Robb Pearson: Confessions of a Former Anti-Latino Immigrant Activist

After a well-publicized change of heart, Robb Pearson, former anti-Latino immigration activist and blogger, is working to promote compassion and common humanity as a framework for the immigration issue and other issues.

Recently, Pearson sat down with 9500Liberty to discuss his conversion. Here' the interview in two parts:

Part 1: The seduction of intolerance - "We don't like "illegal" immigrants. Most "illegals" are Hispanic. Therefore, we don't like Hispanics."


Part 2: "Racism is an issue with the anti-immigrant lobby...I finally got to see the human face of the issue I had been against...I came to the realization that this isn't about politics. This isn't even about immigration. It's about our common humanity."


Links:
Robb Pearson's Opening Speech
Hate Society Claims Morristown

The Shenandoah Murder of Luis Eduardo Martinez

Pro-immigrant bloggers, Latino advocates, immigrant activists and human rights workers across the country are stunned and angry, not only by the horrific murder of Mexican immigrant Luis Eduardo Martinez, but by the shameful attitudes of some local officials.

Martinez was beaten to death in his homwtown of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania by a pack of six young toughs -- none of which has yet to be charged with a crime. Even with eye witnesses confirming the racially motivated murder, local authorities haven't acted against the young men.

Why?

Check out this outrageous comment by Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky who doubts that race was a factor in the killing: "I have reason to know the kids who were involved, the families who were involved, and I've never known them to harbor this type of feeling."

Meanwhile, Ms Crystal Dillman, Mr. Martinez' fiance and mother of his two children, knows the locals all too well and has witnessed the heightening of anti-Latino bigotry. She rightly asks, 'How is it not a racial issue?'

Of course, if anyone in the Northeastern section of Pennsylvania is responsible for inflaming racial hatred it is Lou Barletta, mayor of nearby Hazelton. Barletta has used unconstitutional means to harrass and push out Hazelton's growing population of Latinos--most of which are legal residents and citizens.

A few days after Mr. Martinez' murder, Barletta was named the Mayor of the Year by the Pennsylvania State Mayors Association for his anti-immigrant work. How's that for justice?

The Shenandoah murderers, Mr. Palubinsky, Hazelton's Barletta and other accomplices must be held accountable.

Links:
Murdered immigrant's fiancee ties death to Hazleton tensions
Immigrant's beating death exposes tensions in Pa.
‘How is that not a racial issue?’: Shenandoah residents react to homicide
Hazleton mayor named Pa.'s Mayor of the Year

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News

Fear and Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News: A Media Matters Action Network Report - May 21, 2008 (En Español)

There are many problems facing the United States today -- a faltering economy, a health-care crisis, and the continuing war in Iraq, to name a few. But viewers of some of the most prominent cable news programs are presented a different reality in which one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.

While hosts on other cable programs regularly discuss illegal immigration, Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck serve up a steady diet of fear, anger, and resentment on the topic of illegal immigration.

Media Matters Action Network

Geraldo Rivera On Anti-Immigrant Nativism

What More Does Lou Dobbs Have to Do to Prove He’s Not Racist?

John O'Bryan offers CNN's Anchor Bigot some helpful advice in his recent column entitled "What More Does Lou Dobbs Have to Do to Prove He’s Not Racist?".

I only question O'Bryan's suggestion that Dobbs is a racist but not Liberals. We have just spent the last couple of weeks watching America's leading liberal politicians--Bill and Hillary Clinton--unabashedly using the race-card against Barack Obama. And I've heard few objections from liberals. If anything, some see the Clintons' clever racial tactics as evidence of their political smarts. Under that line of thinking, Lou Dobbs is not a racist, he's simply a very clever man that knows how to strum America's racial chord for big audiences.

Anyway, O'Bryan's is a good read--and Lord knows, we can all use laugh.

"It never ceases to amaze me. Somehow liberals and other sensitive types in this country have managed to turn America’s greatest cable news crusader into a bigot.

