Today, The Argus newspaper in the Bay Area printed this letter to the editor about the immigration compromise announced yesterday in the U.S. Senate. A snippet: "Hillary Clinton has
hired California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez as her national co-chair
to help her open a gateway to the national illegal alien vote. Hasn't
he done a marvelous job for them in our state? People who break the law
to come here, and commit identity theft and fraud, will not stop at voting illegally to advance their agenda, which is not 'just to work.' [Snip.]
Call, fax, e-mail
these corrupt traitors who call themselves American senators and
congresspeople. Don't ask, don't plead, don't beg, just tell them what
to do.
"Ann McNett is a San Lorenzo resident."
No offense, but why even print something like that? Clinton has not "hired" Nunez. He endorsed the New York senator's presidential campaign. Open "the gateway" to the national illegal alien vote? How? When? The Senate is full of corrupt traitors?!
Sigh.
Nunez, pictured with L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, attended a rally yesterday in MacArthur Park, the site of a recent melee. The mayor called for immigration reform and issued bromides about the U.S. "Here in Los Angeles we all have the right to march peacefully. We're here because
we love this great country and we want to share in the American dream," the mayor told the crowd in Spanish.
Under the immigration package announced yesterday, immigrants would have to learn English. That means people such as Ann McNett of San Lorenzo won't have to take Spanish classes and discover, for example, "how easy it is for people in this country to illegally get pretty much whatever they want from my state and federal taxes."
(Photo:
Reed Saxon/AP)
Anti-immigration activists and Clinton haters are getting some mileage out of an October 1994 video showing labor organizer Fabian Nunez, now the Assembly speaker and a Hillary Clinton supporter, at a Los Angeles rally protesting Proposition 187. The initiative, which passed, was designed to cut off services to illegal immigrants but has since been eviscerated by the courts.
The video shows Nunez on stage at the rally chatting with his friend, Kevin De Leon, now an Assembly member as well, while the U.S. national anthem is played by a trumpet band. The two men, and others on the stage, snap to attention and raise their arms when the Mexican national anthem is played next. (Nunez is obscured behind another man during this, but his fist can be seen in the air.)
On stage, organizers put up U.S. flags featuring the original 13 states - as in, not including California - while members of the audience waved Mexican flags. Several thousand people attended the rally. View videos here.
More than a dozen California evangelical churches have joined a coordinate nationwide effort, Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform, to call for humane treatment of illegal immigrants, stronger border enforcement, guest worker programs and smoother paths to citizenship. Formation of the group and its recent pressure on Congress could signal a major shift between the pulpit and the pew on one of the touchiest subjects in politics.
It's safe to say that white evangelicals are some of the most
politically conservative in the country. A poll in March 2006 by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public
Life, showed evangelicals are far more conservative on immigration reform than their counterparts in other religions. The survey found that 64% of white evangelicals agreed with the statement 'Immigrants today
are a burden on our country because they take our jobs, housing and
health care.' The figure was 49% in December 2004.
The Catholic Church has been actively involved in the politics of immigration for decades in California, but this newest movement represents a major coming out for evangelical leaders, and a threat to more conservative Republicans who would like to see illegal immigrants deported wholesale. (The Coalition For Illegal Immigration and Border Control holds a demonstration last week in Palo Alto, pictured.)
Christians for Comprehensive Immigration Reform this week began an
advertising campaign in Washington D.C. and sent 200,000 letters to
members of Congress. Quoting scripture, the group said: "We believe in the rule of law, but we also believe that we are to
oppose unjust laws and systems that harm and oppress people made in
God's image, especially the vulnerable."
(Photo:
Paul Sakuma/AP) Hat tip to California Majority Report.
The May Day immigration rallies across the nation, including a peaceful march in San Diego (pictured) didn't have much impact on federal authorities. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement says is stepping up its raids and deportations of illegal immigrants. Two strike teams are being added to Sacramento and Fresno. All 75 teams nationwide are expected each to make 1,000 arrests a year.
