Thread: In Nation of Immigrants, Some Would be More Equal

http://www.newspapertree.com/view_artic ... 4743ee4eff

In Nation of Immigrants, Some Would be More Equal
by Sito Negron


I assume this is the author.

Basically, El Paso told U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner to take H.R. 4437 and stick it where the sun doesn’t shine. At least, that’s how it looked over two days last week, when Sensenbrenner’s House Judiciary Committee meeting was preceded by the Mayor’s Congreso on Immigration Reform and confronted by protestors.

At the Congreso, which took place Wednesday (Aug. 16) a number of speakers argued that H.R. 4437 was bad legislation for economic, moral and historic reasons.

At Sensenbrenner’s hearing the next day, titled “Should Mexico Hold Veto Power Over U.S. Border Security Decisions?” several dozen protestors stood outside the Chamizal Theater, kept clear of the building by yellow tape and watched over by armed Sheriffs Department officers and guard dogs. They were tightly controlled; one man who wandered out of the designated “free speech zone” was escorted back to the zone by security.

The title of Sensenbrenner’s hearing was a reference to the Senate immigration bill, which would require consultation with Mexico over construction of a border wall. The Senate bill and House bill have not been reconciled, and there is no schedule for meetings to hash out differences.

There were five witnesses at the hearing. The witnesses and their statements can be found here. [link]

Three of the five witnesses were from El Paso -- Police Chief Richard Wiles, Sheriff Leo Samaniego, and Kathleen Walker, president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Wiles essentially said that he has enough to do without having to chase immigrants, Samaniego essentially said much of what he does revolves around chasing immigrants, and Walker essentially said it’s ridiculous to think unilaterally on the border. Wiles also demolished Sensenbrenner’s central theme -- that border communities face uncontrolled crime from immigrants -- by pointing out that El Paso is one of the safest cities in the nation. Samaniego partially rebuilt the argument by pointing out large numbers of immigrants in El Paso prisons, and by noting the criminal activity in smuggling corridors outside the city.

One young woman in the audience, who was wearing an inside-out Che Guevara shirt -- she was not allowed to enter the theater with the shirt on display, it being deemed an inappropriate display of protest -- somehow managed to slip in a bandanna, with which she covered her face at times. After, she said that she thought it ridiculous to think unilaterally on the border. “We’re pretty upset. They didn’t hold it open to people who actually live here,” she said. “Here’s some guy from Wisconsin trying to define our community?”

The hearing was replayed on C-Span Thursday night. In addition, cable news and right-wing talk radio highlighted an issue raised by Andy Ramirez, chairman of the group Friends of the Border Patrol, who was a witness for the Republicans. Two El Paso Border Patrol agents were convicted this year of shooting a drug smuggler in the ass, a case that is close to becoming a national cause celebre, and Ramirez secured a promise from members of the committee that hearings would be held on the conviction and its aftermath.

El Paso Congressman Silvestre Reyes, a member of the committee, said he looked forward to such a hearing, saying that those who held a gun and a badge ought to be held to higher standards, that those who don’t respect the law cannot be expected to uphold it.

Reyes, apparently holding his nose through the hearing, issued a statement before the event saying Republicans “reek of politics” and were simply trying to drum up public support for bad policy “rather then truly considering our security needs and working to reform our outdated immigration system.”

The previous day, in an event that perhaps did not reek but provided a broader cross section of local expertise on immigration issues, the Mayor’s Congreso addressed some of the issues not discussed by the Congressional committee. The Congreso can be found online (at the bottom of the left column). [link]

The event produced a statement that addressed five issues -- economics, education, legal/political, security, and social justice. The statement was signed by these community leaders: Mayor John Cook, state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, Socorro Mayor Trini Lopez, state Rep. Norma Chavez, County Attorney Jose Rodriguez, SISD board Vice-Chair Charlie Garcia, EPISD board President Lisa Colquitt-Munoz, and YISD Superintendent Hector Montenegro. The statement can be read here. [link]

Before quoting some of the participants, here is a startling fact. There are 226,000 family-based visas available for the world. Those are split equally among the nations of the world. There are 143,000 employment-based visas available. So backlogs for visa applications run 15 years or more. So if you’re trying to join your family, or if your family is starving and you’re looking for legal work in the U.S., what are you going to do? [link]

Here are snippets from a few of the participants:

-- Tamar Jacobi, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute, said it’s a myth that U.S. workers are competing with Mexican workers. She said in 1960 half of American men dropped out of high school. The number now is less then 10 percent.

“We still need people to do unskilled work in a variety of fields,” Jacobi said. “Once here, immigrants do not, by and large, compete with American workers. On the contrary, they complement them.”

She said it’s difficult to determine a precise cost-benefit for immigrants, other then numbers such as taxes paid and services used. But she gave the example of a factory that might have closed if not for low-cost labor -- the town benefits from taxes and purchasing power from workers, the low-wage workers support higher-paying jobs, and so on.

