Who Really Killed Luis Ramirez?

A few days ago two teens, accused in the fatal beating of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania were acquitted of all serious charges by an all white jury. But who really killed Luis Ramirez?

A few days ago two teens, accused in the fatal beating of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania were acquitted of all serious charges by an all white jury. Shortly after Ramirez was brutally murdered, his grieving fiancée had a premonition about the outcome of justice in the case saying, "I know they're going to try to make him look like nothing, and try to justify what the kids did, even though there's no way they could justify this. I know I'm not gonna get the justice I deserve, 10-1 these kids are going to get probation or a slap on the hand. Because he's an illegal Mexican they don't care, right away he's less important."

"With the death of Luis Ramirez, immigration is no longer a question of economic and political struggle. It is now a struggle for the soul of America. One we must win."

When I heard the verdict, I was taken back to a conversation from a couple of years ago when I stood aghast with all Americans as pictures rolled out from Abu Ghraib. I remember vividly talking with a friend of mine about it. He shook his head and said what we were all thinking, “Why did they do this?” It hit me hard, because I knew the answer. I shook my head with him and said quietly, “Because they could.”

When people mistreat others, when it happens systematically on a massive scale, like in Soviet Russia, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or Abu Ghraib, the questions are never how, but why. Why is it that people harm others like this? What is it that takes ordinary people and turns them to monsters?

Historians wrestle with it. Psychologists talk about national psychosis. Ordinary people construct millions of reasons. Always, we wrestle with why.

The answer never changes. It has been documented time and again. When we see others as less than human – killing them becomes less than a crime. When the attacked stop being seen as brothers, sons, fathers, mothers and sisters – torturing them becomes acceptable. When people are robbed of their humanity, turned into images, or beasts, they can be raped, robbed, enslaved.

When the other is not human, you can put prisoners on a box with electrodes taped to their hands. You can burn churches full of women and children. You can fill trains and lead them to gas chambers.

Again, our country must learn this lesson. The memory of Abu Ghraib is fresh in our mind, and James Byrd still mourned. Our history of anti-Semitism, anti-Irish, anti-Asian, anti-Black, anti-NOT ME still scars this country. We must examine these scars, if we are to learn from our darkest moments.

On July 14, Luis Ramirez was murdered. Not solely because he was Mexican, or undocumented, or even something so trite as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Luis Ramirez was murdered because those who killed him could. And they could because, to them, he was not American, not human.

We as a country have to stop creating demons in our midst. We have to stop identifying one or another as less than human. The sentiment that killed Luis Ramirez was the same that killed James Byrd. “You don’t matter. You are less than human.”

The talk radio hosts and FOX news pundits who daily scream “illegal” are equally as guilty as the ones who threw the punches. Reporters who quote and therefore legitimize hate groups like FAIR have blood on their hands. When Lou Dobbs says that the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce favor the export of American capital and production to Mexico and Mexico's export of drugs and illegal aliens to the United States – he’s contributing to an intolerance that makes violence possible. With the constant bombardment of vitriol, the hate mongers create an atmosphere in which people are no longer workers, children or sisters – they are illegals, beaners or spics. In the words of Robert F. Kennedy, when we learn to “look at our bothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community, men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear – only a common desire to retreat from each other – only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force.”

We are one country, not fifty states. We are one people, not a thousand ethnicities. We worship one God. And we are all human. The rhetoric that permitted Luis Ramirez’s murder must stop. Our common destiny as human beings must prevail. With the death of Luis Ramirez, immigration is no longer a question of economic and political struggle. It is now a struggle for the soul of America. One we must win.

Be sure to sign MALDEF's petition to the Department of Justice demanding justice for the murder of Luis Ramirez.

Gabe Gonzalez is Director of the Campaign for Community Values at the Center for Community Change.

The Damages of 'George the 43rd'

Bob Herbert adds up the damage caused by George the 43rd and wonders why Americans aren't out protesting. It's a critical question since the damage is so wide, so deep -- impacting just about everyone.

