America's Voice Blog

Posted 07/15/10 at 02:03pm By Jackie Mahendra

Latinos Feel “Under Siege,” Utah ‘Immigrant Hit List’ Includes Social Security Numbers, Due Dates

It's now wonder Latinos are beginning to feel under siege in America-- judging by the latest out of Utah, they are.

A top Latino blogger at Vivir Latino writes:

I just…can’t even think of anything to say. My mouth is on the floor and I can’t pick it up.

They even included *due dates* of pregnant women. Due dates.

I feel safe, how about you?

At a time in which the Arizona GOP has made it acceptable for American citizens to go on witch-hunts for undocumented immigrants (i.e. suing police if they don't profile people based on shoes, accents, and skin color), comes this highly disturbing story.  The New York Times' Kirk Johnson reports, in "‘Immigrant’ List Sets Off Fears:"

A list of 1,300 Utah residents described as illegal immigrants has sown fear among some Hispanics here, and prompted an investigation into its origins and dissemination.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert wants to know whether any state employees helped create a list of 1,300 people an anonymous group has publicly accused of being undocumented immigrants.

Herbert on Tuesday ordered several state agencies to determine whether computer records were accessed inappropriately to create the detailed list, which arrived by mail Monday at media outlets, law enforcement agencies, and the state House and Senate. [...] Utah law makes it a misdemeanor to disclose government data not meant for public dissemination, though there are protections for whistle blowers. The list included names, addresses, birth dates, phone numbers, and 31 social security numbers. Also included: the names and dates of birth of 201 children, and the due dates of six pregnant women. Almost every surname is Latino.

The Orwellian-named "Concerned Citizens of the United States" who released the list to media outlets and law enforcement agencies said they would be “listening and watching” to make sure those on the list, a majority of whom are Latino, are rounded up and deported.  It's no wonder Latinos are feeling increasingly targeted, even those who've lived in this country for generations. Polling of Latinos conducted for the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) Educational Fund and to be released next week finds that, according to Arturo Vargas, NALEO’s Executive Director:

"Latinos are feeling less optimistic and more under siege.” 

Click here to read more.
Posted 04/07/10 at 11:18am By Adam Luna

Bill O’Reilly:  Mexico = North Korea

Last night, in an exchange with Charles Krauthamer on the O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly claimed that Mexico was invading the United States and that President Barack Obama should deploy the military to stop it.  O’Reilly goes on to ridiculously claim that the threat Mexico poses to the Unites States is similar to the threat that North Korea poses to its southern neighbor.

Media ite’s Frances Martel gives us the scoop:

Krauthammer argues that the military cannot be used for “internal policing.” His solution is simple: build a formidable fence to keep them out. If they can’t physically enter the country, there is no need to discuss or negotiate the problem with anyone. But Krauthammer’s point of view is missing something O’Reilly claims is abundantly clear: Mexico is “invading” the United States. His evidence? “We wouldn’t have 12 million illegal aliens if there weren’t an invasion.” And even if they weren’t invading– which they obviously are– there is precedent for using the military to secure the border: in South Korea. And if it’s good enough for the Koreas given their history, why wouldn’t it be good enough for America and Mexico?

The exchange comes in the midst of a political fight between Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and challenger J.D. Hayworth over competing calls for the President to send in the military to patrol the border following the tragic murder of an Arizona rancher.

Click here to read more.
Posted 03/10/10 at 11:47am By Adam Luna

Brown is the New Black When it Comes to ‘Welfare Queens’

Cross-Posted at Jack and Jill Politics and Daily Kos:

Monday night I listened in on a organizing call for leaders of NumbersUSA, the “MoveOn” of the anti-immigrant lobby. The purpose of the call was to figure out how to throw a wrench in the upcoming grassroots mobilization (taking place in DC on March 21st) for real immigration reform. Already, tens of thousands of people have signed up to march to D.C. to demand economic justice for all Americans and an end to our nation’s abysmal immigration crisis— so naturally the anti-immigrant folks are freaking out.

