Anonymous Says:
4/18/2008 3:44 PM

I don't think there are really that many people who blame the economic downturn on Immigration nor Legal Immigrants. Quite frankly, Id like to know who Kennedy is referring to specifically since I cant name one person who has made any such claim. Seems to me like a straw man argument designed solely to get minorities and immigrants to jump on the Democrat bandwagon under the guise of "let us protect you from those nasty racists."

However, when it comes to the state of California you would have to be in a true state of denial to think that Illegal Immigrants aren't having an overall negative impact fiscally and socially. I also happen to know that while California and other border states bear a brunt of the burden that the same issues affecting border states have spread to almost every other state in the US.

Right Wing/Left Wing is a moot point. There are real bonafide problems here that neither party will touch with a ten foot pole.

Labels: Democrats, economy, Immigration, iraq war, Mexican immigrants, neo-con, republicans

4/17/2008 11:18:00 PM|||Sarah Michelle Spinosa|||

"For the first time in quite some while, we're able to report a dramatic decrease in hates crimes reported in Orange County," Kennedy said. "We're looking at a 20 percent decline in hate crimes in 2007 from 2006 -- really good news.

"The one caveat I have is that hate crimes targeting Latinos have increased 50 percent this year," he said. "That's troubling."

I saw this story on the KNBC website and thought it was encouraging and yet sad at the same time. Hate crimes are down for every minority group in OC, except Latinos. Apparently, discrimination is now seen as a no-no by most, unless it's against the scapegoated minority group du jour. Barack Obama talked about political distractions, and immigration is the mother of all of them! Some people just need someone to blame and have a lot of misplaced anger. Disappointing.

SMS

Today on 'The Centrist OC': Praise for Republicans?! *gasp*

Labels: hate crimes, hispanics, Immigration, Latino voters, Mexican immigrants

|||5648275170798147009|||Immigrants: The New Scapegoats4/06/2008 07:45:00 AM|||Art Pedroza|||

California voters, including Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido, passed Prop. 187, which would have denied benefits to undocumented immigrants. But the law was overturned by a court, and Governor Gray Davis did not defend it. Now we can see what Prop. 187 might have looked like, in Arizona, where Republicans are having a field day as laws like 187 are passing in abundance - and immigrants are fleeing in droves.

"In recent years it has barred illegal immigrants from receiving government services, from winning punitive damages in lawsuits and from posting bail for serious crimes. A new state law shuts down businesses that hire illegal workers. And the sheriff of Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix and three-fifths of the state's population, dispatches his deputies and volunteer "posses" to search for illegal street vendors or immigrants being smuggled through the county," according to the L.A. Times.

The new laws in Arizona have hurt U.S. citizens in the process - but the Republicans passing the laws could care less. Here are just a few examples of how the laws in Arizona are hurting those who are here legally, as cited by the L.A. Times:

• Juan Carlos Ochoa, a naturalized U.S. citizen who lives in an upper-middle-class subdivision near Phoenix named Laguna Hills, can't find a job because a government database classifies him as a possible illegal immigrant.
  
• Pauline Muñoz, a 39-year-old mother of six who was born in Phoenix, has been afraid to leave her apartment since being held by sheriff's deputies for 15 hours for a driving infraction -- an example of what she believes is racial profiling.
• And businesses that cater to immigrants both legal and illegal report a huge drop in sales, increasing the drag on the state's already troubled economy.
  

Arizona is succeeding in their pogrom against immigrants in their state. It is hard to say what will happen as a result. Obviously many businesses are already being hurt by these anti-immigrant laws. Currently the recession and the collapse of the housing market is destroying jobs everywhere. Eventually things will turn around. And Arizona will find itself bereft of workers.

Nationally, these sort of laws are shortsighted. Both Medicare and Social Security are headed for bankruptcy. The only way these Ponzi schemes will stay afloat is with a massive influx of new payees at the bottom of the respective pyramids. A new amnesty for immigrants would accomplish that. Cracking down on them instead may doom those who still think Medicare and Social Security will be there for them when they retire.

Labels: arizona, Immigration, Mexican immigrants, prop. 187

|||5871210724967934969|||Arizona shows us what Prop. 187 would have looked like4/05/2008 05:18:00 PM|||Sarah Michelle Spinosa|||

He's so far off. Here's a guy who fights so hard for the middle class that you have to respect him, but then you peer more closely and realize that his anger is so misplaced! Why does he insist on scapegoating Mexicans? Why did he say on CNN just now that we should address border security before deciding the fate of the 10-12 million people at risk of deportation in this country? Can't we do both simultaneously? Our markets are already open, if we close the borders (for real this time) and invite our already contributing guests to join in on the benefits of our society, then shouldn't that expand our economy?

