Liberals cry racism over AZ immigration bill; ignore overwhelming crime

posted at 11:53 am on April 23, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
[ Immigration ]   

Arizona is on the brink of passing a tough new immigration law that some are calling racial profiling. The bill would give police the right to arrest anyone they suspect to be an illegal immigrant if they are unable to produce a driver’s license or identity papers.

Naturally, this has the liberals and Latino lobbyists in an uproar. Cries of RAAAAACISM!!! are already begininng. Total ignorance of the ongoing, overwhelming crime due to illegal immigrant is, as usual, being ignored.

Over at the Huffington Post Miguel Guadalupe (who identifies himself as a Latino progressive American) calls this a “Gestapo law”.

“Show me your papers, are your papers in order?” This phrase was made famous, or rather infamous, by the Gestapo, and will soon be heard throughout the state of Arizona, should their Governor sign into law SB1070, a vague and broad law giving law enforcement the unprecedented power to stop and check the documentation of any individual where “reasonable suspicion exists that the person is an alien who is unlawfully present in the U.S..”

There are no guidelines as to what “reasonable suspicion” is, but knowing the reality on the ground, it is obvious to all that “reasonable suspicion” means those looking like, sounding like, or acting like general stereotypes of undocumented immigrants coming from Latin America. In short — this is a bill that allows police to suspect all Latinos of being undocumented, and gives them the right to question their status at any time, for any reason.

He bleats on with some more Nazi rhetoric and right-wing bashing, but never once admits to the obvious. Illegal immigration is a crime. And even legal immigrants — non-US citizens — are here only at our pleasure. It’s a harsh truth, but no immigrant has a right to be here. Coming here through legal channels means you won’t be arrested, but if you come here illegally then you can and should be arrested if you are discovered. Liberals may not like it that Latinos will have to prove they are not here illegally, but I think that what really makes them so angry is the thought of our immigration laws actually being, you know, enforced.

As for the Nazi rhetoric, let’s bring Mr. Guadalupe back to reality. In Nazi Germany, the Gestapo was looking for Jews so that they could be shipped to concentration camps and murdered. There’s kind of a big difference between the murders of innocent people and the arrest of a criminal, but apparently, Mr. Guadalupe can’t comprehend the difference.

At Shakesville, they’re hyperventilating that this is going to be a repeat of the Geary Act:

As a historian, I don’t like to hear people say “If we don’t learn history, we’re doomed to repeat it.” We learn history all the time, and still do much of the same, hateful stuff that’s always been done.

In reading the provisons of the bill, I wondered, how different was it from the Geary Act of 1892:

The law required all Chinese residents of the United States to carry a resident permit, a sort of internal passport. Failure to carry the permit at all times was punishable by deportation or a year at hard labor.

How different is it? Well, for one, we don’t force people to serve hard labor anymore. The only place where there is anything even remotely similar is in Maricopa County, where they still have chain gangs. Thing is, the chain gangs are on a volunteer basis. People caught in Arizona who are suspected of being illegal immigrants will be arrested and, if they are in fact illegal immigrants, deported. Again, considering that illegal immigrants are in fact criminals, what is the big deal?

Markos Moulitsas whines that no one will be checking for Canadian or Irish immigrants (really), and points out that Latinos are on the fast track to becoming a majority in Arizona.

The GOP-dominated Arizona legislature last week passed a bill making it a misdemeanor to lack immigration paperwork and requiring police to question people if they have a “reasonable suspicion” that someone is an illegal immigrant. But undocumented white Canadians or Irish need not fear, because “reasonable suspicion” is not-so-veiled code for “brown skin.”

God forbid you are darker-skinned and leave your wallet at home. In modern-day Arizona, that is grounds for jail.

… But while conservatives might pat themselves on the back for passage of this law, the long-term effects shouldn’t be so comforting. Latinos make up 29 percent of Arizona’s population. If current population trends continue, Arizona will become a majority-minority state by 2015. In 2003, more Latino babies were born than non-Hispanic white babies. And by 2007, Latino babies were 45 percent of the total, compared to 41 percent for non-Hispanic whites, and 14 percent for non-Hispanic Asians, Native Americans and African-Americans.

The Irish-Canadian argument is perhaps my favorite. I’m sure police should be worrying about all immigrants in Arizona. Because we all know that there are just tons of Canadians and Europeans flying into Mexico City so that they can cross the border illegally into Arizona!

The reality is, Latinos will be targeted because Latinos make up the majority of illegal immigrants. Again, this is a criminal offense. Authorities talk about enforcing the law, and liberals completely lose their minds. If we aren’t even allowed to ask someone about their immigration status, then how the hell are we supposed to get a handle on illegal immigration? The answer is we can’t, and I suspect that this is the exact thing that liberals are trying to accomplish.