Even still, some of the speakers on this call really took things to a new level. Here’s what went down.

Meagan Ortiz from VivirLatino, who also listened in, writes:

One particular participant on the call wanted to raise the issue of women, specifically how Mexican women were the new “welfare queens” with their “anchor babies”, taking an old stereotype waged against African-American women in the age of Reagan and revamping it to use against Latina women. This caller was not dismissed but rather praised for his message and told to use the word “dependents” instead of “babies” or “children” because that word was emotional for “them”, meaning Latinos and other immigrants. “We have children, they have dependents”, another caller guided.

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/19/10 at 11:22am By Jackie Mahendra

Roundup: Rep. Steve King Vs. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on Immigration, Civil Rights, and Arpaio

Yesterday we celebrated the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the many lessons from his life that inform the struggle for real immigration reform in the U.S. today.

Seth Hoy writes, at Immigration Impact:

His legacy will be remembered this week by people of all colors and creeds who still believe in the American dream and who continue to fight for equality, civil rights and the basic human dignity they deserve. Over the weekend, thousands of human rights activists took to the street in Phoenix, Arizona, to march for civil rights and for “long-overdue federal action on immigration.”

Here is a video from that 10,000-person Arpaio march, which we live-blogged on Saturday:

From ManEegee of Latino Politico, who attended the march:

That's why it's important to come together in public like we did - to signal to other political leaders (and hopefully, Department of Justice officials) that Arpaio's actions are unacceptable. [...] Each time the march is covered with commentary on the investigations and continue blowing the lid off the sheriff's abuses, the more politically toxic he becomes and the feds are forced to act.

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights also hosted a 1,000-person event in Chicago for immigration reform, which the Chicago Sun-Times covered. It featured the Reverend Jesse Jackson speaking about Dr. King's legacy:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson invoked the memory of King -- whose birthday is being commemorated Monday -- in calling for a change in immigration policy.

"His fight was about immigration reform," Jackson said. "It was about one set of rules" for all people.

And Jackson, like several others who spoke, highlighted the plight of the people of Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake there.

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/06/10 at 04:54pm By Jackie Mahendra

New Parody Site Begs Question: Does Anti-Immigrant Crowd Think Hate Crimes are Funny?

In "Nativist Ringleader Behind New Website Parodying Latino Group’s Anti-Hate Campaign," Andrea Nill reports:tantonspinoff copy

....Center for Immigration Truth” was launched with the goal of “present[ing] the truth behind the agenda and tactics of the radical open borders network.” The parody site, which is designed to look just like the National Council of La Raza’s (NCLR) We Can Stop The Hate website, seeks to trivialize and discredit the Latino advocacy group’s campaign against hate and misinformation in the immigration debate. Wonk Room recently discovered that GoDaddy’s domain directory reveals that the Center for Immigration Truth website is registered and run by the same man who founded and funds many of the anti-immigrant extremist groups that NCLR seeks to shed light on: John Tanton.

Looks like John Tanton didn't want to spring for that whopping $9.99/year private domain registration... Wonder if he's pinching himself now. At least it's crystal clear who is really behind this tasteless parody (GoDaddy's WhoIs directory screenshot is pictured at right). The site itself goes in circles with its "About" section (we're linked to prominently!), but the "Translate" section is also priceless, reading:

We have received requests to translate our website into foreign languages - notably, German, Dutch and Spanish.

You can translate text from any web page on this website into another language by using this translator. (LINKS TO BABEL FISH TRANSLATION SITE-- SO YOU CAN COPY AND PASTE YOUR OWN CONTENT).

GoDaddyRight, Dutch. Only one problem: this is America, folks. We speak English.

Maybe we should start a spinoff site, "Speak English or Get Babel Fish."

