By Nina Masters

I came to Arizona knowing the immorality and injustice of SB 1070. I left understanding the individual lives torn apart by this law, the children living in fear of men in uniform dragging their parents, uncles, or grandmothers away from them before their very eyes. This trip cemented my conviction that those in this country without documents are human beings. They are simply trying to make a better life for themselves and their children.

Pursuing the American Dream, the promise of hope, they are not criminals and do not deserve to be criminalized as part of a white nationalist agenda. Hearing the heart-wrenching accounts of children my age who have been through more fear, injustice, and suffering than anyone should endure makes me ashamed of the country that I live in. I have realized that by not actively helping these humans—humans who are treated like animals – I am complicit in the racist actions of Sheriff Arpaio, Russell  Pearce, and all of the men and women like them.

I came to this trip nervous, not having experience in community organizing but only having a background in research on the anti-immigrant movement.  I would have been lost without the guiding ideas of the other students on this trip—students who have dedicated years to fighting racism, discrimination, and upholding social justice.

I honestly feel like the most affecting part of this experience was not walking through the desert near the border, seeing the inside of the Florence Detention Center, or even debating Joe Arpaio: it was witnessing these perspective-altering experiences with a group of like-minded individuals who had already implemented change in their communities.

I was incredibly inspired by the motivation of those around me, the ways in which they tackled problems and never gave up. In car rides between our visits, the group always brainstormed and proposed ways to bring our new knowledge back to our communities, to organize and educate and ultimately defeat this unfair law on the opposite coast.

These five days changed me in a very profound way. I cannot go back to New York and be content doing nothing. Witnessing the pleas for help from sad-faced teens, hardened adults, and young children, who know to run and hide when the police appear, provoked the deepest feeling of guilt I have ever experienced.  We brushed in and out of these people’s lives, spending only five days in this harsh, anti-immigrant climate. These innocent, well-meaning people struggle every day to live out the American dream. They may be lacking documentation but their motives are in the right place.

Five days ago I expected to see the “political climate” in Arizona and assess how communities were reacting to SB 1070.I didn’t think I would come home different, deeply compelled to end these people’s suffering.  I cannot forget the stories, the tears, and the faces of those whose lives have been broken by the militarization of the border. And now I will not stop until I have exhausted all of my power trying to prevent this country from getting away with scapegoating the newest “outsider.” These people are not aliens, they are not animals, and I cannot let them be treated as such.

Our neighbors to the south are caught in a whirlwind of despair while drug lords continue to set the country ablaze with gunfire. The stories coming through the pipeline depict a nation overrun by vicious animals with political agendas. It strikes me odd that this chaos has all but erased the fact that a great chunk of Mexico was recently left in ruins in the wake of Hurricane Alex.

I find it further disturbing that much of America feels it in our best interest to cage the animals and let them sort it out on their own turf. The same cult would have us go knocking door-to-door throwing every “illegal looking” soul over the fence, right into the mouths of the starving jackals.

A solution to Mexico’s highly sensationalized drug war will not be produced in this mindset.

What’s more, narrow conversations produced by commercial media will keep many in a comfortable state of neglect.

Amidst hot winds

Blowing smoke and casting veils

The unwarranted precedent of ownership stands to protect its prize

With tongues like brushes painting out the proof

If only unconsciously generating sangre in puddles

The greedy seedy thrones of negocios hide their lies

Flashback to accords made to keep trade cheap

Nursing struggle in the fields of hope

Farming future friendly fire

James Lee

Today’s hostage situation at a Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, Maryland indicates an alarming re-emergence of racially-tinged population control arguments. The scene played out violently when a man stormed the Discovery Channel offices and took three hostages. Early news reports indicate that the attacker was killed when he was shot by law enforcement which caused an explosive device on his body to detonate.

A list of demands for the Discovery Channel was posted on the website SaveThePlanetProtest.com, which were reportedly written by the alleged attacker James Jay Lee. In the irate statement, Lee refers to human beings as “filth” and demands that the Discovery Channel “stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants.”

Demand number five states:

“Immigration: Programs must be developed to find solutions to stopping ALL immigration pollution and the anchor baby filth that follows that. Find solutions to stopping it. Call for people in the world to develop solutions to stop it completely and permanently. Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US and the world to seek jobs and therefore breed more unwanted pollution babies. FIND SOLUTIONS FOR THEM TO STOP THEIR HUMAN GROWTH AND THE EXPORTATION OF THAT DISGUSTING FILTH!”

Demand number seven on his list orders the Discovery Channel to:

“Develop shows that mention the Malthusian sciences about how food production leads to the overpopulation of the Human race. Talk about Evolution. Talk about Malthus and Darwin until it sinks into the stupid people’s brains until they get it!!”

Neo-Malthusian theory was born when Thomas Malthus published “An Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798” in which he stated that the discrepancy between the rate of population and the rate of food growth would lead to a permanent food shortage for humans.

Malthus’ works gained influence in 19th Century England and was used to justify ideologies that essentially blamed the victims of early industrial development — a development that swallowed up, displaced and destroyed populations, and which was itself highly artificial and environmentally destructive — for their own misfortune.

“Ironically, this attack comes amid a renewed commitment and declaration by environmentalists to build a democratic and diverse environmental movement,” said Rebecca Poswolsky, field organizer at the Center for New Community.

