By A.C. McCloud
Illegal aliens and their supporters hit the streets in several major cities Friday, chanting all kinds of slogans about freedom, God and the American Dream. The AP was there and offers us a glimpse of the mayhem (via CNN):
“They’re here for the American Dream,” said Malissa Greer, 29, who joined a crowd estimated by police to be at least 10,000 strong. “God created all of us. He’s not a God of the United States. He’s a God of the world.”
There go the liberals invoking God again. Don’t they know there is a separation of church and state? What next, a 100 foot tall Ten Commandments monument at the border?
Teodoro Maus, an organizer of the Georgia protest, estimated as many as 80,000 Hispanics did not show up for work. About 200 converged on the steps of the Georgia Capitol, some wrapped in Mexican flags and holding signs reading: “Don’t panic, we’re Hispanic” and “We have a dream, too.”
See, it’s not just right wing nutjobs that get too patriotic. But I think the organizer has it wrong–this sounds more like the Mexican Dream to me.
The protests weren’t without trouble. A fight broke out between marching Hispanics and Blacks in LA, put into perspective by this student:
“It’s ridiculous that a bunch of black students would jump on Latinos like that, knowing they’re trying to get their freedom.”
Illegal aliens “getting their freedom” by using Constitutional Rights of assembly to march in favor of breaking the law? Ya gotta love that.
The bill causing all the furor does sounds pretty draconian, and is probably just a political prop with little hope of passing in its present form. It sounds like one of those “we tried to reform immigration but they wouldn’t let us” kind of deals they can use in campaign commercials later this year.
Let’s face it–making illegal immigration a felony is idiotic. We can hardly put millions of people in prison; besides, the punishment doesn’t fit the crime. I support a border fence, but not to keep out illegals looking for work here, rather to stop this kind of stuff:
Law enforcement agents launched the sting operation along the border after Union Pacific suffered 122 robberies, 87 burglaries and 19 rock-throwing incidents in nine months in the area west of El Paso, Texas.
Criminal gangs need to be stopped with any means necessary. Those crossing the border to work need to be turned back and told to come in legally. Georgia has a bill under consideration that might encourage that sort of behavior:
That bill, which has yet to gain Senate approval, would deny state services to adults living in the U.S. illegally and impose a 5 percent surcharge on wire transfers from illegal immigrants.
The denial of services and surcharges makes sense. But the last sentence is important too, because American businesses are currently aiding and abetting aliens breaking the law by hiring them. It’s certainly a component of the overall problem and must be addressed in any reform measure.
5 comments so far
The big Georgia demagnetization bill, SB 529, has passed the Georgia Senate and House. It has now gone back to the Senate to reconcile changes made in the House, including an amendment to tax remittances (wire transfers of money to foreign countries) by illegal aliens.
The bill would curb taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens and stop/regulate the employers who hire them.
A number of Tennessee bills in play last year and this year would do the same things and even more. Georgia has the advantage of a Republican majority now; it also has 1 million to 2 million illegal aliens in the state (ignore the “official” Census numbers of illegals; those numbers aren’t accurate; extrapolations made by economists and labor analysts are more accurate). Tennessee will have both the Republican majority and those illegal numbers before long.
Tennessee could pass the bills already introduced and start dealing with this situation right now. The bills are there. And Memphis-area legislators introduced some of them.
The longer we wait, the deeper into the hole we are. The Democratic leadership in this state is the major obstacle.
