canadian truck driver who was dropping a load at my facility here in North Carolina. He initiated the conversation about open borders. The Canadians know all about it and do not understand why the Americans would want it or why we haven’t put an end to it. I exclaimed, I just learned about it myself doing research on illegal immigration trying to find out why our Government and this President refuses to control our borders and stop this flow of aliens into the United States. He said the Canadian people don’t want it either but the heads of state of the three countries are pushing it along as if we’ve all already approved it!! A truck driver from Canada knew more about this disaster than the Americans.

We’ve been “horns-waggled� but the truth is coming out and people are rising up. But we need to rise up in Mass and use the law to every extent possible as you are doing.

GOOD FOR YOU!!

You are a Patriot, Mr. Vasquez, and whether or not the people making money off illegal immigration will admit it or not, you are RIGHT!!

And, I’m a 4th generation Republican….so you can tell the Republicans in Idaho, we’re fed up nationwide….this crap isn’t going to fly here.

This is the United States. We are the Americans. We not only decide what happens here, we control what happens here.

Please let me know how you are doing with your lawsuit and if I can help you in anyway.

If the hospitals, all states and anyone owed anything because they "serviced" an illegal sent the bill to Mexico, certified, return receipt requested, perhaps something might change.

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insane as Einstein said. So we must try something new. Perhaps this is IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Send those bills and send them NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. -Dwight D. Eisenhower

good12me!! GREAT IDEA!! We should create a topic in General Discussion on how to do it and where to send the bills. You want to or do you want me to?

LET ME KNOW!!

His latest salvo, a plan to sue employers who hire illegal immigrants, has angered the solidly Republican business community and many of the senior political leaders in this heavily Republican state. The plan would make Canyon County the only local government in the country to use federal racketeering statutes against people who employ illegal immigrants, said Howard Foster, a Chicago lawyer advising the county.

This guy is FABULOUS! Send him notes of encouragement
RICO

2ndamendsis--it's catching on......RICO!!

I saw an article somewhere where the GOVERNMENT applied RICO statutes and took all the entrepreneurs money....involved in illegal immigration.

So, if we can just make them prosecute, AMERICA will be RICH AGAIN!!

JUST FROM RICO CONFISCATIONS!!

RICO!

RICO!

RICO!

What I would really like to see is the attorney, Mr. Foster (thank GOD someone in the legal field seems to understand and make a stand) go one step further. I wish he would round up like minded attorneys that want to fight this invasion and form a coalition of attorneys to make this nationwide!

They need to do this to fight greedy attorney groups like the ACLU and Southern Poverty Law center! They can do it. They would have the support of the American people! I do not want the good attorneys swallowed up by all the corrupt ones!

Is there any way to get in touch with him and approach him with the idea?