http://www.dailybreeze.com/opinion/arti ... 20227.html

Friday, June 24, 2005
This isn't the immigration solution
The mayor of Fresno asking for a moratorium on immigrants is like Col. Sanders asking for a moratorium on chickens.
By Ruben Navarrette Jr.

This is how wacky the immigration debate has become: The mayor of Fresno suggests the United States impose a moratorium on immigrants.

I know Fresno. I grew up in a small town nearby. We're talking about one of the farming capitals of the world and home to legions of immigrants -- many of them illegal. In fact, the leader of an Asian-American growers association in Central California estimates that nearly 100 percent of today's agricultural work force is illegal. Without immigrants, the local economy would shrivel up like a raisin in the sun.

So the mayor of Fresno asking for a moratorium on immigrants is like Col. Sanders asking for a moratorium on chickens.

A moratorium wouldn't do any good. For starters, it would impact only the people who come legally. The border guards and barbed wire along the U.S.-Mexico border suggest that Americans already have a moratorium on illegal immigration. So why limit legal immigration? Legal immigrants are perhaps this country's most precious imports. Besides, I thought the big objection to all these illegal immigrants coming in from Mexico and elsewhere is that they are entering illegally. If Americans opt to keep out legal immigrants as well, it will become clear that what this nation of immigrants really resents is immigrants in general.

Still, Fresno Mayor Alan Autry -- a former television actor -- did get enough mileage out of his half-baked scheme to land on national talk shows.

It's no wonder. Immigration is a hot topic. What the networks seem to have a tougher time covering are Latinos who have been in this country for generations.

So concludes the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, which at its convention in Fort Worth last week released -- for the 10th year in a row -- its annual Network Brownout Report. The association found that in 2004, out of 16,000 stories aired on the network evening newscasts (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN), only 115 stories were exclusively about Latinos. That is just 0.72 percent. And it is down from what it was in 2003, when -- in a sample of 16,000 stories -- there were 131 stories about Latinos, or 0.82 percent.

Now that Latinos make up 14 percent of the U.S. population, that level of coverage is pathetic. So is the fact that on those rare occasions when the networks do cover Latinos, the ones in which they seem most interested are those who have just arrived, or have committed crimes. Of the 115 stories last year that were about Latinos, 40 of them dealt with immigration, or 34.7 percent.

The words "Latino" and "immigrant" are not synonymous. The media always forget that. Network executives wonder why they're missing out on the Latino market. Here's why: After Latinos have been in the United States for a generation or two, many of them tend to adopt the customs and culture of the mainstream and no longer identify with immigrants.

Personally, as a U.S.-born Latino, what I resent are simple solutions to complicated problems such as how to combat illegal immigration.

What we need is a whole new batch of complex solutions.

Case in point: The Illegal Immigration Enforcement and Social Security Protection Act of 2005, co-sponsored by Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., and Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas. The bill creates a new counterfeit-proof Social Security card and a national employment eligibility database, against which employers would have to verify a job applicant's legal status. It also punishes employers who fail to do that or knowingly hire illegal immigrants with fines of up to $50,000 and up to five years in prison. Lastly, it adds 10,000 new Homeland Security agents whose job it would be to make sure employers follow the law.

This is great stuff, and yet the really telling part is that a lot of folks in Washington don't give the Dreier-Reyes bill much of a chance at survival -- not as long as Republicans control Congress. And to think the GOP markets itself as the party of law and order.

Say, as we continue to discuss immigration reform, how about a moratorium on hypocrisy?