Just because Lou Dobbs spends night after night fighting to criminalize people who cross the desert to pick your tomatoes, some loony leftwingers have accused him of harboring white supremacist sentiments. Just because he accidentally quotes studies conducted by racist organizations and occasionally references the opinions of eugenicists, some people have decided that Daddy Dobbs is driven by nefarious motives. Well I’m not one of them. Who among you has not unwittingly supported a Nazi on occasion? We’re all only human.”

U.S. War on Immigrants

Planning the War on Immigrants (by Tom Barry, Americas Program, Center for International Policy - 12.13.07)

Politics can be an ugly affair, and it doesn't get any uglier than when politicians try to best one another in the politics of hate and scapegoating.

That's what is happening in America, as politicians and political candidates at all levels of government join the anti-immigration bandwagon. Meanwhile, immigrants who do the dirtiest work in America are living in fear as they face a generalized immigration crackdown and stepped-up immigration raids.

The war against immigrants and immigration is being fought on three main fronts: in Congress, in local and state government, and on the campaign trail. While the anti-immigration movement that is coursing through American politics is beyond the control of any individual or organization, the leading restrictionist policy institutes in Washington are setting the policy agenda of the anti-immigration forces at all levels of U.S. politics.

As this war against the country's most vulnerable population deepens, the American people will need to ask themselves if they feel any safer or more secure, if they have more hope to find better-paying jobs, if their neighborhoods and town economies are more or less vibrant as immigrants leave, and if they are proud of themselves and their country.

Following their success in stopping a comprehensive immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate that included legalization provisions, immigration restrictionists have rallied around a common strategy: "Attrition through Enforcement."

Turning Up the "Heat" on Immigrants

"Attrition through enforcement" as a restrictionist framework for immigration reform has been percolating within the anti-immigration institutes in Washington, DC for the last couple of years. But it wasn't until the restrictionist movement beat back proposals for legalization that the strategy has taken hold as a unifying framework for restrictionism in America.

The Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) took the lead in developing this strategic framework. In April 2006 this restrictionist think tank published, "Attrition through Enforcement: A Cost-Effective Strategy to Shrink the Illegal Population," which lays out the main components of a war of attrition against immigrants along with the estimated cost of a multi-front campaign to wear down immigrant residents and dissuade would-be immigrants.

CIS analyst Jessica Vaughn opens the report with this observation: "Proponents of mass legalization of the illegal alien population, whether through amnesty or expanded guestworker programs, often justify this radical step by suggesting that the only alternative—a broad campaign to remove illegal aliens by force—is unworkable."

"The purpose of attrition through enforcement," according to Vaughn, "is to increase the probability that illegal aliens will return home without the intervention of immigration enforcement agencies. In other words, it encourages voluntary compliance with immigration laws through more robust interior law enforcement."

Key components of the war of attrition include:

- Eliminating access to jobs through employer verification of Social Security numbers and immigration status.
- Ending misuse of Social Security and IRS numbers by immigrants in seeking employment, bank accounts, and driver's licenses, and improved information sharing among key federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, in the effort to identify unauthorized residents.
- Increasing federal, state, and local cooperation, particularly among law enforcement agencies.
- Reducing visa overstays through better tracking systems.
Stepping up immigration raids.

Passing state and local laws to discourage illegal immigrants from making a home in that area and to make it more difficult for immigrants to conceal their status.

CIS predicts that a $2 billion program would over five years substantially reduce immigration flows into the United States while dramatically increasing the one-way flow of immigrants back to their sending communities. According to CIS, the attrition war would require a $400 million annual commitment—"less than 1% of the president's 2007 budget request for the Department of Homeland Security."

Without driver's licenses and without work because of employment-centered enforcement, immigrants will leave the country—as many as 1.5 million annually, predicts the CIS study. "A subtle increase in the 'heat' on illegal aliens can be enough to dramatically reduce the scale of the problem within just a few years," says Vaughn.

