Virgil The Loser Joins Growing List of Defeated Nativist Politicians

Incumbent Virgil Goode -- islamophobe and nativist -- was proclaimed the loser in the recount of the Virginia 5th Congressional district race. Democrat Tom Perriello bested Goode by a very close margin in a district which had been a reliably Republican.

Goode is one of a number of lackluster politicians using fear and nativist appeals to score cheap political points. Among other vile tactics, in '06 Goode chose to denounce--instead of honoring--the election in Minnesota of Keith Ellison to the U.S. Congress. Why? Because Ellison is a convert to the Muslim faith.

Thankfully, Goode and his ilk are joining a growing list of politicians associated with nativistic and xenophobic politics to be defeated. Often representing solid and/or leaning GOP districts, the list includes: George Allen, Elizabeth Dole, Lou Barletta, Thelma Drake, Tom Feeney, Ric Keller, Robin Hayes , Randy Graf, John Hostettler, J.D. Hayworth, John Shadegg -- as well as Tom Tancredo, Mitt Romney who were crushed in the GOP presidential primaries.

Related:
Perriello Declared Winner In VA-5
More immigration losers
A Clash between the Old and New America
Virgil Goode on Why the US Should Refuse Immigrants From the Middle East
Republican Congressman Refuses to Apologize for Islamophobic Remarks

A Climate of Hate

The hate killing of Jose Sucozhanay shortly after the similar murders of Marcelo Lucero and Luis Ramirez, prompted Elbor Ruiz (DailyNews) to declare that "it is open season" on Latinos.

Q: How is it that in today's America a person's ethnicity can be the reason for their murder?

Ruiz' answer:

The climate created by paramilitary raids that treat workers and families like criminals; the unconscionable spreading of lies and distortions by some politicians and media personalities that dehumanize immigrants, and the growing climate of hate surrounding the immigration debate have proven to be an ideal breeding ground for racism.

I couldn't agree more!

Stop dehumanizing immigrants (including referring to people as illegal and alien). Stop treating Latino immigrants like criminals. Cut the anti-Latino hate talk by politicians and rightwing commentators by fining their employers for inciting hate. And prosecute all small and large hate crimes to the fullest extent of the law. Only then will we begin to see the crimes and abuse begin to diminish.

Link:
A climate of hate ends innocent life

SHOCK JOCKS -- HATE RADIO!!!:

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.”

Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right Poisons American Democracy

Since September 11, 2001, most attempts at reasoned political debate in America have been severely limited by the violent language of the Right.

In books and on television, it has become a regular ritual for conservative pundits and intellectuals to infuse violence—particularly against Democrats or liberals—into discussions of the major issues of the day, such as terrorism, immigration and gun violence.

The result is the creation of a shrill discourse that silences opposition and destroys any chance for serious, civil debate.

In Outright Barbarous: How the Violent Language of the Right is Poisoning American Democracy, political language expert Jeffrey Feldman analyzes the words of leading conservative figures Ann Coulter, Dinesh D’Souza, James Dobson, Wayne LaPierre, Pat Buchanan and Bill O’Reilly to show how the Right’s language of violence is polluting our public discourse and limiting the free exchange of ideas.

In addition to exposing the conservative obsession with violence, Feldman also shows how the civic discussion in America can be reshaped without the use of violent language, creating a healthier political climate.

Related: Frameshop: O'Reilly's Anti-Latino Rant

Immigration Misfire

In Immigration Misfair, Rosa Rosales (Wall Street Journal, February 5, 2008) points out what I and others have been saying about the harshness of the anti-immigration position of rightwing Republican politicians: It's a loser.

Political pundits used to maintain that the American electorate was galvanized around the issue of illegal immigration. Voters, they claimed, would punish any candidate who failed to take a tough stance on immigrants and did not adamantly oppose the "A" word -- Amnesty -- in all its tortured definitions.

Yet a funny thing happened in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Florida. The most anti-immigrant candidates performed below expectations, and those accused of supporting amnesty and in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants won.

Rosales asks, "How is this possible? How could John McCain, the author of the McCain-Kennedy Comprehensive Immigration bill beat Mitt Romney, who aired anti-illegal-immigrant commercials more than 12,000 times in Iowa and New Hampshire alone?"

