America's Voice Blog

Posted 12/02/11 at 06:23pm By Web Team

Rep. Steve King Thinks Racial Profiling Is Legal in the United States

Steve KingNothing should surprise us about Rep. Steve King. The Iowa Republican is proudly one of the leading anti-immigrant legislators in Congress. 

Yesterday, we posted about King's attack on Art Venegas, the Army Vet who served as Chief of Police in Sacramento, during a House Judiciary Committee hearing. Venegas is also a naturalized U.S. citizen.  King basically asked Venegas to see his papers. 

The hearing was on Secure Communities and one issue discussed repeatedly was on racial profiling. In fact, Huffington Post's article on the hearing was titled, Democrats Say Secure Communities Needs More Safeguards Against Racial Profiling.

But, guess who doesn't think there need to be safeguards against racial profiling? Rep. Steve King.

Why?

King apparently think racial profiling is perfectly legal in the United States. As we tweeted from the hearing:

Steve King bravely comes out in favor of racial profiling. "Is there a federal law prohibiting racial profiling?"

Yes, you read that right: King actually asked the witnesses whether any federal law prohibits racial profiling. And he insisted that Congress actually hasn’t enacted a law on this subject. Art Venegas challenged King's assertion, noting the Civil Rights Act and the US Constitution, specifically the 4th and 14th amendments. 

King was unimpressed by the answer from Venegas. When King asked Gary Mead, Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations
for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that same question about racial profiling, Mead replied, "I can't answer that question." Yeah, couldn't answer it.

Congress didn't pass a specific law relating to racial profiling and that's all that matters to him. Pretty clear that King wouldn't want such a law either.

 

Posted 10/25/11 at 05:37pm By Maribel Hastings

Some African-Americans in Alabama See HB 56 as “A Giant Step Backwards”

inside AL barbershopThis is the ninth column in a series on the Alabama anti-immigration law by Maribel Hastings, Senior Advisor with America's Voice Education Fund:

Originally published in AOL Latino and La Opinión

Birmingham, Alabama – Illinois congressman Luis Gutiérrez has always said that the fight for immigration reform is a civil-rights issue for the immigrant community in the United States.

That community finds itself in dire straits in Alabama under its new law HB 56, which, even after a court ruling temporarily blocking some provisions from being enforced, continues to wreak havoc among families made up of immigrants, legal residents and citizens, and continues to affect the economy and the image Alabama is projecting to the country and the world. 

Gutiérrez was in Alabama over the weekend, presenting a united front with African-American leaders in the state—led by the NAACP—in the fight against the toughest anti-immigration law in the United States.

In the historic center of Birmingham, which saw much of the 20th-century civil rights movement, we encountered a diversity of opinion among African-Americans regarding HB 56. 

Some said that the situation the state’s immigrants face amounts to a civil-rights and human-rights crisis. Others said that what’s happening now can’t be compared to the fight for civil rights for African Americans, but everyone agreed that it’s morally wrong for persons who are just working for the betterment of their families to be criminalized and demonized to the point of having to flee the state. They also agreed that the law doesn’t make economic sense. 

In a barbershop which has been in operation for nearly 50 years, we talked to barbers and clients.

“Not only a civil rights but a human rights issue. It's supposed to be the land of opportunities and you're breaking up families, you're destroying families. But not just immigrants. It’s also affecting the people they work for. To me, it’s a disgrace how they’ve handled this. It’ll result in racial profiling. And yes, it’s a civil rights crisis because a lot of civil rights will be violated because of this law,” said one of the patrons referring to HB 56.

“And with Alabama’s past, you’d think that they would shy as far away from that as possible, instead of trying to be the leader on something that is so unpopular. People have worked so hard to change the image of this state, and to me it's a giant step backwards,”  he added.

Nor did he think that the jobs abandoned by immigrants fleeing HB 56 would be taken by U.S. citizens. “It won’t work. In agriculture, for example, that’s really hard work, it’s demanding, and to be honest, most people won’t want to do it or can’t do it.” 

And referring to republican State Senator Scott Beason, who championed the law, the customer added “It’s all politics…there’s always an agenda. Politicians have created more unemployment in this state than bringing in employment.” 

“It’s politics because they think that this segment of the population will (eventually) vote a certain way, and if you don’t want that, and if you can make them leave, it’s less likely that they’ll vote against you. Because I don’t think that the great Senator Beason cares one way or the other who’s working in the fields or who's working in construction. And now, all of a sudden they (immigrants) are doing something wrong? No,” he said.

His conclusion: HB 56 is “a disgrace to the state.”

A retired teacher who now sells encyclopedias for a living commented that the way (HB 56) is structured, "it’s just a punitive kind of law, I just don't think it’s fair.”