War of Attrition

"Attrition through enforcement" represents an aggressive step forward for restrictionism. The "attrition through enforcement" strategy signals the advance of the anti-immigration advocates from defensive and hold-the-line positions to a long-term offensive aimed at definitively taking the battlefield.

Tasting the blood of their victory over liberal immigration reform, the restrictionist movement, led by Washington, DC institutes including the Center for Immigration Studies, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), and Numbers USA, has opted for a war of attrition as the best strategy for rolling back immigration.

The "attrition through enforcement" is a strategic framework that builds on tactical approaches. To counter proposals for legalization, restrictionists successfully argued that any proposals for increased legal immigration—either through legalization or guestworker programs—should not be considered until the borders were secured and current immigration law fully enforced.

The "secure borders" and "enforcement first" frameworks for discussing immigration have been largely accepted by politicians of both parties, eliminating approval of any immigration reform initiatives that would address the plight of the 12 million-plus undocumented residents of the United States.

Over the past six months, the restrictionists have moved beyond "enforcement first" to the more aggressive "attrition through enforcement" strategy. And the federal government, state government, and Congress seem to be marching in lockstep with the restrictionists as they all harden their anti-immigration posture.

Anti-immigration groups are propagating "attrition through enforcement" as the sensible, practical "middle ground" or "third way" in immigration reform. Rather than calling for a costly and morally repugnant mass deportation of millions of immigrants, the restrictionists have united behind a strategy aimed at wearing down the will of immigrants to live and work in the United States.

Immigration raids in the interior of the country and imprisonment by immigration officials of those crossing the border illegally combined with pervasive enforcement of the "rule of law" by police and government bureaucrats will slowly but surely drive all undocumented immigrants out of the country. Restrictionists increasingly argue that mass deportation will be unnecessary since an ever-increasing number of immigrants will "self-deport."

"Attrition through enforcement" also addresses another weak point in previous restrictionist strategy. Having long demanded that the federal government gain control of the southern border, the restrictionists found that as border control increased more immigrants were staying in the United States, fearing that if they left they would never be able to return. Border control has actually increased the number of undocumented immigrants who have opted for permanent residency.

Although still demanding tighter border control with more agents and more fences (virtual and real), restrictionists also have in "attrition through enforcement" what they consider to be a pragmatic and palatable solution to ridding the country of "illegal aliens." Permanent residency in the United States, if this strategy is fully implemented, will become a permanent nightmare.

Attrition on the Campaign Trail

All the Republican Party candidates have to some degree adopted a restrictionist agenda. Even John McCain, an original sponsor with Sen. Kennedy of comprehensive immigration reform, has said that he now supports an "enforcement first" approach.

Fred Thompson won the plaudits of restrictionists when he released his immigration platform, which explicitly adopts the "attrition through enforcement" strategy. According to Thompson, "Attrition through enforcement is a more reasonable and achievable solution [than] the 'false choices' of 'either arrest and deport them all, or give them all amnesty.'"

This more "reasonable" solution supported by candidate Thompson includes measures such as denying federal money to states and local governments that provide social services to undocumented residents, and ending federal educational aid to public universities that provide in-state tuition to undocumented residents.

FAIR is spearheading the attrition war on the state level, working closely with a new group called State Legislators for Legal Immigration. Formed by right-wing restrictionists in the Pennsylvania state legislature, the group says nothing about legal immigration in its mission statement. Rather, the founders say the group "represents a 21st century Declaration of Independence."

"Similar to the American Revolution, the personal and economic safety of Pennsylvanians and all American citizens depends upon definitive action being taken by our federal, state, and local governments to end the ongoing invasion of illegal aliens through our borders," declares the legislators' organization. By turning back this invasion, they say they will protect U.S. citizens from " property theft, drug running, human trafficking, increased violent crime, increased gang activity, terrorism, and the many other clear and present dangers directly associated with illegal immigration."

