Racism climate on Immigration? Anti Immigrant said No, what about you?

Prince William County, Virginia becomes ground zero in Americas explosive battle over immigration policy when elected officials adopt a law requiring police officers to question anyone they have "probable cause" to suspect is an undocumented immigrant.

9500 Liberty reveals the startling vulnerability of a local government, targeted by national anti-immigration networks using the Internet to frighten and intimidate lawmakers and citizens. Alarmed by a climate of fear and racial division, residents form a resistance using YouTube videos and virtual town halls, setting up a real-life showdown in the seat of county government.

The devastating social and economic impact of the Immigration Resolution is felt in the lives of real people in homes and in local businesses. But the ferocious fight to adopt and then reverse this policy unfolds inside government chambers, on the streets, and on the Internet. 9500 Liberty provides a front row seat to all three battlegrounds

Used, Abused, and Know treated as the worst Criminals. Outrageous.

There was all the symbolism necessary for the glory he seeks: hundreds of men dressed in prison stripes with pink underwear protruding from their waists,
surrounded by even more heavily armed guards and at a given moment an old man gave a signal and they were marched through a public street into a tent jail that would house only other men of their color and status surrounded by a high electrified fence... and the old man pontificated about the law...Chihuahua hasta cuando esto va a parar, This a reminder to all Latinos, Hispanics and those looks kinda a Mexican.
We need to stop the continues violation of our civil rights, we have been diminished day by day, they are killing us by their hatred emotions day by day, They are demonizing everyone just because we look kinda a Mexican....I ask myself what's wrong with being or look like Mexican? or that Racism?. Do you believe you have been attained or acquired equally rights as Hispanic or Latino?. Nooooooo. do you ever heard this comment from Real State Agents: Do not buy a house on this neighborhood; you will better off on Latino or Hispanic community. How many times do you hear this comments at Dealerships, You are not qualified for this loan because your credit is bad?; But someone else with the same credit or even worst get better rate and loan performance. We always have been used and abused, stereotyping, discriminated, demonized and racially segregated. We need to stop and send a clear message. Enough is enough. We are entitled to a same and equal rights like everybody else.

While on Immigration there are valid arguments on both sides of the issue, the debate has also been framed, at times, by vitriolic anti-immigrant – and particularly anti-Hispanic – rhetoric and propaganda. Purveyors of this extremist rhetoric use stereotypes and outright bigotry to target immigrants kinda look like Mexican and hold them responsible for numerous societal ills. Why?. see some of the vitriols arguments from Anti Immigrants groups:

1.-Describing immigrants as "third world invaders," who come to America to destroy our heritage, "colonize" the country and attack our "way of life." This charge is used against Hispanics, Asians and other people of color.


2.-Using terminology that describes immigrants as part of "hordes" that "swarm" over the border. This dehumanizing language has become common.


3.-Portraying immigrants as carriers of diseases like leprosy, tuberculosis, Chagas disease (a potentially fatal parasitic disease), dengue fever, polio, malaria.


4.-Depicting immigrants as criminals, murderers, rapists, terrorists, and a danger to children and families.


5.-Propagating conspiracy theories about an alleged secret "reconquista" plot by Mexican immigrants to create a "greater Mexico" by seizing seven states in the American Southwest that once belonged to Mexico.

The Mexican Appearance and their Lawful perspective.

For close to 15 years, Phoenix New Times has reported on Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio's serious abuse of power. The self-described "Toughest Sheriff in America" was once Arizona's most popular politician. But his popularity is plummeting, as the public finally takes note — after reelecting him three times — of horrendous jail conditions, reckless police operations, racial profiling, clearly violation of Human and Civil Rights against Latinos specially Mexicans and personal vendettas against political rivals.

A believe the addition of the first Latina/o to the Supreme Court could have significant impacts for the greater Latina/o community, as well as to the Court and the nation as a whole. Importantly, a Latina/o would likely bring new and different experiences and perspectives to the Supreme Court and its decision-making process. A review of one decision helps demonstrate this point.

In United States v. Brignoni-Ponce, the Supreme Court stated that Border Patrol officers on roving patrols could consider the race of the occupant of an automobile in making an immigration stop. In the Court's words, "[t]he likelihood that any given person of Mexican ancestry is an alien is high enough to make Mexican appearance a relevant factor" in the decision to stop a vehicle. Through this pronouncement, the Court ruled that what amounted to race profiling in immigration enforcement was constitutional. The Court authorized the Border Patrol to rely on "Mexican appearance" even if no individual, much less one who "appears Mexican," has been specifically identified as having violated the immigration laws. Such reliance is premised on the perceived statistical probability that persons of "Mexican appearance" are undocumented immigrants. Ordinary Fourth Amendment and Equal Protection principles, however, generally prohibit use of race in this way by law enforcement. Rather, the Constitution usually requires individualized suspicion, not raw statistical probabilities, to justify a police stop.

A Latina/o Justice might well approach the reliance on race and physical appearance in immigration stops in a wholly different way than the Supreme Court did in Brignoni-Ponce. Latina/os are likely to appreciate the detrimental consequences of race profiling in immigration enforcement, which subjects innocent persons lawfully in the country to stops and interrogations largely because of their physical appearance. As a direct result of the Supreme Court's endorsement of reliance on "Mexican appearance," immigration enforcement regularly burdens Latina/o citizens and lawful immigrants of many different national origin ancestries. Such indignities seriously undermine the sense of belonging of Latina/os to U.S. society.

Moreover, a Latina/o would more likely understand why "Mexican appearance" is a deeply flawed criterion on which to base an immigration stop. He or she might well ask logical questions about Brignoni-Ponce including but not limited to the following:

What is "Mexican appearance?" Physical appearances among Latina/os run the gamut from light to dark skin, black to blond hair, brown to blue eyes. The Border Patrol, however, apparently relies on stereotypical "Mexican appearance," dark skin, black hair, brown eyes, indigenous features, often with a socioeconomic class overlay, when in fact persons of Mexican ancestry possess many different physical appearances.

Should the Border Patrol be afforded the broad discretion to question one's citizenship governed by "standards" such as "Mexican appearance?" Because "Mexican appearance" is vague and based on gross stereotypes of undocumented immigrants, how could Border Patrol officers, even ones acting in good faith, be expected to objectively apply this "standard?"

Aren't most of the people in the United States with a stereotypical "Mexican" or "Hispanic" appearance lawfully in the country? Although the vast majority (ninety five percent or more) of the Latina/os in the United States are citizens and lawful immigrants, they may be subject to stops, particularly in the border region if not the entire Southwest, because of nothing other than their physical appearance and a Border Patrol officer's hunch that he or she is undocumented.

Doesn't allowing the Border Patrol to consider "Mexican appearance" in making an immigration stop stigmatize citizens and lawful residents of Latina/o descent who fit the stereotype? Doesn't this limit their claim to full membership in the national community?

Because of personal experiences, as well as an appreciation of the diversities of the Latina/o community in the United States, a Latina/o is more likely than an Anglo to be troubled by the reasoning of Brignoni-Ponce.