I agree with Herbert's list with one exception: he's left out the terrible damage George the 43rd has wrought to Latino and Muslim immigrants.

Using nativism to divide and distract from unpopular wars and economic policies is as low as you can go if you're a national leader -- and I believe George the 43rd went there (w/help from FOX & friends) while pretending otherwise.

The cabal that brought us swiftboating swiftboated immigrants of color and progress.

El Diario: A petition for human rights

Una petición por los derechos humanos

A petition for human rights

The responses to the latest act of hate have included calls for tolerance. They must also continue to push for the delivery of justice.

Over five years, hate crimes against Latinos have increased by 40 percent. That’s happened alongside a hostile immigration debate that has singled out Latinos, and amid federal policies that pander to anti-immigrant zealots.

Hispanic organizations have long sounded an alarm about this trend and the tenor of the immigration debate. Yet, hate claimed another victim earlier this month.

We were still reeling from the hateful murder of Marcelo Lucero in Long Island in November when news came of an attack in Brooklyn. There, a group of men descended on Ecuadorian immigrant and businessman Jose Sucuzhañay with an aluminum bat.

In response to the attack and murder of Sucuzhañay, New York City Council members and community leaders took to the streets to denounce this hate crime. Mayor Michael Bloomberg also denounced the murder of Sucuzhañay, who was with one of his brothers when the attackers brutally beat him.

After meeting yesterday with Sucuzhañay’s family, Governor David Paterson committed to ensuring that hate crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. This should help set a tone for leaders across the state and nation, too many of whom continue to engender anti-immigrant sentiment.

Other officials are pushing for toughening hate crime laws. But Latino Justice PRLDEF is going a step further. The civil rights organization has filed a petition before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, charging the United States with failing to protect its Latino residents.

Hate and Death: The Federation for American Immigration Reform Harvest in Suffolk

By Reverend David L. Ostendorf

When I first journeyed to Suffolk Country eight years ago to work with religious, civic, and immigrant rights groups facing growing anti-immigrant activity stoked by the Federation for American Immigration Reform, I was stunned to witness the depth of anger and hostility that the group’s organizer had helped unleash. It all started “respectably” enough. But the attempt in 2000 by neo-Nazis to kill two Mexican workers was a harbinger of where growing, unchecked anti-immigrant fever and fervor could go; other violence followed. Now, an Ecuadoran immigrant, is dead at the hands of area youth who reportedly set out to beat up “some Mexicans,” bringing the tragedy of Suffolk County to its inevitable end.

In those early days Newsday tagged Suffolk County “ground zero” of a growing anti-immigrant movement. It was indeed. And now the harvest is in.

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EL Diario: Political blowback

Attacking immigrants is just not good politics. Some politicians learned this the hard way. In this election cycle, several politicians campaigned on anti-immigrant platforms—and lost. The most outrageous was Congressman Tom Tancredo, who ran for the Republican nomination for president. Tancredo is in favor of ending legal immigration.

Other candidates—namely Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney—tried to outdo Tancredo. But their sparring during the primary debates did not take them to the top of the Republican ticket. And ultimately, Republican nominee John McCain, by backstepping on immigration reform, failed to move the vast majority Latino voters. Latin American immigrants are 40 percent of the Hispanic electorate. The vast majority of Latinos support a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.

The scapegoating of immigrants had its consequences locally. Republican incumbents like State Senator Serphin Maltese were not helped by their party’s shortsighted platform on immigration and the economy. And without a disastrous party, Maltese alone would have been counting his days in Queens, the borough with the largest immigrant population. Maltese voted against a state measure allowing non citizen students to pay the same rate of in-state tuition as native students.

But one of the most significant defeats in the northeast was of Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton, PA. Barletta appeared on the national radar when he pushed through a harsh anti-immigrant ordinance that was thrown out in a legal battle. With the admiration of enforcement-only zealots, Barletta ran for Congress. He lost on Tuesday.

