Chronicle accepts award and cash from anti-immigrant groupBy Steven T. Jones and Sarah Phelan
San Francisco Chronicle reporter Jaxon Van Derbeken recently accepted an award and cash prize (he refuses to say how much) from the Center for Immigration Studies – which a Southern Poverty Law Center report in February 2009 criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme anti-immigrant agenda – for his controversial articles on San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies.
CIS paid for Van Derbeken to accept the award at the National Press Club and conservative Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders to introduce him earlier this month, an appearance they used to make derogatory comments about San Francisco, its values, and local immigrant rights activists, while saying little to rebuke the group for stirring up hateful nativist furor around what has become perhaps the country’s most divisive issue.
Van Derbeken and Ken Conner, the Chron’s assistant managing editor for news (who the reporter consulted before accepting the award), told the Guardian that they see nothing wrong with accepting the award and they don’t see it as validating the views of a group that has been desperately seeking mainstream credibility with which to push its anti-immigrant agenda.
“No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs,” Van Derbeken wrote via e-mail in response to questions, although he wouldn’t offer an opinion on the CIS agenda. He said he was unaware of the SPLC report when he accepted the award, and now that he’s seen it, he wrote, “I haven’t drawn any conclusions about it.”
Conner also dismissed concerns that accepting the award and its cash supplement amounts to validating the group and letting it benefit from the Chronicle name. “We don’t think that’s true. They gave us this award. We didn’t seek it,” Conner told us.
Conner worked with Van Derbeken on the series of articles that raised questions about how San Francisco was handling the undocumented individuals who had been arrested on criminal charges. Federal law requires local agencies to turn over information of such arrestees to federal immigration authorities, but San Francisco’s Sanctuary City policies have traditionally protected undocumented juveniles from being turned over. After the articles appeared, pressure from conservatives and the U.S. Attorney’s Office led Mayor Gavin Newsom to end the practice and weaken the city policy.
“At the end of the day, it isn’t about this group but about Jaxon’s stories,” Conner said of CIS, and both men say they are proud of the stories, which have been roundly criticized by immigrant rights groups as enflaming anti-immigrant sentiments and allowing policies that punish the innocent and divide families (two activists weigh in on the current controversy in today’s Beyond Chron).
But Conner said he was unaware of CIS before learning of the award and asked Van Derbeken to “check them out.” Van Derbeken said he didn’t find the SPLC report from February, even though it quickly appears as a top item on basic Internet searches, but he and Conner both cited the fact that past recipients of the award included the Washington Post and Dallas Morning News.
That’s true, but over the last six years since immigration has become such a hot button issue, the awards have gone mostly to right-wing publications and scary nativists. Three of the last six awards have gone to writers for the Washington Times, a right-wing newspaper created by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, with the ultra-conservative National Review and anti-immigrant television commentator Lou Dobbs also among the recent recipients.
Van Derbeken has refused to answer our more detailed questions about his decision to accept the award and the implications of that decision (our complete exchange with him is reprinted at the bottom of this story). CIS has not yet respond to our call and e-mail seeking comment, but we’ll include that in the comments section if and when we hear back.
As the SPLC report indicates, CIS and other such organizations have made a concerted push for mainstream legitimacy in recent years, and they played a major role in encouraging the Republican opposition that killed a bipartisan immigration reform measure a few years ago.
Today’s New York Times editorial urges President Barack Obama to break the stalemate on immigration. “The president can’t do it alone,” the Times opines. “Democrats in Congress, especially in the House, need to stop being bullied by anti-immigrant bullies…Republicans must also do their part. Will they knuckle under once again to the anti-amnesty posses, the Minutemen and nativist dead-enders? Or will they help revive and pass a realistic and desperately needed reform — teaming up with an engaged president and a re-energized John McCain?”
It’s a question we don’t expect the Chronicle to be asking any time soon, particularly now that the paper has chosen to associate itself with CIS, a group that claims to be non-partisan, but whose executive director Mark Krikorian authored “The New Case Against Immigration, Legal and Illegal” in 2008.
Instead, by giving the nod to Van Derbeken’s decision to accept the CIS award, San Francisco’s daily paper of record gives the appearance of pandering even further to the anti-“illegal aliens” crowd.
As one Van Derbeken fan commented at ALI-Pac, (Americans for Legal Immigration) website, “Congratulations to Jaxon Van Derbeken! He really deserves that award! Also, the Center for Immigration Studies is a fine organization, they like Alipac, really love America and have gone the extra mile. And God Bless all organizations and Americans that are putting up a good fight against the oppression and corruption that attends the illegal immigration problem!”
Also in attendance at the CIS award ceremony was Saunders, who Krikorian described as “a token conservative at the San Francisco Chronicle.” Saunders warmed up the CIS crowd by claiming that in San Francisco, “a lot of people who cover the immigration beat, the story is, well, Nancy Pelosi’s view, I think would sort of pass for their view. And that is that everybody who is an immigrant is good—and I think that most people are, by the way—but enforcement of the laws are bad.”
Saunders claimed that Van Derbeken’s articles were about helping San Francisco discover that it had been gamed by a drug cartel. “And so the stories that Jaxon Van Derbeken has written about—and I’m sure you’re aware of them—it has to do with how the sanctuary city policy in San Francisco was gamed by…MS-13 … a drug cartel and it was not—it sort of made San Francisco not a sanctuary for law-abiding people,” Saunders claimed.