This silver lining comes in the form of a pledge that acknowledges that immigrants and refugees are also spearheading movements for ecological and economic renewal, and are allies rather than adversaries in the fight for environmental sustainability.

In a recent report called, Apply the Brakes, and a subsequent film titled, The Green War on Immigrants, the Center for New Community raised red flags about neo-Malthusian ideas around population gaining legitimacy in mainstream environmentalism.

By Taisha Hawkins

“ Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become action. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. Watch your character, for IT becomes your destiny. ” -Unknown

Imagine if an imagination was all you needed: to begin, to finish, to follow through.
What if all your tomorrow consisted of was your development in thought from today?

That’s where dreams come from…
You think it in your head, you see it through your eyes, then show others through your action.
And just like that, history repeats itself.

Today is a good day to dream. If you don’t agree, try asking someone who can’t.

Success only occurs when preparation meets opportunity, but NOTHING can birth without being conceived first.

Dreams in Arizona have been swept away: not only from the undocumented, but the youth that follow.
Not because dreams were never conceived, but because they have been aborted.

What if your skin’s pigment had everything to do with your way of life?
Imagine living each day like it’s your last.
Imagine having to risk your life crossing a desert just to create one for your children.

What if your ethnicity/culture just wasn’t good enough to be considered the “American Way?”
Imagine having a racist Sheriff endorse the slaying of your people, who have committed no wrong; amnesty was null and void.
Imagine being denied your ethnic history in schools and chastised only to be underpaid.

Everything begins with just a thought. Have you thought about it?
Can you imagine? You don’t have to, all of these things are going on.

Right here in America!

By Brendan Francis

During the week of August 9, 2010 along with 12 other people, I traveled to Arizona to learn more about the immigration movement from all sides and what I could do to help counter hatred towards immigrants. We traveled to Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona to meet with different individuals and hear their views on the immigration debate.

We had a lot of experiences in this short week but what stood out to me the most was the fear that resonated in the eyes of most of the Latinos immigrants we met.

The immigrants I met with were overall very peaceful and hard working people who simply live for their families.  Those qualities helped me identify and relate to them better.  When we traveled to a community where many undocumented immigrants resided, I was able to understand half the things they said and I could hear the passion in their voices when they described why they were here, as well as the fear in their voices over the potential deportation of their family members.  I was really able to feel for them.

I spoke with a 19-year-old mother who explained how she and her baby  daughter were citizens but her parents were not.  They have seen people deported over and over again.  The teenage mother has faced discrimination and racist sentiment while being educated in Arizona and even faces racism while trying to go to college.  The main thing that stayed with me was the baby.

The little girl was nine-months-old.  She was as pure and innocent as a human can be.  She has no idea what the climate of the state is now or even what SB 1070 is.  She doesn’t know that NAFTA weakened Mexico’s economy she doesn’t know that her grandparents are undocumented. She doesn’t even know what it means to be undocumented.  She doesn’t know what Mexico, the US, brown, black, or white is.  She just knows how to smile and laugh.  It didn’t matter who played with her or what they looked like; she was peaceful and happy with all.  That stuck with me the most.  Her innocence should be the model of how this country treats all people.  That is what I hope to bring to this world with my organizing.

He loves to tell anyone who will listen that he and his parents came to America as legal immigrants. He also loves to promote the English language and bash undocumented immigrants. Eddie lives in Tennessee and has been very involved with trying to get English-only legislation passed in the state, most notably pushing legislation that would make English the only language available for people who take a drivers license test.  In March of this year, Garcia testified in favor of the English-only bill.

Garcia is also an advisory board member of ProEnglish, a group formed by white nationalist John Tanton who still sits on the group’s board for directors. Tanton is the father of the modern day anti-immigrant movement. He has warned of a “Latin onslaught” and has also stated, “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”

Tanton founded other anti-immigrant organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Eddie Garcia, in recent months, has expressed extreme anti-immigrant hate on ProEnglish’s and his own Facebook pages. On May 4 of this year, Garcia, who at that time ran the ProEnglish Facebook page stated, “Yea, I’ve had it. I am sympathetic with the issues of people during the last two days of flooding in Nashville, but to hear of non-English speaking immigrants WHO HAVE BEEN HERE OVER 3 years that THEY ARE wondering why there aren’t Spanish speaking or Arabic speaking emergency personnel to help is ABSURD!LEARN ENGLISH …and you WON’T have any issues….FOR GOD’s SAKE!!”

Here, Garcia bashes immigrants who were wondering why there weren’t multilingual rescue workers to help them during the terrible flooding in the Nashville area at that time. A supporter responded to Garcia’s rant by stating, “OH, you are so right Eddie!!!!! They have no reason to complain about translators. There’s a fix for that!!

This week however, Garcia took his immigrant bashing one step further by comparing undocumented immigrants who come to America to rape. On August 20 Eddie wrote this on his Facebook page, “Yet another vivid and CLEAR example of the raping of America by illegal immigrants and the disgust that illegals who are here continue to demand rights and that their presence is acceptable.” […] “Not saying that EVERY illegal is a member of a gang or drug dealer, but they are WITHOUT A DOUBT a criminal by virtue of their ILL…EGAL ENTRY in the USA.”

