Congressman Joe Baca Condomned the rethoric language of the Anti Immigrants.

I want to emphasize the great job of Mr. Joe baca has been contribute to stop raids and the rhetoric, Anti Immigrant Language against Latinos specially Mexicans.
Joe Baca was born the youngest of 15 siblings in Belen, New Mexico in a household that spoke little English. He moved with his family to California where he graduated from California State University. In 1979, he became the first Latino elected to the Board of Trustees for the San Bernardino Valley College District. He was elected to the California State Assembly in 1992, where he became the first Latino Speaker pro Tempore, and was elected to the State Senate in 1998. Joe Baca is currently the Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

This Video shows in startling detail how Lou Dobbs, Glenn Beck, and Bill O'Reilly serve up a steady diet of fear, anger, and resentment on the subject of illegal immigration," said Karl Frisch, a spokesman for Media Matters Action Network. "When they aren't demonizing undocumented immigrants with misleading claims, this trio of cable news bullies is advancing baseless urban legends and wild accusations targeting the immigrant community. CNN and Fox News need to answer for this -- failure to do so would be the height of irresponsible journalism and a disservice to the American public."

The report discusses, in detail, two types of myths regarding immigration perpetuated on cable news. The first are the largest and most common myths, such as those about crime and undocumented immigrants, and the costs of illegal immigration in social services and taxes. The second are the urban legends, such as the purported conspiracy to take back the Southwest United States for Mexico and the supposed secret plan to construct a "NAFTA Superhighway" running from Canada to Mexico.

Lies versus facts about Immigration

If the adverse effects or conditions of immigration were so severe, why do people find it necessary to create and spread lies about it? Something to think about.

The scapegoating of immigrants for various social ills and the perpetuation of a false narrative of “a border under siege” have been fueled in recent decades by the cold war, economic woes and 9/11. The events of 9/11 placed unlawful entry into the United States in the context of national security. Since then many people have all but conflated border crossings in the southwestern United States with the security breaches of large-scale, violent consequence. Even though not one terrorist has been caught along the southwestern border, campaign rhetoric in this election season has identified “toughness” on crime or on terror with punitive immigration policies. Faithful citizens must remain vigilant about the pervasive attitudes that influence us at least as much as Gospel values do, attitudes conveyed in the media and in political rhetoric that encourage xenophobia or ethno-cultural nationalism.

The lives of undocumented immigrants tell a more complex story than that of willful lawbreaking. This is particularly true when we consider the inadequacy of current law, the failure of approaches that begin and end with enforcement, and the commitment to natural law, which censures human structures that enable exploitation and dehumanization. The Human rights groups position defends marginalized persons regardless of their legal status, particularly those who survive harrowing border crossings and experience exploitation in our legal system and labor market. Rooted in a concept of justice that is relational, effusive and marked by mercy, teaching demands that we refuse to pit the rights of U.S. workers against those of international workers. A commitment to human dignity and solidarity calls us to guard against narrow nationalism, the idolatry of the market and the demonization of the other. From repentance we are called to social conversion toward interdependence in solidarity.

Look Who’s Talking About Latinos

It should come as no surprise that coverage of immigration, especially on talk radio, is often hard to categorize as anything but hateful. Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage are among the major culprits who routinely demonize Latino immigrants on their programs.

On cable TV, CNN host Lou Dobbs has used his show to crusade against undocumented immigration. More than 70 percent of his programs in 2007 discussed the issue, according to the watchdog group Media Matters.
But Dobbs has had plenty of help from his cable compadres. Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck have discussed undocumented immigration on 56 percent and 28 percent of their programs, respectively, almost always with an anti-immigrant slant.
The news networks have reinforced the idea there is little to know about Latinos outside of immigration. For years, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists has documented in its annual “Network Brownout” that Latinos make up less than 1 percent of the more than 12,000 news stories that air each year on the network evening news. Undocumented immigration and crime were the dominate focus of those stories.
The rise of anti-immigrant sentiment has impacted the Latino community immensely. A Pew Hispanic study released this week found that 1 in 10 Latinos have been stopped by the police or authorities and asked about their immigration status. Half of Latinos surveyed said the situation for Latinos has gotten worse over the past year due to concerns about deportation and discrimination in other areas of their lives, like finding jobs and housing.