Click here and here for more on Barletta; here for more on Tancredo; and here for why Maltese's opponent--Senator-elect Joseph Addabbo--was the better choice for Latinos and immigrants of Queens .

Undoubtedly, some politicians will resort to another fear-based campaign to rile up voters. But the tide of blaming immigrants may have run its course.

Link

El Diario: No tolerance for hate

As federal authorities on Monday revealed that two men had plotted to decapitate African Americans and assassinate Barack Obama, the FBI reported a disturbing trend—for the fifth straight year, hate crimes against Hispanics are on the rise.

In 2007, Hispanics were 62 percent of the victims of crimes stemming from bias toward ethnicity or national origin. Since 2003, the number of both victims of anti-Hispanic crimes and incidents has increased by 40 percent, according to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF).

Whether the statistics reflect the extent of hate crimes is highly questionable. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) found it difficult to believe that Mississippi reported no hate crimes for 2007. The Center also emphasized that with undocumented immigrants least likely to report hate crimes, an undercount is more the reality.

What is clear is that hate crimes against Latinos have increased with the hostile tenor of the immigration debate. MALDEF and the National Council of La Raza are educating the public about this trend. But the alert—and more importantly, a firm stand for tolerance—needs to be sounded by a range of leaders and organizations.

As we saw recently in Shenandoah, Pa., a group of white youths was charged with ethnic intimidation in the beating death of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez. In Staten Island, a man was charged with a hate crime after ramming his vehicle into the doors of three Mexican-operated businesses. Other attacks against Latinos—from vile speech to violence and worse—are described at Wecanstopthehate.org and http://www.splcenter.org/.

Silence in the face of this trend can be just as dangerous. We strongly urge elected and religious leaders to be visible, vocal and relentless in denouncing hate and demanding justice—before more lives are destroyed.

NCLR Challenges Distortions Made About Minority Communities

Janet Murguía, President and CEO of the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), the largest national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, expressed grave concern about the atmosphere of attacks and distortions on cable television and other media that have focused negative attention on low-income and minority communities. Pundits and others have blamed these groups for the financial crisis and accused them of subverting the political process. Murguía noted that these attacks, broadly aimed at low-income communities and communities of color, encourage division and discord at a time when Americans should be coming together to address our nation’s concerns.

Since January, NCLR has shined the spotlight on organizations and media outlets that demonize immigrants and minorities. Through its website, www.WeCanStopTheHate.org, NCLR has documented the proliferation of hate groups and the extent to which they appear as “experts” in the media on issues like immigration.

“We will not stand by while outright distortions dominate the airwaves,” said Murguía. “These falsehoods foster fear of minority communities and attempt to scapegoat them for our nation’s financial crisis and other problems.”

Murguía noted that for several weeks, pundits and others have made outrageous arguments that mortgage loans to minorities pursuant to the Community Reinvestment Act caused the financial crisis. Since then, respected economists have refuted this claim convincingly.

Recently, the Social Contract Press, an organization with well-documented ties to white supremacists and a long history of publishing white supremacist works, released a study alleging that large numbers of immigrants have improperly registered to vote. Attorney generals from several states have looked into this claim and found no truth to the allegation.

This was followed by other accusations of fraudulent voter registrations with a focus on The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). “ACORN’s long history of helping low-income and minority Americans lift their voices and participate in our democracy is worthy of respect,” Murguía said.

”It is a sad day when some try to taint the intentions of a new generation of eligible voters at a time when there is an unprecedented level of enthusiasm for the political process,” she added. “Everyone who is eligible to vote should register and participate in this historic election. We cannot tolerate voter suppression and intimidation.”

GOP Primary Voters Tune Out RightWing Radio

If America's right wing radio screechers are sooo right about everything, why is that their favorite candidates for president are faring sooo poorly?

The right's darling anti-immigrant Tom Tancredo never polled more than 1% among conservative Republican voters and was forced to drop out.