As for the growing number of Latino babies being born, there’s a name for them: anchor babies.

At Firedoglake, the bill is being called xenophobic, and strangely… being attacked on the grounds that poor, innocent, little brown-skinned people will be the ones investigated while all the evil white-skinned criminals will be able to keep on breaking the law!

In fact, multiple police chiefs have come out strongly against the bill, despite state legislators trying to minimize that opposition. Law enforcement doesn’t want to spend all their time enforcing an untargeted police state against brown-skinned people while real people engaging in real crimes don’t get the same kind of speculation.

It’s a shame that none of these people get it. Being an illegal immigrant is in and of itself a crime. And Arizona residents have seen firsthand the effects of letting illegal immigration run rampant — but more on that shortly.

The best angry post was from Feministing. Apparently, illegal immigration somehow relates to equality for women now. I don’t see it, but then again, I don’t consider modern feminists to be true feminists, anyways. Their outrage comes courtesy of John McCain.

According to McCain, “illegals,” are intentionally cause traffic accidents, uh, not to mention cause property damage, theft and other types of crime, well, you know, all while tending to your garden. Watch below.

… You have to love how he essentially says that he is sorry if there is any racial profiling to come out of this law, but that it is basically worth it to “protect” people.

McCain’s attitude to me reeks of the small minded racism that came out of the last election and reminds me of something Alice Walker said when I went to see her speak last week (i know I am so lucky, she was amazing). She mentioned that she really loved Obama, but she often felt frustrated with the way that he was negotiating with some Republicans, not because it was bad politics, but because he isn’t old enough to have seen how stubborn whites that were against desegregation and black advancement used to act in Congress. She said that the behavior of many Republicans in Congress was the same attitude that they had many years ago when they didn’t want blacks to have equal access and that they were acting like “spoiled children.” To which naturally, we all applauded.

So we not only have Nazi rhetoric against this bill, but we have racism/civil rights rhetoric as well. Most interesting to point out, of course, is that Republicans are being blamed for fighting against the civil rights and desegregation movement. As most people with any knowledge of American history know, it was Democrats who fought against repealing slavery, Democrats who fought against desegregation, Democrats who fought against civil rights, and Democrats who kept a former leader of the KKK in their party for decades. Republicans were the ones for desegregation, the repeal of slavery, and the civil rights movement. But, as per usual from liberals, that’s gotten neatly turned onto its head in order to paint conservatives and Republicans yet again as racists.

And a big thanks to John McCain, by the way, for boiling this all down to illegal immigrants intentionally causing traffic accidents. While framed disastrously, this is the kind of thing he was actually referring to:

In that story, Babeu said that there had been “numerous officers that have been killed by illegal immigrants in Arizona” and that “in just one patrol area, we’ve had 64 pursuits — failure to yield for an officer — in one month.”

The line didn’t fully mesh with McCain’s inference that illegal aliens were causing disasters on the roads “intentionally.” But Buchanan pointed out that in a subsequent interview on MSNBC (this Wednesday), Babeu did, in fact, make that point.

“[J]ust last month alone we have had 64 pursuits. That’s where these illegals are failing to yield to lights and sirens, as every good citizen would pull to the side of the road, they are intentionally causing serious traffic hazards. They have caused wrecks, running red lights. It puts our deputies and officers in harm’s way. One thing new in their tactics, nearly every one of them is armed. So this created, even with one of our deputies crashing into an actual ditch and into water, he was face down unconscious. And a Casa Grande officer literally saved his life.”

McCain was making a good point, but he did it in the most awful way. He effectively diminished the rampant crime taking place in Arizona due to illegal immigration to nothing more than traffic accidents. And the reality, unfortunately, is much more grim.

Consider the murder of Arizona rancher Rob Krentz. Arizona ranchers had been afraid that something like this would happen for a long time now, because of the increasing amount of border crime going on, and it eventually did. Michelle Malkin has been very outspoken about his death, and received multiple testimonies from other ranchers attesting to the increasing crime in the area. They have seen firsthand the drug smuggling and human trafficking going on across the border. They’ve seen the violence from the drug cartels. See this example:

For many years, we farmed along side those on the other side of the border. Most people who crossed our properties were not a threat, but that has long since changed. We now find ourselves faced with a government that feels the issue is not significant, as well as our neighbors in the city who are more concerned about “immigrants rights” than our safety. While Bush’s fence project had a lot of problems, the section that crosses our property created a significant deterrent. Traffic decreased from over a hundred per day to a handful per week. The cartels don’t care how they get access to your property. If they can’t buy you out, they will kill you and your family.