(Photo: Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images)
There is video of police moving in on protesters at yesterday's immigration rally in Los Angeles available here. The news clip includes fairly dramatic footage - for a functioning democracy, that is - of protesters and reporters getting roughed up.
According to the L.A. Times today, 15 police officers were hurt and about 10 people were taken from MacArthur Park by ambulance to hospitals for treatment. The injuries included mainly cuts, including "head and neck wounds.
None of the injuries were believed to be serious. Police reported that
one demonstrator was arrested."
Here are the opening scenes, from the Times:
"In Los Angeles, after police tried to disperse demonstrators who had
moved off the sidewalk onto Alvarado Street about 6 p.m., some of the
few thousand participants still in the park started throwing plastic
bottles and rocks at officers. Then, several dozen riot police, clad in helmets and wielding
batons, started clearing the park, firing a few dozen volleys of foam
bullets into the crowd. [Snip.]
"The violence began unfolding when a helicopter flew low over the
east side of the park and sirens blasted as police ordered people out
of the park, telling them they would be arrested if they didn't leave. The police formed a riot line across the park on the east side, forcing
the crowd to move west. Some participants were yelling at police, 'You
can't do this.' "
One protester called the shootings with rubber bullets an "atrocity." Read the story here. Photos by Rick Loomis, who just won the Pulitzer Prize for his work on the newspaper's fantastic Altered Oceans series.
(Photos: Rick Loomis/Los Angeles Times)
"I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with
this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with these raids. We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it." - San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom in the Chronicle.
Newsom told about 300 members of St. Peter's Church this Sunday that no city employee would help with the yearlong federal crackdown, Operation Return to Sender. The nationwide
effort that has resulted in more than 18,000 arrests since its launch
in May 2006, authorities said.
(Photo: Ben Margot/AP)
The high-profile California National Guard mission to the U.S.-Mexico border is winding down a bit. Lt. Col. Jon Siepman says the number of air and ground troops participating in Operation Jumpstart is expected to decline to between 1,000 and 1,100 at the end of summer--down from nearly 1,400. "This has always been a temporary mission," he told the North County Times. Nevertheless, the newspaper found that, "Attempted illegal crossings into the U.S. are still a daily part of life along the border."
 "As an example: A few yards from where a California National Guard crew last week bulldozed a hillside just over the line that separates Tijuana from the U.S., a half-dozen homeless people were gathered in a drainage spillway, seemingly oblivious to the noise and work going on around them.
"The group was actually several feet inside the U.S., living in a makeshift encampment. A member of the group who identified himself as Jesus Gonzales said he had been there for several weeks, weighing whether to try to make his way farther into San Diego County."
But authorities believe that potential illegal immigrants are getting the message: Apprehensions fell by more than 6,500 people in a 12-month period ending April 1, The Times reported, with 67,926 arrests compared with 74,463 in the previous 12-month period, according to Border Patrol statistics.
The beefed-up mission ends in December for the California National Guard, assuming federal border authorities can hire enough agents to take over the mission. So far, fewer than 1,000 of the 6,000 federal agents requested have been hired, while numerous states have sent their Guard units to the Mexico border to "help out." In the photos, a Tennessee soldier monitors the border in Arizona as a part of Operation Jumpstart, and three Mexican youths hang on to the International Border fence between Anapra, Mexico, and Sunland Park, New Mexico.
New York National Guard members Spc. Steve Hammann, left, and Pfc. Jamie Kilbury of Lockport, N.Y., get an up-close look at the border with Border Patrol agent Sean King, right, near the Arizona-Mexico border.
(Photos: John Partipilo/Pool-AP; Matt York/AP; Ross D. Franklin/AP)
U.S. authorities have arrested 359 suspected illegal immigrants in California during a two-week operation that ended Tuesday, authorities reported. Fifty of those arrested in their homes across San Diego and Imperial
counties have criminal records, including convictions for child sex
offenses, robbery and drug violations, U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement officials told the Times.
The crackdown is part of Operation Return to Sender, a nationwide
effort that has resulted in more than 18,000 arrests since its launch
in May 2006, authorities said. The San Diego area sweep mostly captured people from Mexico, but illegal immigrants from 15 countries, including Cambodia, Cuba, Israel, Laos and Thailand, were arrested as well.