$11 billion to $22 billion spent on welfare to Undocumented Immigrants each year. www.fairus.org/site/PageServer?pagename=iic_immigrationissuecenters7fd8

The link provided leads to a FAIR a think tank Anti Immigrant group report. The report states that each year, state governments spend an estimated $11 billion to $22billion to provide welfare to immigrants. A reference is made to footnote 2. Footnote 2 refers to a report by Center for Immigration Studies CIS “Back Where We Started: An Examination of Trends in Immigrant Welfare Use Since Welfare Reform”. The CIS report contains no documentation to support the claim that FAIR made. A chart in the CIS report finds that 24.3% of Undocumented immigrant households used some welfare program. The average payment was $1,040. The report says there were about 8 million Undocumented immigrants in the country in 2002. Estimate 3 persons per household. The result is less than $1 billion. The FAIR report does not state how they arrived at the $11 billion to $22 billion figure from the CIS report either do not support any documentation about how they identify the numbers of Legal and Undocumented Immigrants. Again estimation versus facts. Meaning lies, lies, lies.

$12 billion dollars a year spent on primary and secondary school education for children here Undocumented.http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

The link refers to the April 1, 2006 transcript of Lou Dobbs Tonight. In the transcript, reporter Christine Romans states that The Federation for American Immigration Reform says taxpayers spend $12 billion a year on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally.A report by FAIR from 2005 entitled “Breaking the Piggy Bank: How Illegal Immigration is Sending Schools Into the Red” provides the basis for these claims. What the FAIR report blatantly fails to include are the taxes paid by the immigrants and the return on the investment of education.A family with two children in school pays property taxes of $3,000 per year. The cost to the school district is $16,000 resulting in a net cost to taxpayers of $13,000 per year. However, before and after the children are in school, the family pays real estate taxes. In addition, after the children graduate, their education will result in increased earnings potential. Some studies have found that merely graduating high school increases a student’s lifetime earnings potential by as much as 40%. The result is a net benefit to society as a whole. and Again FAIR report does not state how they arrived to that figure. Again lies, lies, lies; Why do not support Students continue with their Education? Their Dream.

The Hispanic Institute Proposes CNN Boycott but why took so long.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Damage has been done.


I had been posted several segments of Lou Dobbs hypocrisy, xenophobic, Anti Immigrant sentiment views given licenses to Anti Immigrants, Nativists and Racists to demonized, diminished, vitriol even discredited legals and Undocumented Immigrants for the great benefits bringing to our table on this Country.
Just because people are in this country legally or illegally -- but helping the nation in countless ways -- doesn't mean they can't be treated with Humane, dignity and respect.Even when Lou Dobbs denied any association with Groups like Minuteman. Why he never shows on his show the meeting at the border with Minuteman Members?? (See pic above) Why Lou??? Are you hidden something?



The Hispanic Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit group, last week launched a national boycott of CNN, the cable news channel, to highlight unrelenting and erroneous attacks against Latino immigrants by talk-show host Lou Dobbs. While we aren't sure such an effort will be effective and while by its nature, it impugns other good programs on CNN, we agree with the spirit of the boycott.

We applaud the institute for taking a stand on behalf of the immigrant community and calling on a network to take responsibility for the content of its programs. We encourage other groups -- whether they represent minorities or not -- to let CNN and other news outlets know that unwarranted attacks that demonize a particular group of people will not be tolerated.

If the Hispanic community flexes its viewership muscles and the boycott succeeds in reducing CNN's ratings, particularly for Lou Dobbs' nightly show, officials with the network might be inclined to get rid of such inflammatory and dishonest programming.

Similarly, we believe local groups could put pressure on Tucson radio station 104.1-FM, which airs "The Jon Justice Show," a morning program that repeats many of the claims made by Lou Dobbs and other anti-immigrant media personalities.

Lou Dobbs, along with fellow CNN host Glenn Beck and Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly, has been behind much of the anti-immigrant sentiment that is gripping the country. Dobbs and others regularly make outlandish and erroneous claims. Among them: that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime, that they drain communities of cash by illegally using social services and that they intend to take over the Southwestern United States.

While there are some slivers of truth in what Dobbs and the others say -- for example, children of illegal immigrants do cost states money when they attend public schools -- their claims were largely discredited in a recent report by the Media Matters Action Network, a project of the Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Media Matters for America.

In a May 21 report, "Fear & Loathing in Prime Time: Immigration Myths and Cable News," researchers systematically debunked the major anti-immigrant statements made by Dobbs and others.

