Thread: News Media Hysteria

http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/333002.html

I tried to paste the 2nd page, but I was unable to log in.

It seems the author of the article is saying that all the problems created by illegals (mainly Latino) are just a figment of the average American citizen's imagination.

He works for a newspaper that has daily news on the crime, gangs, so-called poverty, overcrowded schools and prisons, failing students, HS dropouts, violence in schools, cop killers, illegal drug making/using/trafficking, social program fraud and abuse, pregnant teens, large families who can't afford to take care of their kids, and people who can't and won't speak English.

Anchor babies, NO BETTER THAN THEIR PARENTS!

Immigration debate gets angrier
Groups loudly press for state, local crackdowns.
By Dave Montgomery - McClatchy Washington Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, August 19, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Seven weeks after the collapse of legislation in Congress, the outcry against illegal immigration is louder than ever, manifested by proposed clampdowns at the state and local levels and an uproar over the arrest of an undocumented immigrant in the execution-style slayings of three New Jersey college students.

Scores of organizations, ranging from mainstream to fringe groups, are marshaling forces in what former House Speaker Newt Gingrich calls "a war here at home" against illegal immigration, which he says is as important as America's conflicts being fought overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While most of the groups register legitimate, widespread concerns about the impact of illegal immigration on jobs, social services and national security, the intense rhetoric is generating fears of an emerging dark side, reflected in what appears to be growing discrimination against Latinos and a surge of xenophobia unseen since the last big wave of immigration in the early 20th century.

"I don't think there's been a time like this in our lifetime," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. "Even though immigration is always unsettling and somewhat controversial, we haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."

The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said the number of "nativist extremist" organizations advocating against illegal immigration has grown from virtually zero just over five years ago to 144, including nine classified as hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.

Eighty-three percent of immigrants from Mexico and 79 percent of immigrants from Central America believe there is growing discrimination against Latin American immigrants in the United States, according to a poll conducted by Miami-based Bendixen & Associates.

Instead of subsiding after the collapse of Bush's immigration overhaul in June, the debate over illegal immigration has continued and seemingly escalated. As prospects for congressional action appeared increasingly in doubt this year, all 50 states and more than 75 towns and cities considered -- and in many cases enacted -- immigration restrictions, even though initial court rulings have declared such actions unconstitutional intrusions on federal responsibilities.

Two counties in the populous northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., are among the latest to consider restrictions on immigration. Nationwide, many of the proposed ordinances strike a similar theme, penalizing employers who hire illegal immigrants, barring undocumented immigrants from certain municipal services or prohibiting landlords from renting to illegal immigrants.

The murders of three college students in Newark -- and the wounding of a fourth -- reignited calls for a clampdown on illegal immigration after disclosures that one of the suspects, Jose Lachira Carranza, was an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail awaiting trial on assault and child rape charges.

The case revitalized an argument made during the congressional debate that the flow of illegal immigrants, though dominated by job-seekers lured by the prospect of higher wages and better conditions, includes a menacing criminal element.

A coalition of 15 anti-illegal immigration groups denounced Newark's and New Jersey's governments for "negligent complicity" in the deaths through inadequate law enforcement. The protest was organized by Dallas attorney David Marlett, who founded ProAmerica Cos., composed of more than 400 companies that refuse to knowingly hire illegal immigrants.

The Bush administration, in the absence of the sweeping immigration overhaul sought by the president, moved earlier this month to toughen enforcement of existing laws, threatening steeper penalties against employers and more vigorous work-site inspections.

Pro-immigrant groups fear the new rules could result in wholesale firings as overreactive employers seek to avoid possible violations.

Demographers and immigration experts say the passions over illegal immigration in the opening decade of the 21st century are comparable to those that swept through American cities with the surge of immigrants who descended on U.S. shores from the early 1900s to the 1920s.

The latest wave of immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- is dominated by Mexicans and other Latin Americans who are venturing deep into the U.S. interior to follow the job market, often settling in towns and cities that, just a few years earlier, were unaccustomed to Latinos.

"Immigration is now affecting the entire country," Meissner said. "A larger share of the immigrants are going to these newer areas. The rate of change is dramatic."

The growing presence has resulted in a proliferation of predominately conservative advocacy groups, many of whom weighed into the congressional debate, demanding that the government halt the flow of illegal immigrants.

