Thread: Immigration Reform Rythyms

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/200 ... -8421r.htm
Immigration Reform Rythums
By Linda Chavez
December 3, 2005

President Bush is deeply committed to immigration reform, an issue on which he clearly hoped to establish a lasting legacy when he came into office five years ago.
As the former governor of a border state, Mr. Bush had real-world experience dealing with the flow of immigrants into this country -- legal and illegal -- and recognized both the benefits and challenges these groups present. But his efforts to enact sweeping changes in our laws that would have opened our doors to more much-needed workers, thereby reducing the flow of illegal immigrants, was derailed first by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and then by rebellion within his own party. This week Mr. Bush tried again to jump-start immigration reform, but it remains to be seen if he can overcome those who simply want to shut our borders.
Speaking at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base outside Tucson, Ariz., the president tried to balance being tough on illegal immigration with encouraging changes in the law to allow more people to come here legally. It's the right approach, but won't necessarily convince his critics on the right.
Mr. Bush promised more border patrol agents, physical barriers where feasible, return of Mexican illegal aliens to their hometowns when apprehended (rather than sending them just across the border), and an end to "catch and release," which allows most captured non-Mexican illegal immigrants to avoid detention altogether. He also promised better internal border enforcement, with more emphasis on punishing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens.
These measures are good ideas in their own right, but they will only have an incremental effect in reducing illegal immigration unless Congress enacts a guest worker program and expanded legal immigration, as the president also outlined. Yet many of those who scream the loudest about stopping illegal immigration want no part of the latter, especially if it permits the participation of illegal aliens now in the country.
In the early 1990s I had a conversation with Peter Brimelow, author of "Alien Nation" and one of the staunchest immigration critics. "You know, Linda," he said, in his charming British accent that betrays his own foreign roots, "we could end illegal immigration at once if we enacted a program that made all the illegals guest workers."
Today, I suspect, Mr. Brimelow and others would attack such a plan as amnesty. But until we figure out what to do with the 10 million to 12 million illegal aliens already in the United States, we won't have solved the illegal immigrant problem. Creating a guest worker program, which allows workers to come to the United States for a specified period and then return home, will help curb future illegal immigration, but unless those already here can earn the right to participate, we'll still have a problem. And there's the rub.
Some people seem to think we can just round them all up and send them home. "Get these people out of my country and my state and my face," read one of the many e-mails I've received lately on the subject. "I will gladly exchange a lower rate of economic growth if necessary just to get the return of America. I am now a one-issue voter and have made that clear to all [Republican] fund-raisers. I am confident that there are many more like me out there who are not xenophobic -- just fed up," the man wrote. Polls suggest only about 10 percent of voters feel similarly, but that's enough voters to cause problems for the president's plan. Ironically, these voters may be the real impediment to solving illegal immigration.
Mass deportations won't -- and shouldn't -- happen. The legal, moral and practical obstacles to rounding up and deporting millions of illegal aliens and their U.S.-citizen children are insurmountable. Nor is it feasible to station enough agents along the border or build a barrier long and high enough to keep out everyone. I once stood at the border between East and West Germany with its barbed wire, mines and sentry posts with soldiers aiming high-powered rifles. Is that really the America we want to create?

Linda Chavez is a nationally syndicated columnist.

Who is this idiot? Linda Chavez?

My God....BushBeliever with her Nose Up It To His Intestines.

Gag!!

I'll bet she was paid to write THAT pathetic piece of deceit by National Council of La Raza after they got a call from Karl Rove...maybe THAT's what they do for their $4,000,000 annual GOP Congressional Charity at our expense....PLANT PHONEY ARTICLES for the Wackident.

God, just reading it makes me feel dirty.

I need a shower.

PS...this moron asks "Is this really the America we want to create?" Apparently she's been to Germany and saw the wall that divided Germany after WWII.

Yes, it is. We want a safe, secure, distinct America. We do not want to "merge" with Mexico.