Moreover, she or he may well have personal experience with race profiling in immigration enforcement.

For example, the Border Patrol on numerous occasions has stopped Federal District Court Judge Filemon Vela, as well as other Latina/o judges in South Texas, for questioning about his immigration status. Border Patrol officers once told Judge Vela that he was stopped because he had too many passengers in his new sports utility vehicle; another time, he was informed that the tinted windows on his automobile--quite common in warm climates--led to the decision to stop him. Similarly, the Border Patrol repeatedly pulled over Eddie Cortez, former mayor of a Los Angeles suburb, well over a hundred miles from the border.

Nor is the assumption that Latina/os are immigrants limited to the Southwest. A U.S. Capitol police officer stopped Luis Gutierrez, a member of the U.S. Congress of Puerto Rican ancestry, on the way to his congressional office and flippantly told Gutierrez that he "'and [his] people should go back to the country [they] came from."' Such experiences, analogous to those of Thurgood Marshall with respect to racial discrimination, almost inevitably would shape one's thinking about immigration enforcement and, more generally, the reliance on alleged group propensities in law enforcement.

Based on personal experience, a Latina/o Justice is likely to understand the fallacy of "Mexican appearance" and appreciate that Latina/os come in all shapes, sizes, and appearances, not just the stereotypical ones. Latina/os also generally know that many non-Latina/o U.S. citizens assume that Latina/os-- native born in this country or not--are "foreigners," and treat them as outsiders to the national community. This assumption, as seen in Brignoni-Ponce, may affect analysis of immigration and immigration enforcement issues deeply impacting Latina/os.

Importantly, a Latina/o on the Supreme Court might well bring a unique perspective to bear on the analysis of substantive bodies of law in which issues of race arise more subtly than in immigration law. Although facially neutral, and therefore presumably lawful, English-only laws can be employed to attack Latina/os or, at a minimum, adversely affect the Latina/o community. For example, in Hernandez v. New York, the Court held that a prosecutor could constitutionally use peremptory challenges to strike Spanish-speaking jurors in a criminal case that required the translation of Spanish into English; with all Spanish-speakers excluded, a Latina/o defendant was denied a jury that included any Latina/os.

A Latina/o also might look differently than others at various civil rights issues, including those implicated by criminal law enforcement. The recent growth of Latina/o civil rights scholarship demonstrates that Latina/os have civil rights concerns different and apart from those of other racial minorities. For this reason, it should not be surprising that the experiences of Latina/os on the state and federal bench arguably have influenced their legal analysis.

In essence, the Supreme Court has lacked a Latina/o voice and perspective. To this point, for example, no Supreme Court Justice has emphasized for Latina/os, as Justice Marshall consistently did for African Americans, the long history of segregation and discrimination against Mexican Americans in the Southwest or the racism directed at Puerto Ricans on and off the island. Such deficiencies are more likely to be remedied by a Latina/o Justice than one of any other background.

Moreover, perhaps most importantly, the appointment of a Latina/o to the Supreme Court would signal a movement toward full membership for Latina/os in American social life, just as Thurgood Marshall's appointment signaled for African Americans. The naming of a Latina/o Justice in and of itself would symbolize the growing inclusion of Latina/os in the respectable mainstream, rather than simply the entertainment industry. Such a development would be particularly important to Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans, two Latina/o national origin sub-groups that historically have been denied access to the highest echelons of U.S. society.

Unfortunately, messages of Latina/o exclusion in the legal profession run rampant. Few Latina/os can be found on the state and federal bench. Only a handful have served as a law clerk to a Supreme Court Justice, a prestigious credential held by many of the nation's leading attorneys and judges. Severely under-represented in elite corporate law firms, Latina/os comprise only about 140 of all law professors in the United States. The traditional paths to the Court thus have been unavailable to Latina/os. The first Latina/o Justice could not help but to encourage the fuller integration of the legal profession and send a powerful message that Latina/os in fact must be treated as full members of U.S. society.

In this vein, appointment of a Latina/o to the Supreme Court would go far to make "visible" the relatively "invisible" Latina/o community in the United States.
Public attention to the nomination itself would direct attention to the growing Latina/o national presence. The questioning of a Latina/o nominee by Senators in confirmation hearings would likely highlight Latina/o civil rights concerns. Such a high visibility platform might well have a lasting impact on the national consciousness

Institutional Racism and White by Law

"Racist" and "racism" are provocative words in American society. To some, these words have reached the level of curse words in their offensiveness. Yet, "racist" and "racism" are descriptive words of a reality that cannot be denied. African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans and Asian Americans (people-of-color) live daily with the effects of both institutional and individual racism.

Race issues are so fundamental in American society that they seem almost an integral component. Some Americans believe that race is the primary determinant of human abilities and capacities. Some Americans behave as if racial differences produce inherent superiority in European Americans (whites). In fact, such individuals respond to people-of-color and whites differently merely because of race (or ethnicity). As a consequence, people of color are injured by judgments or actions that are directly or indirectly racist.

Much of the attention of the last 40 years has focused on individual racist behavior. However, just as individuals can act in racist ways, so can institutions.

Institutions can behave in ways that are overtly racist (i.e., specifically excluding people-of-color from services) or inherently racist (i.e., adopting policies that while not specifically directed at excluding people-of-color, nevertheless result in their exclusion).

Therefore, institutions can respond to people-of-color and whites differently. Institutional behavior can injure people-of-color; and, when it does, it is nonetheless racist in outcome if not in intent

In its first words on the subject of citizenship, Congress in 1790 restricted naturalization to "white persons." Though the requirements for naturalization changed frequently thereafter, this racial prerequisite to citizenship endured for over a century and a half, remaining in force until 1952. From the earliest years of this country until just a generation ago, being a "white person" was a condition for acquiring citizenship.

Whether one was "white," however, was often no easy question. As immigration reached record highs at the turn of this century, countless people found themselves arguing their racial identity in order to naturalize. From 1907, when the federal government began collecting data on naturalization, until 1920, over one million people gained citizenship under the racially restrictive naturalization laws. Many more sought to naturalize and were rejected.

Naturalization rarely involved formal court proceedings and therefore usually generated few if any written records beyond the simple decision. However, a number of cases construing the "white person" prerequisite reached the highest state and federal judicial circles, and two were argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1920s. These cases produced illuminating published decisions that document the efforts of would-be citizens from around the world to establish their Whiteness at law. Applicants from Hawaii, China, Japan, Burma, and the Philippines, as well as all mixed-race applicants, failed in their arguments. Conversely, courts ruled that applicants from Mexico and Armenia were "white," but vacillated over the Whiteness of petitioners from Syria, India, and Arabia. Seen as a taxonomy of Whiteness, these cases are instructive because they reveal the imprecisions and contradictions inherent in the establishment of racial lines between White and non-Whites.