My response? Because most Americans are decent people--and the pogram against immigrants fomented by screech radio and allied nativist organizataions never spoke for them. Really, these primaries are the first time fair-minded Americans have been able to weigh in--and they're sending a loud message that they do NOT subscribe to the anti-Latino, anti-immigrant Party of the Know Nothings.

More

Also:
Immigration Attacks Batting .000 in Republican Primary
Mitt: Descarado
Immigration Losers
The GOP's Bitter Harvest to Come
A Xenophobic Zeitgeist - Erasing GOP Latino Gains
WSJ -- The GOP's Anti-Latino Tone is a Loser
California's Booming Latinos: 52% by 2042
New York farmers confront feds on migrants
Linda Chavez: GOP's Self-Inflicted Wound
Republican Presidential Hopefuls Diss 1,000 Latino Leaders
Experts: Economies grow in Hispanic-heavy areas
The Coming Latino Voter Response to the Failure of Immigration Reform
The Radical Right Claims Victory
Republicans: nativism is a proven loser
Clint Bolick: The GOP Must Now Prove Itself to Latinos
Linda Chavez' The Company You Keep: In Search of anti-Hispanic hostility
GOP Risks Losing Latino Voters
The Rightwing's Winning Strategy on Immigration
Macaca: Top Politically Incorrect Word in '06

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

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.

Giving License to Minutemen: The GOP In the Driver's Seat by Michael O'Neill

The following is a letter of hope for those fighting the good fight during this ugly period of American nativism. Its author is Michael O'Neill of Long Island's Sag Harbor and a champion of immigrant rights. It is respectfully presented here with his permission.

License to Minutemen: The GOP In the Driver's Seat

In the noisome living room of the nativist hard right, for the GOP Militant today, there is only a cesspool darkness of the future of our nation. A darkness threatening to overtake the U.S. by a demographic ascendancy and territorial conquest; this darkness has replaced that traditional vanquished enemy, godless communism, by a far more subversive danger spreading over America's interior, throughout its breath and width. There is no longer any lip service to "Morning in America" given the future framed by a permanent Midnight in America where darkness descends upon our culture as a dark people of color rise to become the democratic majority.

The GOP is now mainstreaming extremists into the body politic of the U.S. to drown out the fearful, the timid, the intimidated with the effluence of their wedge politics. With our country in the middle of a catastrophic military and diplomatic defeat of unforeseeable consequence; with the drums of war again reverberating through our land, in a seeming effort to plunge the world deeper in the mire of blood as a Hail Mary desperation pass to pull victory out of defeat. The economic prospect of the middle class looks even grimmer as a war with Iran will cost a staggering amount.

It has not been so difficult for the GOP to maneuver extremists into channeling anger into blaming terrorists—the swarthy invaders. If it was simple enough to convince the majority that Iraq was responsible for 9/11, there should not be any obstacle to faulting illegal immigrants for all our economic and social problems. There is little doubt the GOP now see very well how they can muster and use angry racist mobs to further enflame a citizenry, as we saw today in Albany, primed to blame and scapegoat the "illegal immigrant," the brown invader, for outsourcing jobs, falling wages, record foreclosures, rising homelessness, unaffordable health care and a bleaker future, with no retirement, working till you are dropped in a hospital to expire...

The GOP at every level of government, national, state and regional, has been flushed into this seemingly fixed midnight of darkness where shades of reality are masked by their blinding affiliation with white supremacist, anti-immigrant, neo-con hard right organizations. Fueled by enormous wealth coming out of the Bush Administration protection racket for the likes of Ari Fleischer, Richard Mellon Scaife, the Coors family's tax-free billions, the Eric Prince (head of Blackwater, the mercenary group that has put in a bid to patrol the Mexican border) extended family, Cheney, Rove, Limbaugh, Coulter, Roger Ailes, and all their other glum warriors who repeat clichés to each other that privilege must be controlled, just as the cream rises to the top. Just as they, themselves are rewarded, praise the Lord.