The wall in Germany would be like a wall along the Mississippi River dividing our nation, not a wall protecting us from illegal entries from Mexico.

I'm going to research this person.

http://premierespeakers.com/392/index.cfm

AHA!! Another 501 C 3 Traitor Orgie - Linda Chavez - PRESIDENT

Home : Speaker Search : Search Results : Linda Chavez
LINDA CHAVEZ
President of Center for Equal Opportunity, Columnist

Linda Chavez is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a non-profit public policy research organization in Sterling, Virginia. She also writes a weekly syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country, is a political analyst for FOX News Channel, and hosts a nationally syndicated, daily radio show on Liberty Broadcasting. Chavez authored Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation (Basic Books 1991), which the Denver Post described as a book that “should explode the stereotypes about Hispanics that have clouded the minds of patronizing liberals and xenophobic conservatives alike.� National Review described Chavez’s memoir, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (Basic Books 2002), as a “brilliant, provocative, and moving book.� Chavez’s latest book, Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics (Crown Books, 2004), describes how unions divert hundreds of millions of dollars into political campaigns, often without their members’ knowledge or permission, and the public policy consequences that ensue. In 2000, Chavez was honored by the Library of Congress as a “Living Legend� for her contributions to America’s cultural and historical legacy.

size=18]In January 2001, Chavez was President George W. Bush’s nominee for Secretary of Labor until she withdrew her name from consideration.[/size]
Chavez has held a number of appointed positions, among them Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and she was a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986. In 1992, she was elected by the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Chavez was also editor of the prize-winning quarterly journal American Educator (1977-1983), published by the American Federation of Teachers, where she also served as assistant to AFT president Al Shanker (1982-1983) and assistant director of legislation (1975-1977).

Chavez serves on the Board of Directors of ABM Industries, Inc., as well as on boards of several non-profit organizations. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was Co-Chair of the Council’s Committee on Diversity (1998-2000).

Chavez was born in Albuquerque, NM, on June 17, 1947, received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Colorado in 1970. She is married and is the mother of three sons. She currently lives in Reston, Virginia.



Now, I'm going to research the Center for Equal Opportunity!

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/ceo.php

IRC home | Right Web home | site map | search | contact us | support IRC


Center for Equal Opportunity
Right Web News

last updated: 8/31/2004

Overview

The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO), founded in 1995, is think tank "devoted exclusively to the promotion of colorblind equal opportunity and racial harmony." Established by Linda Chavez, the center says it is "uniquely positioned to counter the divisive impact of race conscious public policies." CEO focuses on three areas in particular: racial preferences, immigration and assimilation, and multicultural education.

CEO states that it "supports colorblind public policies and seeks to block the expansion of racial preferences and to prevent their use in employment, education, and voting." Concerning immigration, CEO believes that "with the United States admitting high numbers of immigrants, America's ability to accept newcomers will increasingly depend upon finding a pro-assimilation middle-ground between nativists who say that today's immigrants cannot assimilate and multiculturalists who say that they should not." As part of its concern about immigration, CEO "promotes the assimilation of immigrants into our society and research on their economic and social impact on the United States." The Center for Equal Opportunity opposes bilingual education, arguing that "multiculturalists have a firm grip on both elementary and secondary schools and the universities. Their ideology of racial and ethnic difference risks Balkanizing our multiracial society. Students who don't speak English are locked away in special programs that try to maintain native languages rather than teach English, often without their parents' consent. In many urban schools, African American students are fed a racialist 'Afrocentric' curriculum of dubious merit." (1)

Among the members of CEO's board of directors are Abigail Thernstrom and Roy Unz. Unz was the author of the anti-bilingual Proposition 227 in California. (2) CEO's staff is largely a family affair, with Linda Chavez serving as president, her son David Gersten serving as executive director, and another son, Rudy Gersten, working as director of operations. Roger Clegg, vice president and chief counsel of CEO, served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Reagan and Bush senior administrations. Edward Blum, who was the director of legal affairs at the Sacramento-based American Civil Rights Institute and chair of the Houston-based Campaign for a Color-Blind America, is a senior fellow at CEO. (3)