“I would agree to an extent, it has parallels (between the African-American civil rights movement and the immigrant movement’s fight today) for the people who are directly going through it that is similar. Now, being the descent that I am, maybe I wouldn't completely latch onto it as close, but I think from a human rights stand point, I think that perhaps I should,” he said. 

The politicians who pushed for the law argue that their objective is to open up jobs for Americans. “I think that the real reasons, for the most part, are because of personal prejudices,” he allowed.

“People in political office, because they’re greedy, because their objective is keeping those offices, tend to say what they think people want to hear. It’s not good, but it happens.”

A young University of Alabama student added that HB 56 is “uprooting and displacing a lot of families. Their livelihoods are basically being crushed because they don’t have the proper papers. I disagree with how they came, but now that they're here 10,12, 20 years in, there’s no way you can just tell somebody that they have to uproot their entire life and just go...I just don't think it's fair at all.”

Some people, he told me, think that passing the law was good politics, but for him it was “morally wrong.”

“I don’t think that it’s comparable to what happened during the civil-rights era, because they pulled out guns, hoses, dogs..., but I do feel is wrong.” 

But he added that it is a civil-rights issue "because they know who it will (HB 56) effect, who it will target the most, and hit the hardest, and that’s the Latino demographic here in Alabama.”

One of the barbers, meanwhile, said that “I used to have a lot of Mexican clients who left, and I miss them. I miss their money, and they’re good people. As an African-American, it broke my heart to see them have to go through what we had to go through.”

“I miss them. I know a lot of Mexicans. They work hard and I like them a lot. And I think that what’s happening is wrong,” he said.

Video #1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_mOIF0PWw (America’s Voice YouTube Feed)

Caption: Patron inside a barber shop in Birmingham, AL shares his thoughts about the state’s new immigration law

Video #2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqC3LA8L_Ng (America’s Voice YouTube Feed)

Caption: Student from Alabama shares his thoughts about the state's new immigration law

Read Maribel Hastings' other columns on Alabama here.

Posted 03/01/11 at 11:36am By Web Team

Faith Leaders Reject “False Divisions” Offered at House Hearing on Immigration

This very powerful statement from African-American and Latino religious leaders was issued in advance of today's House hearing on immigration issues. Our initial post on the hearing is here.

While the purpose of the hearing appears to be aimed at dividing communities of color, Rev. Derrick Harkins, Senior Pastor of the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church and Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference say, "As faith leaders of African-American and Hispanic congregations, we come together to affirm our commitment to an economic solution that honestly addresses the need for good jobs for everyone in our communities, without seeking to pit us against one another for political gain." We're posting the full letter. It's powerful, and rejects the "false divisions."

Posted 10/29/10 at 02:19pm By Jackie Mahendra

REPORT: Immigration’s Dirty Dozen,12 of the Most Outrageous Candidate Statements in 2010

The 2010 mid-term campaign season is shaping up to be one of the most vicious and vitriolic in recent memory -- especially when it comes to the issue of immigration.

Distortions, lies, and stereotypes have dominated the airwaves when it comes to immigration, and Latino Americans in this nation.  From threats of violence against immigrants to calls for mass deportation, candidates across the country are unleashing a torrent of extreme speech that is both alarming and un-American.

Who’s the worst of the worst?  To be honest, it was hard to choose...and we might have to update this again.  Here’s a dozen of the most outrageous candidate claims thus far, plus a couple honorable mentions.  Consider this the Immigration Politics 2010 Wall of Shame. 

1. SHARRON ANGLE, U.S. Senate candidate, NV (R)

Sharron Angle Immigration Ad

--television ad, September 2010

“I'm not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through. That's the most porous border that we have.”

--October 15, 2010, addressing Rancho High School’s Hispanic Student Union, after being asked why her ads portrayed Latinos as “illegal aliens” and criminals. (In late October, Angle released an ad with images of a Border Patrol checkpoint whose exterior clearly reads “El Paso, Texas.”)

“I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that.”

--October 15, 2010, during the same conversation with members of Rancho High School’s Hispanic Student Union

Sharron Angle Immigration Ad

Sharron Angle Immigration Ad

--television ad, October 2010

MORE:

Check out the full “Dirty Dozen" here.

View summaries of candidate positions on immigration in fifty-four races here. 

Read more about the politics of immigration in the 2010 elections here.

Posted 10/29/10 at 12:26pm By Jackie Mahendra

New Surge in Early Voters in Nevada—Any Relation to Angle’s Race-baiting?

Curious if Sharron Angle's race-baiting campaign, which has upped the ante on demonizing Latinos and immigrants (see images at right) and has become the focus of major Latino voter mobilization efforts is contributing to the new "Democratic early voter surge" being reported in Nevada. 