They astutely see the threat to Christian white Western Civilization by the non-white hordes from the south, the invaders who corrupt even our language, refusing to speak English, which the right claims with a straight face unites us as a people, as if they so highly value unity with those outside their own identity. This is the trajectory mapped by Samuel Huntington, who understood that the Roman Catholic Latino is culturally incapable of understanding the true nature of democracy, because their tradition of being ruled by an all powerful caudillo, an elite, a hierarchy of papists. This anti-Catholicism has been a significant, popular belief in the U.S. since colonial times when U.S. was surrounded by Catholic enemies, their economic rivals to the North and the South, with their French and Spanish rulers.

Today in the rotunda of the State Legislature in Albany, bands of Minimen, American Border Patrol, their gun-obsessed buddies, pious acolytes of Lou Dobbs, Tancredo & his grotesque clone Tedisco, bonded in the happy glue of despising Latino illegals, screamed in a tantrum of mob fury for the head of Spitzer, for the passage of a meaningless gesture that will reinforce their certainty they are riding the powerful steed of the headless horseman, to wreak terror in the hearts of legislators who ignore their Halloween cartoon of what our democracy means and what it looks like when we ship them back to Africa, Haiti, Mexico...

Yes, I know there are also Dems, like Levy, and there are a few progressive Republicans, like Chafee, Bloomberg, but they are anomalous, the exception. The grand ole party of Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, LaGuardia, Lindsay, Rockefeller, even Reagan, and Bush pere have been widened to include and welcome those in the resurfacings of this amalgam of anti-government and violent squads of posses militati, NRA John Birchers, Christian Identity, states' militias, neo-Nazi minutemen rallying around the red, white & blue of anti-immigrant patriotism. While they open wide their tent to this flotsam of lunatics, they demand we close entry to hard working immigrants. The lunatic fringe appears to be in the driver's seat, on their way to becoming the mainstream of Republicanism.

Don't be demoralized by their appearance of power that seems to leave so many Dems cowering, as in our Suffolk County legislature. Remember that the Know Nothing Party was the largest 3rd party in the history of American politics, holding a majority in several state legislatures, including Mass. & Penn. and a powerful force in others, with several senators elected to Congress and dozens in the House of Representatives. Yet, they were completely defeated in just 10 years by a nation undergoing unprecedented economic boom, finding pursuit of business, innovation and wealth to be more rewarding.

This nativism flares up periodically throughout our history in times of national stress; but has always been finally defeated by progressive forces building coalition, usually with a resulting expansion of a more inclusive definition of our democracy.

If nativists appear to be in the Republican driver's seat, you can be certain that with the putting of our shoulders to the wheel, the coming together as we speak, of progressive forces building a grassroots coalition, we will win out. We have history as our peloton* at our backs and the future in our reach. These minimen losers of GOP reaction are running on fumes. They are in the driver's seat for but a very short trip.

Michael O'Neill

Peloton is a fancy word, but useful. The peloton travels as an integrated unit, like geese flying in formation of a V, each rider making slight adjustments in response to the riders around them (particularly the one in front of each). When developed, riders at the front are exposed to higher loads, and will tend to slip off the front in order to rejoin the pack further back where there will be less aerodynamic resistance, thus able to conserve energy as they move, in turn up to the front. In some cases, with sufficient room to maneuver, this will develop into a fluid situation where the center of the peloton appears to be pushing through its own leading edge, exactly like the UFW tactic of the boycott..

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.

Immigrants become target for all of society's ills

Immigrants become target for all of society's ills (By Kirsten A. Powers, USAToday - 8.29.07)

What Ronald Reagan once referred to as the "illegal-alien fuss" has fulminated into a frenzy of demonizing where behind every social ill lurks a brown-skinned illegal immigrant.

Reagan famously provided amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants in 1986, appreciating America's historical role as a beacon of hope — a "shining city upon a hill" — to people around the world. Contrast that with the always-simmering anti-illegal immigrant fury among many who call Reagan their godfather.

After the news of the murders in Newark, where three college students were gunned down execution-style, nearly a week passed with nary a peep from the "law and order" crowd. Then it was divulged that Jose Carranza, one of the alleged attackers, was an illegal alien.

But the nativists, energized by their success in derailing immigration reform legislation, will pounce on any anecdote that helps them vilify illegal immigrants.

The posse piled on. Incredibly, former House speaker Newt Gingrich declared that "the war here at home" against illegal immigrants is "even more deadly than the war in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., presidential candidate and anti-immigration demagogue, dropped into Newark to exploit the murders to further his nativist cause.