Although now largely forgotten, the prerequisite cases were at the center of racial debates in the United States for the fifty years following the Civil War, when immigration and nativism were both running high. Naturalization laws figured prominently in the furor over the appropriate status of the newcomers and were heatedly discussed not only by the most respected public figures of the day, but also in the swirl of popular politics.
Debates about racial prerequisites to citizenship arose at the end of the Civil War when Senator Charles Sumner sought to expunge Dred Scott, the Supreme Court decision which had held that Blacks were not citizens, by striking any reference to race from the naturalization statute. His efforts failed because of racial animosity in much of Congress toward Asians and Native Americans.

The persistence of anti-Asian agitation through the early 1900s kept the prerequisite laws at the forefront of national and even international attention. Efforts in San Francisco to segregate Japanese schoolchildren, for example, led to a crisis in relations with Japan that prompted President Theodore Roosevelt to propose legislation granting Japanese immigrants to right to naturalize.
Controversy over the prerequisite laws also found voice in popular politics.

Anti-immigrant groups such as the Asiatic Exclusion League formulated arguments for restrictive interpretations of the "white person" prerequisite, for example claiming in 1910 that Asian Indians were not "white," but an "effeminate, caste-ridden, and degraded" race who did not deserve citizenship. For their part, immigrants also participated in the debates on naturalization, organizing civic groups around the issue of citizenship, writing in the immigrant press, and lobbying local, state, and federal governments.

The principal locus of the debate, however, was in the courts. From the first prerequisite case in 1878 until racial restrictions were removed in 1952, fifty-two racial prerequisite cases were reported, including two heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. Framing fundamental questions about who could join the citizenry in terms of who was White, these cases attracted some of the most renowned jurists of the times. . . . .

Though the courts offered many different rationales to justify the various racial divisions they advanced, two predominated: common knowledge and scientific evidence. . . . "Common knowledge" rationales appealed to popular, widely held conceptions of races and racial divisions. . . . Under a common knowledge approach, courts justified the assignment of petitioners to one race or another by reference to common beliefs about race.

The common knowledge rationale contrasts with reasoning based on supposedly objective, technical, and specialized knowledge. Such "scientific evidence" rationales justified racial divisions by reference to the naturalistic studies of humankind. . . . These rationales, one appealing to common knowledge and the other to scientific evidence, were the two core approaches used by courts to explain their determinations of whether individuals belonged to the "white" race. . . .

The first reported racial prerequisite decision was handed down in 1878. From then until the end of racial restrictions on naturalization in 1952, courts decided fifty-one more prerequisite cases. These decisions were rendered in jurisdictions across the nation, from state courts in California to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., and concerned applicants from a variety of countries, including Canada, Mexico, Japan, the Philippines, India, and Syria. all but one of these cases presented claims of White racial identity.

Arpaio racial profiling continue at higher levels.!!!!!!!!!!!!


Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies targeted non-permitted food vendors selling contaminated products in Maryvale.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the goal of Thursday's special enforcement operation was to stop vendors from selling foods not prepared or maintained in compliance with the federal health code, putting consumers at risk of food borne illnesses.

"These non-permitted food vendors are a serious health risk for anyone who buys their food products," said Arpaio. "I said before that I would continue to monitor the issue and I am."

MCSO said the operation comes at the request of the Maricopa County Environmental Services Department. Its field operation employees claim said they've attempted to regulate these vendors, but have been run off by the cart operators.

As of late Thursday night, MCSO reported that at least 12 vendors had been arrested, all of them undocumented immigrants.

During a similar operation in September 2007, deputies discovered that several food cart businesses were being operated by undocumented immigrants connected to drop houses in the west Phoenix area.

During that roundup, 20 people were arrested. Of those, 18 were found to be in the U.S. illegally and 15 of those were non-permitted vendors.

Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas is working with the Sheriff's Office to prosecute those who put the public's health at risk.
I want to clarified that there is no back up or data to confirm how many people were or are sick last or this year at consecuenquences of the food.

Joe Arpaio said it's an Honor to be called K.K.K.


Lou Dobbs and Joe Arpaio agrees that someone called you K.K.K. member is an Honor. Seems to me that their eating from the same enchilada then. Are you reading their lips? I know were they minds are for sure..

Enforce the Rule of Law.....It's getting ugly out there.
Hate crime against Hispanics has been rising at top levels.!!!!!!!!.




We see too often Hispanic leaders, Immigration advocates and Hispanics has been receiving a Death Threats, hate mail, do to their position and support on Comprehensive Immigration reform.

For North Carolina's Hispanic leaders, the biggest hazards of the job were once long hours. Now, they include death threats.
A pair of the state's most prominent advocates, Andrea Bazán and Tony Asion, say that for the past several months, each time they have spoken publicly, they have gotten a raft of profanity-laced messages, some of them exhorting them to return to their home countries and others denigrating Hispanics. Several legislators say they have also gotten messages recently that cross the line into racism, and one got a menacing voice mail.

Threats of violence are becoming common enough that Bazán, president of the philanthropic Triangle Community Foundation, has requested protection at some public appearances. Asion, director of the Raleigh Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo and a former police officer, said he has received two handwritten death threats at his office since May.

This is not about immigration," Bazán said. "This is not about debating policy. This has moved on to another sphere. This is hate."

Bazán and others say they've gotten disturbing hate mail before. A 2005 effort to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants brought reams of it, but that furor died down fairly quickly. Now, they say, threats and racist messages are becoming routine.

State legislators who supported a bill this year that would have guaranteed illegal immigrants the right to attend state colleges got a raft of messages, some of which smeared immigrants.

Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she received one phone message warning that "my days are numbered." She said the message, which included profane insults, felt like a threat.

"I have not seen anything like what illegal immigration elicits," Harrison said. "It's revealing a very ugly side of humanity that I've never seen before."

Beyond the crackdown

Immigration has become an especially controversial subject in North Carolina and across the nation, fueled by the failure of a federal immigration reform bill last year.

Since then, sheriff's departments have started enforcing immigration law, the state's community colleges have barred admission to illegal immigrants, grassroots groups opposing illegal immigration have grown and some politicians have made an immigration crackdown the centerpiece of their campaigns.

Even those who have advocated a crackdown say they don't condone hate mail or threats.

"Certainly, any kind of threatening or antagonistic tone to any debate is unwarranted," said Brian Nick, spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who has joined with sheriffs to push for the deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
But some say anti-illegal immigration activists have given the impression that Hispanics are to blame for all of society's ills, including crime, illness and unemployment.

Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, a New York group founded in 1913 to combat prejudice against Jews, said the ideas and language that have come to define the debate could fuel fringe groups.

"When you describe immigrants as Third World invaders or murderers, or say that they are swarming or coming in hordes, this is dehumanizing language," Lauter said. "That kind of rhetoric inspires others who might act out on hate."

William Gheen, a Raleigh man who has built a grassroots organization to oppose illegal immigration, often accuses Hispanic immigrants of carrying deadly diseases, raping and murdering Americans, plotting to merge the American and Mexican economies, or even reconquer parts of the Southwest for Mexico. He organizes e-mail campaigns against those he doesn't agree with.

Gheen said he does not condone violence or racism and has never made threats, and he dismissed claims that groups such as his could spark threats. "The only violence I'm seeing are the dead, maimed and raped Americans ... that are victims of illegal aliens," Gheen said.
However, other anti-illegal immigration activists say the movement has developed an ugly side.