State Legislators for Legal Immigration and FAIR intend to take the war of attrition to every state. According to this restrictionist group, "Once the economic attractions of illegal jobs and taxpayer-funded public benefits are severed at the source, these illegal invaders will have no choice but to go home on their own." FAIR says that the legislators' group "will be teaming up with FAIR to develop state-based initiatives to deal with the national problem of mass illegal immigration."

The war of attrition is already leaving a trail of divided communities and split families in its wake. Detentions and deportations are shattering immigrant communities and families as restrictionists applaud and call for ever-harsher measures. It is also ramping up the fear and loathing on the campaign trail.

As this war against the country's most vulnerable population deepens, the American people will need to ask themselves if they feel any safer or more secure, if they have more hope to find better-paying jobs, if their neighborhoods and town economies are more or less vibrant as immigrants leave, and if they are proud of themselves and their country.

Tom Barry is a senior analyst with the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) of the Center for International Policy.

1930's Mexican Deportations: U.S. Ethnic Cleansing?

It's happened before in the 1930s. Local, state and federal authorities arrested residents of Mexican heritage--citizens and noncitizens alike; confiscated their property, and deported them to Mexico.

This American version of ethnic cleansing--the mass deportation of people of Mexican heritage from U.S. soil--has gone largely ignored--that is, until now.

As part of a class history assignment while she was a undergraduate student at Cal State Fullerton, Christine Valenciana, now a professor of education, began her extensive research on the plight of her mother and many other Mexican-Americans who were illegally deported to Mexico during the 1930s.

Dr. Valenciana was always aware that her mother, as a child, had been forced to return to Mexico in 1935. What she didn’t realize was that her mother was just one of up to 2 million Mexican and Mexican-Americans who were deported during that era.

“I thought what happened to her and her family was an isolated incident,” she recalled. “I had no idea that this happened on a much larger scale.”

Dr. Valenciana discusses her work as it relates to the mass deportation of people, many of whom were American citizens, that was systematically practiced during the Great Depression. (Source: CAL State Fullerton website)

Q: How did you first learn that close to 2 million Mexican and Mexican-Americans were deported to Mexico in the 1930s?

A: I was a history major at Cal State Fullerton, and one of the classes I took was a community history class. Having a Mexican background, I was interested in researching an area that had to do with Mexican-Americans. While I was trying to determine a topic, I spoke with my mother, Emilia Castaneda, about her experience as a child. That’s when I discovered that many families had been deported to Mexico in the late 1920s through the 1930s.

Even prior to this, there were “whisper” campaigns and employers were asked not to hire those suspected of being of Mexican descent. Actually, there were laws passed that “aliens” could not be hired to work. In addition, massive deportation raids were conducted throughout the country, including Orange and Los Angeles counties. An atmosphere of fear was created in the Mexican-American community.

Q: So what happened? Why were these people deported?

A: During the Great Depression, anywhere from one to two million people were deported in an effort by the government to free up jobs for those who were considered “real Americans” and rid the county governments of “the problem.” The campaign, called the Mexican Reparation, was authorized by President Herbert Hoover. Although President Franklin Roosevelt ended federal support when he took office, many state and local governments continued with their efforts.

Estimates now indicate that approximately 60 percent of the people deported were children who were born in America and others who, while of Mexican descent, were legal citizens.

Q: How did you go about conducting your research?

A: It was all primary research because historians hadn’t really paid much attention to it. I spoke to my mother, who referred me to some of her cousins. I made public announcements and found other interviewees. It snowballed from there. These interviews are housed in the Center for Oral and Public History. Now, I am conducting new research focused on the education and language of the children and families involved.

Q: What was it like for those who were deported?

A: It was traumatic, of course. For example, my mother was nine years old. She lived in Los Angeles. Her dominant language was English, although she knew rudimentary Spanish. Suddenly, she was removed from the only home she’d known, taken out of her school and away from her friends, and sent to an unfamiliar country. She didn’t understand the customs. She was forced to live outdoors. She was teased because she couldn’t speak Spanish very well. And keep in mind that she was an American citizen.