Amid this, AP writer Juliana Barbassa looked closer at what happens to the children of illegal immigrants when their parents are deported home. The three children of Pedro Ramirez and Isabel Aguirre, who were both arrested and ordered deported at the same
time, were forced to decide whether to stay in California or return to Mexico. "The predicament of deported parents is
tearing many families apart, said clergy and immigrant advocates
familiar with such cases. 'Is it really a choice? Staying in
foster care, or leaving with their parents?' asked Samina F. Sundas,
the founder of American Muslim Voice, which is trying to help the
Ramirez family.
"For the youngest Ramirez children, the choice
was clear: they want to live with their parents. But they said they're
sad about leaving their friends, and worried about enrolling in a
school in Mexico and having to write in Spanish, which they haven't
learned. Their 15-year-old brother, Pedro, a sophomore at Gunn
High School, struggled with the decision, trying to keep up with school
but breaking into tears at times, said his math teacher, Chris Schulz. 'He
wants to stay. He has a life, aspirations here,' Schulz said. 'But he's
decided to go, to support his mother and his family.' "
Those deported are barred from returning to the U.S. for a decade.
(Photo: David McNew/Getty Images, from 2005; Sandy Huffaker/Getty Images, from 2006)
When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger travels to India in November, he can bring along the story of Kartar Singh Sarabha, a U.C. Berkeley chemistry student who helped lead a revolt against the colonial government in India during World War I.
It's not the greatest U.S. immigrant story, but it has passion. Sarabha arrived in California in 1912 and immediately faced discrimination because, as an immigration officer said, he came "from a slave country."
Sarabha helped start the Ghadr revolution party in Washington, Oregon and California. "He would sit with a worker for hours and
explain to him how death is a thousand times preferable to a life of
slavery filled with humiliation," writes Ashfaque Swapan in Indian Life and Style.
Sounds like your typical U.C. Berkeley student.
Sarabha started a newspaper in San Francisco that preached the revolutionary overthrow of India. Ghadr, the newspaper, "carried extensive exposes of
the criminal deeds of the British empire, it carried poetry to inspire
young and old. The first issue declared: 'The time will soon come when
rifles and blood will take the place of pen and ink.' "
Anyway, World War I started and Sarabha traveled back home to kick some British butt. He is quickly betrayed and then hanged. That's the California history lesson for today. He should have worked out more, married a Kennedy and done a few action movies.
If elected officials needed more evidence that illegal immigration is roiling the state, Sunday offered a revealing snapshot into the divisions up and down California.
With federal strike teams arresting and deporting scores of Mexican and Central American immigrants in raids across the country, the Catholic Church has been drawing closer to California's illegal immigrants and preparing to offer them sanctuary.
That is, to a point.
In Orange County, Auxiliary Bishop Jaime Soto on Sunday called on parishioners to pray and fast for illegal immigrants--part of the "Hunger for Justice" campaign this week--but he stopped short of offering sanctuary for those being pursued by federal agents. Soto is declining to join a nationwide movement in which several churches--including Los Angeles' Our Lady Queen of Angels--will harbor illegal immigrants facing deportation, the O.C. Register reports today.
The 188-year-old Los Angeles parish, La Pacita, is completing a new addition that will house an illegal immigrant family. Church officials say the movement "is a political protest against immigration policies as well as a religious obligation recognized in biblical passages such as Leviticus 19:34: 'The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt,' " Louis Sahagun with the Times recently reported.
On Sunday as well, a pro-immigrant rally attracted about 5,000 people at the L.A. Sports Arena--far fewer than the 10,000 expected. "We are saying that in this great and generous America, there ought to be a pathway to citizenship," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told the crowd. About 200 anti-illegal immigration activists carried U.S. flags and signs reading "Mexican gangsters belong in Mexico" and "Deportation? Si, se puede!"