For Garcia to compare undocumented immigration to rape is a step too far. Rape is an extremely violent and psychology damaging crime that can be in no way be compared to immigration and the accusation that immigrants are harming the United States.

Disturbingly, this type of hate speech has become commonplace among anti-immigrant leaders like Garcia.

By Efrain Ramirez

I never thought that I had enough water in me to be able to cry everyday. It really felt like I was mourning the death of someone. This trip to Arizona hasn’t been an educational experience; it’s been an emotional rollercoaster that took a heavy toll on me. It was one of the hardest experiences of my life. This trip really started years before, even before I was born.

My mom is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico. She crossed the border 20 years ago. Before that, she had a baby girl who died a few days after birth and from that point my mom knew she didn’t want to have any children in Mexico. She wanted a better future for children – children who hadn’t been conceived yet. She has crossed the border three times in her life. The last time she crossed was in 2001. We went to Mexico to see her family for the first time in 10 years and since then she hadn’t seen her family until two months ago via Skype.

This trip has reinforced what I have learned from my mom and from Spanish new media. I wanted a firsthand experience; I didn’t want to hear any more stories. However, this trip has hit me in my heart. From the meeting with Isabel Garcia and hearing about deaths at the border really moved me. I knew about the deaths but seeing those crosses, some of them saying ‘Desconocido,’ it really struck me.

After that, heading to the border and seeing the environment that my mom went through, that moment struck me. My mom had to endure this. It gave me a greater sense of appreciation for her sacrifice, what she had to do to cross that border just to give me a better life. This appreciation was reinforced when we went to meet with undocumented residents. To hear all the stories of different people and what they have gone through, really made me think of my mom. I saw my mom’s story.

I spoke to them and talked about my mom’s experience and what she did. I told the people I met that they shouldn’t regret coming to this country despite the hatred. I said, ‘one day, when your children grow up, they will tell you thank you, thank you for your sacrifice and your hard work. Keep fighting for your children cause they will be grateful and to cherish every moment with them. Don’t regret your decision and thank you for what you did for your children.’

I wanted to give them a little support because I felt this is all I could do at the moment.

When I was at the Florence Detention Center, I couldn’t look at the people being detained. I couldn’t because I didn’t want the people to view me as a person who came to look at them as if it was a zoo. They were looking at me because they knew I was Latino and they were talking about me. I just didn’t want to stand there and see them; I wanted to set them free, free from that hypocritical, tyrannical prison.

This trip was hard on me. After the first day, I started to regret coming on the trip. I just wanted to run back home. This feeling kept following me. I just wanted to go back home and tell my mom, ‘thank you for everything, your sacrifice was worth it.’

Photo: Immigrant Rights Protest at the Broadview Detention Center in Illinois. Credit Carrie Sloan via Flickr.

The good news is we can take a stand against the greening of hate.

Some already have. Take for example the community members in the Bronx who were fed up with anti-immigrant bigotry and exposed a powerful New York foundation for funding the anti-immigrant movement. The Weeden Foundation was confronted by over 100 community members in front of its Manhattan headquarters in a protest organized by the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC). According to the group’s press statement, members were protesting “the Weeden Foundation’s funding groups that scapegoat immigrants for ecological problems.”

Today, hundreds of environmentalists are taking a pledge to resist the growing infiltration of their movement by white nationalist forces, including those under the umbrella of the John Tanton Network. Organizations such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), NumbersUSA, Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS), Carrying Capacity Network, Apply the Brakes Network and Negative Population Growth (NPG) are scapegoating immigrants for rising pollution, urban sprawl, carbon emissions and even the BP oil spill as a way to build support among environmentalists for repressive anti-immigrant legislation.

It’s time for all of us to take a similar stand, and share a vision that acknowledges immigrants and refugees as partners in movements for ecological and economic renewal.

The urgency of the climate crisis means there is no time to lose.

Watch the video, take the pledge, and pass it on.

It’s good for America. And good for the environment.

This may sound like a good occasion to get versed on the immigration issue, but it’s quite the opposite.

CAPS is listed as a state contact on Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) website, where it is misleadingly described as “an environmental activist organization that views immigration control as a key element of population stabilization.”

FAIR is a hate group founded by white nationalist John Tanton. Tanton has a history of advocating for racial eugenics, the pseudoscientific study of racial supremacy.

CAPS has additional ties to white supremacy that are undeniable. Its media director, Rick Oltman, was identified in a Council of Conservative Citizens’ (CofCC) newsletter as a member. The organization is a descendant of the old White Citizens Council. CofCC’s statement of principles reads:

“We therefore oppose the massive immigration of non-European and non-Western peoples into the United States that threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime […] We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called “affirmative action” and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.”

Oltman also shared a stage with Virginia Abernethy, a self-described white separatist, at a Council of Conservative Citizens conference. He was at the time the Western Regional Coordinator for FAIR, and in 2004 he received a Person of the Year Award from American Patrol, another anti-immigrant hate group. The award was for his work passing Proposition 200, a highly controversial anti-immigrant law in Arizona.

Rick Oltman’s name appears regularly on the white nationalist website VDARE.com, named for Virginia Dare, allegedly the first white child born in the U.S. colonies.

This event on environment, population and immigration is the new frontier for folks like Oltman and anti-immigrant groups such as CAPS.