At the Huffington Post, Michael P. McDonald reports on a "A Late Democratic Early Voting Surge in Nevada:"

Day-by-day tracking of in-person early voters in Clark County, Nevada shows an uptick of registered Democrats and Independents in the last week of the early voting period. Registered Republicans, on the other hand, showed their best performance of the entire early voting period on Monday, but their numbers have since flat-lined. As a consequence, the number of registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans by the greatest single-day margin on Thursday -- 3,400. This is significant because Clark County is home to Las Vegas and it is likely that well more than half of the state's votes will be cast in this county.

According to McDonald, today is the last day to Early Vote in Nevada.

Reform Immigration For America has a new simple voting tool up to find your polling place.

 

Posted 10/28/10 at 05:43pm By Adam Luna

Sharron Angle’s Guide to Making a Racist Ad

Good stuff from my friends at Cuéntame. Sometimes you’ve just got to laugh to keep from crying:

Cross-Posted at Jack and Jill.

Posted 10/18/10 at 05:41pm By Grace Cunningham

Angle Denies Race-Baiting, Calls Latinos “Asian,” Pulls Disputed Image from Her Ads

Video removed due to copyright violationsWe've reported on Angle's vicious attack ads, criticized for demonizing Latino immigrants both on TV and in mailers. Now, the Nevada Senate candidate is going on offense again, claiming these attacks have been "misinterpreted." The Hispanic Student Union at Rancho High School in Las Vegas invited Angle to meet with them to explain her approach. When confronted with a question regarding her campaign's tactic of race-baiting, Angle had this to say (via the Washington Post):

"I'm not sure that those are Latinos in that commercial. What it is, is a fence and there are people coming across that fence. What we know is that our northern border is where the terrorists came through."

Wait, what? The commercial with the recycled stock photo of scary Latinos was calling for more enforcement at the northern border? The Post reports:

Teacher Isaac Barron said his students organized the meeting with Angle Friday because they felt the ads stereotyped young Hispanics. Barron said Angle's explanation was met with incredulous stares. "Some of the kids, they couldn't help but chuckle at that," he said. "To deny they are anti-Hispanic when those are the only people shown in her ads, it doesn't add up."

We went to take another look at that ad, but it had vanished (see image at right).

As Think Progress reports, both the Angle and the Vitter campaigns have removed the ads with the duplicate stock photo, replacing them with slightly edited ads with the same messages. Angle's ad was pulled from YouTube "due to a copyright claim by Getty Images, Inc.," and Vitter's ad is now marked as "Private." According to Think Progress, the Getty photographer even argues:

I think this is a question of principle. The only legal place they could’ve obtained that image [on the Getty Images website] clearly printed out that the people in the photo were not illegal aliens, but Mexicans in Mexico. That means they either purposefully deceived their audience or they stole the photo from somewhere else.

While the disputed image has been pulled, Angle is not changing her overall race-baiting tactics, and she clearly failed to win over the students at Rancho High School. Jon Ralston at the Las Vegas Sun remarks that Angle told the students:

"I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me."

Watch the uncomfortable shuffling after that one:

Click here to read more.
Posted 10/13/10 at 11:13am By Jackie Mahendra

Federal Judge Denies Motion to Dismiss AZ Law Challenge, Finds Race a ‘Motivating Factor’

No to SB 1070 - by Arasmus PhotoU.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton ruled this week not to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the Constitutionality of the controversial Arizona SB 1070 immigration law. The motion to dismiss was brought forward by none other than Gov. Jan Brewer, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu (of "Complete the Danged Fence" fame).

From The Arizona Republic:

In her ruling, Bolton found that the plaintiffs, led by the Phoenix advocacy group Friendly House and the American Civil Liberties Union, had standing to bring the lawsuit and that the moment was "ripe" to do so.

And she found merit in their arguments that portions of the controversial law may violate the Fourth and 14th amendments of the U.S. Constitution. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable search and seizure; the 14th Amendment includes the "equal protection clause," which forbids unequal treatment for different classes of people or racial discrimination.

Huffington Post reports:

"While Governor Brewer correctly points out that, for the most part, the organizational plaintiffs' allegations involve threats of future harm, the threat of future harm is sufficiently imminent," Bolton ruled, according to Courthouse News Service.

In her decision, Bolton also found that "race, alienage, or national origin discrimination was a motivating factor in the enactment of S.B. 1070..."

And here I thought we were just checking people's shoes...

Posted 10/08/10 at 04:47pm By Jackie Mahendra

LA-Sen: Vitter Winning “Most Racist Ad of 2010” Competition For Demonizing Latinos After Katrina

Well this ought to make mom proud... Louisiana's David Vitter is breaking away from Sharron Angle, taking the lead for the dubious honor of "Most Racist Ad of 2010."