For example, the report cited Census data and university studies that concluded recent immigrants are less likely -- not more -- to be involved in crimes than native-born citizens. In fact, the report said, neighborhoods with higher immigrant populations had lower rates of crime.

"When it comes to this issue, cable news overflows not just with vitriol, but also with a series of myths that feed viewers' resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria," the report said.

Programs like "Lou Dobbs Tonight" are harmful and potentially dangerous because they give license to xenophobes and racists to spew their hate on immigrants.

If such people see men in suits on TV railing against immigrants, it emboldens them to also show hate for someone who doesn't fit their ideal of an "American." To make matters worse, perpetrators of hate crimes often can't tell if a Hispanic person is an illegal immigrant, a legal immigrant or a U.S. citizen.

The FBI reported last year that of all the hate crimes in 2006 motivated by a bias against someone's ethnicity or national origin, 62.8 percent of victims were targeted because of an anti-Hispanic bias. In three years, the number of Hispanic victims of hate crimes jumped 38 percent, from 595 victims in 2003 to 819 in 2006.

Not all this violence can be attributed to talk-show hosts like Dobbs, of course. But such programs foment anger and obviously don't promote civil discourse on the problem of illegal immigration.

What's surprising about the CNN boycott is that it didn't occur sooner.

"We're taking this step after years of CNN management's failure to rein in Mr. Dobbs' irresponsible assertions about immigrants and their impact on our country and its institutions," Gus West, The Hispanic Institute's board chairman, said when the boycott was announced Tuesday.

"The lack of any meaningful response from CNN's management, or any abatement of Mr. Dobbs' offensive tirades, makes it clear to us that the company supports his misleading and often inaccurate positions."

According to the Nielsen Company, which monitors television viewers, there are 12.1 million Hispanic television households in the United States.

Here's hoping they and their allies can help improve the quality of cable television and the standard of living for illegal immigrants. Just because people are in this country illegally -- but helping the nation in countless ways -- doesn't mean they can't be treated with dignity and respect.

IT'S TIME TO START BEING PROACTIVE AND STOP THE FEAR MONGERING FROM CABLE NEWS.


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, one in which one issue stands above all others: illegal immigration.

Media Matters Action Network undertook this study in order to document the rhetoric surrounding immigration that is heard on cable news. When it comes to this issue, cable news overflows not just with vitriol, but also with a series of myths that feed viewers' resentment and fears, seemingly geared toward creating anti-immigrant hysteria.

There are two types of myths we discuss in this report. The first type is the large and most common myths, about crime and undocumented immigrants, and the costs of illegal immigration in social services and taxes. These topics are complex, and there are sometimes legitimate points buried within the arguments immigration opponents make. The second type of myth is the urban legend: that there is a conspiracy to take back the Southwest United States for Mexico; that there is a secret plan to construct a "NAFTA Superhighway" running from Canada to Mexico; that the U.S. is well on its way to surrendering its sovereignty to a "North American Union" (NAU); that Mexican immigrants are infecting Americans with leprosy; and that undocumented immigrants are responsible for a wave of election fraud. These myths are discussed less often, but are notable for their sheer ludicrousness. The North American Union and NAFTA Superhighway are closely related, and indeed are often discussed in tandem (the building of the Superhighway being posited as a step on the road to the creation of the NAU), but since each is also often discussed alone, we examine these two myths separately.

We focus our analysis on a trio of cable commentators: Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, and Glenn Beck. While hosts on other cable programs regularly discuss illegal immigration (particularly on Fox News, where it is a frequent topic on Hannity & Colmes and Special Report with Brit Hume), these three are the most notable for a number of reasons. On their eponymous programs, Dobbs, O'Reilly, and Beck serve up a steady diet of fear, anger, and resentment on the topic of illegal immigration.

Dobbs is the one most obsessed with the topic; indeed, instead of Lou Dobbs Tonight, his program might be more properly called Lou Dobbs Crusades Against Illegal Immigration Tonight. Fully 70 percent of the 2007 episodes of Lou Dobbs Tonight contained discussion of illegal immigration. The O'Reilly Factor is not far behind; 56 percent of 2007 episodes discussed illegal immigration. And though Glenn Beck was less consumed with the issue (28 percent of his 2007 programs discussed it), his show is the one on which viewers often find the most inflammatory claims

Continue reading. http://mediamattersaction.org/reports/fearandloathing/online_version">>