Many leaders with ties to white nationalism, after successfully embedding themselves in the immigration issue, are now infiltrating the environmental movement. Their goal is to link immigrants to every environmental issue, from everyday litter to natural and man-made disasters. CAPS is positioning itself as an “environmental” group whose purpose is to stop immigration into the U.S.

Hiding anti-immigrant views in environmental concerns isn’t new for the leadership at CAPS. Ben Zuckerman, Vice President of CAPS’ board and Richard Lamm, a board adviser, attempted  a hostile takeover of the Sierra Club’s board in 2004 and failed. The takeover attempt was one of repeated attempts of anti-immigration ideologues to redirect the Sierra Club to match their own agenda.

The overlaps between the anti-immigrant movement and white nationalism are numerous, and the public should always be mindful of this is any discussion on immigration or the environment.

Discussions are necessary and welcome, but not when white nationalists are sitting at the table.

ONE MEMBER of his own UMP party has compared President Sarkozy’s crackdown on illegal Roma camps to “rafles”, the roundups of Jews in Nazi-occupied France. Romania’s Foreign Minister Teodor Baconschi has cautioned against stigmatising an entire ethnic group and fomenting xenophobia, while a spokesman for the European Commission has warned that group expulsions may well be illegal.

Following July riots sparked by the deaths of itinerant youths, Mr Sarkozy ordered the dismantling of 300 illegal Traveller and Roma camps as part of a broader campaign against crime. But the move has all the hallmarks of electoral grandstanding in the face of plummeting ratings. To date 51 camps have been dismantled, and Thursday saw the first charter flights taking 79 Roma back to Romania on a voluntary repatriation scheme. Some 700 of France’s estimated 15,000 Roma are to be expelled by the end of the month.

The row brings to mind the Dublin 2007 deportations of 100 gypsies whose grim camp beside the M50 appalled everyone from rights groups to road safety campaigners. Threatened with compulsory exclusion they eventually took up the offer of a free flight home when it became clear staying was not an option.

Continue reading at www.irishtimes.com.

The 640 miles of fence that have been built to date took four years, an average of $4.5 million per mile of taxpayer money, and have not proven an effective form of border security. On the contrary, this fence has caused more problems than it has solved.

For starters, immigration has not stopped. The only thing this fence has done is force the foot traffic through the more dangerous parts of the desert, causing a staggering number of deaths – 150 so far this year. In the Arizona desert alone, 59 bodies were recovered in July 2010, the highest number since July 2005.

The number of deaths along the border since 2001, 1,650, has eclipsed the number of US troop deaths in Afghanistan, 1,200, over the same period of time.

The precious border is also infamous for the rift it has caused among the indigenous tribes living along the border. The descendants of the “people of the desert” have witnessed this fence rip apart – quite literally – their lands, their families, their culture. The Tohono O’odham tribes, natives of the land, are now being harassed by Border Patrol agents, and treated like strangers on their own land.

Last, but certainly not least, the U.S. Congress, deep in its post 9/11 hysteria gave the Department of Homeland Security authorization to bypass all federal, state and local laws – environmental and otherwise – along the border in order to build the fence. Without regard to environmental protection or public health and safety, Section 102 of the Real ID Act has allowed for 36 federal laws to be broken, effectively destroying the natural habitat of hundreds of wildlife species, most of which are endangered or threatened.

Over 40% of the land along our southern border is protected public land, and this reckless infrastructure has meant dire consequences for vast expanses of pristine lands, including wildlife refuges, wilderness areas, and national forest lands, among others. Several species of wildlife have been known to migrate seasonally, and some have been observed, even photographed, stranded by the callous fence. In its Wild versus Wall documentary, the Sierra Club has denounced the disastrous consequences of the fence.

And do not think for a second that these environmental catastrophes are bad news for animals only. People are also being caught up in the mix. The wall has caused severe flooding in Nogales, Arizona burying homes and businesses under 6 feet of water and causing two drowning deaths.

The border wall has proven ineffective, costly and dangerous for animals and people alike. And yet the government, unfazed by the carnage, is implementing plans to build another layer to the fence.

Sounds like more bad news for all involved.

The lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on Aug. 12, 2010 alleges that Mississippi authorities took a newborn baby from a Mexican immigrant mother and placed the child with a white couple. The SPLC also has appealed an earlier gag order that prohibited the mother and her lawyers from speaking publicly about her family’s ordeal.

“Mississippi officials and hospital workers conspired to steal Cirila Baltazar Cruz’s baby by inventing false charges against her – allegations she couldn’t refute because she doesn’t speak the right language – and then told her she couldn’t talk about it,” said SPLC Legal Director Mary Bauer. “This was an outrageous violation of her most fundamental rights, and we’re deeply concerned that other mothers in Mississippi might be subjected to the same treatment.”

According to a Time Magazine article last year, the hospital deemed her an unfit mother in part because her lack of English “placed her unborn child in danger and will place the baby in danger in the future.”

This is not an isolated incident. A similar case just came to a head last month in Missouri where a mother detained on immigration charges had her baby adopted against her wishes to a couple while she was incarcerated. Fortunately, an appeals court overturned the adoption proceedings deeming a parent’s rights to raise children “a fundamental liberty.”