Many argue that Carranza — who had been arrested twice in the past year, including once on aggravated sexual assault of a child — should have been deported to Peru, where presumably he could have preyed on kids there instead.

A systemic failure

The failure here is with our criminal justice system, and that is where the outrage should be directed. If our system had been working, Carranza would have been in prison at the time of the attack. Considering the magnitude of the charge of child rape, his bail should have been prohibitively high. The judge declined that option, setting bail hundreds of thousands of dollars lower than the indictment allowed.

Furthermore, had Carranza been deported, he very well could have returned to the USA. A year-long Rocky Mountain News investigation published last year found that one in five Colorado inmates who had been deported returned to the USA to commit the same crimes for which they were imprisoned.

But the nativists, energized by their success in derailing immigration reform legislation, will pounce on any anecdote that helps them vilify illegal immigrants. Through local ordinances, they have worked to deny illegal immigrants basic rights, though a U.S. District Court found a Pennsylvania city's efforts to engage in immigration enforcement unconstitutional.

Home-grown

The illegal-immigrant scapegoaters seem unaware that Americans are more than able to commit horrible crimes all on their own. In the high-profile murder of a Connecticut family last month, two of the alleged attackers, both U.S. citizens, were on parole. In the widely covered assault in March of a 101-year-old woman in New York, the attacker also was a parole violator. Rather than demonizing illegal immigrants, we should ask why violent offenders are allowed back on the streets to commit more crimes.

The nativists' anecdotal warfare is an old tactic that does not match up with reality.

During the 1990s, despite a steady stream of illegal immigrants, the U.S. crime rate plunged. Mr. Law and Order, Rudy Giuliani, praised illegal immigrants when he was mayor of New York and defended his sanctuary policies. It would be hard to argue that Giuliani would have defended illegal immigrants if they posed any criminal threat to the city he governed. According to a 2006 FBI report, New York — lambasted by nativists for harboring illegal immigrants — remains the safest large city.

Today's nativists claim that their only beef with illegal immigrants is that they are "illegal." This claim rings hollow when one considers how similarly the legal Irish and Italian immigrants were treated upon their arrival generations ago.

There is also an amazingly simple way to deal with the fact that they are illegal: Pass comprehensive immigration reform and provide them a path to citizenship.

Kirsten A. Powers is a Fox News analyst who served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 1998.

Klansman James Ford Seale gets 3 life terms for '64 killings

Seale gets 3 life terms for '64 killings (by Emily Wagster Pettus, AP - 8.24.07)

JACKSON, Miss. - James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman, was sentenced Friday to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi.

Seale, 72, was convicted in June on federal charges of kidnapping and conspiracy in the deaths of Charles Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, two 19-year-olds who disappeared from Franklin County on May 2, 1964.

The young men's bodies were found two months later in the Mississippi River.

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Photo #1: A 1964 photo of James Ford Seale who went on to become a Mississippi Sheriff's Deputy. Mississippi Highway Dept.

Photo #2: James Ford Seale at the Jackson, Mississippi federal courthouse, June 15, 2007, after being found guilty of murdering two young African American men, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee. AP

A Nativist War at Home

Immigration debate gets angrier: Groups loudly press for state, local crackdowns.
(by Dave Montgomery - SacramentoBee - 8.19.07)

1) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and stealth Republican presidential candidate recently declared "a war here at home" against illegal immigration, which he says is as important as the US-Iraq War.

2) "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," said Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute and former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

3) 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 groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan supremacists.

4) 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.

5) 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.

RightWing Media Killed Immigration Reform

The Politico has an interesting article on a Project for Excellence in Journalism study confirming that rightwing radio/cable helped defeat immigration reform.

The report found that unlike mainstream media and liberal radio which devoted very little time to the immigration debate, rightwing talkers spent the spring and summer trashing immigration reform proposals.

Lou Dobbs was the leader of the anti-immigration reform pack that included Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Michael Weiner Savage.

What the study doesn't mention is that rightwing radio/cable fomented anti-Latino racism as a way to kill immigration reform. Or that the rightwing wanted the immigration dust-up in order to distract people away from the $500 billion travesty that is the US-Iraq War.