People always complain about 'losing their job to a Mexican,' but what they don't realize is that in the new global economy, their job could have also either been downsized, outsourced to an Indian firm, or even given to a Mexican in Mexico! I've said it before, and I'll say it again, we need to work with the Mexican government to provide their citizens the opportunities they need to make more-productive lives for themselves in their own country.

The economic reality of the situation here in the States also shows that many Mexicans will underbid their American counterparts for jobs, and they do this because it provides the employer an incentive to take a chance on undocumented labor. Legalize these workers and you'll finally allow them to lift themselves out of their much-cliched poverty. Now we know why the pro-business right doesn't want amnesty. They want to protect the profit margins created by their cheap labor force!

While I still consider border jumping to be tantamount to trespassing, I also think we need to remove the incentive. Seriously, if someone came into my house and stole a loaf of bread because they didn't have anything to feed their family, and then they decided they would pay me back by working it off, I would graciously accept their offer. But I wouldn't invite their whole family to come stay with me either!

By no means am I an immigration activist, It's not an issue that really affected my life in Boston. But now I live in a community surrounded by Mexican immigrants. Some undocumented, some citizens. All very nice, hard-working people, many are just parents trying to give their children the best life possible. Most get a paycheck and pay taxes on that paycheck. In so many ways, these immigrants are just like any other Americans and if they were lined up with 'legal' Mexicans, one would need to be omnipotent to know who is which.

So why is the anti-amnesty agenda gaining steam? It's because of all that hot air coming from a usually cool cucumber. Does that make Lou Dobbs a biofuel?

SMS

Labels: cnn, Immigration, Lou Dobbs, Mexican immigrants

|||3371682185399213761|||I Love Lou Dobbs, But Sometimes...3/28/2008 10:03:00 PM|||Art Pedroza|||

The O.C. Register is reporting that "A majority of Californians say immigrants help the state’s economy more than they hurt it, according to the latest statewide poll published by the Public Policy Institute of California." Wow!

The poll was conducted this month. It clearly showed that the people of the Golden State are not interested in demonizing immigrants. In fact those polled also indicated that most immigrants who have worked here for more than two years ought to be allowed to apply for legal status.

Contrast these findings with the latest stupid press release from Mexican-hater Assemblyman Van Tran. In this release he bragged about the fact that "This week 30 GOP Assemblymembers joined Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s call for President Bush to continue funding for National Guard troops assisting the Border Patrol in our nation’s frontline defense against terrorism and illegal traffickers. "

Terrorism? Have any Mexicans committed acts of terrorism that I am not aware of? Were the Saudis who partook in the hideous 9/11 attacks Mexicans? I don't think so! In fact several hundred Mexicans died in the attack on the World Trade Center towers!

Tran also bragged that "The letter was initiated by Assemblyman Van Tran after Tran led a 20-member delegation from Orange County on a helicopter tour of the California/Mexico border last month."

I wonder how much this ridiculous stunt cost California taxpayers?

As for the drug trade, there would be NONE if not for the fact that Americans like to do drugs. When our politicians come to terms with that (and of course many of THEM like to do drugs too), perhaps they will find a way to legalize some of them so they can tax the sales and get rid of this underground economy?

At any rate, demonizing Mexicans isn't going to fix our state's budget problems. Now we know that most Californians disagree with our CA GOP legislators - no wonder the Republican Party is the minority party in California. Don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Labels: Immigration, Mexican immigrants, van tran

|||3414090585472927907|||Californians agree - immigrants help the state economy3/12/2008 01:14:00 PM|||Art Pedroza|||

I just received the latest newsletter from supposedly moderate State Senator Tom Harman (R-Huntington Beach), who is pictured above with Rosario Marin, the California Secretary of Consumer Affairs. Harman addresses in it an update on a number of immigration bills, which appear to be written by Assemblyman Bob Huff. Here is Harman's post in its entirety:

Illegal Immigration Update

My good friend and Republican colleague, Assemblyman Bob Huff, penned the following situation report of bills recently introduced in the Assembly regarding illegal immigration that I though readers of the Harman Report would enjoy.

California has become “home” to an estimated three million illegal immigrants who have crossed the state’s porous borders seeking work and a better life. Many who reside here illegally, including those who break laws not related to immigration, have created a drain on tax-funded benefits reserved for American citizens and legal immigrants. Assemblyman Bob Huff has introduced a package of five common sense bills to help address this growing problem.