Both of these cases involve health care employees, attorneys, educators, and judges who unlawfully or immorally facilitated the separation of these children from their biological mothers and into the arms of adopting couples. Both cases warn of an ugly trend: the privileged, with the help of racist institutions and broken policies, are preying on poor women of color – specifically women who are vulnerable due to their immigration status.

Even the proclamations of the adopting parents are disturbing. In the Missouri case the couple was able to plead their story in the media long before a court with any authority on the matter could hear the case.

Their argument was essentially that they could provide a better life for the child. One of their points was ironically almost identical to that of millions of young undocumented students currently fighting for a path to citizenship: they didn’t want “their” child to return to a country he’d never known with his birth mother. The key difference is these millions of students are right now fighting to keep their families intact, not tear them apart.

And well-intentioned though these couples may have been initially, they must have realized at some point that they were complicit in a conspiracy to deny a mother her child, and blind to the fact that citizenship, nationality, or wealth don’t determine one’s worth as a parent.

In the end, the so-called good intentions of all involved came out more like cruel, self-serving paternalism.

History is full of such tragedies. Perhaps the most infamous involved Australian Aboriginal children who were systemically stolen from their parents by the government and placed with white families for over one hundred years. All in the name of “protecting” the children. It will forever remain a shameful stain on Australia’s history.

In a broader example, the State of Oregon recently reported that the rate of child abuse is about the same for white families as for minorities, but that Native American children are in foster care at nearly six times the rate that their population would suggest and African American children are twice as likely to be in care. The culprit? Widespread institutional bias. And there’s no reason to believe this problem is confined to Oregon.

It’s an extraordinarily powerful method of dehumanizing people – breaking up their families, taking away their children. It’s clear that attacks on immigrants in this country now include doing just that. It must be stopped.

The email was regarding an upcoming election in Saline County involving a tax increase for a proposed $55 million fair complex. Secure Arkansas is vehemently opposed to the project, and in the email it lists a bizarre conspiracy theory as one of the reasons why.

It states, “the Saline County Fairplex is part of an agenda that is bigger than it looks and could threaten personal freedoms and destroy our way of life.”

The email then links the building of the complex to a UN climate change program, and claims that the government is going to allow UN troops on US soil.

This is not the first time Secure Arkansas has made bizarre and false claims. Usually the group’s work focuses on bashing immigrants. Earlier this year, it attempted to get an anti-immigrant initiative on the ballot for the upcoming election in November. The initiative, if passed, would have denied certain public benefits to undocumented immigrants. It failed to get on the ballot because of a lack of signatures.

The ballot did gain the attention of white nationalist James Edwards, however, who promoted it on his blog, stating,

“In Arkansas there is one organization that is staffed with ONLY VOLUNTEERS, giving speeches, sometimes 2 or 3 per day, fighting for recognition of the 10th Amendment, monitoring legislative sessions, implementing statewide initiatives, i.e. illegal immigration, healthcare, to be put on the November ballot which I heartedly recommend. If you want to make a contribution please make it out to Secure Arkansas. You will be proud you did.”

Edwards sits on the board of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist organization which has called African Americans “a retrograde species of humanity.”

Secure Arkansas isn’t the only one. Many of the local groups connected to FAIR have additional ties to extremism. Many of the state groups listed on FAIR’s website, like the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, sadly continue to enjoy mainstream media coverage despite their extreme views.

It would take us back to a time when all other people, besides those of European descent, were not good enough to be first class citizens or worthy of attaining any status in this country.

I’m sure that after ratifying the amendment in 1866, lawmakers did not intend for it to be overturned.  Advocates for changing the landmark bill are afraid of how immigration will affect the demographics, and are desperate to control the racial composition of the nation.  I’m not an expert in immigration or Constitutional law, but I can give some reason as to why this is happening and why it’s a bad idea.

Opponents want to continue debating the issue of immigration and not actually solve it.  The last couple of years, politicians have dragged their feet on the issue and not done anything meaningful to fix it. Rather, they rant and rave of how immigrants do this and that. Most of their talk is not substantiated by anything but rhetoric.

If politicians in favor of altering the 14^th Amendment say that it will solve the issue, then we really should question their motives. According to the Immigration Policy Center, ending birthright citizenship would not stop undocumented immigration: “Since children born to undocumented immigrants would presumably be undocumented, the size of the undocumented populations would actually increase as a result of the new policy.”

If the 14^th amendment is altered what will that mean for you and me and those who have citizenship? It will mean that you will have to prove that you lawfully reside in this country. A driver’s license will not suffice, and your birth certificate will not help you.

The Immigration Policy Center’s new report says the burden to average Americans would be significant:

Eliminating birthright citizenship would impose a significant burden on all Americans who would no longer have an easy and inexpensive way to prove their citizenship.

• If simply being born in the U.S. and having a U.S. birth certificate were not proof of citizenship, Americans would have to navigate complex laws to prove their citizenship.  Other than a birth certificate, most Americans do not have government documents that establish U.S. citizenship.

• Some Americans would have to prove they derive U.S. citizenship through one or both of their parents – a process that can be difficult for even experienced immigration attorneys.  In some cases, whether one’s parents were married or unmarried at the time of one’s birth makes a difference in determining citizenship. In some cases the gender of the U.S. citizen parent can affect the determination.