Many, bowing to America's legacy as a land of immigrants, stress that they support legal immigration -- though possibly in reduced numbers -- but view illegal immigrants as lawbreakers who take jobs that should go to U.S. citizens.

"It's real important that we keep the word 'illegal' in front when we talk about what these groups stand for," said Marlett, the ProAmerica Cos. founder. He said groups in his coalition have no tolerance for extremists who "try to glom on" to the immigration issue.

But John Trasvina, president of the Los Angeles-based Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF, said the backlash over illegal immigrants is clearly generating widening anti-Latino sentiments, often exemplified in hate rhetoric on talk shows and over the Internet.

MALDEF has prevailed so far in legally defeating municipal immigration ordinances, but Trasvina said that "a poisonous atmosphere" remains.

"What these ordinances do is add tension to the communities," he said. "So a woman in the grocery is talking to her daughter in Spanish. It emboldens the person standing in line behind her to say, 'Hey, speak English.' "


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Thanks Crazybird. The title of the article for the FresnoBee read "Immigration anger seems to usher in era of xenophobia".

The latest wave of immigrants -- both legal and illegal -- is dominated by Mexicans and other Latin Americans who are venturing deep into the U.S. interior to follow the job market, often settling in towns and cities that, just a few years earlier, were unaccustomed to Latinos.

BS......we've always had Latinos in this area because of agriculture. They act like ohhhh the first time anyone ever saw one.....

Thing is.....the Latinos I was accustomed to aren't the same as this new group comming in. They used to fit the nice, hard working, honest, group that they keep telling everyone now that they are. Sorry ....NOT the same. The kids spoke English and did well in school.....I mean they were the LAST people anyone would suspect for anything. We didn't have this kind of problem then as we do now. There was alot of hispanic students in our schools even long before we ever got any other group of people. Before bussing and the whole thing. If anything. people welcomed the new immigrants based on the positive experiences before.....only to have it blow up in their face.

I mean as far back as I can remember latinos have always been a part of this area. Now we didn't have any asians or people from India or the middle-east etc. So if there's any groups we would be "unaccustomed" to....it would be them. Thing is......we aren't having a problem with them. They aren't having problems with us.

What comes to mind with me is when that adorable kid of yours reaches that "stage" where they get this "attitude" and you wonder what on earth has possessed them. Some, it's not so bad, and others you really wonder what alien demon has taken over their body. I don't have words to describe it.....but many parents have seen it. Defiant, angry.......and you wonder what on earth to do. Wanna smack that smirk off their face........try and understand it's a "phase" and hope you survive it. You birthed me so you OWE me and you HAVE to tolerate whatever I feel like doing coz you're the dim wit Adults who brought me here. I didn't ask to be born so up yours.....try and stop me coz I'll call 911 and report you for abuse.....on down the line. No respect at all.....no concern for others.
Seems they go between the terrible 2's and the teenage rebellion.....unfortunatly these are adults doing alot more damage to alot of people as well as tearing a nation apart.

As long as you're living under my roof.....you'll abide by my rules. Seems we've been the screaming parents and it's time to prove our words mean something. Unfortunatly our "parents"(the government) are sticking their head in the sand hoping it will blow over because doing a little "tough love" makes them look mean.

It's from the The Sacramento Bee

Dixie

I agree with Newt Gingrich when he says we are at war. And the sooner America sees that, the better off we are going to be. And hopefully be for it's too late. I am not advocating violence, but as you see there will be pockets of confrontations, and hopefully that never get to be armed confrontations. But then it may, but ONLY if our government doesn’t start supporting America and Americans.

I know it sounds radical, and that something like that can’t happen here. Well look at 9/11, we never though that could ever happen either. I think we learned (or should have learn) that “What ever you least expect is what you should be expecting.â€

They can call it xenophobia, nativism, racism or whatever; that no longer matters. What matters is that we are making America a place increasingly inhospitable to this horde of illegal invaders, and they don't like it! Good! We need to make the climate here too hot for them to deal with, so hot they will be glad to return to Mexico, or wherever else they came from! The more strident their rhetoric, the more filled it is with emotionally-charged words, the more desperate we know they are! I daresay we have raised their discomfort level considerably in the last few months, and we need to continue to do so. When they start to leave on their own, in large numbers, we will know that we are winning this battle. It's still a war of ideas, but there's no reason that within that framework, we can't turn up the heat, and if necessary ratchet our own side's rhetoric up accordingly!