"Something has gotten distorted, and it's creating a lot of hate," said Jim Gilchrist, the Southern California founder of the Minuteman Project, which organizes citizen patrols of the Mexican border.

Gilchrist said there are extremists on both sides of the issue and that he has received threatening messages from people on the pro-immigrant side of the debate. But lately, he said, he gets more hate mail from people on his side of the issue. He said groups are now fighting among themselves, and some have adopted messages that he considers racist.

Gilchrist said one California Minuteman chapter made a fake video depicting its members shooting a Mexican crossing the border illegally.

Blogs as soapboxes

Bazán said that in the past few months, she has gotten several nasty calls at home and has been the subject of violent talk on blogs, where she was referred to as a target.

The talk frightened her enough that she sent her children to stay with her ex-husband and stayed away from home for several days in June, when it was announced that she was the new board chairwoman of the well-known Hispanic advocacy group National Council of La Raza.

On the day of the announcement, a person commenting on one blog about her new post commanded others to "buy guns" and referred to Hispanic immigrants as "monkeys." "The time is coming to fight back and yes many will die in this fight," the comment read.

Bazán said she has met with Durham police to make them aware of the threats.

When she speaks publicly, a guard often protects her. She had a full-time private guard last week at a La Raza convention in San Diego.

Bazán, along with some other Hispanic advocates, said they have begun reporting messages they consider hateful to the state Human Relations Commission.

G.I. Allison, director of the commission, which was formed to ensure equal opportunity in housing and other areas, said he receives regular complaints of hate messages and threats against Hispanics. The commission recorded 38 hate incidents in the first half of this year, but it doesn't track how many are against Hispanics.

Asion said he frequently receives messages that he considers racist, but the recent death threats were the most troubling.

The author claims to be watching Asion, threatens bombings and dismemberment, invokes the Ku Klux Klan and commands Asion to "go home Mexico."

Asion said he hasn't gone to police because there is little they can do. But he said he now fears for his staff members.

"I tell my folks, if you get a box and it doesn't have a return address, you don't know where it's from, don't open it," Asion said. "These are the times that we're living through."

ICE Raids: The Mechanism and effects in Childrens.



When ICE and immigration officials began a series of raids on meatpacking plants and other immigrant-heavy workplaces, they triggered a series of events which affected not just undocumented students, but entire schools.

Immigrants speak out against Racism and Xenophobia.


PAWTUCKET — Racism and xenophobia are contributing to a Rhode Island social climate in which immigrants are regarded as the villains, speakers at a pro-immigration rally said yesterday.

“We build walls for people who have to leave their country for economic reasons,” said Gladys Gould of the Providence Presbyterian Church, one of a number of organizations that took part in “Unite for Fairness,” held at the Pawtucket Visitors Center. “You don’t see them going after the Irish. The difference is, the police will stop us because of the way we look. It is all about race,” said Gould, a native of the Dominican Republic.

About 90 persons attended the rally.

Gould said, “This is a nation of immigrants. It’s part of our history. But immigration trends have changed in the last hundred years. The global economy, driven by U.S.-based corporations and free trade agreements like NAFTA, has created a new reality in immigrants’ countries of origin. These agreements have hurt workers on either side of the border and have created conditions of poverty and urgency for people to migrate.”

“I think it is time we talked about what is the Rhode Island we want to be in and live in,” said Ellen Gallagher of the International Institute, in Providence. “We think it’s a Rhode Island that values communities and all Rhode Islanders, including immigrants.”

Gallagher said that many immigrants do not understand that if their spouse is a U.S. citizen, they might be able to acquire legal status or citizenship for themselves. “Unfortunately,” she said, “due to serious backlogs in processing immigration and citizenship applications, many people seeking legal status have been unable to achieve this goal.”

Patrick Crowley, of the Rhode Island National Education Association, said, “The real problems in Rhode Island are about job creation, not immigration.”

He said immigrants in the Ocean State pay taxes, invest in real estate and contribute to the state’s economy.

“And yet there are unscrupulous employers who use people’s immigration status as a means to exploit workers and abandon wage and hour laws. For a strong Rhode Island, we need to enforce our state’s wage and hour law, not take federal immigration law into our own hands.”

Ivette Luna, of Ocean State Action, said Rhode Island “is filled with fear and anti-immigrant ideas.” She said “statements of hate” are frequently expressed on talk radio shows.

“The people on the hill,” she said, referring to the state government, “are feeding into anti-immigrant statements. The key is education. We need the true facts. It’s all about human. We all are people. We are all immigrants. An injustice to one is an injustice to all.”

Latino Activists Face Death Threats in Georgia.





The threats have only spurred Latino activists to join forces across racial lines to challenge the state's growing anti-immigrant climate. By Judith Martinez

Continue reading here:.http://www.alternet.org/immigration/86483/
Spanish Read here:. http://www.atlantalatino.com/detail.php?id=9057

Anti-illegal immigrant group CCFIILE likened to neo-Nazis. By Peter Reuell/Daily News staff.



FRAMINGHAM — Local Anti Immigration group CCFIILE is an extremist, nativist group that has attracted a number of hard-core racists and neo-Nazis, an investigation by the Southern Poverty Law Center has found.

The investigation, published yesterday in the group's quarterly magazine, found CCFIILE, or Concerned Citizens and Friends of Illegal Immigration Law Enforcement, has targeted Brazilians throughout the region.

Co-founder Jim Rizoli yesterday dismissed the report.

"It's not true," he said. "I read what the SPLC wrote, and it's laughable. It's laughable what they wrote."

The report details links between CCFIILE and other extremist groups.

"There are ties between the CCFIILE membership and blatantly white supremacist and anti-black groups," the report reads.

At least two prominent CCFIILE members Kevin O'Neil and John Kennedy are also members of the Council of Conservative Citizens, the SPLC report found.

Among the platforms of the Council of Conservative Citizens is "oppos(ition to ) all efforts to mix the races of mankind." The group has also called blacks "a retrograde species of humanity," according to statements in the SPLC report. O'Neil is the leader of the CCC's regional New England Council.

CCFIILE's Web site has also apparently been a frequent destination for Mark Martin, head of the Ohio division of the neo-Nazi National Socialist Movement.

Posting under an alias on a site maintained by the group, Martin advocated violence against minorities, even suggesting putting a bounty on their heads and "shooting them for sport," according to the SPLC report

Rizoli yesterday insisted he quickly removes such offensive postings from the group's site.

"First of all, my list is an open list," he said. "I don't even know some of the people on that list. One day someone posted something about killing or hurting illegal immigrants. I said, 'That's absolutely wrong.'

"I took him off the list immediately. I will not tolerate violence to anybody on my list. I will not tolerate anything like that."

Electronic records, though, suggest otherwise.

Martin's message suggesting shooting minorities for sport was posted to the CCFIILE site in November 2007, but was not downloaded by SPLC investigators until mid-January, records show, meaning Rizoli allowed it to remain on the site for at least two months.