Amid this, the United Farm Workers on Sunday held its annual Cesar Chavez Mass in Los Angeles. The group raised money on the Internet--$150 for a family of five, credit cards accepted--so they could  attend a Mass presided over by Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. "Farm workers are eager to take part in this historical day joining with thousands of UFW supporters from throughout Southern California. Please help us raise the funds to charter buses so they can attend this special event," said the union, which acknowledges it represents large numbers of illegal immigrants.
About 300 farmworkers showed up to the Mass.
Marc Grossman, spokesman for the UFW, said his group has a long history with the Catholic Church and Mahony (pictured with then-L.A. Mayor Jim Hahn, left, and candidate Villaraigosa in 2005). "The two institutions that have stood by farm workers," he said, "have been the labor movement and the Catholic Church." Mahony was the first chairman of the Agriculture Labor Relations Board and he presided over Chavez's funeral in 1993, where he called the labor leader a "prophet for the farm workers."
(Photos: Chris Pizzello / AP; Mark J. Terrill / AP)
 More than 30 Republican and Democratic lawmakers from California are in Washington, D.C. this week to lobby for more money from the federal government and to discuss immigration. Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (pictured) and GOP leader Mike Villines are leading the delegation.
With a few notable exceptions--such as some members of the House Appropriations Committee and the White House--the delegation has planned meetings with ... other California lawmakers.
Villines said the state delegation will "demand once and for all that California receives the funding it is due." Let's hope California's representatives in Washington, D.C. already have that message.
The lawmakers have scheduled chats with California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, also a Californian. In addition, meetings are planned with Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Rep. Lois Capps (D-Calif.), and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, chair of the California Congressional delegation.
More immigration raids in California yesterday. To date, the federal government's Operation Return to Sender has arrested an estimated 18,000 suspected illegal immigrants nationwide. This time, 30 people were rounded up in San Rafael, in wealthy Marin County.
Also yesterday, the ACLU, the Lawyer's Committee for Civil Rights and a Bay Area newspaper demanded government documents to verify reports of "abusive tactics that may violate people's rights," as one ACLU attorney put it. Protesters stood outside the a federal building in San Francisco recently to protest the raids (pictured.)
UPDATE: Forum schedule for tonight in Hollywood on immigration and the media. Event includes Jon Fleischman, GOP blogger, Steve Gregory of KFI, and Daniel Hernandez of L.A. Weekly.
(Photo: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
The "citizens patrol" Minuteman Project is eating itself alive. Board member Marvin L. Stewart, described as an "accounts receivable technician" at Veterans Affairs and leader of My Lord's Salvation Ministries Inc., has orchestrated a coup to oust the group's chairman, James Gilchrist, over allegations of "gross mismanagement."
 Of course, the dispute is over money. Stewart says the Minuteman Project can't account for $400,000 that a direct-mail company helped raise last year for the organization. Gilchrist (pictured left) is disgusted with his former supporters and says it could destroy the whole organization:
"It certainly could come to that," Gilchrist told The Washington Times. "We have led the fight for stricter immigration enforcement, but I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that the people I am fighting against, including the open-border lobbies, are better than the people I'm fighting for."
Gilchrist firmly rejects the idea that $400,000 is missing, and he has asked a Superior Court judge for a restraining order to halt his firing. A hearing is set for March 21 in Orange County. It's not the first divorce for Gilchrist; he already has split with the Minuteman Project's co-founder, Chris Simcox, who started the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
(Photo: Ric Francis / AP; John Miller / AP)
The Diocese of Orange (as in Orange County, not the Diocese of Orange in France that was dissolved in 1801 - so don't get confused!) is asking Catholics to fast during Lent for "comprehensive immigration reform." The week-long fast should end March 30, the Friday before Palm Sunday, the bishops said.
What do Catholics want? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has called for an improved economy in Mexico, a broad legalization policy for the estimated 10.5 million Mexicans now in the U.S., visas to allow some workers to become permanent residents, a new temporary worker program for most others that guarantees wage levels and employment benefits that are "sufficient to support a family in dignity."
