Posts filed under ‘Immigration’
Mayor Who Mocked Latinos Gets Buried in Tacos
What an asshat. And yes, he’s a Republican:
East Haven, CT Mayor, Joseph Maturo, Jr. (R) /Jessica Hill, AP
The office of East Haven’s [CT] mayor was blasted with prank phone calls and a delivery of hundreds of tacos Thursday after his now-famous quip that he would address accusations of anti-Latino bias by eating tacos, a remark that left emotions raw in the town’s large Hispanic community.
Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. has apologized several times but resisted calls for his resignation over remarks he made to a television reporter following Tuesday’s arrests of four town police officers, men described by one FBI official as “bullies with badges.”
[...]
A federal indictment accuses the four police officers of assaulting people while they were handcuffed, unlawfully searching Latino businesses, and harassing and intimidating people, including advocates, witnesses and other officers who tried to investigate or report misconduct or abuse.
The taco flap came after a reporter for New York’s WPIX-TV asked Maturo on Tuesday, “What are you doing for the Latino community today?”
Maturo’s response: “I might have tacos when I go home; I’m not quite sure yet.”
[...]
Many residents were still angry Thursday in East Haven, where 38-year-old Jose Tapia, a cook originally from Ecuador, joked, “We’ve got tacos!” as he left a bakery with a bag of bread.
“I took it as a joke, but deep inside, it’s the true version of racist, that comment,” he said.
Wow. Maturo is the ultimate in insensitive. He’s going to do something for the Latino community by eating a taco? I can’t decide whether to laugh or cry. I’m leaning toward cry. Unreal.
But hooray to the folks who sent all those tacos!
The Cop Who Stopped LA Arsonist Is a Volunteer, From Iran (Yikes!)
So, all those “illegals” are killing people, raping our women and wrecking our country huh?
Get a load of this:
The reserve sheriff’s deputy who captured a man suspected of being the city’s most dangerous arsonist is a volunteer who earns $1 a year and only recently qualified to patrol alone, authorities said Tuesday.
Shervin Lalezary,
a 30-year-old Beverly Hills real estate attorney, was patrolling at 3 a.m. Monday — three hours after the official end of his 4 p.m.-to-midnight shift — when he pulled over a Dodge van in Hollywood.
[...]
“He believes in the community service aspects of the reserve deputy,” Whitmore said. “This is part of the job for him and he doesn’t want to talk about himself because he believes he’s part and parcel of a larger effort.”
Lalezary was born in Tehran and moved with his family to America about 25 years ago.
[...]
“This is one of the most significant arrests anyone can make — regular or reserve,” the sheriff said Monday. “And this will follow him for the rest of his life.”
So, “they” say we should bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran but woohah, they have real people there.
Now what?
Fox Cleans Up Its Language for FoxNews / Latino
Check out this headline that is up at Fox News Latino this morning:
(Read the article here.)
“Undocumented immigrants?” How quaint. Watch Fox and you hear “undocumented immigrants” referred to almost solely as “illegals.” Major bootlicking going on here.
Judge Orders Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Follow the Constitution
Back in the day when I monitored Fox for Outfoxed and the Newshounds, Arizona’s Sheriff Joe Arpaio was a frequent guest on Your World w/Neil Cavuto (what he had to do with “business news” is something I never figured out), and he was touted one tough, God-and-country kind of dude. Yes siree, he was a flag wavin’ Amerrrican:
The rule of law and how Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio runs his office are often mutually exclusive.
Arpaio, whose jurisdiction includes the sprawling Phoenix metropolitan area, has been labeled by supporters as “America’s toughest sheriff.” Unfortunately, he achieved that moniker by routinely violating the human rights of jail inmates and ignoring the constitutional protections of those he swore to protect.
[...]
Now, enough may finally be enough. Last Friday, the U.S. District Court in Phoenix issued an injunction to stop Arpaio’s office from detaining or arresting people based only on suspicion of being in the U.S. illegally without any evidence of criminal activity. The court also certified the four-year-old civil rights lawsuit, for which the ACLU is co-counsel, as a class action. This allows any Latino who has been stopped or detained by the sheriff’s office since 2007 (or anyone who might be in the future) to enforce the court order.
The suit seeks to change how Arpaio enforces immigration laws and does not ask for monetary damages.
“The district court ruled that the sheriff’s policy of detaining people merely based on a suspicion that they are in the U.S. unlawfully violates Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure,” said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project.
If you stop someone because you think they might be in the U.S. unlawfully, you’re a hero on Fox. The Constitution? That’s for sissies.