In another case, a flier created by the National Socialist Movement was posted on the CCFIILE site. Typically such files can only be posted by site administrators, according to SPLC investigators.

Rizoli, for his part, said he merely maintains the list, and simply cannot monitor every message as it is posted.

"I'm probably looking at that list a good hour a day," he said. "My list is a place where people can have freedom of speech, and I let them have freedom of speech. When I see it's of a violent nature, I take it down, that's all I can say."

While he insisted he removed the offensive postings from the site, Rizoli also suggested many of the statements may have been posted by SPLC staff hoping to bait CCFIILE members into making racist statements.

"They were posting things to cause people to react," he said. "I get this (investigation) and then all of the sudden everybody knows what's going on on the site."

It was a charge SPLC editor Mark Potok rejected out of hand.

"That is utter and complete hogwash," Potok said yesterday. "Rizoli can think of any conspiracy he wants to think of to explain the posting in his own group. We didn't do that. This is what CCFIILE is, we're merely trying to show the world."
To read Southern Poverty Law Center's report, go to www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=882

Federal Immigration jurisdiction know under police Jurisdiction=Racial Profile, Improper identification, Humilliation and create fear amongs people of color other than White.

Neglected wave of oppresion, crime against our Mexican American History.



As the struggle for immigrant equality and justice is waged in the streets and heated debate fills Congress, a wave of hate crime has been unleashed upon the Mexican/Chicano community in the Southwest, a violent wave not without precedent in U.S. history. This “open season” declared by white supremacists, haters and xenophobes given the pretext of the ultra-right nationally fabricated “immigrant crisis” was witnessed in the April 22 assault on a 16-year-old Mexican American boy near Houston. The young Mexican American suffered through a 15-minute attack in which the attackers shouted ethnic slurs and which included head-stomping with steel- toed boots and sodomization with the sharpened plastic tube of a patio umbrella, which was later filled with bleach and administered onto the young victim. After this modern day lynching the youth was left for 10 hours before an ambulance was called.

David Tuck, 18, and Keith Turner, 17, may be convicted of capital murder if the juvenile football team star at Klein Collins High School dies, along with the aggravated sexual assault charges they currently face. Texas prosecutors, representing a state with an ominous record of anti-Mexican/Chicano institutional racism, have refused to seek hate crime charges against the pair. Says County Prosecutor Mike Trent, “Whether it is one or isn’t a hate crime, and it may be, that will make no difference here.”

Since the year 2000, the FBI has reported over 2,500 hate crimes against Latinos based on race and ethnicity — and how many more have gone unreported? The pattern of anti-Latino violence suggests that hate crimes against Mexicans/Chicanos continue unabated. This climate of hate, according to the Anti-Defamation League, has been stoked by “the extreme fringe of the anti-immigration movement [which] includes white supremacist groups, anti-Hispanic hate groups masquerading as immigration reform groups, and vigilante border patrol groups who have conducted armed patrols along the borders of the United States.”

The hate crimes of this far-right sector — aroused with the current rhetoric of “immigrant invasion,” “Mexican territorial expansion” and “race war” suggested by the corporate media in conjunction with ultra-right political forces currently exercising power — are deeply rooted in the history of the U.S. Southwest and for the Mexicans/Chicanos are only the latest incarnation of what has existed since the beginning.

It is an often-neglected part of U.S. history and the Mexican/Chicano civil rights struggle that following the Manifest Destiny-inspired 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, in which Mexico lost over half of its territory to the U.S., the violence against and lynchings of Mexicans in the territory now known as the “U.S. Southwest” began.

In the period following U.S. colonialization of the Southwest, Rodolfo Acuna, author of “Occupied America, a History of the Chicanos,” writes, “lynching became commonplace and Mexicans came to know Euroamerican democracy as ‘Linchocracia.’”

With no political power or social standing in the new nation, the Mexicans whom the border “crossed over” had no recourse or protection as the wrecking ball of corrupt individuals and institutions of the new nation waged class and race warfare with impunity. Suggests Luis Angel Toro of the University of Dayton, “The Anglos who poured into Texas and the rest of the Southwest brought their apparatus of racial terror, developed to hold the African American people in bondage, to the newly conquered territories. Mexicans became frequent victims of beatings and lynching.” Records indicate the disturbing statistic that between 1848 and 1870, 473 out of every 100,000 Mexicans in the Southwest died from lynchings.

In 1884 Mexicans around Fort Davis, Texas, fled daily lynchings as area Anglos, spurred on by the racist Texas Rangers (“los Pinches Rinches”), voiced the opinion that the lynchings should continue until the Southwest was rid of Mexicans. The hateful climate was further exacerbated as poor Mexican immigrants, refugees of the Mexican Revolution, poured into the Southwest from 1910-1930 for agricultural and other low-wage, unskilled-labor jobs.

These workers were forced to settle into communities that did not care for their presence. In communities that were told the Mexicans were only staying temporarily, Mexicans suffered segregation and victimization, and were despised by the surrounding white population. This abuse of Mexican laborers eventually escalated into racial oppression comparable to that of African Americans in the Jim Crow South. Tony Dunbar and Linda Kravitz suggest in “Hard Traveling,” “For a Mexican living in America from 1882 to 1930, the chance of being a victim of mob violence was equal to those of an African American living in the South.”

Today the culture of violence and racism seeded over 150 years ago is being revisited upon the Mexican/Chicano in the Southwest with a renewed impetus fostered by groups like the Minutemen, the American Patrol and the Arizona Ranchers Alliance. The Houston hate crime is a symptom of this culture of hate coming out of a long and shameful tradition. The drive for equality for Mexicans/Chicanos and for all immigrants will not be stopped by such incidents. They will only intensify the united struggle for justice, and for making our common history as a colonized and oppressed people more widely known. “El Movimiento” will only continue to build

Some Americans do not understand why the sight of a noose causes such a visceral reaction among so many people. Bush condemns racial provocations.




Honoring African American History Month, he says noose displays and lynching jokes 'have no place in America today.'

WASHINGTON -- Responding to a rash of racial incidents in the last year, President Bush on Tuesday denounced displays of nooses and jokes about lynching, and said that as past racial injustice fades in memory, the nation risked forgetting the suffering it brought.
The president's remarks, at a White House program marking African American History Month, were among his most pointed in recent years on the subject of racial tensions.

They grew out of concern, his spokeswoman said, that even as the nation made progress toward overcoming racial inequality, symbols of past injustice still flared up.

The president's focus on race coincides with the attention being devoted to the role of race in politics, with Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in contention to be the first African American candidate to receive a major political party's presidential nomination. He is drawing the support of a cross section of voters and is finding a deep well of votes in states with large white populations.

"The era of rampant lynching is a shameful chapter in American history. The noose is not a symbol of prairie justice, but of gross injustice. Displaying one is not a harmless prank. And lynching is not a word to be mentioned in jest," Bush said.

"As a civil society, we must understand that noose displays and lynching jokes are deeply offensive," the president added. "They are wrong. And they have no place in America today."