The bishops also said that "alarmingly, migrants often are treated as criminals by civil enforcement authorities. Misperceptions and xenophobic and racist attitudes in both the United States and Mexico contribute to an atmosphere in which undocumented persons are discriminated against and
abused."
The Ku Klux Klan is using illegal immigration more and more to boost its membership, the Anti-Defamation League reports this week, with new hate groups holding recruitment drives that feature racist literature focused on "illegal invaders" and Latinos.
 In addition, the Klan is increasingly cooperating with neo-Nazi groups and stretching its reach to Great Plains states and the mid-Atlantic. The report:
"Although some Klansmen may still hold cross-burnings dressed in robes and hoods, today’s young Klansmen are more likely to look virtually indistinguishable from racist skinheads or neo-Nazis. Today's Klansmen may be as likely to gather at white power music concerts or socialize at so-called ‘unity rallies’ with other white supremacists, as to participate in ritualistic cross burnings in the rural wilderness. Klan groups have become increasingly "nazified," with members embracing and immersing themselves in neo-Nazi and racist skinhead subcultures, adopting the music, dress, tattoos and imagery of neo-Nazis."
California is not immune, although the ADL could not document significant growth in Klan or neo-Nazi for the state to be included in the report. Nevertheless, a separate report on activities in 2006 in the Golden State found a May gathering in San Jose of "Klansmen and adherents of Christian Identity, a racist and anti-Semitic religion, with open an invitation to members of Stormfront, a hate Web site. Event includes speeches, BBQ, indoor paint ball and evening movies."
Anti-immigration rallies took place in Sacramento and nearby Roseville, which appears to be a particular hatebed. The ADL found a September demonstration in Roseville "organized by the Sacramento Unit of neo-Nazi National Vanguard to protest Home Depot's alleged support of 'invader labor,' with an afternoon 'Meet & Greet' BBQ scheduled after the protest." Similar rallies were held in July, August, October and November.
(Photo: Bebeto Matthews / AP)
 Arnoldo Torres, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's former Latino outreach director and senior advisor during the 2006 reelection campaign, is quoted in La Opinion saying the Republican governor is ignorant about Mexican immigrants. On the recently released audio tapes, Schwarzenegger talks extensively about how Mexicans fail to assimilate into American culture.
About the tapes, Torres told La Opinion: "Unfortunately the governor works with much ignorance."
"The governor needs to be educated deeply in Latino subjects, like he has done it with African-American and the gay community."
"He needs to stop making superficial comments, and the question is that when speaks about Mexicans, he doesn't know he is insulting us; the question is that with Latinos, more than 90% Mexican, the main minority of this state, for any challenge that the governor wants to undertake he needs to have them."
"The problem with the governor is that he thinks that the Mexican community is only mariachi, tequila and Mexican food."
In the April 3 recording, Schwarzenegger says Californians get annoyed when they see so many signs in Spanish and when immigrants treat California like guests who refuse to chip in. "In Lynwood. I mean, it's spectacular, when you see that shopping mall. Literally I felt I was in Mexico City, because I was in Mexico City for months and months and months doing my movies there. And it felt like I was down there. Everyone only spoke Spanish, every shop was in Spanish, every sign was in Spanish. They create a Mexico within California."
Schwarzenegger paid Torres' consulting firm $75,000 to help his campaign make inroads with Latino voters last year. According to the L.A. Times exit poll, Schwarzenegger received 33% of the Latino vote--relatively high for a Republican. After the election, Torres told the Sacramento Bee that other Republican candidates could build on Schwarzenegger's model: "(They) should use the experience of what just happened and reach out, not in a patronizing way, but in respectful, substantive way and say, 'Come join me,' " he said.
But even before the tapes were released, Torres was openly disdainful of the governor. Torres, a former political analyst for Univision, said he was offered a job as secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing agency--a prominent Cabinet position--but that he turned the administration down. Adam Mendelsohn, the governor's communication director, said Torres was interviewed but was not offered the job.