Donna Locke
Tennesseans for Immigration Control and Reform
(a politically diverse network)
tncoalition at hotmail dot com
Latino immigration is a form of welfare for the rich. It’s incorrect that Latinos “do work that Americans won’t do”…more like Latinos work for wages that Americans know they can’t live on. Instead the Latinos get by on subsidized housing, food stamps, free lunches at school for their kids, Medicare, and the biggest incentive of all—the earned income tax credit, the “negative income tax”. Ironically, the illegal immigrant earning $10-15 getting welfare, lives as well as the native born working stiff making $18-20 an hour, after you count in all the benefits. Ultimately, this amounts to a subsidy to the employers who depend on the immigrants for their business viability. It’s these sorts of businessmen that depend on socially subsidized immigrant labor that are ultimately the real culprits. But the Republican Party, a party that exists for the interests of the CEO classes, and Wall Street Bankers continues to push for ‘guest worker programs’. If the Republican Party knows what’s good for them, they’d consider the view of the working stiff on Main Street who prides himself on taking care of himself and his family WITHOUT resorting to government handouts, watching these immigrants live as good or as better as he and his family. The fact that thanks to the Supreme Court, immigrants qualify for affirmative action quotas, and special consideration for small business loans, the real injustice is not the immigrants, but the Republican base, the very ones who swung the vote in ‘04 to President Bush. The immigration problem would end by attrition if the border was closed, and the welfare ended. Throw a bunch of these Republican “free market” businessmen in jail would be icing on the cake.
The Mexican Solution
By Frank Gaffney, Jr.
Published April 4, 2006
The Washington Times last week.
The Mexican constitution includes the following restrictions:
•Pursuant to Article 33, “Foreigners may not in any way participate in the political affairs of the country.” This ban applies, among other things, to participation in demonstrations and the expression of opinions in public about domestic politics like those much in evidence in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere in recent days.
•Equal employment rights are denied to immigrants, even legal ones. Article 32: “Mexicans shall have priority over foreigners under equality of circumstances for all classes of concessions and for all employment, positions or commissions of the Government in which the status of citizenship is not indispensable.”
•Jobs for which Mexican citizenship is considered “indispensable” include, pursuant to Article 32, bans on foreigners, immigrants and even naturalized citizens of Mexico serving as military officers, Mexican-flagged ship and airline crew, and chiefs of seaports and airports.
Article 55 denies immigrants the right to become federal lawmakers. A Mexican congressman or senator must be “a Mexican citizen by birth.” Article 91 further stipulates that immigrants may never aspire to become cabinet officers, as they are required to be Mexican by birth. Article 95 says the same about Supreme Court justices.
In accordance with Article 130, immigrants — even legal ones — may not become members of the clergy, either.
•Foreigners, to say nothing of illegal immigrants, are denied fundamental property rights. For example, Article 27 states, “Only Mexicans by birth or naturalization and Mexican companies have the right to acquire ownership of lands, waters and their appurtenances, or to obtain concessions for the exploitation of mines or of waters.”
•Article 11 guarantees federal protection against “undesirable aliens resident in the country.” What is more, private individuals are authorized to make citizen’s arrests. Article 16 states, “In cases of flagrante delicto, any person may arrest the offender and his accomplices, turning them over without delay to the nearest authorities.” In other words, Mexico grants its citizens the right to arrest illegal aliens and hand them over to police for prosecution. Imagine the Minutemen exercising such a right.
•The Mexican constitution states that foreigners — not just illegal immigrants — may be expelled for any reason and without due process. According to Article 33, “the Federal Executive shall have the exclusive power to compel any foreigner whose remaining he may deem inexpedient to abandon the national territory immediately and without the necessity of previous legal action.”
Tennessee has several good bills in the works covering illegal immigrants living in Tennessee.
HB2873 and HB3482 - Dept. of Human Services would provide no services without verification of the status of the immigrant applying.
SB2877 - deals with employers who knowingly employ illegal aliens and who encourage them to enter Tennessee illegally. It would be a criminal offense to do so.
HB242 - all Tennessee driver’s license examinations must be given in English.
Please contact your Tennessee Representative to support this legislation. At this time we are a silent majority and the illegal activities in this State by employers and illegal workers must not continue.
If our State representatives as well as those we sent to Washington to represent us vote down tough immigration laws, do they seriously think that 10 years from now most they will still have a voice in politics? Lawmakers will be Mexican and the current batch of do-nothings in Congress will not only not be inpower, they won’t even have a voice in the governing of the United States of Mexico.
A STORY YOU WON’T FORGET
To see what is really going on in the State of Tennessee regarding illegal employment of illegal aliens and how it is driving down the wages of poor people trying to earn a living within this State, please go to this site.
http://www.vdare.com/misc/tyson_complaint.htm