Bush, who leaves on Friday for his second trip as president to sub-Saharan Africa, saluted four African Americans: Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), who was a leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s; former Transportation Secretary William T. Coleman Jr., the first black to clerk on the Supreme Court and the first to hold a Cabinet post in a Republican administration; Ernest Green, who with eight other African American students integrated Little Rock, Ark.'s Central High School in 1957; and Otis Williams of The Temptations, the singers who drew fans across racial lines.

White House Press Secretary Dana Perino, citing news accounts, said there had been more than 70 reports of nooses being displayed since December 2006.

The Justice Department said that the agency, along with state and local officials, had investigated "dozens" of noose displays and other racially motivated threats.

In perhaps the most infamous recent incident, the town of Jena, La., was roiled after three nooses were hung from a tree that had long been a gathering point of white students.

Bush said the reports of such activities had heightened racial tensions and "revealed that some Americans do not understand why the sight of a noose causes such a visceral reaction among so many people."

He noted that for decades it had been a tool of murder and intimidation directed at African Americans, when "summary executions were held by torchlight in front of hateful crowds," with law enforcement officers who were responsible for protecting the victims instead being "complicit in . . . their deaths

Minorities say subtle racism remains, bias shows daily.

LEWISTON (AP) - Minorities in the area say several recent incidents of hate crimes show racial insensitivity still remains.They say American Indians, blacks and whites still put up walls because of ignorance or insensitivity.

Wendy Diessner of the Lewiston-Clarkston YWCA, which serves as a clearinghouse, says her agency fields about 10 complaints a year of racism that aren't felony malicious harassment.

37-year-old Jeanette Weaskus is the daughter of a white mother and a Nez Perce father. She studies race issues as a Washington State University doctoral student. She says many people believe they are good, but can be subtly racist.

Dean Davis, who is black, says racism is discrete. He says the recent case of a mother and daughter shouting "white power" during a fight with an American Indian teenage girl shows progress is slow to come.

Alan Marshall, a Nez Perce social scientist and professor at Lewis-Clark State College, says people of European ancestry may unintentionally say or do things that hurt American Indians. He says the frequency of racially charged incidents has declined as tribal influence has grown in the last three decades

That type of prank is unjustifiable, and it’s wrong and it’s just distasteful. It is sad. It is primarily a black neighborhood.



The racist scribbling scratched onto the face of the Pay Less grocery store on West Nichol Street is easy to miss. The disturbing symbols and letters symbolizing oppression and hatred are strangely hidden within a symbol for freedom and equality — the American flag.

The hate-laced graffiti was discovered on Thursday after a local resident alerted Madison County NAACP President James Burgess.
The grocery store was closed on July 21, 2007, and a painting in the front window celebrates Independence Day, the last holiday observed before the location was shut down.
The patriotic mural depicts two American flags centered around the word “celebrate.” Scratched into a curved, white stripe on the American flag are the words, “white power.” Just beneath the lettering is a Nazi swastika next to a “KKK” symbol. Below that, the letters “AVC” are written. It is unclear whether this is the signature of the vandal or an acronym for white supremacy.
The building’s owners said they weren’t sure where the symbols came from, but vowed to take them off the window immediately.
When Burgess arrived at the scene of the vandalism on Thursday morning, he was joined by two black residents of the west side Anderson community. The three men peered into the empty store and glared at the chilling symbols.
One of Burgess’ associates was moved by the display but fearful of allowing his name to be printed in the newspaper, suggesting that it would be unsafe to do so.
“This is part of my history,” the man said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ruined mural. “I grew up in Mississippi.”
The 61-year-old man said he had lived through segregation in the south and that the stigma of racism had stayed with him.
“It’s hard to trust the Caucasian race. I’m not saying everybody is bad ... but we were belittled. We were brought up to think we were inferior.”
The display of racism does not surprise him. “This is no surprise. I like to think I know people. There was a time in my life when I learned to accept this. I thought I was inferior until I went to a junior college in California.”
He expressed on Thursday that the vandalism was not only offensive due to its content, but also because of its location. “This is a black neighborhood. I pay taxes here.”
For Burgess, the vandalism represented more than a harmless prank. “Yes, it offends me. It’s a crime to me.”
As leader of the local NAACP, Burgess said he was focused on changing laws concerning race-motivated vandalism. “We would like to make legislation where this does become criminal.”
As for the vandals, Burgess has an idea of the reasoning behind the graffiti. “They would call this First Amendment — freedom of speech

Ollie Dixon, who serves the west side on the Anderson City Council, says the focus should be placed on finding the vandals

“That type of prank is unjustifiable, and it’s wrong and it’s just distasteful. It is sad, but I would like to find out who is responsible. It is primarily a black neighborhood and again, I think the owners ought to be confronted and find out who has access and whoever did that should be punished and brought to justice.”
Neyer Management is in charge of maintaining the property for its owner, Nicholl Avenue LLC. Jerold Surdahl of Neyer explained on Thursday that the company had not noticed the vandalism, even though area youths who discovered the markings said they’d been on the window for months. The management firm plans to immediately remove the graffiti. “I’ll do what I can to get it gone, probably today,” Surdahl said on Thursday.
Vandalism at the location is nothing new. The building is covered in explicit markings and large white spots where maintenance workers attempted to cover the graffiti. According to Surdahl, the swastika and racist lettering represent the first race-motivated vandalism to the property.
So far, the owners and managers of the building have no idea who could’ve vandalized the window. The building is still being leased by Kroger. According to Surdahl, this equates to a lot of keys and a lot of people with access to the building.
“I have been in touch with the management at Kroger, and neither of us know who would have had access there. There could have been a number of keys that escaped captivity. I will have it removed as soon as possible

Conflicting and poisoned data on crime and Immigration has been presented to Texas legistators from Anti Immigrants groups (C.I.S). It's time to look for real solutions to a real problems not to skewed numbers to fit their political and Anti Immigrant Agenda.

A public hearing Friday on immigrants in Texas jails and prisons shed light on holes in the criminal justice pipelines, state and local, and the lack of information on the legal status of those behind bars.

The Texas House on corrections and the Committee on County Affairs held the all-day hearing at the University of Texas at Dallas to attempt to determine:
• Whether the state has a problem in the prison system.
• What the dividing line is between state and federal authorities.
• The cost for people who are arrested and charged with felonies and convicted of felonies.
• Whether state agencies are coordinating with one another.

More than 200 people turned out Friday. And as expected, emotions ran high on illegal immigration and alleged racial profiling of Hispanics, amid readings of statistics and contradictory reports.

Some even questioned why the hearing – the first of several around the state – was held.
Others urged legislators not to be soft on crime committed by those in the U.S. illegally.

"Texas legislators must step up and become more accountable," said Jean Towell, president and co-founder of Dallas-based Citizens for Immigration Reform. Those in the U.S. illegally who have committed nonviolent crimes should not be given early release and they should be deported as well, Ms. Towell said.

Legislators were presented with two contradictory studies on crime and immigration. One study, co-authored by Ruben Rumbaut of the University of California at Irvine, looked at incarceration rates among young men and showed those rates to be the lowest for immigrants, even those who are the least educated.