The Hispanic Chamber of Commerce is furious with the ad, which features what the Chamber’s Darlene Kattan decries as “Hollywood stereotypes, caricature-types of Latino workers," and which ends with the “stereotypical” immigrants pulling away in a limo while holding an over-sized welfare check.

According to Andrea Nill at the Wonk Room:

The racial overtones of the ad are so offensive that the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has called it blatantly “racist”and is demanding not only an apology but that the ad be pulled altogether.

Adam Serwer has a fact-check of the ad over at The Plum Line:

"Melancon voted to make it easier to get taxpayer-funded benefits for illegals..." Based on the citation in the ad, this vote would have "required affordable-housing beneficiaries to show proof of legal residency." But undocumented immigrants are already ineligible for affordable housing or any other federal benefits, and the amendment was part of a motion to recommit, generally the last attempt by the minority to keep a bill from a final vote, that fell along party lines. Melancon has actually voted to prevent unauthorized immigrants from receiving affordable housing benefits.

"...and actual welfare checks." This vote was meant to prevent unauthorized immigrants from receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit. The EITC was actually a Republican idea, meant to be an alternative to traditional welfare. This amendment was also part of a motion to recommit, in other words, another Republican attempt to kill the bill in question. You have to be a legal resident in order to claim the EITC.

Click here to read more.
Posted 01/13/10 at 02:00pm By Jackie Mahendra

Poll: Hispanic Americans Skeptical about Race, Forty-Two Percent Feel Ignored by Obama

New polling released by the Pew Research Center today explores racial attitudes one year after the historic election of President Barack Obama. While the phone-based (land line and cellular) poll found increasing optimism among African Americans, and decreasing racial tension among white and black Americans, it uncovered deep concerns about race among Latinos. The tension felt by Hispanic Americans is perhaps unsurprising given the tone and tenor of the unresolved immigration debate in this country.

The L.A Times reports:

One year after the election of President Barack Obama, black optimism about America has surged, while Hispanics have become more skeptical about race relations, according to a Pew Research Center poll released Tuesday. [...]

The poll found that Hispanics, not blacks, now are seen as the ethnic group facing the most discrimination. Twenty-three percent of all respondents say Hispanics are discriminated against "a lot," compared with 18 percent for blacks, 10 percent for whites and 8 percent for Asians.

A lot of that discrimination could stem from the racially-charged immigration rhetoric that flows from talk radio to nightly news to the halls of Congress, and back again.

The L.A. Times continues:

Hispanics also are less optimistic than other groups about interracial relations. When whites and blacks were asked how well their group gets along with Hispanics, more than 70 percent say "very" or "pretty" well. In contrast, only about 50 percent of Hispanics feel the same way.

There have been a number of recent attacks on Latinos that advocates say are hate crimes fueled by anti-immigration rhetoric.

"My sense is that racism in this country seems to be pretty entrenched," said Carmen Febo-San Miguel, executive director of the Latino cultural center Taller Puertorriqueno in Philadelphia. She cited the beating death of a Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah, Pa., that federal authorities have called a hate crime.

Interestingly enough, the majority of Latinos who felt discrimination were not foreign-born. On the whole, the L.A. Times reported that 79 percent of U.S-born Latinos felt significant discrimination against their ethnic group (versus 48 percent of foreign-born Latinos).

The Pew poll also dug into the extent to which different groups felt the President was paying enough attention to them. While only twenty percent of black Americans and twenty-two percent of white Americans reported feeling ignored, a whopping forty-two percent of Hispanic respondents felt that Obama was not paying enough attention to their group.

An NPR interview this morning also discussed the finding, coming to the conclusion that this could put more pressure on the President and Congress to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform. NPR news analyst Juan Williams argued that Judge Sotomayor's appointment last year was not enough to satisfy Latino voters, who see immigration reform as a key priority.

In fact, a recent poll of Latino voters "found that 84% of Latino voters think it is either 'important, very important, or extremely important' that immigration reform is enacted before the 2010 midterm elections."

The good news for the President and Congress, however, is that immigration is not just a "Latino issue"-- overhauling our nation's broken immigration laws is still important to the majority of Americans, who want to see the system fixed and the crisis solved. Polling released this week shows that 66 percent of voters (Republicans, Independents, and Democrats) support a program that better regulates immigration flows and clears backlogs, prevents future illegal immigration, and has undocumented immigrants register, meet certain requirements, and pay taxes on their way to becoming full U.S. citizens.

Moreover, fixing immigration is an integral part of our economic recovery.

With over 100 events happening across the country in support of real immigration reform this week, the message to Washington is clear: it's time to get this done.