Restrictionists
Anti-Immigrant Groups Invite GOP to Join Their Sinking Ship
This week at the National Press Club, anti-immigrant groups Team America PAC and American Cause (chaired by regular CNN and MSNBC contributors Bay Buchanan and Pat Buchanan) hosted an event to discuss why the GOP should continue to use an anti-immigrant platform in order to save their party and bring them back to majority status. Their basic premise is that America (for now) is still a majority white nation and the only way to win back majority status is to focus on and win the "White" vote. Participant Peter Brimelow went as far as to pine about the idea that, had this last presidential election taken place in 1975, and had McCain won the same percentage of the white vote he won against Obama, then McCain would have beaten Jimmy Carter. Read More
Candidate for RNC Chair Chip Saltsman Stirs Controversy with “Star Spanglish Banner”
At a time when the GOP should be warming up to key Latino and immigrant voting blocs, Chip Saltsman-candidate for the next chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC)-chose to ring in the New Year with a song called "The Star Spanglish Banner." Saltsman, who is also known as the former head of the Tennessee Republican Party who managed the Mike Huckabee campaign, included the song on his controversial holiday CD that he sent to RNC members as a Christmas gift. The story-which NDN's Melissa Merz officially broke-exposes yet another example of the xenophobic and bigoted rhetoric put forth by reckless public figures that has fueled rising hate crimes and violence against Latinos. Today's Huffington Post's head-lining article, "Star Spanglish Banner: RNC Candidate Chip Saltsman Causes Immigration Stir," described the song as: Read More
CIS Ignores the Facts: Immigration Important Concern for Latino Voters
The Center for Immigration Studies tries to snatch anti-immigrant victory from the jaws of electoral defeat in a new report about Latino voters in the 2008 election. According to the report, the widespread perception among Latinos that the Republican Party is hostile to immigrants played no appreciable role in their decision about whether to vote Democratic or Republican last November. Read More
FAIR Gets It Wrong Again
This week FAIR-an anti-immigration hate group-- issued another new report based on dubious facts and assertions. "Immigration Lobbying: A Window Into the World of Special Interests" ultimately shows that the vast majority of groups lobbying on immigration legislation are not "pro-enforcement-only," but rather support a comprehensive approach to immigration reform-including enforcement. Of course, this was not FAIR's intention - they wanted to show that these groups only support immigration reform because it is in their own self-interest and are not looking out for the majority of the "American people." Apparently the American people are only represented by FAIR and the rest of the 2.1% of lobbying groups that are "pro-enforcement-only." Read More
Bush Regrets Not Pushing for Immigration Reform
This week, in an interview with Cal Thomas of the Washington Times, George W. Bush admitted that he regretted concentrating so much on Social Security and not pushing for immigration reform after his '04 reelection: Q: And biggest do-over? Knowing everything you know now, what would you have done over again? THE PRESIDENT: I probably, in retrospect, should have pushed immigration reform right after the ´04 election and not Social Security reform. Read More
Prince William County Mothers Against Immigrant Bashing
Cliché or not, the anthropologist Margaret Mead knew what she was talking about when she said "Never doubt that a few concerned citizens can change the world for indeed that is all that ever has." A group of stay-at-home moms in Prince William County who decided they've had enough of the anti-immigrant fervor boiling over in their community have begun to do just that as they organize around the issue of immigration. Today's Washington Post features Alanna Alameda, Elena Schlossberg, and Katherine M. Gotthard--describing some of what motivated them to get involved: Read More
The GOP’s New Year Resolution on Immigration
By any measurement the GOP lost more than an election this year. Many Republican candidates who incorporated immigrant-bashing and nativism into their platforms lost sight of the kind of country the U.S. has become and, in doing so, caused the GOP to experience a defeat the likes of which they have not seen in years. The Arizona Republic laid out the GOP's challenge ahead: For only the second time since 1979, they control neither the White House nor a chamber of Congress...More troubling for the GOP: They have been pushed back to a regional base in the South and in the depopulating plains. Congressional losses in 2008 all but wiped out Republican House representation in the Northeast. Republican presidential candidates have not been competitive in the Pacific Rim of California, Oregon and Washington for two decades. Once-staunchly GOP Virginia and Indiana went to Obama. Read More
Arpaio Only One Smiling in Maricopa County
NOTE: This story first appeared in the Huffington Post. Video by America’s Voice. Smile, You’re Under Arrest”–that’s the name of a new reality TV show starring none other than Sheriff Joe Arpaio of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). Yet Maricopa County citizens aren’t smiling… Read More
Scrounging for Facts in FAIR’s Reporting Yet Again
Video by America's Voice. The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) released another report claiming that undocumented immigrants cost states much more than they pay in taxes. This time the target was Colorado. As is the case for many restrictionist reports, FAIR's conclusions are based on dubious "evidence" and assumptions, and often relies upon national level data to estimate Colorado-specific numbers. FAIR claims to look at the costs of providing education, health care, and incarceration to undocumented immigrants. But are they really looking at the undocumented population? Read More
Napolitano’s DHS Move: Lucky Country, Poor Arizona
Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Obama's pick for head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a border governor who's been in the eye of the immigration storm. Time and time again, she's proved that she understands that it is in our nation's interest to not only secure our borders, but also to provide for a realistic and practical immigration system that is in tune with our country's economic needs. Yet what does the Napolitano pick mean for Arizona? --"Lucky country. Poor Arizona," says a New York Times editorial. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