Q: What was it like for adults?

A: It was very difficult for them as well. Mexico also was going through a depression at that time, and it was hard for the adults to find jobs in Mexico. Returning Mexicans were unwanted. Many of these people had jobs, homes and families in the United States. They hadn’t been in Mexico for decades – they couldn’t just pick up and start again.

This act literally broke up families. For instance, some who were deported had subsequent children who were born in Mexico – that meant that some children in the same family were American citizens while others were not. As these children grew older and married, they often had children who were born in Mexico and so these children were not considered American citizens either. The effects of this unconstitutional deportation are far ranging and have ramifications even today.

Q: Were there ever any attempts to rectify this wrong?

A: art of the problem is that many did not realize this was part of a huge concerted effort. Now that they’re aware of it, there have been some attempts to recognize what happened. Some looked at what happened to those who were interned in Japanese camps during World War II and recognized that they were, in fact, discriminated against. It’s also important to realize that it took the Japanese community several decades to organize in response against their treatment – and they were still in this country.

Q: What kind of attempts have been made to publicize this?

A: One of our alums – Bernie Enriquez, a field representative for State Sen. Joseph Dunn – was aware of the Mexican Reparation, having read my husband’s – Francisco Balderrama – book, Decade of Betrayal. He brought the book to the attention of Sen. Dunn [D-Santa Ana], who introduced a bill in 2003 asking for a removal of the statute of limitations for survivors like my mother to make claims against the state of California for, what was quite frankly, an unconstitutional deportation.

MALDEF [Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund] filed a class action suit on behalf of the survivors. Sen. Dunn sponsored a state senate hearing in July 2003 on this unconstitutional deportation. My mother was one of the survivors who spoke. My husband was an expert historian witness.

Q: What was that like watching your mother?

A: I had very mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was tremendously proud of her. This is a woman – in her 70s – with very little formal education, speaking before a group of powerful legislators. On the other hand, I was nervous for her and helped her prepare. But she did just fine. I asked her what she hoped to get out of all this. She said simply, “I just want people to know what happened.”

Q: Did they get an apology?

A: No. Both Governors Davis and Schwarzenegger refused. Apologizing is an admission of guilt and neither wanted to get involved in what they considered financial ramifications. What was very disappointing about Schwarzenegger’s response was that he indicated that those affected had had years to file civil suits. But most of those who were deported were children. They were abused, had their constitutional rights violated and were kicked out of their country. They weren’t even aware that they had constitutional rights let alone that they had been violated.

Q: So what happens now?

A: Sen. Dunn will re-introduce related legislation. We are doing our best to educate others about what happened so that this never happens to anyone again. People were denied their rights, sent to a foreign land and children were not allowed to finish their education.

Related:

1930s Mexican Deportation
U.S. Concentration Camps: Wrong during WWII; Wrong Now
The U.S. also put 2,300 Japanese Latino Americans in Concentration Camps
The T.Don Hutto Residential Facility: A Concentration Camp
U.S.A. Ignores Petition from Marshall Islands H-Bomb Testing Victims

Anti-Immigration Madness

In Losing Our Minds over Immigration, Eric Haas calls it what it really is--a sort of madness that's overcome so many otherwise sensible Americans. It's a madness which obscures the real problem: the exploitation of all low-wage American workers.

Sad that struggling American workers are distracted into bashing lower wage immigrant workers while the super rich and politically powerful evade responsibility for their rapacious ways.

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.

More

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.

The Forgotten Victims of the California Wildfires: Undocumented Migrant Workers

Thousands of people are beginning to return home as the wildfires across Southern California slowly die out. But for the thousands of undocumented migrant workers in San Diego's lucrative agriculture industry, the process is fraught with the threat of harassment and deportation.