Recently in Anti-Migrant Hate Category

This week's edition of Bob Edwards' Weekend on public radio (and XM) is a rebroadcast of a 2006 show about immigration.  The first part is an interview with a border patrol agent and I didn't catch this part when I heard the broadcast over the weekend (ergo my initial post praising the program).  He does a pretty good job of dehumanizing people.  No explanation of who they are, the circumstances that led them to risk their lives to cross the border into the U.S.  Nothing.  They talk like people crossing the border are a plague of bugs that must be processed and controlled.  It'll give you chills.

Then I guess to balance out the show he interviews two Samaritans (that's the name of the group) who patrol the trails leaving out water and other essential supplies for migrants.  One's a doctor.  The other is a photographer.  This is the part of the show that's worth a listen.  The stories they tell of the people they meet out there, the brutal conditions they have to go through...

And unlike the border patrol agent interviewed, the Samaritan was able to put a human face, not only on the migrants but on the opposition as well, in this case, the border patrol agents.  He said he has an appreciation for the agents saying they're only enforcing laws they didn't make. and the laws they have to enforce determine the strategy they have to use.  He said he's met agents who agree with promigrant groups essentially saying, yeah "we're enforcing laws that are forcing people farther and farther out into the more dangerous places.."

He says he "knows from having spoken to a few of the [agents].... in the summer especially a lot of them consider their job as much rescue as arrest and they don't relish finding bodies out in the desert any more than the rest of us do.  They're human beings."

Then he tells a story of a woman and her two sons who got lost in the desert.  She fell ill and the coyote left her behind.  She died and her father spent weeks looking for his daughter's body.  He found three other bodies before he found hers.  This, and no one can tell me we live in a civilized country.  Not with people dying like cattle in the desert.

crimey, it's amazing that anyone could be so cold-hearted to have anything but immense compassion for people forced to migrate in these conditions.

Resources: 

No More Deaths

Humane Borders

Cross posted at Lucky White Girl

Some would have you believe there is a growing faction attempting to eradicate the use of the English language in the United States. These groups want to pass laws stating that English is our official language which would ban the government from offering help in any language other than English. This includes emergency services such as police, fire and health. Does this sound like America to you? Callous, cold and exclusionary - refusing to help people because they don't understand English well enough to communicate their pain?

Currently Nashville is looking to make their city "English Only." Essentially this means that no immigrants, legal or undocumented, unless they have the good fortune of coming from a country wealthy enough to have taught them English as children, will be able to communicate with the local government or those providing emergency services. This will also affect any tourists that happen to be in the area with the misfortune of becoming ill in a town that does not welcome foreigners. Given the euphonious beauty Nashville is famous for this is not only disheartening, but also quite disgusting.

Nashville English First hopes to force a countywide vote this fall on a controversial proposal to limit all Metro government business, publications and meetings to English, with no exceptions for health or safety. It does include language indicating it should not be interpreted to conflict with state or federal law. (English-first initiative gets out-of-state help)

The AP carried this article over the weekend about what appears to be the racially-motivated killing of a Latino migrant by a group of teenagers in rural Pennsylvania:

MICHAEL RUBINKAM —
SHENANDOAH, Pa. (AP) —

Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago to look for work, landing in this town in Pennsylvania's coal region. Here, he found steady employment, fathered two children and, his fiancee said, occasionally endured harassment by white residents.

Now he is headed back to Mexico in a coffin.

The 25-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten over the weekend after an argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the town's beloved high school football team, police said. Despite witness reports that the attackers yelled ethnic slurs, authorities say the beating wasn't racially motivated.

[Continued over at the DMI blog.]

Note: Link back to The Sanctuary for this post.

I'm here in San Diego where Barack Obama just spoke at the annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference.  NCLR flew out me here and provided with me accommodations at the luxurious San Diego Marriot Hotel & Marina.  I was given the opportunity after I helped publicize NCLR's latest We Can Stop the Hate video using Digg and StumbleUpon, among other new media tools.  I didn't do it to advance myself in an particular way.  I just thought the video provided the most succinct description of the link between leading "anti-illegal immigration" groups and white supremacy.  I wanted as many people to see it as possible.

In fact, when NCLR invited me here, I did everything I could to get them to bring one of my blogmig@s along with me, or in my stead.  I identify as white and there should be a latin@ blogger here covering this conference.  I hear Todd Beeton of MyDD, and Lucas O'Connor of Calitics are here liveblogging Obama's speech, as well.  They probably weren't hand picked by NCLR like I was, but if you don't see a problem with three white male bloggers covering a National Council of La Raza conference, I'll leave that for a post that I'll write when all of this is done.  For now, we'll get back to Obama's appearance here.

Welcome to the World of NumbersUSA, FAIR, and ALIPAC:



Building walls.  Making millions of migrants miserable.  That's not the world I want to live in.

(Picture from Signs of the Times)

My post, The Intolerant States of America, made just a mild splash on the web, but some interesting things came up that I wanted to discuss.  It garnered 55 Diggs, 23 recommends and comments on Daily Kos, a few more comments over at Alternet, Blue Mass. Group, and The Sanctuary (feel free to show some love in any of these forums).

But it was a link from the blog of Samaha, that I'm most proud of.  She describes the mission of her blog as such:

"I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of reasons," said [Leroy] Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. "I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me."

Eli Saslow - Washington Post (30 June 2008)

Welcome to the Intolerant States of America.  Liberal elitists will read the words of Leroy Pollard, a resident of Flag City, U.S.A., and feign disgust.  This arrogance betrays the truth that we are all part of Leroy Pollard, and Leroy Pollard is part of us.  The first person I ran into who believed the myths about Barack Obama was not a resident of a small town like Flag City, U.S.A., but a wealthy investment banker, and the parent of a Harvard graduate. 

The following video from We Can Stop the Hate, expresses in clearer terms than anything else I've seen, how leading organizations in the anti-migrant movement have very close ties to hate and white supremacy. 

Even Numbers USA, the organization that tries the hardest to separate race from their discussion of immigration, has ties to white supremacy.  The executive director of Numbers USA, Roy Beck, for a time was the Washington editor of the Social Contract Press, and organization that is proud to publish the racist book, Camp of the Saints.  Here's the video:

Please Digg the video.

Personal Note: I'm sorry my posting as of late has been mostly videos.  Symsess, with his amazing dedication, though, has been holding down the fort for us. 

(Sombrero tip to Immigration Cut and Paste)

William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, truly is the leader of a national movement.  A movement of two dozen people that is. 

It was May of 2008 when ALIPAC announced the launch of a North Carolina "campaign to thwart illegal aliens and their supporters".  Soon after they bullied a local Charlotte newspaper columnist, Mary Schulken, for writing an article entitled "This Tide of Meanness has to Stop".  All of it building up to a big rally to pressure North Carolina legislators to support a horrific "attrition through enforcement" agenda.  Here's how the rally went:

Lou Dobbs, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, and so many other nativists love to take the few cases where migrants have committed horrific crimes and blow them out of proportion.  Where are they with this story?  Three teens are being indicted for the fatal beating of Aboubacar Camara, and there is silence from the nativists.