“Illegal Immigrant” Now Head of the Brain Tumor Program at Johns Hopkins
Wow, not exactly the picture most people think of when it comes to “illegals:”
Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa / Photo: Keith Weller
Immigration continues to spark intense and emotional political debates between people who favor expansive immigration policies and those who want more restrictions.
But what is often left out of the conversation is the experience of being in the middle space – between being legal and illegal. All this week Tell Me More will focus on those in that position (or who is related to someone who is) in a series titled “In Limbo.”
“In Limbo” begins with the story of Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa. His life is like a classic rags-to-riches tale scripted for a Hollywood film. He grew up in the small village of Palaco, Mexico. As a bright young man, he wanted to become a teacher. But he had to overcome many obstacles first, including hunger.
“I am not talking about hungry for success; I was literally hungry for food. My stomach was empty,” he says.
Quiñones- Hinojosa was determined to put food on the table for his family, so he did the only thing he could possibly think of: literally jumped over a fence between his native Mexico and the United States and became a farm worker in southern California.
He started by picking tomatoes, corn and broccoli. Later, he operated dangerous machinery in the fields. But things changed for him after a conversation with his cousin.
Fast forward:
His journey then took him to University of California, Berkeley, and later Harvard Medical School. After 10 years, since first jumping over that fence into America, he became a U.S. citizen.
Now, Dr. Alfredo Quiñones- Hinojosa is a respected brain surgeon who directs the Brain Tumor Program at John Hopkins Bayview Hospital. He says more needs to be done to help those who can follow in his footsteps.
Fox News Latino — Sex and Porn
This is one of the five “news” stories Fox News Latino has up “above the fold” on its website tonight:
That site is such a farce. On the one hand Fox bashes Latinos every chance it gets (they’re “illegals!). On the other, Fox’s owner, Rupert Murdoch maintains “Fox News Latino” to make money off of the very people he claims to hate.
Oh, and despite its Christian fundamentalist veil, Fox thrives on sex. Check out Fox News Porn.
Really sick.
Architect of Arizona’s Immigration Law Defeated Yesterday
One of the races I was particularly interested in following yesterday was the potential recall of Russell Pearce, the Arizona state senator who drafted Arizona’s draconian immigration law. One could view Pearce’s recall as a rejection of the immigration law itself and, in fact, fyi, Pearce was recalled:
State Sen. Russell Pearce, the controversial architect of Arizona’s immigration law, was voted out of office on Tuesday evening in a special recall election. He was defeated by Jerry Lewis, a fellow Republican who does not support the immigration crackdown and has vowed to reject gifts from special interest groups and work to ban gifts for legislators.
Cool.
Alabama Deli Owner Who Defended Latinos Gets Huge Outpouring of Support
Hey, here’s some more good news:
Last week HuffPost told the story of Steve Dubrinsky, a Birmingham deli owner who was pilloried by strangers for defending his Latino workforce in an interview with the Birmingham News. Dubrinsky had told the paper that even documented Latinos were scared of Alabama’s sweeping new immigration enforcement law, and that many legal workers would end up leaving the state because they no longer felt comfortable there.
Outraged by Dubrinsky’s support of immigrants, strangers flooded his inbox with threats to boycott his restaurant, Max’s Delicatessen. Typical of the missives Dubrinsky received: “I hope your unamerican establishment closes down!!!!” His restaurant suddenly received dozens of negative one-star reviews on Google, mostly from anonymous first-time posters.
But since late last week, Dubrinsky has witnessed an outpouring of support from a different set of strangers. After reading of Dubrinsky’s plight, opponents of the new law have rallied around his deli, leading to one the busiest stretches at the restaurant that Dubrinsky can recall. He tells HuffPost that new diners have been driving from up to forty miles outside the city just to try his reuben and thank him for standing up for Latino workers.
“I’ve shaken more hands in the last two days than in the previous two years. It’s been amazing,” Dubrinsky said. “The restaurant has been pretty darn busy.”
[...]
Another reader from Georgia told HuffPost that she and a group of friends were putting together a caravan to travel to Max’s from Atlanta just for lunch.
The corporate media won’t cover this, of course, but I’ve got to say, it’s so nice to see the other side pushing back. The anti-Latino crowd has gotten too much attention for too long. Far as the media would have us believe, the anti-Latino crowd is the only crowd there is.
Cash Warfare
Rachel Maddow said it all just now as to what the 2012 election is going to be about. Forget the 99ers. Forget jobs. Forget education. Forget healthcare. Forget infrastructure.
Thanks to Bush’s Supreme Court and Citizens United, 2012 is all about:
CASHWARFARE.
I’ll put video up as soon as it’s available but ain’t that the truth?