Another, authored by Carl Horowitz, of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C., research center, said that criminal gangs with ties to immigrant communities are a problem "understated" in crime statistics and that immigrants are less likely to report crime, according to a presentation by one speaker.
Taking a break after six hours of testimony, Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, said that there are problems in the notification of federal immigration officials and problems in getting documentation on the foreign-born.
"So that is clearly one of the areas we will look at," said Mr. Madden, chairman of the Texas House Corrections Committee.
The Texas Legislature meets in regular session every other year; its next regular session will begin in January 2009.

At least one state lawmaker was troubled by the hearing altogether.
State Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston and a member of the House County Affairs Committee, questioned whether his colleagues were using the issue to gain political leverage.
"I would rather that you arrest a guy who is a murderer ... than a person over here who is trying to find work," he told his fellow legislators.
Mr. Coleman said that he believed the hearing wouldn't have been held if the discussion focused on Irish immigrants.

Outside the university chamber hall, Mr. Coleman said there was a distinction between criminal law and immigration law, and that arresting people on immigration violations wasted resources.
Illegal immigrants are being deported when caught for Class C misdemeanors, such as traffic violations, Mr. Coleman said.
"It's not about black people anymore," he said. "It's about gays, Mexican-Americans and Latin Americans."

Speaker after speaker addressed procedures by local police and county probation officers.
Repeatedly, they raised the role of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is the prime agency authorized to place a hold on those held at a jail or state prison or on probation, speakers noted.
"Why aren't they here?" asked state Rep. Jim McReynolds, D-Lufkin.
A spokesman for ICE, Carl Rusnok, said Homeland Security policy prohibits ICE from testifying at state hearings. But he added that ICE "makes every effort to ensure that state legislators have information about ICE and our operations."
Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, said that of the 155,000 prisoners in the Texas Prison System, about 6 percent to 7 percent are foreign-born. But it is ICE's job to determine the citizenship status of those foreign-born inmates and whether they are in the U.S. legally, he said.

Within the more than 200 jails in Texas, statistical record-keeping is not as precise.
Adan Muñoz, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said there were no definitive numbers on the foreign-born or the percentage of illegal immigrants in local jails.
State Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, repeatedly questioned whether lines are blurred even further during arrests and even during ICE holds. Mr. Alonzo said he knew of a case in which a U.S. citizen was placed on an ICE hold.
Some in the audience were pleased by stepped-up law enforcement by local authorities.
Sue Richardson, a leader of a Republican club in Irving, praised the collaboration of Irving police with ICE in a program known as the Criminal Alien Program, or CAP.
"Never lose sight of the fact that you're to protect citizens of state, not illegal aliens," she said.
Authorities have to do something about the drug traffickers and terrorists living illegally in the country, she said, prompting a member of the committee to ask how many of the illegal immigrants in Irving are drug dealers or terrorists.
"I don't know what they are," she said. "You'd have to ask our police

Hate Crimes Rise 8 Percent 2005-06, FBI Says

Hate crime incidents in the United States rose last year by nearly 8 percent, the FBI reported Monday, as racial prejudice continued to account for more than half the reported instances.

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a particular race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from the 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.

Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at Jena, La., high school occurred in the last half of 2006, they were not included in the report. Only 12,600 of the nation's more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting. justice protest

Nevertheless, the Jena incidents, and a rash of subsequent noose incidents around the country, have spawned civil rights protests in Louisiana and last week at Justice Department headquarters here. The department said it investigated the incident but decided not to prosecute because the federal government does not typically bring hate crime charges against juveniles.

The Jena case began in August 2006 after a black student sat under a tree known as a gathering spot for white students. Three white students later hung nooses from the tree. They were suspended by the school but not prosecuted. Six black teenagers, however, were charged by LaSalle Parish prosecutor Reed Walters with attempted second-degree murder of a white student who was beaten unconscious in December 2006. The charges have since been reduced to aggravated second-degree assault, but civil rights protesters have complained that no charges were filed against the white students who hung the nooses.

The Justice Department says it is actively investigating a number of noose incidents at schools, work places and neighborhoods around the country. It says "a noose is a powerful symbol of hate and racially motivated violence" recalling the days of lynchings of blacks and that it can constitute a federal civil rights offense under some circumstances.

The FBI report does not break out the number of noose incidents but the two most frequent hate crimes in 2006 were property damage or vandalism, at 2,911 offenses, and intimidation, at 2,046 offenses. There were 860 aggravated assaults and 1,447 simple assaults. There were three murders, 6 rapes and 41 arsons. Other offenses included robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft.

The 7,722 criminal hate crime incidents involved 9,080 specific criminal offenses, include 5,449 against individuals, 3,593 against property and 38 classified as against society at large. An incident can involve attacks on both people and property.

As has been the case since the FBI began collecting hate crime data in 1991, the most frequent motivation was racial bias, accounting for 51.8 percent of the incidents in 2006. That was down slightly from the 54.7 percent in 2005.

Also in 2006, religious bias was blamed for 18.9 percent of the incidents; sexual orientation bias for 15.5 percent, and ethnic or national origin for 12.7 percent.

Of the 7,330 offenders identified by police, 58.6 percent were white, 20.6 percent were black, 12.9 percent were of unknown racial background and other races accounted for the remainder.

The greatest percentage of incidents, 31 percent, occurred near residences or homes. Another 18 percent occurred on highways or streets, 12.2 percent at colleges or schools, 6.1 percent in parking lots or garages, 3.9 percent at churches, synagogues or temples. The remainder occurred at other specific locations, multiple locations or unknown locations.

Lack of full participation by the more than 17,000 police agencies around the nation somewhat undermines year-to-year comparisons.

For instance, in 2004, 12,711 agencies reported 7,649 incidents. In 2005, only 12,417agencies reported and incidents dropped 6 percent to 7,163. But in 2006, agencies reporting rose to 12,620 and incidents climbed 7.8 percent to 7,722.

Deputies accused of ethnic profiling. Is not what Mr. Joe Arpaio trained them for...Right, Just Hispanics, Mexicans...


A Phoenix man has accused the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office of ethnic profiling after he was arrested during a crackdown on crime in east Phoenix.

Israel Correa, 28, a Latino activist and one-time candidate for Maryvale justice of the peace, was arrested Friday when his vehicle was stopped near 36th Street and Thomas Road.

Correa believes he was targeted for his ethnicity, but an MCSO report says he was pulled over because his car's headlights didn't work.

According to the report, a deputy asked for Correa's identification, and Correa replied that he had none. The report says that Correa then demanded an explanation of why he was pulled over and asked if the deputy was going to deport him.

When Correa again did not show ID, the deputy placed him in handcuffs. By the time he showed his driver's license, it was too late.

Correa was booked into jail on suspicion of failure to provide identification.

While in jail, Correa said, he was taunted by Sheriff's Office personnel because of his Spanish accent. He said he was set to be released at 6 a.m. but was told he could not leave because Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel had put a hold on him; they suspected he was an illegal immigrant. It wasn't until five hours later, after numerous calls from Correa's friends and family vouching for his legal status, he said, that he was released.