Mitt Romney--Sean Hannity's favorite--is having a hard time convincing rank and file GOPers that he's their man.

Fred Thompson--the favorite of Freepers--has been cast as the 2nd coming of Ronald Reagan but, again, Republicans primary voters are not believing the hype.

Then there's Duncan Hunter--aka, the Man that Built the San Diego-Mexico fence. The screechers think he's keen but he does nothing for the voters.

On the other hand, the candidates that the right wing radio "jihadists" have been working overtime to defeat: John McCain and Mike Huckabee are prospering.

This is what happens when extremists begin believing their own press releases about their purported influence and power.

Sweet!

Related: SOUTH CAROLINA'S BIG LOSER: TALK RADIO

GOP Rightwingers: Tancredo's the Genuine Article

Republicans: nativism is a proven loser

Five myths of anti-immigration talk

Miami Herald's Andres Oppenheimer--whose column Ya Basta! Time to hit back against anti-Latino bigotry inspired the creation of this weblog--has again written truth to nativist hate. In Five myths of anti-immigration talk, Oppenheimer debunks the myths used by nativists as cover for bigotry.

Here's a summary:

• Myth No. 1: ''We are only against illegal immigration. Undocumented immigrants should get in line for visas.'' That's deceptive because you can't demand that people get into line when, for the most part, there is no line to get into.

• Myth No. 2: ''Anti-immigration advocates are not anti-Hispanic.'' Maybe many aren't, but when was the last time you heard anti-immigration Republican hopefuls or cable television talk show hosts lashing out against illegal immigrants from Canada?

• Myth No. 3: ''We are a nation of laws, and the law says you have to enter the country legally.'' Yes, but we are also a nation of immigrants. And, by the way, nearly half of all undocumented immigrants enter the country legally, and overstay their visas.

• Myth No. 4: ''Building a border fence will solve the problem.'' Wrong. As long as the per capita income in the United States is five times bigger than that of Mexico, and as long as U.S. labor market demands millions of low-skilled jobs that Americans won't fill, people will jump over the fence, dig tunnels under it or come through Canada.

• Myth No. 5: Those of us who criticize anti-immigration groups are ''amnesty'' and ''open borders'' supporters. Baloney. I, for one, support both border protection and an earned path to legalization for millions of undocumented workers who pay taxes and are willing to learn English.

Decency on Immigration

Decency on Immigration: Apart from John McCain, it's hard to find that quality in the Republican presidential contest. (Washington Post Editorial - 11.24.07)

THE SPEAKER was discussing the human face of illegal immigration. "People are continuing dying in the Sonoran desert, and it's just a very sad thing to see," he said. "One 3-year-old baby died, a 16-year-old girl with a rosary in her hand. There's a side of this that grieves me terribly. These are God's children. They're not from another planet, and the whole thing . . . frankly, this whole issue saddens me a great deal."

These statements were moving, but they would not have been especially remarkable except for the fact that the person speaking is a presidential candidate -- a Republican presidential candidate, in fact -- at a time when the campaign has taken a particularly toxic tone when it comes to the issue of immigration. In a meeting with Post editors and reporters the other day, Arizona Sen. John McCain described the toll that he believes his championing of comprehensive immigration reform took on his campaign. "It was the issue of immigration that hurt my campaign," he said. "I have not encountered a domestic issue that has provoked the emotional response that this issue does with a lot of Americans."

Indeed, even as Mr. McCain was speaking, his GOP rivals were busy turning an ugly immigration debate even uglier. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who said in 2005 he thought that the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive immigration approach was "sensible," and former New York mayor

Rudolph W. Giuliani, who as mayor protected illegal immigrants from being reported to immigration authorities when they sought police protection or hospital care, competed to see who could sound toughest.

"As governor, I opposed driver's licenses for illegals, vetoed tuition breaks for illegals and combated sanctuary city policies by authorizing the state police to enforce federal immigration law," Mr. Romney said in a statement. "As president, I will secure the border and reject sanctuary policies by cities, states or the federal government."

