Thread: VA: Hispanic Festival Canceled Due To Immigrants' Fears

Hispanic Festival Canceled Due To Immigrants' Fears
Seasonal Workers Afraid To Attend Festival

POSTED: 7:12 pm EDT May 3, 2007
UPDATED: 7:49 pm EDT May 3, 2007

COLONIAL BEACH, Va. -- A festival to celebrate Hispanic heritage in Virginia's Colonial Beach has been canceled because of the fears of some immigrants.

For the past several years, Colonial Beach has celebrated Cinco de Mayo, News4's Derrick Ward reported. As the Hispanic population has diversified, planners wanted to make it a celebration of Hispanic heritage in general this year, but that won't be happening.

Festivities were to include a parade and then the festival on the town commons. But a call from Citizenship Immigration Services changed that.

"The lady that I spoke to, she said she wanted to have the physical address of the Hispanic-American festival," said organizer Maria Roe. "I asked, 'Why does Immigration want to know the physical address of a festival in Colonial Beach?'"

Until four years ago Citizenship Immigration Services was grouped with the enforcement arm of the INS, but now it is a separate entity helping people become citizens. The phone call and the recent deportation of a woman whose wife and children still live in the area frightened potential festival-goers, Ward reported.

"They were afraid," Roe said. "They did not want to have any part of it."

Seasonal workers take agricultural and fishing jobs in Colonial Beach this time of year.

"I think that our immigration laws need to be adjusted in some way to recognize the seasonal workers," said organizer Dr. Peter Fahrney.

Colonial Beach Mayor George Bone Jr. said it's a problem of concern if the Hispanic community can't feel comfortable in Colonial Beach.

http://www.nbc4.com/news/13255063/detai ... c&psp=news

Good. The public pressure is showing and keeping more of the illegals off the streets.

A bit more of this and they will start heading for the border!

It is about time for the lawbreakers to be afraid instead of law abiding Americans.

W

The phone call and the recent deportation of a woman whose wife and children still live in the area frightened potential festival-goers, Ward reported.

Are these the values Bush was talking about or is it a printing error?

Hmmm......that's right Cinco De Mayo is coming up.........

Well, wonder what kind of melee would ensue in downtown Portland if a few big guys in fatigues were to walk around down there, in all their gear?

Oh, I know, that's mean! I just cannot help thinking..........

Hispanic fest canceled; sponsors feared a raid

Colonial Beach cancels its Cinco de Mayo festival this Saturday as worries rise over recent arrests of undocumented immigrants

BY FRANK DELANO

Date published: 5/3/2007

BY FRANK DELANO

Fears of possible deportations of illegal immigrants have caused the cancellation of a Cinco de Mayo festival planned in Colonial Beach Saturday.

"We were going to have a parade, Latin American dance groups, a choral group, one or more bands, prizes and vendors of Latin American food and other things," said Dr. Peter Fahrney, president of the Colonial Beach Foundation, the sponsor of the event.

"It would have been the third festival. This year we were calling it the Hispanic American Heritage Day," he said.

But an inquiry about the event from a U.S. immigration official sent shockwaves through the Hispanic community already nervous about recent raids that have captured illegal immigrants for deportation, said Fahrney.

Latino advocate Maria Roe of Colonial Beach said she received the phone call two weeks ago from Gloria Williams-Brevard, a community relations officer of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. CIS is part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Williams-Brevard, who works at the Arlington office of CIS, said this week that she had seen an announcement about the festival on the Internet.

Williams-Brevard said her office plays no role in identifying or arresting illegal immigrants. She said her job is to establish contacts and build relationships in communities.

She said she called to find out where Colonial Beach was with an idea of perhaps setting up a table at the festival with pamphlets about immigration regulations.

But Roe said she did not like Williams-Brevard's tone on the phone.

"I asked her why she was interested in this festival. She became very authoritarian and wanted to make sure I knew who she was. She really made me nervous," said Roe.

"She asked for the physical address of the festival so she could look it up on a map. Do you mean the Department of Homeland Security can't find Colonial Beach?" Roe said.

"I had to inform the festival committee about that call," Roe said. "If someone had been taken away, I would have been the cause."

All of the sponsors agreed to cancel the festival after learning about the government's interest in it, she said.

Several other organizations were helping the Colonial Beach Foundation plan the festival.

Fahrney said the festival committee included representatives of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, the Virginia Housing Development Authority, the Rappahannock Area Health Education Center, the Rappahannock Migrant and Seasonal Workers Council and the Dahlgren Hispanic Foundation.

In the April 25 edition of "The Journal," a weekly newspaper serving King George and Westmoreland counties, Roe explained the committee's decision this way:

"Many Hispanics would have been afraid to participate in the event, regardless of their legal status. Those attending would have felt added pressure for their own safety, which would have taken away part of the joy of the celebration."


In the newspaper's "El Diario" section, Roe wrote extensively last month about the plight of a Westmoreland County family whose breadwinner was apprehended in February by an agent of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE].

According to Roe, Ramiro Espinosa is an illegal immigrant, but his wife and eight children are all American citizens. The children range in age from 12 years to about 2 months.

While ICE holds Espinosa for deportation, his family is struggling to survive, Roe reported.

"The situation is that a working parent has been removed from his family and is not able to provide for them," Roe wrote.

"Who will pay to raise these children? We all will one way or another. It is the community, the taxpayers who will end up paying."

Under intense political pressure to control illegal immigration, ICE has removed 221,664 illegal immigrants from the United States over the last year, a 20 percent increase over the year before, The New York Times reported yesterday.

Fahrney said the Westmoreland raid and others like it throughout the region and the country have frightened Hispanics. Immigrant labor is vital to the region's farms, seafood processors, sawmills, factories and other businesses.

"The Colonial Beach Foundation supports the immigration laws of this county," Fahrney said.

"It's a shame that any group of Americans have such fear of their government that they decline to participate in events designed to integrate them into the main stream of the American way of life."

Frank Delano: 804/333-3834
Email: fpdelano@gmail.com

http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/ ... 007/280940

If you are here legally, you have nothing to fear. Let's how brzen these criminals are if the laws are enforced

Last year some of our local stores went all out for Cinco De Mayo, this year they are low key and not dressing up the stores with Mexican decorations.

Last year Cinco De Mayo came just a few days after the illegal's took to the streets and made demands that they be given amnesty for breaking the law. Shoppers were upset by the display of Mexican decorations in the stores and they made it known that they were insulted. Many told the store mangers that they would no longer shop in stores that celebrated another countries invasion of our own country.

I think any business that promotes Cinco De Mayo should be boycotted by all American citizens. Enough is enough.

Who will pay to raise these children? We all will one way or another. It is the community, the taxpayers who will end up paying."

Yes the community will get shafted again thanks to this guy breaking into our country and having kids knowing he was a fugitive of the law!

"If someone had been taken away,

Oh, that would have been SOOOO sad, oh, how terrible. You mean people get in trouble for breaking the laws? I did not know that, why didn't someone tell these "poor immigrants" that if they broke our laws by crossing the border illegally, they would be punished????????What, you say they knew? But...they are such "good" people, why would they do that? For money? No....not them, they are such honest and hardworking people. My bubble is burst, I cannot imagine they knew and still broke the laws!

Originally Posted by MW

The phone call and the recent deportation of a woman whose wife and children still live in the area frightened potential festival-goers, Ward reported.

Are these the values Bush was talking about or is it a printing error?

They must be talking about the Lezpanic Fest.