An affiliated organization dedicated to reforming bilingual education and promoting English immersion is the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ), which was founded in 1989. On the CEO website, READ Institute is variously described as being a project of both the CEO and the Equal Opportunity Foundation. READ "supports the research and publication of new studies on effective English-language learning programs, produces policy reports and briefs, and publishes an annual scholarly journal called READ Perspectives." (4)

READ has a board of academic advisers whose members are Ralph Beals, Amherst College; Kevin Clark, Clark Consulting Group; Robert Rossier, educational consultant; Carol Whitten, former director of the Office for Bilingual Education and Minority Language Affairs; and Jim Littlejohn, former program director of the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. Chavez serves as president of the READ Institute, and Rosalie Pedalino Porter is editor of READ Perspectives.

Origins and Impact

Linda Chavez founded the Center for Equal Opportunity in early 1995 as a think tank "devoted exclusively to issues of race, ethnicity, language, and assimilation." While working as an associate of the neoconservative Manhattan Institute, Chavez started exploring her vision of establishing such a think tank since there was "nothing like it on the Right." Encouraged by the late William Simon, chairman of the John Olin Foundation and foundation executive director Jim Pierson to "strike out on my own," Chavez opened CEO in January 1995 with a founding grant from the Olin Foundation. According to CEO, the institute is "has become the premier voice opposing racial preferences, misguided bilingual education programs and other public policies that divide Americans by race, sex or national origin."

Two of the early products of the Center for Equal Opportunity were its books: ABCs of English Immersion: A Teachers' Guide, and Parents' Guide to Bilingual Education. The books instruct teachers and parents how to oppose bilingual education programs and "how to set up an alternative program using English as the language of instruction for immigrant and non-English speaking kids." (5)

Working closely with the local chapters of the National Association of Scholars, CEO has monitored the affirmative action admission policies of colleges and universities. CEO regularly files letters of complaint and legal briefs to end "race conscious public policies."

According to the READ Institute, it has produced the first comprehensive report on the actual costs of educating America's growing number of limited-English students. "In estimating their costs in light of new census data, school districts in Arizona and around the country will now have a reliable estimate of how much it costs to educate limited-English children," said Linda Chavez, President of the Center for Equal Opportunity, the parent organization for READ. Dr. Rosalie Porter, one of the authors of the report, wrote, "In the schools with English Immersion programs, 100% of the students took the statewide tests each year. The longer the English Immersion program was in place, the higher the achievement scores of students on the reading, language and math tests in English." (4)

The address of the Center for Equal Opportunity is also the address of LindaChavez.org, which has a website by the same name that archives her weekly columns.

Chavez, who does not speak Spanish, has long been a vigorous opponent of bilingual education and affirmative action programs. In her book An Unlikely Conservative, Chavez explained her interest in combating affirmative action and bilingual education. Explaining why she chose to accept the invitation to become president of U.S. English, an "English only" organization founded in 1983 by anti-immigration activist John Tanton, Chavez wrote: "I was very concerned about the semi-official status Spanish was acquiring in many parts of the country." She served as president of U.S. English, which was founded to establish English as the official and only language of government, for fourteen months in 1987-88 until the Arizona Republic published a memo written by Tanton that was blatantly anti-Latino. At the same time that Chavez resigned from U.S. English, so did Tanton and organization cofounder Gerda Bitrales. (6)


Among the right-wing institutes of related interest that CEO recommends are the Pioneer Institute, American Enterprise Institute, CATO Institute, Mountain States Legal Foundation, Pacific Legal Foundation, Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, and Manhattan Institute. (1)