The Giuliani campaign shot back, in a statement by communications director Katie Levinson: "On Governor Romney's watch, the number of illegal immigrants in Massachusetts skyrocketed, aid to Massachusetts sanctuary cities went through the roof and Governor Romney even went so far as to hire illegals to work on his lawn." Mr. Romney and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson have also taken shots at former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee for allowing the children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas to qualify for in-state tuition and academic scholarships if they graduated from high school there. As Mr. Huckabee told Fox News, "the basic concept, and I know this is still an anathema to some people, I don't believe you punish the children for the crime and sins of the parents."

Illegal immigration provokes strong emotions, understandably so. But it would behoove all the candidates to engage in a little less chest-thumping and speak with more of the decency and compassion that Mr. McCain exhibited.

Immigrant issue can’t save GOP

Immigrant issue can’t save GOP (by Linda Chavez, Boston Herald, 11.13.07)

For the second time in as many years, immigration has fizzled as a wedge issue at the polls. In 2006, Republicans hoped to use anger over illegal immigration to maintain control of Congress, but failed miserably, losing races even in states like Arizona and Colorado that have experienced large influxes of illegal aliens.

This year, Virginia Republicans tried the same maneuver in state races, with the same results. The Virginia GOP lost control of the state Senate last Tuesday despite efforts to rile up voters on the illegal immigration front.

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Angry migrant underclass might erupt in U.S.

Angry migrant underclass might erupt in U.S. (by Andres Oppenheimer, Maimi Herald - 11.04.07)

The rapid escalation of the U.S. anti-immigration hysteria -- fueled by ratings-hungry cable-television hotheads and leading Republican presidential hopefuls -- is a dangerous trend: It may lead to a Hispanic intifada that may rock this nation in the not-so-distant future.

Remember the Palestinian intifada of the early 1990s, when thousands of frustrated young Palestinians took to the streets and threw stones at Israeli troops? Remember the French intifada of the summer of 2005, in which disenfranchised Muslim youths burned cars and stores in the suburbs of Paris?

If we are not careful, we may see something similar coming from the estimated 13 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, most of them Hispanic, who are increasingly vilified in the media, forced further into the underground by spineless politicians and not given any chance to legalize their status by a pusillanimous U.S. Congress.

We are creating an underclass of people who won't leave this country and, realistically, can't be deported. They and their children are living with no prospect of earning a legal status, no matter how hard they work for it. Many of them will become increasingly frustrated, angry, and some of them eventually may turn violent.

I was thinking about all of this when I read about last week's U.S. Senate refusal to pass the Dream Act, a bill that would offer a path to legalization to children of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States at a very young age, and who get a college degree or serve in the military.

MIAMI BROTHERS

The bill would have regularized the status of youths like Juan and Alex Gomez, the two Colombian-born Miami brothers who were brought by their parents to this country as toddlers, graduated near the top of their high school classes, and now face deportation to a country they don't even remember.

There are an estimated 1.8 million children in the United States who are growing up like other American kids, often speak no language other than English, but don't have legal documents, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. They are denied in-state college tuition fees or scholarships that are available to legal U.S. residents, and are eventually thrown into a labor market where they are barred from being employed.

Further, the Bush administration-backed escalation of raids against undocumented workers in factories, the increase of city ordinances prohibiting people from leasing apartments to undocumented immigrants, and the overt xenophobia spilling daily from Hispanic-phobic radio and cable-television shows will leave their mark on these and other children in immigrant communities.

A study released last week by the Urban Institute and the National Council of La Raza says there are about five million U.S. children with at least one undocumented parent.

''The recent intensification of immigration enforcement activities by the federal government has increasingly put these children at risk of family separation, economic hardship, and psychological trauma,'' the report says.