-- Kathleen Walker noted our “very long history of positive interaction between the United States and Mexico. It’s ludicrous that we would somehow be offended by the word ‘consult.’”

-- Ray Ybarra, a fellow with the ACLU who is documenting abuse of immigrants on the border, said the Border Patrol budget in 1986 was $151 million, had 3,243 agents, and made 1.7 million apprehensions. Last year, he said, with 11,000 agents and a $6 billion budget they Border Patrol made 1.2 million apprehensions. “If you were watching the news now you’d think there would have been 10 times or 50 times (more apprehensions).” Ybarra said: “Militarization sends a signal to everybody else that those on the other side of the line are the enemy. And it emboldens people like our sheriff to take it upon themselves to start enforcing immigration law.”

-- Father John Stowe of the El Paso Catholic Diocese called out the Sensenbrenner committee title, “Should Mexico Hold Veto Power.”

“They have chosen as their focus not only a rhetorical but an absurd question,” Stowe said.

“We shudder to imagine what the inscription on the Statue of Liberty might say had it been erected by the current U.S. Congress,” he said. “But here in the Ellis Island of the Southwest we still believe in America as the land of opportunity and the land of dreams.

“Comprehensive immigration reform would recognize that human rights are not bestowed with a visa, work permit, legal residency or citizenship; they are constitutive of human nature and inalienable. This is what Rep. Sensenbrenner should be hearing tomorrow.”

* * *

Sito Negron can be reached at sito@newspapertree.com.

“We still need people to do unskilled work in a variety of fields,” Jacobi said. “Once here, immigrants do not, by and large, compete with American workers. On the contrary, they complement them.”

Of course not!!! Americans won't work for the crappy wages that illegals will.

The hearing was replayed on C-Span Thursday night.

I personally watched the hearing on C-Span and I'm hear to tell you the author of this article is extremely biased, one-sided, and lame. I did not see things the same as she did. True, El Paso is a sanctuary city and has already been "taken" by the enemy, but things were not near as bad as the author is attempting to make us think. Of course with that said, I do have to question the brain power of anyone that decided to hold a hearing in such a biased community. Personally, I would think the hearings should be held in more equally divided environments.

What a fine piece of unbiased reporting. I watched this hearing on C-SPAN and it was nowhere near as lopsided as this reports states. The audience was pretty raucous, with anti- and pro- people making equal amounts of noise and being repeatedly scolded.

Andy Ramirez's testimony did not pertain only to the Ramos.Compean case, as ssuggested by the reporter. the complete testimony can be found at:

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/ramirez081706.pdf

He/she also left out testimony of one witness altogether, Alison Siskin of the Congressional Research Service. Her testimony can be found at:

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/siskin081706.pdf

Part of Ms Siskin's statement that was conveniently left out is as follows-

......Nonetheless, there have been studies using different methodologies which have attempted to quantify the costs of unauthorized migration. I would like to submit for the record a CRS memorandum discussing the findings of several studies, but I would like to discuss one study which seems the most relevant to this hearing. In 2001, the United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition released a study entitled Illegal Immigrants in U.S./Mexico Border Counties: Cost of Law Enforcement, Criminal Justice, and Emergency Medical Services. The United States/Mexico Border Counties Coalition had received a grant from the Department of Justice (DOJ) to measure the costs to the general funds of all 24 border counties for providing law enforcement, criminal justice, and emergency medical services to unauthorized aliens for FY1999. Four university researchers collected data by conducting site visits, interviewing governing board members, department heads, judicial officials, division heads, county managers, and information management specialists. The border patrol and state agencies were also consulted. Since many of the services discussed in the study were provided to noncitizens without ascertaining immigration status, the accuracy of the data is unknown. The study also used data from the decennial census, the Current Population Survey, border crossing data from the former Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), Border Patrol apprehension data, newspaper accounts, public documents, congressional hearings, and previous research. Importantly, this study only calculated the costs of unauthorized aliens to these communities, and did not include estimates of taxes or other revenues gained from unauthorized aliens.

The study found that overall Texas border communities spent $23.3 million, New Mexico spent $5 million, Arizona spent $24.2 million, and California spent $55.7 million providing law enforcement, criminal justice, and emergency medical services to unauthorized aliens in FY1999. Specifically, the study found that for law enforcement and criminal justice costs the border communities of Texas spent $21.5 million, New Mexico spent $4 million, Arizona spent $19.2 million, and California spent $43.6 million. Of the amount that was estimated to have been spent by Texas border communities on law enforcement and criminal justice services to unauthorized aliens, $12.9 million was spent by Texas sheriffs, and it was estimated that unauthorized aliens costs the El Paso Sheriffs Department $4.5 million.

She said in 1960 half of American men dropped out of high school. The number now is less then 10 percent.

I question that 10% since I went to H.S. in the 60's. She should have pointed out that over half of Hispanics drop out in 2006.