Thread: MD-Immigration Raids Spark Latino Backlash,Casa de Maryland

Posted 03/12/10 at 07:06pm
One Day After Obama’s White House Meeting, Immigration Raids Spark Latino Backlash

Yesterday Gustavo Torres, Executive Director of CASA de Maryland, was among the dozen grassroots and national immigration reform advocates to meet with President Obama for over an hour at the White House. Today, he was out in front of the White House-- protesting.

Here's the context. Yesterday's meeting was called in the wake of growing anger and frustration amongst immigration reform advocates at figures that show the Obama Administration has been deporting more immigrants a year than Bush, while making little progress on the kind of comprehensive immigration reform that he pledged to champion. After yesterday's meeting, Torres and many leaders expressed confidence in the President's commitment to moving reform forward, as well as a desire to see more concrete, public action on immigration by the White House.

By action on immigration, however, Torres probably didn't mean more immigration raids, which have sparked outrage in Latino and immigrant communities in Maryland and beyond. In fact, the nation's most prominent Spanish news anchor, Jorge Ramos, just tweeted (translation -- original pictured at right, in Spanish):

Obama’s dilemma: there’s no immigration reform but now there are new raids and his administration has deported more people than Bush.

Today, CASA de Maryland hosted a press conference in front of the White House, denouncing the raids and allowing family members of detained immigrants to speak. One reporter questioned what response there might have been from the Administration, given the timing of the raids one day after the White House meeting. Here is a response from CASA's lawyer, who says that he has been unable to get in touch with ICE (the federal agency in charge of immigration enforcement), as well as Gustavo Torres (first in English, and then in Spanish). Torres cites an upcoming meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in which they'll discuss how to "reduce these attacks on the community" (loose translation).

Watch it:


Watching this video makes me think it's time for Senator Obama to remind President Obama about the human cost of immigration raids and the horrors of our dysfunctional immigration system:


Senator Obama: "When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it."


Senator Obama: "I will not walk away from bringing people together, I won't walk away from the 12 million undocumented immigrants who live, work, and contribute to our country each and every single day." [...] "I didn't run away from the issue, and I didn't just talk about it in front of Latino audiences."

Recently, the nation's top Latino civil rights organization, NCLR, released a video from this same conference, reminding President Obama about his promises to reform immigration. Watch:


Senator Obama: "They're counting us to rise above fear, the demagoguery, the pettiness, the partisanship, and finally enact comprehensive immigration reform..."

Senator Obama concludes:

In this country, change does not come from the top down. Change comes from the bottom up."

That is exactly why tens of thousands of people from across the country are coming to Washington, D.C., on March 21st. They want to tell our leaders that a better America is possible and remind Washington that yes, Change Takes Courage.


http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/ent ... ion_raids/

I AM FUMING RIGHT NOW. I AM ABSOLUTELY FUMING. THESE RAIDS HAPPENED HERE IN MARYLAND. THE RESTAURANT THAT WAS RAIDED IS LESS THAN AN HOUR AWAY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE. AND ILLEGAL ALIENS WERE FOUND TO BE WORKING THERE. NOT SURPRISING, BECAUSE THE COMMUNITIES SURROUNDING THE WHITE HOUSE ARE EVEN MORE POPULATED WITH ILLEGAL ALIEN INVADERS. I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW. I HATE CASA DE MARYLAND. AND GUSTAVE TORRES IS AN ANTI-AMERICAN RADICAL WHO NEEDS TO BE STOPPED. TEARS ARE FLOWING OVER THIS. WE ARE LOSING OUR COUNTRY. AND I AM LOSING MY STATE OF MARYLAND RIGHT BEFORE MY EYES.

Hippiechick, I know what you mean. In my state, NC, many schools are filled with Spanish speaking kids while programs are cut for American children. You see pregnant Spanish speakers everywhere in the city parks. Heck, even the local Chuck E Cheese had several big birthday parties going on in separate party rooms the last time I took my son there; the people in every single room were speaking Spanish. I can't call them illegal, because I don't know for certain, but I suspect. Our country is being transformed and very little is being done to stop it, it seems.

"When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing, when people are detained without access to legal counsel, when all that is happening, the system just isn’t working, and we need to change it."

You made the choice and you thought you outfoxed the Americans.. Deal with it honey! You don't want to be separated? Send the whole d*mn family then!!! Other than that SHUT-UP!!!

Senator Obama: "When communities are terrorized by ICE immigration raids, when nursing mothers are torn from their babies, when children come home from school to find their parents missing,

Michelle Malkin investigated and showed these are OBL lies, which is not surprising since they lie about everything else also.

Torres cites an upcoming meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in which they'll discuss how to "reduce these attacks on the community" (loose translation).

Torres has it backwards. Illegal aliens are attacking the communities. Innocent Americans are being raped, molested, robbed, and killed by hundreds of illegal aliens that have broken into our country. Immigration laws clearly state that they be deported. Enforce the law!

More of these raids should be conducted throughout the country. In CA, where I live illegal aliens are taking over. They are taking all of the low-skill labor reserved for the American youth. Their children are causing overcrowding in schools. They are just consuming all of our resources. Yet they believe they are entitled to even more. This problem must come to an abrupt end.