The study looked at the impact of recent U.S. immigration raids in Colorado, Nebraska and Massachusetts, where about 900 undocumented workers were arrested at their work sites, and their children -- most often infants -- were suddenly deprived of their fathers or mothers.

''The combination of fear, isolation, and economic hardship induced mental health problems such as depression, separation anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide thoughts,'' it said.

My opinion: We have to stop this xenophobic hysteria. And please, dear anti-immigration readers, don't tell me I'm being dishonest for failing to point out that you are not against legal immigration, but only against ``illegals.''

You are making a deceptive argument. Leaving aside the fact that nearly half of the undocumented immigrants came to this country legally, and overstayed their visas, their non-compliance with immigration rules should not stigmatize them with the label of ``illegals.''

DANGEROUS PATH

You may have violated a rule, but that should not make you an ''illegal'' person. You may have gotten a ticket for speeding, but that doesn't make you an ''illegal'' human being, even if the potential harm of your reckless driving is much greater than anything done by most of the hard-working undocumented immigrants in this country.

Carrying out enforcement-only policies, labeling undocumented workers as ''illegals'' and depriving them of hope for upward mobility -- rather than working toward greater economic cooperation with Latin America to reduce migration pressures -- is not only wrong, but dangerous. The millions of undocumented among us will not leave. They will only get angrier.

What Part of ‘Illegal’ Don’t You Understand?

America has a big problem with illegal immigration, but a big part of it stems from the word “illegal.” It pollutes the debate. It blocks solutions. Used dispassionately and technically, there is nothing wrong with it. Used as an irreducible modifier for a large and largely decent group of people, it is badly damaging. And as a code word for racial and ethnic hatred, it is detestable.

Ain’t That America

Ain’t That America (NYTimes Editorial - 10.22.07)

Think of America’s greatest historical shames. Most have involved the singling out of groups of people for abuse. Name a distinguishing feature — skin color, religion, nationality, language — and it’s likely that people here have suffered unjustly for it, either through the freelance hatred of citizens or as a matter of official government policy.

We are heading down this road again. The country needs to have a working immigration policy, one that corresponds to economic realities and is based on good sense and fairness. But it doesn’t. It has federal inertia and a rising immigrant tide, and a national mood of frustration and anxiety that is slipping, as it has so many times before, into hatred and fear. Hostility for illegal immigrants falls disproportionately on an entire population of people, documented or not, who speak Spanish and are working-class or poor. By blinding the country to solutions, it has harmed us all.

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GOP Disses Latinos And African Americans

Carl P. Leubsdorf, Washington Bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News, asks a question many political observers are pondering: Is GOP determined to avoid minority voters?

Shamefully, the answer is yes. The GOP presidential candidates--pandering to the party's rightwing base, have made it a badge of honor to openly turn down any and all invitations from, and to publicly diss, national Latino and African American groups.

A small but growing list of Republicans believe that an anti-people of color stance by the GOP is unwise. Afterall, the GOP is effe4ctively dissing a third of the nation's residents. Former New York Congressman and Reagan Cabinet official, Jack Kemp, has this to say:

"If we're going to be competitive with people of color," said former Housing Secretary Jack Kemp, "we've got to ask them for their vote."

Unlike many in his party Kemp practiced the politics of inclusion. He really believes that "empowering" people of color and the disadvantaged is a good thing for society. Kemp built bridges to urban communities across the country, and there was no Latino or African American group that Kemp would not reach out to.

Unfortunately, today's smug and mean-spirited GOP has no interest in Kemp's idea of a big tent party.

WSJ -- The GOP's Anti-Latino Tone is a Loser

The WSJ joins a small but growing list cautioning the GOP to stop marching to the beat (or the screeches) of its anti-immigrant/Latino racists. I've posted the full article. Whether you're Republican, Democrat or Independent, conservative, liberal, Latino or other, read it. It's a wise piece.

Hispanics and the GOP
How to lose elections in one Lou Dobbs lesson.

Saturday, September 15, 2007 12:01 a.m.