AJR 44 – A bill circulating in Congress would repeal the section of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution allowing for birthright citizenship. This federal policy has resulted in citizenship for babies born in the United States to foreign visitors, and illegal immigrants. This lax policy has served to attract illegal immigrants looking for an easy way to claim state and federal benefits without going through the legal citizenship process. AJR 44 will urge Congress to pass that bill, and stop ignoring the crime of illegal immigration.

AB 2418 – This bill will deny bail to any illegal immigrant that has been charged with a gang-related crime or a violent felony. AB 2418 will ensure that illegal immigrant criminals receive the punishment they deserve for crimes committed and stop them from jumping bail to flee to their home country to avoid prosecution.

AB 2420 – San Francisco and Los Angeles have declared themselves “sanctuary cities,” prohibiting their local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration officials. AB 2420 will stop local entities and authorities from establishing themselves as “sanctuary cities,” eliminating conflicting governmental policies. AB 2421 – Due to the federal government’s inability and ineffectiveness to enforce immigration laws at the state level, AB 2421 outlines a business license revocation process for employers who hire illegal immigrants within California. AB 2422 – This bill will require that local authorities report juveniles who have been charged with a violent felony to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, to ensure the dangerous juvenile is deported back to their home country. While it is difficult to find and deport illegal immigrants, those who commit violent felonies should be swiftly deported.

“While a comprehensive solution to illegal immigration must come from the federal government, it is time to stop wringing our hands, and adopt these common sense illegal immigration reform bills which will reduce the negative impacts of illegal immigrants on our society and state budget,” stated Assemblyman Huff.

I could not agree more with Assemblyman Huff. I am hopeful that my colleagues across the aisle will see the light before it is too late for our state to financially rebound from the costs associated with providing social and welfare programs to any and all regardless of citizenship.

It appears to me that Huff, and Harman, are piling on immigrants. I am disappointed. I would expect better from two moderate Republicans. A major study recently revealed that immigrants are committing less crimes than people born here. Immigrants are the reason our Social Security system has not collapsed as they are paying into it with no hope, in most cases, of getting anything from it. The biggest reason to do another amnesty would be to add millions of new payees into the Social Security system, to keep that Ponzi scheme going.

If you want to let Harman know how you feel about these bills, please email him at this link. I wonder if he knows that the first State Constitution in California was written in Spanish, and that we had Mexican Governors and Legislators long before California was overrun by the Americans? Or that the Spanish Governor of California during this country's Revolutionary War gave money and much-needed supplies to General George Washington. Somehow I doubt it.

Labels: bob huff, Immigration, Mexican immigrants, tom harman

|||6808868132741825104|||Moderate Republican state legislators pile on immigrants3/02/2008 09:39:00 AM|||Art Pedroza|||

A new study "released Monday shows that immigrants in California are, in fact, far less likely than U.S.-born Californians are to commit crime. While people born abroad make up about 35% of California's adult population, they account for only about 17% of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed. Indeed, among men ages 18 to 40 — the demographic most likely to be imprisoned — those born in the U.S. were 10 times more likely than foreign-born men to be incarcerated." (Time Magazine)

The Minutemen love to say that immigrants are a bunch of lawbreakers, but check out this excerpt from Time Magazine:

The new report even bolsters claims by some academics that increased immigration makes the United States safer. A second study, released earlier this month by Washington-based nonprofit Immigration Policy Center, found that on the national level, U.S.-born men ages 18-39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than are their foreign-born peers. And, while the number of illegal immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35% and property crimes by 26% over the same period. The PPIC even determined that on average, between 2000 and 2005, cities such as Los Angeles that took in a higher share of recent immigrants saw their crime rates fall further than cities with a lower influx of illegals.

Even O.C. Register editorial columnist Steven Greenhut, who by his own admission has never written about immigration, wrote about this study in a column published today. I loved his last sentence, "An obvious conclusion is that crime would fall dramatically if America rid itself of all U.S.-born male residents and replaced them with immigrants, legal or otherwise."

There is however a downside to the story, illustrated again by an excerpt from Time Magazine:

Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors tighter immigration controls, warns that even if immigrants are less likely to commit crimes, their children and grandchildren may be more likely to end up on the wrong side of the law. He points out that U.S. Department of Justice statistics show that Hispanics make up 20% of state and Federal prison populations in 2005, a rise of 43% since 1990. At that rate, one in every six Hispanic males born in the U.S. today can expect to be imprisoned during his lifetime — more than double the rate for non-Hispanic whites, but lower than that of African-Americans of the same age. "That means the children and grandchildren of immigrants are committing a lot of crime, making this a long-term problem," Camarota says, before adding, "That's much worse news."