• All American parents—not just immigrants—would have to prove the citizenship of their children through a cumbersome process.

Messing with the constitution is not the best way to change things; it will actually do the opposite.  But these individuals pushing for changes to the 14^th Amendment really want to keep immigrants and other persons of color suppressed with limited rights; even if it means changing the constitution.

They are the descendants of people that occupied the region since before recorded history, before the volcanoes, before civilization as we know it.

Before any European immigrant, the Tohono O’odham tribes were living in the place now called Arizona. A fairly large chunk of tribal ground crosses south of the border into today’s Mexico. And that’s the crime they are now being punished for.

They didn’t ask for borders. Yet one was imposed upon them in 1853 when the United States decided that its border had to cut through O’odham tribal land. They certainly didn’t ask for a fence, but one was built on their land when, deep in its post 9/11 hallucination and seeing a terrorist in every immigrant, the Department of Homeland Security built a 640 mile fence on the southern border of the country. A 65 mile section of that fence runs through Tohono O’odham territory.

It is akin waking up one morning to find an iron wall has been driven through your house, splitting it in two. Your kitchen and your bathroom are on either side of the wall. You still have your bedroom to sleep in, but now you have to ask permission to go into the dining room. That’s what the Tohono O’odham tribe has been dealing with since the construction of the fence along the US/Mexico border.

Families have been ripped apart, villages isolated. Even though there are two main roads crossing the border, life has been anything but easy for the Tohono O’odham residents on both sides of the treacherous fence. Ever since the passing of the Homeland Security Act in 2002, and the Secure Fence Act in 2006, more of the undocumented border crossing has been forced through O’odham land. This, of course, has been a trap organized by the government, which has used that as an excuse to deploy more and more Border Patrol agents to tribal land. Multiple complaints have been filed against these Border Patrol agents who have been making life hell for the natives.

Abuses are rampant, and the human rights of residents are being trampled upon even more so than they already were. SB1070 certainly didn’t help. They are constantly being asked whether they are Americans or Mexicans, even though they are natives of the land. The slogan “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us” takes on a very literal meaning with the Tohono O’odham residents.

They are constantly being asked to produce identification, even though they are natives of the land. And their Tribal ID doesn’t seem to do the trick anymore.

The government is now pushing for residents to produce passports as proof of ID, knowing very well that most of the older residents were born at home and therefore don’t have the proper documentation [birth certificate, social security…] to obtain a passport.

This will be the final straw, the definite rift in their already torn homelands and families.

No one really knows what’s going on with the Tea Party, but whether or not you buy into its rather complex political message, you have to admit that they’ve drawn a lot of attention.

After the Tax Day demonstrations in April, it’s become clear that the Tea Party can both garner impressive numbers, as well as tap a nationalist sentiment that inches them farther and farther to the right. And though they certainly have a right to hold these views, who they’ve begun to keep in their company should begin to raise protest from both ends of the political spectrum—namely, Chicago’s own Rosanna Pulido, slated to speak at their Tri-Count-Teas Rally this Saturday. This was the premise for a call to action spearheaded by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on Thursday. The action asks political leaders to pledge a hate-free campaign, and to cut ties to Rosanna Pulido and FAIR.

Perhaps Brian Gladstein of the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs best summarized the rationale of the multi-organizational effort: “When a politician participates in an event knowing that they are sharing the stage with a person as Rosanna Pulido, like it or not, they are endorsing and accepting her hate and her racist speech.”

Pulido has alienated herself from conservative politicians in the past, including DuPage County Republican Moon Kahn, who objected to her anti-Muslim remarks. ICIRR hopes that she won’t find an audience with the Illinois Tea Party, and released a public letter summarizing the concerns of several civil rights groups over her possible endorsement at the Rally:

“Ms. Pulido’s vicious remarks targeting my fellow Catholics, Muslims, Mexicans, and gays are full of hate,” said Joshua Hoyt, Executive Director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). “Racism and the politics of hate have no place in Illinois. We urge the Tea Party and the Republican leadership to reject the hate, bigotry and extremism Ms. Pulido represents.”

Leaders stressed the harmful impact hate has on our communities. “Throughout our nation’s history, hate has haunted us. It has destroyed communities, separated families, and torn apart the fabric of our society,” said Jane Ramsey, executive director of the Jewish Council of Urban Affairs (JCUA). “As Americans, as people of faith, we reject bigotry and hate and embrace diversity. We must have leadership who share these basic values and helps to guide our communities and nation toward solutions and with respect for all peoples.”

“Rosanna Pulido’s hate-filled statements have brought shame on her political allies in the past,” said Jill Garvey, director of communications for the Center for New Community, a national civil rights organization that monitors hate groups and works to build democratic and inclusive communities. “Other candidates and elected officials should take note: this is not about partisan issues, it’s about disavowing bigotry. That’s something voters on both sides of the aisle understand.”

And though the effort is emphatically non-partisan, that’s not to say that Pulido’s hatred is confined to party lines. She has, in fact, done more to profess her disgust with people rather than align herself with anyone, bashing gays, Muslims, Catholics, Mexicans and, most virulently, immigrants with comments like, “Cardinal George is responsible for every illegal immigrant who dies while crossing the border because he is luring them.”