I don’t know about you but I can’t afford to buy my representative. But Bank of America can!
About Them “Illegals”
I don’t care how much you hate “illegals,” we’re talking little kids here:
Many of the 223 Hispanic students at Foley Elementary [in Foley, Alabama] came to school Thursday crying and afraid, said Principal Bill Lawrence.
Nineteen of them withdrew, and another 39 were absent, Lawrence said, the day after a federal judge upheld much of Alabama’s strict new immigration law, which authorizes law enforcement to detain people suspected of not being U.S. citizens and requires schools to ask new enrollees for a copy of their birth certificate.
[...]
“It’s been a challenging day, an emotional day. My children have been in tears today. They’re afraid,” he said. “We have been in crisis-management mode, trying to help our children get over this.”
[...]
On Thursday, Lawrence said he wanted to get a message across to his students that they are safe at Foley Elementary.
Lawrence said that parents are afraid that they’ll get arrested and detained, and be cut off from their children.
What a horrible situation.
Memo to Alabama Lawmakers: Think First
Lawmakers in Alabama — succumbing to Tea Party crazies — passed a very strict anti-immigration law earlier this year. I’ve read a few snippets over the last few months about how the agriculture industry was finding it hard to find workers but now it looks like the problem is full-blown:
An Alabama law to tackle illegal immigration is coming under fire from some business leaders in the state, who say the measure is undermining Alabama’s economy even before it takes effect.
Representatives of agribusiness, the state’s biggest industry, and sectors such as construction, which is charged with rebuilding the tornado-hit city of Tuscaloosa, are reporting worker shortages because of immigrants already fleeing the state. The state agriculture commission says squash, tomatoes and other produce are rotting in the fields.
Hahahahahahahaha.
This is what happens when “our leaders” go off half-cocked, powered by hate, and they don’t think through what they’re doing.
Good luck Alabama. Ya’ll deserve everything you get, or don’t get, as the case may be.
Remember the 2010 Election and “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs?”
Remember how waaaaaay back in November — nine months ago folks — when Republicans were screaming about jobs, jobs, jobs? That was their #1 priority and WHY THE HELL WASN’T PRESIDENT OBAMA CREATING THEM?
This would be Republicans today:
Gingrich claims ‘there is no Supreme Court’ in the U.S. Constitution
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich made the surprising and completely false assertion this week that the Constitution doesn’t mention the Supreme Court.
“There is no Supreme Court in the American Constitution,” Gingrich told an audience in Pella, Iowa. “There’s the court which is the Supreme of the judicial branch, but it’s not supreme over the legislative and executive branch. We now have this entire national elite that wants us to believe that any five lawyers are a Constitutional convention. That is profoundly un-American and profoundly wrong.”
Lookie over there. No. Over there. No. There. Don’t look to us to create jobs. Forget we said that. It’s about the Constitution. No it isn’t. It’s about the gays. The immigrants. Planned Parenthood. Acorn.
Geezus.
Whatever Happened to Boycotting Arizona?
So, the MLB All-Star Game is tonight in Arizona:
The 2011 MLB All-Star Game gets underway on Tuesday night as some of baseball’s best and brightest, as well as a boatload of replacements for those best and brightest, take the field at Chase Field in Arizona.
What a difference a year makes. Remember this?
– Arizona Immigration Debate Zeros in on Baseball
– Daily Kos: Major League Baseball Should Boycott Arizona All-Star Game
– Will Immigration Law Cost Arizona All-Star Game?
– Arizona immigration law foes urge MLB All-Star boycott
No, you probably don’t remember. The outrage du jour isn’t what happened in Arizona last year or what the banksters did or how the corporations are oppressing us. The outrage du jour is Casey Anthony being found not guilty of murder.
Talk about diverting attention from the stuff that really matters and having us — We the People — turn on each other.
Way to go America. They think we’re idiots and we’re acting like we are.
CNN Touts Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as “Moderate”
Just saw a segment on CNN’s John King featuring Arizona Governor Jan Brewer captioned: “More Moderate Than Advertised?”
Talk about moving the country to the right of the right of the right.
Let me out of this fucking asylum.
I’ll put up video as soon as I can.
Oh. BTW. Gotta love that “liberal media” huh?
Geezus.
RI State Rep. Who Accused Immigrants of Being Potheads, Arrested for DUI and Pot
If found guilty, I’d say Robert A. Watson is one disgusting human being:
RI State Rep. Who Joked Of Pot-Smoking Immigrants Arrested On DUI Charge And Marijuana Possession:
A Rhode Island state lawmaker who once criticized the state Legislature by invoking the image of pot-smoking immigrants denies a DUI charge he received after being arrested for alleged marijuana possession, The Providence Journal reports. House Minority Leader Robert Watson was arrested Friday at a police checkpoint in East Haven, Conn.