Funding

CEO, READ Institute, and the related Equal Opportunity Foundation are funded largely by right-wing foundations such as the Sarah Scaife Foundation, Bradley Foundation, John M. Olin Foundation, Castle Rock Foundation, and Smith Richardson Foundation. (2) CEO also petitions individuals to "Help Linda Chavez Unite Americans." Its online donation form makes this appeal: To achieve CEO's vision and restore our American creed, we must have the financial resources to fight an entrenched lobby and government bureaucracy dedicated to dividing Americans by race, sex and ethnicity."
Right Web connections

Individuals

Linda Chavez

Organizations

Bradley Foundation
Castle Rock Foundation
U.S. English
Contact Information

Center for Equal Opportunity
14 Pidgeon Hill Drive, Suite 500
Sterling, VA 20165
Voice: 703 421-5443
Fax: 703 421-6401
Website: www.ceousa.org


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Sources
(1) "General Information," Center for Equal Opportunity
www.ceousa.org/general.html

(2) "Equal Opportunity Foundation," MediaTransparency.org
http://www.mediatransparency.org/search ... ientID=101 and
http://www.mediatransparency.org/all_in ... pportunity

(3) "Staff," Center for Equal Opportunity
www.ceousa.org/staff.html

(4) "The READ Institute," Center for Equal Opportunity
www.ceousa.org/READ/

(5) Linda Chavez, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 211-215

(6) Linda Chavez, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (New York: Basic Books, 2002), p. 197-206



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Recommended citation: "Center for Equal Opportunity," Right Web Profiles (Silver City, NM: Interhemispheric Resource Center, August 2004).

Web location: http://rightweb.irc-online.org/org/ceo.php

Editor: Tom Barry
Production: Chellee Chase-Saiz

Looking for a way to support efforts aimed at
heightening public awareness of the outrageous policies advocated by the right?
Then support the IRC's Right Web program.
You can mail your donation, donate securely online at: https://secure.iexposure.com/irc/donate.cfm, or call us at 505-388-0208. Thank you.


PO Box 2178 Silver City NM 88062-2178 | irc@irc-online.org | 505.388.0208 | www.irc-online.org
Copyright © 1996-2005 International Relations Center (formerly the Interhemispheric Resource Center). All rights reserved.

Grrrrrrrrr!!!!

This type of "equal opportunity" they can flush down the toilet.

I just want my "legal equal opportunity" thank you....how about you?

This is SO FUNNY!! I had posted, on another thread, a note about the spelling of the word "RHYTHM"!! When I finally clicked on this thread entitled, " Immigration Reform Rythums", I discovered WHY it is misspelled!! THE WOMAN CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH and here is ANOTHER group that WE, as taxpayers, are supporting. WHAT is WRONG HERE???

Originally Posted by Bootsie

This is SO FUNNY!! I had posted, on another thread, a note about the spelling of the word "RHYTHM"!! When I finally clicked on this thread entitled, " Immigration Reform Rythums", I discovered WHY it is misspelled!! THE WOMAN CAN'T SPEAK ENGLISH and here is ANOTHER group that WE, as taxpayers, are supporting. WHAT is WRONG HERE???

I was hoping someone would catch that title.

Is that a SCREAM or WHAT???? That sure gives away HER leanings!!! AND, credibility IMHO!

Originally Posted by Bootsie

Is that a SCREAM or WHAT???? That sure gives away HER leanings!!! AND, credibility IMHO!

Hahaha! I saw that on Williams post. This lady was going to be nominated as Secretary of Labor! Whoa. She could use a good secretary!
AND, SHE BELONGS TO THIS GROUP ACCORDING TO THE ARTICLE:

An affiliated organization dedicated to reforming bilingual education and promoting English immersion is the Institute for Research in English Acquisition and Development (READ), which was founded in 1989. On the CEO website, READ Institute is variously described as being a project of both the CEO and the Equal Opportunity Foundation. READ "supports the research and publication of new studies on effective English-language learning programs, produces policy reports and briefs, and publishes an annual scholarly journal called READ Perspectives." (4)

I guess we are supposed to overlook such small things as misspelling simple elementary vocabulary words.