Moreover, Pulido is just another toady of the usual suspects in anti-immigration discourse; once a spokesperson for You Don’t Speak For Me! and American Hispanics Against Illegal Immigration, and later employed by FAIR.

ICIRR is reminding the public that you can’t dress these opinions in partisan rhetoric and legitimize them. Outright racism has no place in a political forum, and Rosanna Pulido has clearly proven herself to be a capable outright racist. If the Illinois Tea Party wants to prove itself as a political movement with genuine aims, it would ask Pulido to keep her distance—otherwise one can only assume that it promotes her belligerent crusade.

As Alie Kabba, executive director of the United Africans Organization and signatory to the public letter stated, “The state of Abraham Lincoln must be a state of tolerance, inclusion and respect of human dignity. We will not stand for any platform that will allow or legitimize hate and bigotry.”

If the Tea Party chooses to share its platform with Pulido, then it too becomes a proponent of her hatred.

Photo by RBruceMontgomery

When Amanda Standerfer was the Library Director at the Helen Matthes Public Library in Effingham in downstate Illinois she was disturbed by the snarky comments of some library patrons who were offended by kids in the children’s area speaking Spanish.  She got remarks like “Who are they?”  “Why aren’t they speaking English?”  And her favorite: “Why are THOSE kids using OUR library?”  So Amanda won a grant to launch a program in 2007 to help people learn about their own neighbors called “I am an American.”

Effingham is a town of 12,384 people.  In the 2000 census those people were 98% white, 1 % Hispanic, and the remainder a mix of Asian, African-American, Native American, or a combination of two of the above.  Because it sits at the intersection of two major Interstate highways, I-57 running from Chicago to the very southern tip of Illinois and 1- 70 running from Utah to Maryland, it pitches itself as the “Crossroads of Opportunity” but it is most famous for the 198 foot tall steel cross that you can see from the highway.

Using the funds for public outreach, Amanda created two panels of five people each made up of people not born and raised in the United States to tell their own stories.   She started with questions like “What do you like best about the United States?” and “What do you miss most about your old country?”  Then the audience at the library could ask questions.

Starting with people she knew from the medical center and recommendations from the school counselors, Amanda recruited a doctor from Sri Lanka who had been a long time resident of Effingham and a woman newly arrived from Ukraine who had been a mail order bride.  She had another doctor from Egypt, people from Columbia, Nicaragua, and Mexico, and a corporate wife from China.  The Chinese woman was in Effingham because her husband worked for a major multinational corporation, and he had been posted to Effingham for a few years.  She came to the library often with her two daughters.  During the question time, someone asked her how she can take two daughters back to China because of its “one child policy.” The woman answered that it will not be an issue, because her daughters were Americans.

Amanda says that the library is the place to educate the community.  During the panels, people got to ask, and answer, many questions.  Some were serious, and some were as simple as the foods they eat.  One woman said, “I saw you buying something at the market, but I was too shy to ask you what it was and how you cook it.  Next time I see you there, I will ask!”

The library is built on three values:  Technology – access for everybody, Resources – putting people in touch with resources to be better parents and neighbors, and Culture in the Community.  This program was cheap, easy to do, and promoted understanding of cultures in the community.  It gave them excellent public outreach and was such a success that when the grant ran out, the local Rotary stepped up and instituted an International Food Fair to keep the conversations going.

When I asked Amanda if the snarky remarks in the children’s section had gone down, she said, “We are very intolerant about those attitudes.  The library is run with property taxes and everyone pays property taxes.  Even the renters who are only here a little while, a lot of their rent goes to the landlord’s property taxes.  So everyone is welcome at the library because everyone is paying for it.”

Even though the worst parts of the Arizona SB 1070 law are temporarily blocked, Republican extremists continue to push anti-immigrant legislation.  Last week, more Republicans called for a repeal of the 14^th amendment and birthright citizenship.

But what’s even more disturbing is how many Democrats are silent to this crisis.  Take, for example, my home state and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC).  In June, three young women went on a two week hunger strike near Hagan’s office in Raleigh.  They wanted our senator to support the Dream Act, legislation that would give hope to 1.5 million undocumented young people, many of whom are students.

One of the activists, Rosario Lopez, came to the United States as a minor.  She grew up in this country and it is her home.  Like many, she wants to be a citizen, but Sen. Hagan refuses to help by co-sponsoring the Dream Act.

In my city, we also tried to contact Sen. Hagan and invite her to our rally against the anti-immigrant Arizona SB 1070 law on July 29^th.  Since we received no answer, my actor friends and I performed a street theater scene outside her office in Charlotte.

In the play, two characters named A & Z (representing Arizona) arrest three people named “BILL,” “OF,” “RIGHTS” for not having the right papers.  Then Lady Liberty enters and tries to convince Arizona to change its ways.  You can watch our trip to her office on YouTube: “Inviting Senator Hagan.”

As you will see from this video, Lady Liberty issued a formal invitation to Sen. Hagan, and her assistant received it.  However, Sen. Hagan did not come, and her office did not send a representative to our rally to listen to our play and speeches.  Again, Sen. Hagan is silent.

Yes, this past year, Democrats had a full plate–the stimulus package, health care, financial reform, and so on.  However, Pres. Obama has said that it’s a “moral imperative” to fix our broken immigration system.

What can we do?  First of all, we cannot give up.