An article in the California Progress Report further illustrates the issue of who is incarcerated, and makes the case that there are too many Americans in jail. Here are a few excerpts:

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

Most people are familiar with the "three-strikes" sentencing law passed by the voters in 1994, but that was just the most extreme example of a thirty-year trend toward increasing sentencing laws; in fact, in those thirty years the state legislature passed over 1,000 laws increasing sentencing for all manner of crimes, and not ONE reducing sentencing. As a result, state prisons are woefully overcrowded, the nonviolent offenders who enter them don't get treatment or job placement or rehabilitation but essentially a college-level program in how to commit violent crime, and this facilitates the nation's worst recidivism rate. So incarcerating more and more citizens does not make the state safer; in fact, it has the opposite effect.

So yes, we do have issues with regard to incarceration. But immigrants don't appear to be part of the problem.

Labels: crime, Immigration, Mexican immigrants, three strikes

|||6181219821899424520|||Don't blame the immigrants11/29/2007 09:21:00 AM|||Larry Gilbert|||

While waiting to make my presentation on our property rights protection initiative at the CA School Board Association Convention yesterday I picked up a 26 page booklet entitled "Children in Immigrant Families" that contains some interesting facts, figures and charts that I thought may be of interest to Juice readers.

Before blindly accepting the data I checked out their web site and found that their Board Members do have some valid credentials. As they have indicated a desire for our governor to provide more funding for education perhaps they can suggest where we can cut line items out of the budget to satisfy that request.

Note: "Contra Costa, Fresno, Kern, LA and Sacramento counties are featured in this report." As such we can only speculate as to Orange County data.

"Half of the state's children live in a family with at least one immigrant parent--two and a half times the national rate. Statewide, about 4.8 million children ages 0-17, live in an immigrant family. Following are most of the key data headings.

85% of children in immigrant families were born in the USA

54% of children in immigrant families live in low-income households

Three-Quarters of Children in Immigrant Families are Bilingual

1.4 million Children in CA Live With Adults Who Don't Speak English

One-Quarter of CA's Students Have Yet to Master English

English Learners Are Less Likely to Pass the CA High School Exit Exam

15-17 Year-Olds in Immigrant Families Are Slightly Less Likely to Be in School

Children of Immigrants Are Less Likely to Be in Good Health

Children of Immigrants Are Less Likely to Have Health Insurance

Immigrant Families Are More Likely to Live in Poverty

Their web site is easy to remember. www.childrennow.org

Labels: Children, Immigration, Mexican immigrants

|||356946532435784071|||"Children in Immigrant Families" A California Data Brief11/27/2007 07:11:00 AM|||Art Pedroza|||

The L.A. Times is reporting that "Illegal immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries are 50% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to use hospital emergency rooms in California, according to a study published Monday in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine."

Wow! This study sinks one of the Minutemen's biggest lies...that immigrants are ruining our healthcare system by overusing hospital ER services.

Here are a few more excerpts from the L.A. Times article:

"The current policy discourse that undocumented immigrants are a burden on the public because they overuse public resources is not borne out with data, for either primary care or emergency department care," said Alexander N. Ortega, an associate professor at UCLA's School of Public Health and the study's lead author. "In fact, they seem to be underutilizing the system, given their health needs."

Ortega's study is not the first to find that illegal immigrants use fewer healthcare services than people born in the U.S. But his study used the largest sample, analyzing data from 42,044 participants of the 2003 California Health Interview Survey, a randomized telephone survey conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research and the California Department of Public Health.

And while other studies have attributed lower usage to immigrants simply being younger and healthier than the overall population, the study published Monday took into account age, health status, insurance status and poverty level. All such factors being equal, it found, immigrants still made fewer visits to physicians and were 30% less likely than U.S.-born Latinos to have a regular source of healthcare.

Dr. Felix Nuñez, a Los Angeles-based family physician and former medical director of the South Central Family Health Center, said the findings confirm what he sees in clinics.

Illegal immigrants are infrequent patients for primary care visits, he said, because being asked for ID cards, Social Security numbers and employment histories makes them nervous. They fear being reported to authorities, even though the information is used only to determine Medi-Cal eligibility or to set a sliding-scale fee.

What did surprise Nuñez was the relatively low use of emergency rooms by illegal immigrants.

"My gut would have told me that they'd be higher users of emergency services because they're not coming in for routine, preventive care," he said. "This kind of study is really important because it forces you to look at the data and rethink your assumptions."

Labels: healthcare, Immigration, Mexican immigrants

|||1651158498322638011|||Immigrants are NOT using hospital ER services after all