Read Talk radio helped sink immigration reform (The Politico - 8.20.07).

GOP Candidates Alienate Latino Voters

GOP Candidates Alienate Latino Voters (by Paul Waldman, The American Prospect - 8.15.07)

Republicans, who just a few short years ago were trying to court Latino voters, are going to come to regret the anti-immigration one-upmanship they've exhibited in the primary campaign.

"One thing that has become clear in this race is that whatever the GOP base wants to hear, Mitt Romney will give it in portions so big they won't be able to clean their plates Hate abortion? Mitt's right there with you, with the fervor of the converted. Think America's terrorism problem is because we aren't being tough enough? Say hello to Mr. Double Guantanamo. And if it's immigrant-bashing you want, Romney will give Tom Tancredo a run for his money as the most anti-immigrant of the candidates.

There is no doubt that Romney and the rest of the Republican field will find an audience for anti-immigration rhetoric in the primaries. But by indulging this particular corner of the Republican id, they could be doing monumental, long-term damage to their party."

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Running Latinos Out of Town in Carpentersville, Illinois

Our Town: All Immigration Politics Is Local (by Alex Kotlowitz, NYTimes Magazine - 8.5.07)

Even though 40% of Carpentersville, Illinois' 37,000 residents are Latino, it has not stopped local politicians from running on anti-Latino platforms and winning.

Gaining power by pitting Whites against Latinos, village trustees have enacted a series of employment and housing codes aimed at beating back the rising Latino population.

Residents of Latino heritage--many which are long-time residents--are shocked and dismayed by the anti-Latino animus of the new village trustees and their supporters.

Unfortunately, the racists appear to have won a short-term victory: American Latinos are leaving town.

Sign the ¡Ya basta! Petition.

Also see PORTRAIT OF A SMALL TOWN'S WAR ON IMMIGRANTS by immigration attorney and blogger Greg Siskind.

Racism Killed Immigration Reform (by Jon Garrido)

The following are excerpts from Latino Businessman and Activist Jon Garrido's Racism Killed Immigration Reform (Hispanic News - 7.31.07):

A federal judge dealt a decisive blow against a dangerous trend of freelance immigration policies by local governments. Judge James M. Munley of the central Pennsylvania district, struck down ordinances in the town of Hazleton that sought to harshly punish undocumented migrants for trying to live and work there, and employers and landlords for providing them with homes and jobs.

In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic...5% will be white...''

The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.

The ruling was a well-earned embarrassment for Mayor Louis J. Barletta and his proclaimed goal of making Hazleton ''one of the toughest places in the United States” for migrants. In doing so, Judge Munley laid down basic truths.

Basic truths that every American should remember

First, immigration is a federal responsibility. State and local governments have no right to usurp or upend a vast, ''carefully drawn federal statutory scheme” that governs who enters the country and the conditions under which immigrants stay, study, work and naturalize. Congress may be botching the job, but has not delegated it.

Herein lies the crux of the problem, racism was the major contributing factor that killed immigration reform

An Hispanic friend, Sen. Barack Obama said the recent Senate immigration debate ''was both ugly and racist in a way we haven't see since the struggle for civil rights.''

Even Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina in the well of the U.S. Senate said, ''There’s no shortage of plain old racism in this issue.''

Every brown face in America is suspect

If you think conservative Republican talk radio, cable television and other Americans focus only on migrants, you must be living in a cave for every brown face in America is suspect.

Citizenship

Hispanics cast 5.6 million votes in the 2006 midterms elections which represented only 13 percent of the total Hispanic population compared to the 27 percent of all blacks who cast votes and 39 percent of all whites who voted — a disappointing turnout attributed to a population too young to vote or ineligible because of citizenship status.

Working on getting out the vote will help but this is not enough. We need to go on the offense. We need to launch a local campaign to identify, name and shame those who systematically bash Hispanics. Then we need to launch a nationwide campaign.

The only consolation

The only consolation is a population projection from the Unites States Census Bureau: In the year 2097, 50% of the entire United States population will be Hispanic, 30% will be black, 13% will be Asian, 5% will be white, and 2% will be ''other.'' The browning of America is inevitable. No one can stop it.