As for the other comments, Mendelsohn said: "It's not even worth responding to." Another Schwarzenegger insider, however, said Torres was extremely difficult to manage even during the reelection campaign. He would get furious when his suggestions were not followed to the letter and threaten to quit on a regular basis, the insider said. "He was the political equivalent of a suicide bomber in the middle of the campaign."
(Photo: Univision)
- Republicans tap into that frustration among the middle class and working poor over illegal immigration. Dan Weintraub.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done it again: Gone and helped out the "invaders." Anti-immigration groups are upset about the Republican governor's decision to open one-stop assistance centers for agricultural workers, particularly one in Escondido, near the Mexico border. The centers will provide information on food stamps, health care and other government services.
 As LoneWacko surmises, Schwarzenegger is a corporatist "attempting to keep a workforce for corrupt growers around, rather than (for instance) Mexico stepping in and offering to repatriate their citizens who are here illegally." Digger says illegal immigrants will "once again be taking advantage of the generosity of California taxpayers."
And Immigration Watchdog offers this headline: "Socialist Schwarzenegger opening 18 freebie centers for invaders." A reader there bitterly asks: "Has such a thing ever happened when they closed down a car factory for example, or a missle factory, etc? oh yeah-those factories employed AMERICAN CITIZENS."
Well, yeah.
Schwarzenegger visits one of the assistance centers today in Dinuba, near Fresno, to discuss "what additional help may be needed due to the severe cold weather," his office reported.
(Photo: Dan Ocampo / The Bakersfield Californian via AP)
California voters just ordered up nearly $40 billion in public borrowing to spruce up the state's freeways, bridges, homeless shelters, schools and levees to prepare for a massive wave of new residents. "People will always come. So we have to be ready for the increase," Schwarzenegger said this summer. "We will have in the next 15 years 50 million people in this state. We've got to get our act together."
He's right. The trend line is pointing upward. But for people already living here, California has become less attractive.
 The newest figures from Schwarzenegger's Dept. of Finance show population growth has been sluggish. During the fiscal year 2005, California saw a net population growth of just 1.4% - about 500,000 people. The majority of those were "natural" - new births, minus the people who died. In addition, the state counted about 207,000 "new foreign immigrants."
But for the first time in a decade, more people left California for another state in 2005 than moved here. There was a net loss of 29,000 people to other states, the first "negative flow" since a recession in 1994, when 350,000 people moved elsewhere, the Associated Press reported. Californians are moving to Arizona, Nevada, Texas, Washington and Oregon.
The main reason? High real estate costs. The AP tracked down a man named Stephen Gallant, who moved to Michigan this summer after nearly three years in Los Gatos, in the Silicon Valley. He traded a $2 million house for one in a Detroit suburb that was about half the cost and double the size. "It was all about lifestyle," said Gallant, former chief financial officer for Global Motorsport Group Inc. "If I'm going to spend $1 million on a house as opposed to $2 million, that opens up a lot of purchasing power, the ability to go out and do other things."
(Photo: Victor Calzada / AP)
"Why does California insist on creating more magnets for illegal immigrants? And why must our governors be agents for Mexico?" - Joe Guzzardi, in a column at vdare.com with the headline: "Schwarzenegger sells out on health care for illegals.
It's becoming clear the biggest resistance Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will face on his health care plan from his own party will be over providing health care for illegal immigrants. GOP members in the California Assembly and Senate are ready to fight him even before the plan is unveiled. Said Sen. Dave Cox: "We are not the health maintenance organization for Mexico."
Schwarzenegger seems to be focusing on easing the burden on hospitals for providing emergency care for illegal immigrants, which is a somewhat younger population compared to the average California resident and who frequently use emergency rooms as their primary medical office. The federal government already reimburses border state hospitals for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants, but medical providers feel burdened.
The actual taxpayer cost of providing health care to illegal immigrants is the subject of continuous debate, but the amounts would not break the bank. A Rand Corp. study found the cost for treating illegal immigrant adults in the U.S. was a paltry $1.1 billion, the L.A. Times' Evelyn Larrubia reported recently. That figure seems low, she writes, since the cost for California alone is higher than that: "California's Medi-Cal program covered $946 million in services for impoverished illegal immigrants, including coverage for emergencies, prenatal care, limited cancer treatment, abortions and nursing home care. In 2003, Los Angeles County estimated that it spent $340 million on public hospital and clinic care for illegal immigrants not covered by Medi-Cal.