Families who live along both sides of the border have been threatened and attacked for some time now by cartels. On the same weekend that the consulate worker was murdered, a young man from Fabens, Texas and his father in law were kidnapped and taken into Mexico. He had turned in a group who had moved onto his property and set up a meth lab to law enforcement. Both men were tortured for several hours before they were finally murdered and dumped.

This problem is not just one on the borders anymore, either. Illegal immigration crime has spread its tentacles throughout the entire country, and nowhere is that more evident than in the frightening growth of the brutal Central American gang, MS-13. They engage in a whole host of illegal activities — drug trafficking, murder, prostitution, human trafficking, home invasions, money laundering, extortion, carjackings, bank robberies, contract killing, rape, kidnapping, arms trafficking, and more. This isn’t your average gang. They are notoriously brutal and bloodthirsty, and they’ve become the fastest growing gang in America.

The signs of a new threat in northern Virginia emerged ominously in blood-spattered urban streets and rural scrub. Two summers ago the body of a young woman who had informed against her former gang associates was found on the banks of the Shenandoah River, repeatedly stabbed and her head nearly severed. Last May in Alexandria, gang members armed with machetes hacked away at a member of the South Side Locos, slicing off some of his fingers and leaving others dangling by a shred of skin. Only a week later in Herndon, a member of the 18th Street gang was pumped full of .38-caliber bullets, while his female companion, who tried to flee, was shot in the back. The assailant, according to a witness, had a large tattoo emblazoned on his forehead. It read MS, for Mara Salvatrucha, the gang allegedly responsible for all these attacks.

At the nearby headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents–many of whom live in these communities–fielded the reports with mounting alarm. But Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, wasn’t terrifying just northern Virginia. “They were popping up everywhere,” says Chris Swecker, assistant director of the FBI’s criminal investigative division. “It seemed like we were hearing more and more about MS-13.” Then one day last fall, FBI Director Robert Mueller called Swecker into his office. “You have a mandate to go out and address this gang,” Mueller told him. Mueller declared MS-13 the top priority of the bureau’s criminal-enterprise branch–which targets organized crime–and authorized the creation of a new national task force to combat it. The task force, which includes agencies like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), aims to take on MS-13 much as the FBI once tackled the Mafia.

Composed of mostly Salvadorans and other Central Americans–many of them undocumented–the gang has a uniquely international profile, with an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 members in 33 states in the United States (out of more than 700,000 gang members overall), and tens of thousands more in Central America. It’s considered the fastest-growing, most violent and least understood of the nation’s street gangs–in part because U.S. law enforcement has not been watching as closely as it might have. As authorities have focused their attention on the war against terrorism, MS-13 has proliferated. In the FBI’s D.C. field office, the number of agents dedicated to gang investigations declined by 50 percent. “There was a definite shift in resources post-9/11 toward terrorism,” says Michael Mason, assistant director in charge of that office. “As a result, we had fewer resources to focus on gangs,” though he adds that the bureau made up for any shortfall by leveraging resources from other agencies. In recent weeks, authorities have made strides against MS-13: a gang leader accused of orchestrating a December bus bombing in Honduras that killed 28 people was arrested in Texas in February, and a recent seven-city sweep by ICE netted more than 100 reputed MS-13 members. But Robert Clifford, head of the new national task force, says “no single law-enforcement action is really going to deal the type of blow” necessary to dismantle the gang. No one is more interested in busting up MS-13 than leaders of the Latino community, who live with the fear and fallout of the gang’s savage actions.

The violence and crime that have washed over our country due to our open borders and lax immigration policies cannot be dismissed anymore. And if racial profiling is what’s needed to stem the bleeding, so to speak, then that is what needs to be done. Liberals like to pretend that they can hold hands with dictators, terrorists, and illegal immigrants alike and sing Kumbaya to make everything all better. Saying over and over again that they’re just trying to do jobs that Americans won’t do won’t stop the crime. The truth is, the amount of crime that has flooded into Arizona has given lawmakers no choice but to take harsher measures to protect Americans. Liberals and lobbyists want to stand in the way of that, making people like the Arizona ranchers further susceptible to become victims of these criminals. They try to stop the effort to stop the flow of crime by making accusations of racism and by marginalizing the amount of criminal activity that has been happening in Arizona.

Arizona lawmakers are responding to what has become a legitimate crisis in Arizona, yet liberals are siding with criminals, drug dealers, murders, and the like. You tell me who is more un-American.

Cross-posted from Cassy’s blog. Stop by for more original commentary, or follow her on Twitter!

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