Correa said he has obtained a lawyer. However, the Sheriff's Office stands by Correa's arrest.

"What I think here is you have an individual who wants to draw attention to the sheriff's operations out there ... and try to taint their work and color it as racist, that they're engaging in racial profiling," Capt. Paul Chagolla said. "There's nothing further from the truth of that, and it's evident in the information we collected from it in numbers of arrests. Of the 24 individuals . . . arrested in the first hours of the operation, only five were illegal immigrants and the rest were U.S. citizens that violated the law."

Hispanic Community finding support in Jewish Community do to a lack of Political support.


Jewish community traditionally at the forefront of immigrant rights efforts has gone strangely mute as politicians fan public fury over illegal immigration. This week there were signs that is changing; the Anti-Defamation League issued a warning to the 2008 presidential candidates to cool their white-hot rhetoric on the issue.

But the ADL has been a lone voice; some critics say the timorous Jewish response is not commensurate with an anti-immigrant surge that could ultimately hurt all minorities – Jews included.

"What I fear is that on this issue, the Jewish community, which has taken such important principled stands in the past, has left some of those stands behind in favor of crasser politics,"

Maisel. "You don’t want to be on the side of an issue like this that is going to create enemies for you. And that’s very sad."

The same factors that have made illegal immigration an almost irresistible issue for candidates have made Jewish groups timid about speaking out, Maisel said.

Jewish leaders, he said, are as good at reading polls as politicians.

The anti-illegal immigration invective has reached new heights in key primary and caucus states such as Iowa, where surveys show the issue has risen to the top of voters’ agendas; analysts say it is only likely to increase as the election nears and candidates vie for red-meat issues.

It has been largely a Republican phenomenon as even candidates who have won praise from Jewish groups in the past for their immigration positions veer sharply to the right.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a long shot suddenly propelled into the top ranks of GOP contenders, once supported proposals to provide merit scholarships to some children of illegal immigrants. Now he is promoting what critics say is an impractical and harsh mass deportation proposal as part of his "Secure America Plan."

In a 2005 Boston Globe interview, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney said he favored programs that immigration critics say amount to "amnesty" for illegal immigrants already here, but in Iowa he is claiming Huckabee and former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani are soft on the issue.

Giuliani — who as mayor "often defended illegal immigrants, ordering city workers not to deny them benefits and advocating measures to ease their path to citizenship," according to a New York Times report — is now touting proposals to impose tougher penalties on those here illegally and denying anything smacking of amnesty.

"What Giuliani is doing is despicable — catering to these interests, with the full knowledge that the city he once ran couldn’t operate without illegal immigrants," said Maisel.

One candidate, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), has made hostility to illegal immigration the centerpiece — some say the only piece — of his campaign. He is out for good know.

The Democrats mostly aren’t criticizing the intensifying anti-immigrant din, mostly out of fear of being caught on the wrong side of an issue that has politicians either joining the angry surge or scurrying for cover.

"All kinds of candidates are falling into this nasty immigration debate trap," said Hadar Susskind, Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA). "Instead of talking about the important things we can and should do on the issue, they are using this kind of rhetoric."

And that rhetorical escalation is "poisoning" the debate over other issues, he said.

Susskind said some lawmakers voted against expanded State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) funding, a top priority for a long list of Jewish groups this fall, "because of claims some of the money would go to illegal immigrants, which is not true. The rhetoric has been extremely damaging to our agenda."

The political agenda on immigration is being pushed, in part, by well-organized and financed advocacy groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) — which critics are saying are starting to sound more and more like classic American nativists. That is what led the Southern Poverty Law Center, a respected anti-extremist organization, to label FAIR a "hate group" earlier this month.

That blurring of the lines between classic hate groups, anti-immigration advocacy groups and mainstream politicians on the stump is a matter of deepening concern for Jewish leaders.

In October the ADL released a study claiming that some "mainstream" immigration advocacy groups, including FAIR, are "adopting the tactics and rhetoric of racist groups and moving it into the mainstream."

It added, "Like many other anti-immigrant groups, FAIR opposes legal immigration as well as illegal immigration."

At the same time, the ADL reported, classic hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan have started echoing some of the themes of the more mainstream anti-immigrant organizations.

"The rhetoric of the hate groups is being brought into politics; the temperature is rising," said ADL National Director Abraham Foxman. "And you are seeing groups like the KKK taking the issue and riding it respectability," he said.

"I don’t think you have to scratch very deep to find xenophobia among the anti-immigration movement," said University of Florida political scientist Ken Wald. "This is at base a movement of cultural defense devoted to defending an imaginary Anglo-Saxon society."

He linked the surge to the nativist sentiment in the 1930s that helped keep the doors to sanctuary in the United States closed to European Jews – his own grandparents included.

Gideon Aronoff, president and CEO of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society — a group at the forefront of the pro-immigration movement — said, "We are deeply concerned about the increase in anti-immigration rhetoric and the growing hatred that is seen in that rhetoric." The language and message of traditional hate groups is "infesting the national dialogue in a very serious way," he said.

This year’s failure of congressional efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform, which would have combined tougher border controls and enhanced enforcemenet with a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants already here, has encouraged politicians to play to public angst over the illegal immigration issue — and left Jewish groups, which had focused their efforts on national legislation, scrambling for new strategies, he said.

Jewish groups that have traditionally fought the immigration fight may have been less visible in recent months, Aronoff said, because they are shifting their focus to small local battles, and to narrowly focused skirmishes — such as the fight against a new Department of Homeland Security policy of staging dramatic raids against illegal immigrants in their homes and workplaces.

Jewish groups "have been active, but it’s harder to see because so much of the activity has been localized."

For now, local community councils and federations are at the forefront, not the national Jewish groups, he said.

Where Jewish groups have been less active, several observers say, is in openly challenging the politicians who have turned the election into a contest over who can be toughest on immigration. This week’s ADL warning to the presidential candidates represents the first real effort to tamp down the spiraling rhetoric.

And, like other Jewish groups worried about seeming too partisan, the ADL refrained from naming names.

"I think the Jewish community is ambivalent about speaking out forcefully" about politicians who play the anti-immigrant card, said Ken Wald, the University of Florida political scientist. Jewish organizations "simply don’t want to take sides in a partisan fight — unless it involves Israel."

"People are nervous about [angering] their political patrons, and sometimes their biggest donors, who are more conservative," said Daniel Sokatch, director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance in California.

And in the past, he said, Jewish leaders were more willing to wade into the immigration fight because they saw an immediate threat to Jewish interests.

"Now there’s a feeling that nativist anti-Semitism has been relegated to the David Duke-ish fringes," he said. "So it’s not seen as an immediate issue by some leaders."

The issue is taking on even more of a Jewish charge because groups like the Center for Immigration Studies and FAIR are waging an aggressive campaign to pry Jews away from their traditional support for progressive immigration policies.

Several activists noted that while concern about illegal immigration is high in the Jewish community, surveys show that most Jews reject the Draconian solutions suggested by the candidates who are beating the war drums on immigration