"But those figures include costs for children and the elderly, who were excluded from the Rand study. Also, the Rand data were collected in 2000 and the number of illegal immigrants in California has swelled in the five years since then, as have healthcare costs."
Either way, the question remains: Should California spend about 1% of its budget on health care for people who came here illegally? Expect to hear the word "compassion" a lot next year.
L.A. Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez dissects the controversy over Republican congressional candidate Tan Nguyen and the "do not vote" letter that went to 14,000 people in Orange County with Spanish surnames. He finds the story something of a perfect storm that allowed both sides, Republicans and Democrats, "to position themselves as Latino friendly. The only loser is the rakish yet soon-to-be-forgotten Nguyen. And no one owed him anything, so who cares?" Rodriguez writes:  "Editorialists called the incident 'despicable.' Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger labeled it 'racist' and a 'hate crime.' The chairman of the Orange County Republican Party called it 'grotesque and obnoxious.' You'd think they were all talking about a lynching, or at least a cross-burning. But no, it was a rather pedantic letter sent to fewer than 14,000 foreign-born Democrats with Spanish surnames in Santa Ana, Garden Grove and Anaheim."
The letter legitimately reminded many politicians and reporters of past efforts to intimidate Latino voters in O.C., so the anger is understandable to me. In the wake of the controversy, however, some conservative bloggers are asking, What's the big deal? And, according to the O.C. Register, a rally organized by Vietnam veterans and Vietnamese expatriates "lined Garden Grove's historic Main Street with yellow and green Tan Nguyen signs. Buena Park's the Rev. Wiley Drake showed up to videotape his global prayer-line broadcast, and a club singer in black fishnet stockings repeatedly lip-synced to her recording of the campaign's new country-Western theme song, 'Stand by Our Tan.'"
Nguyen is undoubtedly going to lose to Democratic Rep. Loretta Sanchez. But there are other winners. Rodriguez concludes: "The point is that plenty of politicos on both sides of the aisle got to prove their benevolence, the media got to show off their high-minded indignation and nothing, absolutely nothing, was done to alter the political status quo. A perfect story."
(Photo: Chris Carlson / AP)
The single most important issue to voters — immigration — has received relatively minor attention from Arnold Schwarzenegger's and Phil Angelides' campaigns. Today, Schwarzenegger neatly illustrated why the subject is so difficult to discuss.
Schwarzenegger appeared in L.A.'s Chinatown to celebrate the midautumn Moon Festival and promote bean paste moon cakes. He called them a "fantastic cultural tradition in our Asian American community" and praised Asian Americans as "hard-working" and "smart." Soon afterward, however, he was asked about the assimilation of immigrants into the American culture. The secret of success, he said, was to "immerse yourself."
He singled out Mexican immigrants: "And that is very difficult for some people to do especially, I think, for Mexicans because they are so close to their country here so they try to stay Mexican but try to be in America so there's this kind of back and forth and what I'm saying to the Mexicans is you've got to go and immerse yourself and assimilate into the American culture become part of the American fabric. That is how Americans will embrace you. That was my, I think, the secret, if there is one, to success."
This immediately sparked condemnation from opponents like Democratic Party chairman Art Torres. He called it a "calculated political insult to all immigrants" and compared it to former Gov. Pete Wilson using the issue of illegal immigration in his 1994 campaign.
When Schwarzenegger talks about immersing yourself in American culture, which culture is he speaking about? Is it the culture that lives in gated communities and listens to Rush Limbaugh? Is it the culture that puts up Spanish language signs outside businesses or works the Salinas lettuce fields? Is it the culture that eats moon cakes?
"Californians of all backgrounds are living the California dream while maintaining their culture, customs and languages," Torres said. "It is not the governor's place to dictate to new Californians how much of their language to speak, how much of their culture to keep or how quickly to assimilate."