Between 1996 and 2004, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote doubled to more than 40%, only to fall in last year's midterm election to less than 30%. The most recent polls show Hispanics breaking for Democrats over Republicans by 51% to 21%. What gives?

To understand this remarkable erosion of Latino support for Republicans, look no further than the most recent Presidential debates. While GOP candidates debated the urgency of erecting a fence from California to Texas along the Mexican border, Democrats debated in Spanish on Univision.

To reverse current trends, the GOP need not resort to ethnic pandering, which is the left's métier. But Republicans would help their cause tremendously if the party at the very least adopted a welcoming stance toward Latino newcomers. People aren't going to listen to your message unless they believe you care about them. Ronald Reagan didn't regularly receive a third of the Hispanic vote by sounding like Mitt Romney or Fred Thompson on immigration.

Tone matters in politics, and getting people to vote for you is easier when you're not likening them to Islamic terrorists, or implying that Latino men are hard-wired for gang-banging. Unlike blacks, who have hewed to Democrats in large majorities for decades, Latinos are proven swing voters, and Republican energies would be better employed trying to win them over instead of trying to capitalize on ethnic polarization to win GOP primaries.

There's precedent here. In the mid-1990s after California Governor Pete Wilson embraced Proposition 187, which denied education and health-care benefits to the children of illegal aliens, Latino support for Republicans fell to 25% from 53%, and GOP support among Asians and women declined as well.

Some conservatives insist that it's only the illegal aliens who have earned their wrath, but when the target of scorn is the mother or brother or cousin of someone here lawfully, that becomes a difference without much of a distinction politically. Moreover, Tom Tancredo, the pied piper of restrictionists in Congress, wants a "time out" on all legal immigration, and Hispanic voters are wise to the fact that it's not because he thinks there are too many Italians in the U.S. Republican pols may decide to follow Mr. Tancredo, Lou Dobbs, Fox News populists and obsessive bloggers down this path, but it's likely to lead to political defeat.

Hispanics are now about 8% of the electorate, but they're projected to become 20% by 2020 and one-quarter of the total U.S. population by 2050. The political reality is that going forward Hispanics will have to play a bigger and bigger role in keeping the GOP competitive nationally. It's hard to see how Republicans have any hope of building a permanent majority if Hispanics start voting for Democrats in the percentages that blacks already do.

Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona all boast heavy Latino populations and are states that a GOP Presidential candidate probably has to carry unless he can pick up states on the West coast or in the Northeast that Republicans haven't won since the 1980s. President Bush won Nevada, Colorado and Arizona twice. Al Gore won New Mexico in 2000, but it switched to Mr. Bush in 2004 in part because the President did well among the state's large Hispanic population.

Which brings us to a final, somewhat ironic, point about these political and demographic trends. Republican strategists, led by Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and Matthew Dowd, took note of what was happening long before their Democratic counterparts. As recently as 2004, Democrats still viewed Latinos as voters they could take for granted. The assumption was that, as with blacks, perfunctory appeals to past discrimination would suffice to win them over. John Kerry ran no significant campaign in Hispanic communities and rarely traveled to the Southwest.

But it turns out that 50% of Hispanic voters are foreign-born and grew up speaking Spanish, not nursing racial grievances. That's an increase from 20% in 1988, and most of Mr. Bush's gains among Hispanics in 2004 came from this cohort. The point is that Republican principles--economic or cultural--are not lost on Hispanics, who are hardly wedded to one party, even if some conservatives insist this vote is lost to them. And it's no coincidence the 2008 Democratic convention will be in Colorado, where Hispanics are 19% of the population.

President Bush proved that the GOP could make significant inroads with Latinos, and smart Governors like Rick Perry in Texas and Jeb Bush in Florida have also shown the political wisdom of avoiding anti-immigration appeals. It's unfortunate that other Republicans, including most of Mr. Bush's would-be successors, seem so eager to help the Democrats make up lost ground.