Nill continues with some crucial perspective on John Tanton's life work from SPLC:

The Southern Poverty Law Center describes Tanton as the “puppeteer” of the organized anti-immigration “movement”:

It is not often that a single individual is largely responsible for creating an entire political movement. But John Tanton can claim without exaggeration that he is the founding father of America’s modern anti-immigration movement. [...]

Nill argues:

In the past, Tanton has dabbled in eugenics and one his groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, accepted $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, an outfit described as having “never wavered in its commitment to eugenics and ideas of human and racial inferiority and superiority.” Tanton also owns and runs the Social Contract Press which publishes the views of known white nationalists and includes pieces such as “Europhobia: The Hostility Toward European-Descended Americans.”

On the Center for Immigration Truth, Tanton sticks to degrading all of the groups which have ever challenged or criticized his network of organizations. It describes SPLC — a civil rights organization committed to the “struggle for tolerance and justice,” as a group that “shamelessly panders to peoples’ fears and profiteers from liberal White guilt in order to line its overflowing coffers.” NCLR, the nation’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, is identified as representing “the well-funded far-left anti-enforcement mob.” Tanton even goes after the Wonk Room for “regurgitating disinformation about dedicated environmentalists.” However, the brand of environmentalism that Tanton is referring to is the one that blames global climate change and other environmental woes on immigration to the U.S.

NCLR launched its “We Can Stop The Hate” campaign in an effort to “stem the surge of hate and violence” that is currently threatening the Latino and immigrant community.

To recap, check out a video we produced last year, exposing the Tanton network of anti-immigrant organizations. Sadly, it's just as relevant today, considering John Tanton and his followers appear to think that a rise in violent hate crimes is something to make fun of.

Watch the video, "Wolves:"

Posted 12/18/09 at 03:20pm By Adam Luna

Prosecution of Civil Rights Cases and Hate Crimes Are Up

Tom Perez, the Obama administration’s new Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights announced yesterday that , “the Civil Rights division is again open for business.” This is  a welcome change for a department that had been widely criticized for politicizing the agency, lagging in effectiveness and suppressing legitimate cases over the last eight years.

On hate crimes, Perez announced that in the first year of the Obama administration, the department had dealt with more hate crime cases than in any year since 2001.

According to the Associated Press:

A total of 25 hate crime cases were filed for the budget year that ended in September, encompassing most of President Barack Obama's first year in office and the last few months of the Bush administration. In 2001, there were 31 such cases filed. The number fell to a low of 12 in 2006, before starting to rise again, reaching 23 in 2008.

The public announcement of hate crime charges by the Justice Department this week against three police officers and two young men in Pennsylvania for racially motivated murders is a welcome sign of things to come.

Posted 12/16/09 at 12:40pm By Adam Luna

Luis Ramirez Update: Administration Opens Door to Justice in PA Murder

News broke yesterday that over half of the police force in the tiny Pennsylvania town of Shenandoah, PA – including the chief – have been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges brought by the Obama administration for obstructing a federal probe of a brutal hate crime and murder.

You may remember the horrific 2008 case of Luis Ramirez who was beaten to death by three teenagers — for nothing more than the way he looked. As Ramirez lay unconscious at their feet, the teens yelled to a young white woman by his side:

Tell your effin Mexican friends to get the eff out of Shenandoah or you’re going to be laying next to him!

An all-white jury delivered a slap on the wrist to the assailants despite overwhelming evidence, acquitting them of committing a hate crime and shocking the nation.  The Obama administration then initiated an investigation, and now the wheels of justice are finally turning.

In a statement released today by the U.S. Department of Justice, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Tom Perez said:

Violence motivated by bigotry and hate has no place in America, and yet it remains all too prevalent in many of our communities. The Civil Rights Division stands ready to bring perpetrators of hate crimes to justice.

Click here to read more.
Posted 12/15/09 at 09:00am By Adam Luna

The Racist Right-Wing Jingle Machine and “Illegals” this Christmas

Andrea Nill over at the Wonk Room caught this racist right-wing holiday song, “Illegals in My Yard,” set to the tune of the Christmas song, Feliz Navidad.