The North Carolina activists (the Dream team) have formed a website with nine concrete suggestions for action.  Other hunger strikes have taken place, including one in front of Sen. Feinstein’s office.  And over twenty activists staged a sit-in at the Hart Senate Office Building in D.C. last month.  Twelve were arrested, including Rosario, and charged with “disorderly conduct.”  Soon they will be on trial.

We cannot wait for tomorrow.  Millions of people are facing challenges everyday, and they have waited long enough.

Recently, I heard several civil rights activists talk about the sit-ins and marches that took place during the 1960’s.  I marveled at the courage they had fifty years ago.  Would I have been strong enough to do the same?

Then last week, I had the chance to meet the heroes of my own day, 2010: the North Carolina Dream team.  These dedicated young people, and those across the country, should inspire us all to do something.

And someday in the future, maybe we’ll be able to tell this story to our grandchildren.

That we didn’t stay silent.  That we acted.  That we changed.

A more disturbing issue that Whiteford brought up is her opinions on Muslims. First she stated that, “Sharia law and a republic cannot exist together. Every Muslim is by their faith bound to support a theocracy.”

She follows this first claim with another, stating, “Obama is bringing in Hamas refugees. We not only provide funding for Hamas but we then make them refugees.”

Whiteford argues that all Muslims are bound by their faith to support a theocracy (a form of government in which a god or deity is recognized as the state’s supreme civil ruler). The only country in the world today which has a government that can be classed as a theocracy, or something like it, is Iran. According to the CIA world fact book, Iran has a theocratic republic form of government. Instead of trying to understand the religion for what it is and the separations between church and state, she makes an assumption that all Muslims are in favor of a theocracy. If this was the case, we would have theocracies in countries like Albania, Comoros, Azerbaijan, and Turkey, just to name a few.

Whiteford second and more outrageous claim is that the Obama Administration is funding an organization listed by the United States as a terrorist organization and that Hamas refugees are being brought to the United States. The U.S. has provided aid to the Palestinian people through USAID and non-profit organizations. There is no proof that the money given to the Palestinian people is being used to help fund Hamas. This ludicrous claim is like saying that because the U.S. government gives money to the Afghani people and because Al Qaeda are prevalent in Afghanistan, then the Obama Administration is aiding Al Qaeda.

The other accusation that Hamas members are being allowed into the United States as refugees is also unfounded. The Obama administration would never allow members of an organization they list as a terrorist organization into the United States as refugees.

It is not surprising that these Islamophobic views are coming from Texans for Immigration Reform, a state contact of the Federation for Immigration Reform. FAIR is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. FAIR solicited and received over $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that has a history of promoting the genetic superiority of white, European-Americans.

FAIR is also behind the racist SB1070 law in Arizona and is actively seeking to have similar legislation passed across the country. TFIR has recently hosted Arizona state senator Russell Pearce, the public face of SB1070 at a meeting in Houston.

With all of the hate rhetoric surrounding the plans to build a mosque near ground zero in New York, this anti-Muslim outburst from TFIR is irresponsible, especially when the lies are coming from the president of the organization. Attacking the Obama Administration and Muslims in general with false claims is unacceptable.

On a website called borderbands.com, dedicated to the sale of wristbands to fund anti-immigrant group Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), is a prominent photo of Laura Ingraham showing off her “border band.” The border bands campaign may have a separate website from FAIR, but don’t let that fool you. As this video featuring FAIR president Dan Stein clearly illustrates, FAIR is driving the fundraising campaign.

At first glance the Ingraham connection may not seem so far-fetched. But it’s an odd endorsement considering FAIR founder John Tanton’s sketchy advocacy of population control and eugenics. John Tanton founded or helped to fund over a dozen organizations commonly referred to as the Tanton Network, and he did it in part with the help of $1.2 million from the Pioneer Fund, a foundation that supports racial eugenics.

The Tanton Network boasts many groups whose sole purpose is to argue for population stabilization, including Negative Population Growth and America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning.
Donald Mann, the head of Negative Population Growth once stated, “We should give incentives to low-income people who agree to sterilization.”

In light of Laura Ingraham’s staunch pro-life stance it’s a wonder she would feel comfortable publicly supporting FAIR – founded 30 years ago by Tanton to address his obsession with racial eugenics, population growth, scarcity of resources, and more specifically which population group would have control of said resources. Ingraham is even opposed to embryonic stem-cell research, which is nothing compared to the pseudo-science eugenics. Eugenics has a sordid history in this country. According to the author of War Against the Weak, Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, Edwin Black,

American eugenic crusades proliferated into a worldwide campaign, and in the 1920s came to the attention of Adolf Hitler. Under the Nazis, American eugenic principles were applied without restraint, careening out of control into the Reich’s infamous genocide. During the pre-War years, American eugenicists openly supported Germany’s program.

The same eugenicists who openly supported Nazi Germany also appeared as witnesses before Congress to advocate against immigration in the 1920s. Despite being almost wholly renounced and reviled around the world after World War II, eugenics did survive. Sterilization programs remained intact into the 1980s in some states.

Perhaps Ingraham is unwittingly being used by FAIR as its postergirl. Or perhaps she just isn’t aware of the entirety of FAIR’s ideological proclivities. Either way, this probably won’t square with her conservative compass when she finds out.