Copyright © 2007 Dow

All languages spoken here

All languages spoken here (by Ruth Kunstadter, NorthJersey.Com - 9.5.07)

THE CURRENT immigration debate is not only dividing our nation, it is also threatening one of the most valuable -- and already endangered -- resources for the future of this country: the linguistic and cultural expertise of our immigrant communities.

Anti-immigrant fever is growing at an alarming rate. U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo recently blamed the horrific murders in Newark on lax immigration policies, and hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have gained new energy by retraining their sights on immigrants.

We won't get very far in the new global economy -- or in the democratic beliefs we seek to promote abroad -- as a monolingual and xenophobic nation.

According to Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, "We haven't had this kind of intensity and widespread, deep-seated anger for almost 100 years."

Not surprisingly, that anger is resulting in discrimination against all immigrants -- not just those who may be undocumented -- and, increasingly, against the languages they speak.

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Rev. Samuel Rodriguez: GOP Losing Latino Evangelicals

The GOP and Latino evangelicals: Candidates' immigration views could alienate a natural group of supporters (by William McKenzie, Dallas Morning News - 9.4.07)

A note here for Mitt, Fred, Rudy and the gang:

You guys gunning for the GOP nomination really should pay attention to the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez and the many other Latino evangelicals who think like the California pastor. They are natural Republicans, but if your party keeps up its anti-immigrant rhetoric, you can forget them coming your way.

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Raymond J. Keating: Republicans court defeat by opposing immigration

Add Newsday columnist Raymond J. Keating to a growing list of conservatives warning that being anti-immigration means political suicide for Republicans. He wrote Republicans court defeat by opposing immigration.

Clint Bollick and Linda Chavez have issued similar warnings.

Keating's evidence?

A poll for the the National Immigration Forum and the Manhattan Institute, 3 of 4 conservative/republican voters favor comprehensive immigration reform that includes beefed-up border security, allowing more foreigners to come for work and a path to legalization for undocumented workers.

President Bush ran as a pro-immigration conservative Republican in 2000 and 2004 and won. Congressional Republicans turned anti-immigrant in 2006 and lost.

Many of the anti-immigrant Republicans/conservatives claim the mantle of Reagan. Keating says that's hogwash. Not only is there nothing conservative or Republican about being anti-immigrant, but Reagan himself was distinctly pro-immigration.

So, if most Americans including conservative are for sensible immigration reform, who is responsible for the "anti-immigration tail wagging Republican policy: these days?

Keating believes it's a small but loud group spreading populist fears. I suspect he's referring to some of the people listed in the ¡Ya basta! Hall of Shame and their followers.

Immigration Truths

Immigration Truths (by Vito de la Cruz, Hispanic News - 8.29.07)

Phoenix - A pointedly appropriate saying comes to mind as the nation heatedly debates immigration reform: the truth won’t kill you but it sure is inconvenient. People opposed to immigration reform don’t like hearing the truth about immigrants and consequently try to drown out rational debate with venomous polemics. But, the truth lives in every street corner labor pool, hiring line, construction site, farm, and meatpacking plant. America is addicted to immigrant labor.

We can’t ignore it. Our love for our reasonably-priced standard of living won’t let us. The truth is America’s economy thrives because America mainlines immigrant labor.

This addiction started almost from the beginning. English, German, Dutch, Spanish, French, even Russian colonizers entered and claimed separate parts of Native America. Through force or trickery, they took what didn’t belong to them and settled this country, Canada, and Latin America. Yet, from the earliest time, we felt entitled to import immigrant labor, first indentured servants and later slaves. Our country even ripped itself asunder over the issue of the forced migration and subjugation of African slaves.

Ironically, even before the Civil War, America was hewed to its current addiction. Imported Irish and Chinese workers fueled industry, especially the railroads, foundries, and stockyards of a growing America.

Every generation witnessed a wave of immigration feeding the addict’s pipe dream. And, vocal minorities in each generation self-righteously clamored to "send them all back where they came from."

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