Schwarzenegger's campaign said it welcomes a debate with Angelides about immigration and assimilation. He has already written detailed opinion pieces on the subject and doesn't hesitate to answer questions when asked. Said spokeswoman Julie Soderlund: "The governor has shared his views on the need for immigrants to assimilate — whether they are from England, Austria, Mexico, China or anywhere else in the world — time and time again."
Schwarzenegger, who holds dual citizenship with his native Austria, is opening what could be an endless argument about the definition of being an American. The governor already believes people should speak English and stop waving Mexican flags at immigration rallies. OK, what else makes an American?
That's a tough question to answer. Schwarzenegger may find it's hard to have his moon cake and eat it too.
Maybe I'm obsessing too much over Schwarzenegger's recent L.A. Times essay about illegal immigrants. But there is something else important about it.
In the piece, the governor chastises activists for waving the Mexican flag at rallies in California. He then turns to his own story. After arriving on the shores of a Miami bodybuilding contest in 1968, the governor wrapped himself in the American flag and "learned the customs and culture of my new country," he writes.
 Although he says, "Carry your home country in your heart," his message is that supporters of Mexican immigrants seem to be saying they "do not want to learn our language or our culture," unlike European and Asian immigrants, he notes.
Schwarzenegger himself has not left his home country entirely. He still has dual citizenship — U.S. and Austrian. He really wanted it, and he wants to keep it.
Joe Mathews, a Times reporter who knows more about Schwarzenegger than perhaps even Maria Shriver, talked to Schwarzenegger in the lobby of the Grand Hotel Wiesler in Austria on an unseasonably cool July night in 2004. Here's some of their never-before-published exchange: Schwarzenegger: Austria has always treated me like a head of state, even if it's a movie premiere. I think they know that I love Austria. Know that I love the people of Austria. They also know how much I appreciate my childhood here. Here's where I learned about staying hungry. I had nothing. And I was hungry to get out of here and do something with life. I think all of that contributed to my career and to my way of thinking. So they know I always give credit to Austria. That this is what was my foundation. I always was in love with Austria.
Mathews: Is that why you kept your citizenship?
Schwarzenegger: Yes, exactly.
Before he became governor, Schwarzenegger made regular visits to Austria. He has even endorsed national and provincial candidates there. Since then, he has asked that his name be removed from the stadium in Graz, near his hometown (see photo of his childhood home in Thal), after death penalty protesters were working to do it anyway.
(Photo: AP File Photo)
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows. But first, he wants them to pay up.
At the bottom of his second opinion piece in the L.A. Times, Schwarzenegger writes that illegal immigrants should learn English and "become part of our culture." But he also wants them to pay a fine and back taxes.
This appears to be the first time Schwarzenegger has embraced such a plan in a public way. He is sounding closer and closer to President Bush, at least on some finer points. Bush in June: "You got to pay a fine for being here illegally. You've got to learn the English language ... pay your debt to society, and if you choose to be a citizen, you can, just you wait in line at the back, not in the beginning."
Schwarzenegger today: "They must pay a fine for breaking our laws. They must learn English and become part of our culture. They must pay back taxes and pay for health care and education rather than expect American taxpayers to pay extra when some cannot even afford health care or college for their own children."
There is probably little Schwarzenegger can do to appease conservatives who want every illegal immigrant sent back to his or her home country. Schwarzenegger calls that solution "inhumane" because it would cause families to be split up.
Schwarzenegger's position on illegal immigration has been evolving over the past few months. While his op-ed piece took a more emotional and personal tone than previous missives, he also is being more definitive: Secure the border. Start a temporary-worker program. Allow more visas for technology, engineering and farm jobs. Require immersion in the English language. Pay fines. Pay back taxes. Embrace the U.S. flag, not the Mexican flag.
This is a long way from last March, when Schwarzenegger was asked by a reporter what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants already here. He said: "I'll let the geniuses in Washington figure that all out. There are many of them that have studied this subject for many, many years and that have worked on that, and they can figure out how they handle it."
|
|
|
Our Blogger