It goes:

Illegals in my yard. (3x)
Sixteen arrive in a stolen car[...]
They’re getting free organ transplants this Christmas.
They’re going to have anchor babies this Christmas.
They’re going to scream “sí, se puede” this Christmas. Those illegals in my yard[...]
They’re going to spread bubonic plague this Christmas.
They’re going to bring me lots of bed bugs this Christmas.
They’re going to pass tuberculosis this Christmas.
Those illegals in my yard.

It was published on the respected (by the right wing) website, Human Events, home to authors like Newt (Spanish-is-the-language-of-the-ghetto) Gingrich and Oliver North. In fact, there’s a whole list of audio shorts designed to get a chuckle from web-savvy right-wingers who think racism is a joke, and their talk radio counterparts.

Song creators Matt Fox and AJ Rice also came out with an absurdly bigoted bit in 2008 called Sasha Obama’s Big Mouth.

A narrator asks: “What happens when procreation goes horribly wrong?” They then insert audio of a Sasha Obama impersonator into that moment at the Democratic Convention when President Obama and daughter Sasha exchange hellos via teleconference. The impersonated Sasha says:

I’m going to P-Diddy’s champagne after party! Bye daddy, I love you, As-Salamu Alaykum my brother!

Click here to read more.
Posted 12/10/09 at 11:34am By Web Team

Weekly Diaspora: Unemployment Feeding Anti-Immigrant Sentiment

This post is a weekly feature by Nezua, Media Consortium Blogger.

The nation's 10% unemployment rate is feeding anti-immigrant sentiment, as Marcelo Ballvé reports for New America Media. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) critiqued President Barack Obama's recent jobs summit as "fatally flawed" because President Obama did not discuss wresting millions of jobs away from undocumented families. Smith's argument is flawed.

A "known Capitol Hill immigration hardliner," Smith asks us to assume that for every job the U.S. could theoretically "take back" from an undocumented worker, an eager U.S. citizen would flock to fill it. But, as Ballvé reports, "several studies suggest that among Americans and legal residents, it's mainly those lacking a high school diploma who are competing directly with undocumented immigrants for jobs (and by most estimates, that's less than one out of every 10 U.S. workers)."

Smith's reasoning is a leap that only a hardliner could make, and is simply not borne out by any reliable data or experience.

In fact, a soon-to-be released book called Working in the Shadows: A Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do by journalist and SEIU researcher Gabriel Thompson tells the opposite story, as In These Times reports. Thompson went undercover to work alongside migrant workers for one year. The work was so strenuous that Thompson used painkillers to make it through. But he gained a crucial perspective: Despite the detached and abstract imaginings of Republican politicians, these are jobs that "even most unemployed and destitute 'Americans' are not necessarily willing or able to take ... even if the pay is decent."

Click here to read more.
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:39pm By Adam Luna

Hate Group FAIR Looking for “Ethnically Ambiguous” Actors—Think You Have What it Takes?

We just got word that the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated a hate group, is holding a casting call in Atlanta tomorrow for a new web video that will change the hearts and minds of the average American.   

Think you have what it takes to be a mouthpiece for hate?

They will pay $500 to “ethnically ambiguous” actors in their 20s or 30s, with no Southern accent, who can work with a teleprompter -- to help them put a modern face on their extreme agenda and disguise their clear ties to white nationalism.

FAIR spends millions of dollars a year on online ads to promote videos like this on websites -- including some progressive ones you know and read. So if you get the part, you could be the envy of  “ethnically ambiguous” racists across the country!

Watch this to learn what FAIR's like when the teleprompter turns off:

To help you out, here are some quotes from FAIR leaders. Try practicing them in front of the mirror before heading to the casting call.

John Tanton,  FAIR Founder and Board Director, and publisher of the Social Contract Press, a white nationalist hate zine:

“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? or will there be an explosion?”

Click here to read more.

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