The Journal says the police report alleged that the Republican lawmaker’s eyes were “extremely glassy and bloodshot” and that he smelled of alcoholic beverages as well as the “distinct odor of marijuana.”
(Via.)
Here’s part of a statement Watson released:
While confident I was a safe and sober operator, trace evidence of marijuana was discovered and I was charged with operating under the influence, a charge I vehemently deny,” Watson said in his statement.
Bets on how long before he resigns? I give him 72 hours.
The “Liberal Media” and Rihanna’s Dress, etc.
Miss this stuff?
– Tea Party darling Paul Ryan (R-OH) calls for a $600 million cut in border security. I think we should go after employers who hire undocumented immigrants so hey, fine by me, but why aren’t the Tea Partiers rioting in the streets? This is a huge betrayal of one of their core issues.
– Alaska’s warming at three times the rate of the lower 48 states.
– China overtakes Japan as world’s 2nd largest economy (Woah — China — that was fast!):
Japan ceded its spot as the world’s second biggest economy to China in 2010, following a contraction in the fourth quarter as the strong yen contributed to an export slump, the end of auto subsidies depressed car purchases and a new tobacco tax hit cigarette sales. The Japanese economy’s fall from its 42-year reign in the No. 2 spot behind the U.S. on an annual basis…
– The “liberal media” (that myth is, unbelievably, still alive) couldn’t find any Democrats to appear on today’s Sunday morning talk shows. At one point during the Bush years I heard someone explain spin/justify that so many Republicans were on the “liberalcorporate media” because they were in power. They were in office. They were making the news. Ah, yeah. So what’s the excuse now?
– I can’t help myself here but the dress Rihanna wore to the Grammy’s tonight
reminds me of the Michelin man:
Meow. I know.
Miss This? Arizona Minutemen Kill 9-Year-Old Girl in Cold Blood
There are three 24/7 “news” networks in the United States — two of which the righties claim are “liberal” — but golly gee, a year and a half on, none of them have found time to cover this:
There’s another infamous shooting of a nine-year-old girl that is making headlines this week in Tucson. This time, we wonder if the rest of the media will bother to cover it.
The little girl’s name was Brisenia Flores. She lived near the border with her parents and sister outside the town of Arivaca, Arizona. On May 30 of 2009, a woman named Shawna Forde, who led an offshoot unit of Minutemen who ran armed border patrols for patriotic “fun”. Forde’s gang had decided to go “operational,” which meant they concocted a scheme to raid drug smugglers and take their money and drugs and use it to finance a border race war and “start a revolution against the government.” They targeted the Flores home, which had neither money nor drugs, based on dubious information. They convinced Flores to let them in by claiming to be law-enforcement officers seeking fugitives, then shot him point-blank in the head when he questioned them and wounded his wife, Gina Gonzalez. And then, while she pleaded for her life, they shot Brisenia in cold blood in the head. (Her sister, fortunately, was sleeping over at a friend’s.)
As Terry Greene Sterling at the Daily Beast reports, Shawna Forde’s trial finally opens this week, having been briefly delayed by the Giffords shooting.
Already, we’re getting some fascinating details about that riveting 911 call…
Sometimes I just don’t know what to say.
Tancredo Crashes!
Denver mayor John Hickenlooper was ahead of former Congressman Tom Tancredo and businessman Dan Maes in initial election results Tuesday.With 5 percent of precincts reporting, Hickenlooper had 57 percent of the vote to Tancredo’s 34 percent and Maes’ 8 percent.
Love you Colorado.
What Did the GOP Do About Immigration When They Were in Power?
I am so sick of this crap: GOP Senators Accuse Obama Administration of Avoiding Immigration Enforcement (Again).
Someone please tell me what the GOP/Bush did about “immigration enforcement” when they were in power for eight freakin’ years!
This is like John McCain, who’s been in congress since 1982, complaining about Obama “avoiding immigration enforcement.” Why hasn’t he gotten something done/passed after nearly 30 years.
Geez!
With No Thought of the Consequences
I find it endlessly astonishing that Repubs enact laws, like the Bush tax cuts (here we are folks — how many jobs did they create?) and the Arizona immigration law, without any apparent thought to the potential consequences:
In a new twist in the fight over Arizona’s immigration law, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer on Tuesday asked a federal court to disallow foreign governments from joining the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit to overturn the law.
The move comes in response to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling issued Monday, allowing nearly a dozen Latin American countries — Mexico, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru and Chile — to submit friend-of-the-court briefs in Justice’s challenge to SB 1070, which Brewer signed into law in April and is considered one of the nation’s toughest immigration-enforcement measures.
And then when there are consequences, they act like abused victims and blame everyone but themselves. (Oh, and on the flip side, they want us Little People to take responsibility for everything we do.)
Meg Whitman’s Story About Her Housekeeper Doesn’t Hold Up
Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman says she was “stunned” when she learned that her former housekeeper, Nicandra Diaz — who she had employed for nine years — was an undocumented worker?
According to a spokeswoman at the Social Security Administration, all employers are required to verify Social Security numbers before hiring someone, and that it “has been the case for ten years or longer.” Further, the Internal Revenue Service requires employers to use Social Security numbers to report wages.
So we’re supposed to believe that over the course of nine years — NINE YEARS! — Whitman had no idea what Diaz’s status was?
That’s just flat out unbelievable.
What Stephen Colbert Said Today
Below is video of what Stephen Colbert actually said during his testimony before the House “Protecting America’s Harvest” hearing in D.C. today. The “liberal media” is bastardizing his testimony so much, it’s unrecognizable compared to the real thing.
Here’s the money quote, imho — what the media won’t show you because hey, you might have some sympathy for migrant workers if they did — and they wouldn’t want that:
But, maybe we could offer more visas to the immigrants who, lets face it, will probably be doing these jobs anyway. And this improved legal status might allow immigrants recourse if they’re abused. And it just stands to reason to me, that if your co-worker can’t be exploited, then you’re less likely to be exploited yourself, and that itself might improve pay and working conditions on these farms and eventually, Americans may consider taking these jobs again.
Or maybe that’s crazy. Maybe the easier answer is just to have scientists develop vegetables that pick themselves. The genetic engineers over at Fruit of the Loom have made great strides in human/fruit hybrids. The point is, we have to do something because I am not going back out there. At this point, I break into a cold sweat at the sight of a salad bar.
136 Million Recalled Eggs — Why is Jack DeCoster Still in Business?
Here is an unbelievable report about Wright County Farms and its owner, Austin “Jack” DeCoster. Wright County Farms is where those millions of eggs (136 million, to be exact) that are being recalled came from.
The “farm” sounds like a hell hole not only for the chickens but for the people who work there.
It’s an outrage that DeCostner wasn’t shut down years ago:
USA Today reports that as many as 1,300 people have already been sickened by the tainted eggs. According to a recent GAO report companies recover only about 36 percent of targeted products in a typical recall. That means that literally millions of people stand just an undercooked egg or an unwashed hand away from a nasty case of salmonella.
But then William Neuman’s New York Times piece hipped me to the name of the owner of Wright County Farms: one Austin “Jack” DeCoster. That’s when my sigh became a gasp.
Jack DeCoster is one of the most reviled names in industrial agriculture. I first heard of him back in 2007, when I visited Hardin County, Iowa, for a story on the ravages of industrial hog production. One day, as a group of disgruntled farmers gave me a tour of their CAFO-scarred county, they muttered darkly about DeCoster. They said he had been run out of Maine for the egregious practices of his vast egg factories, and that he had set up shop in Iowa with massive, highly polluting hog factories. He was cited as the owner of several operations as we passed foul-smelling concentrations of hog buildings, sometimes as many as eight plunked down together in a cluster, each containing thousands of hogs and each draining mass quantities of waste into a single fetid “lagoon.”
And it gets a lot worse.
Bananas — Walmart’s #1 Selling Item
Toilet paper? Baggies? Diapers?
Nope.
From Bloomberg/Business Week: Walmarts #1 selling item:
Mow the rain forests down to make way for banana farms; pay the natives (pre-terror babies) something like 20¢ a day. Hey. Want cheap stuff? You got it.
The Original Anchor Babies
The original “anchor babies” were the children of the immigrants on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria.
(If your eyes are glazing over at those names, do your homework. In this day and age, it’s as simple as knowing how to do the Google. I’m not here to give you a 1st grade education.)
Republican Anchor Babies
Yo, Americans — this whole “anchor baby” thing is ridiculous on its face. Come on. Seriously. I mean, when you peel away the surface just a teeny tiny bit, there are a lot of “anchor babies” out here. Do we want to go on a witch hunt investigating people’s parentage or grandparentage or great-grandparentage. Really? REALLY? You think Republicans are immune?
Republican Anchor Babies:
Alberto Gonzales Parents were anchor babies
Darrell Issa Parent was an anchor baby (!!! Lebanon)
(Via.)