But the truth is that Van Derbeken’s coverage was largely driven by disgruntled and retired police officers, who had a bone to pick with SFPD chief Heather Fong, and his series of articles, which ran last summer during the nail-biting run up to the presidential election, repeatedly failed to include or validate the view points of San Francisco’s huge, and mostly legal, immigrant community.
Those community members, most of whom are law-abiding tax-paying voters, were appalled by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s decision—made on the eve of his gubernatorial run—to change the city’s long standing sanctuary policy direction. First created in the 1985, when US Senator Diane Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco, San Francisco’s original city of refuge resolution sought to give asylum to Guatemalean and El Salvadorans refugees.
When it was broadened four years later, then US Attorney for Northern California Joseph Russoniello wrote a October 16, 1989 letter to the Board of Supervisors, warning them that “to the extent that [the sanctuary ordinance] encourages the harboring of illegal aliens, it may well subject those who implement it to possible federal criminal prosecution.”
Two decades later, Russoniello, who is once again NorCal’s US Attorney, with the help of disloyal officers within Fong’s police department and Van Derbeken’s coverage, has finally succeeded in bringing a grand jury investigation against San Francisco.
In his acceptance speech, Van Derbeken told the adoring CIS crowd that, “It turns out [San Francisco] had its own foreign policy, and part of its foreign policy was that it wasn’t part of the United States of America, in that, if a kid was caught committing an offense, or allegedly committing an offense, they would decide they weren’t—even though they knew he wasn’t here legally.”
Van Derbeken also claimed that there was an “entire network of people who were relying on this—not deporting these kids,” even though the folks he was referring to make a legal—and not particularly highly paid living—as probation officers, immigration rights attorneys and the dispensers of medical and housing care.
To give him some credit, Van Derbeken did acknowledge in his speech that there is what he called “one negative element to this…Under the federal immigration rules, it doesn’t matter whether a juvenile committed the offense or not, he’s back, he’s gone,” he explained. “So if for some reason somebody gets wrongly accused of a crime, and that does happen, they get deported anyway.”
But once again, he failed to mention that one of the main reasons that San Francisco’s immigrant rights community is furious with Van Derbeken is that his articles did not accurately reflect their concerns, namely that Newsom’s new policy direction was netting and deporting innocent youth without due process.
Equally troubling, was Van Derbeken’s decision to single out Angela Chan of the San Francisco-based Asian Law Caucus for mention during his speech. Chan told the Guardian that she found it “appalling how self-congratulatory Jaxon was and how much he slammed the immigrant rights coalition while completely failing to mention that the policy fix we are asking for it pretty mild (i.e., providing due process for these youth regarding their juvenile charges before reporting them to ICE)”
“I was a bit concerned that he mentioned me by name because I don't want any more hate mail from anti-immigrant crazies,” Chan added.
To see how the Guardian has covered the immigrant rights communities concerns around Newsom’s abrupt change in sanctuary city policy, read this or this or this or this or this.
And now here is Van Derbeken’s e-mail exchange with Jones:
Jones:
I'd like to talk to you about the award you recently accepted from the Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group that a recent Southern Poverty Law Center study criticized for its overtly racist roots and extreme nativist agenda. http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=362
Please give me a call at 487-2552 sometime tomorrow or let me know the best way to reach you. I should be in by 10 a.m. and I'd like to post something on this in the afternoon.
Van Derbeken:
The Center for Immigration Studies - like many other organizations - hands out awards every year. Past recipients include the Washington Post, the Dallas Morning News, and many others. The very same work they chose to recognize also won the Fairbanks Public Service award from the Associated Press. No one should mistake their decision to endorse my work for my endorsement of theirs. Over my 22 year career as a journalist I've come to accept that organizations of every stripe will sometimes have opinions about my work. It comes with the territory - but it's irrelevant to my job of reporting the news and serving the readers of my newspaper.
Jones:
I have a few more questions for you:
- Were you aware of the SPLC report on CIS before you accepted the award? Ken Conner said he asked you to check them about, and the report was easy to find on the web, so did you find it? Now that you read it, what do you think about its conclusions?
- Accepting an award from an advocacy group with a radical agenda (opposing all immigration, both legal and illegal, and deporting all undocumented workers) would seem to be a validation of the group's views. Do you disagree? And do you have any concerns that the group will now be using your acceptance of their award to try to gain mainsteam legitimacy on perhaps the most divisive and emotional issue of the day?
- You mention that the Washington Post and Dallas Morning News have accepted awards from CIS, but that was before immigration really exploded as the divisive issue it is today. And since 2002, the recipients have been the right-wing Washington Times (winning in three of the last six years), the right-wing National Review, the provincial Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, and increasing vitriolic nativist Lou Dobbs. Doesn't that company that San Francisco's daily paper now shares seem to make the exact opposite point as the one you tried to make with the Post and the Morning News?
- Why did you make such derogatory comments about San Francisco in your speech (which I watched on You Tube) and why didn't you use the occasion to more forcefully take issue with hate speech toward immigrants and this group's agenda?
- You and Ken have both said that we should focus on your stories and not their political implications or how they are being used to advocate an intolerant agenda that calls for a crackdown on tens of thousands of San Francisco residents. But by accepting this award, aren't you validating the use of your stories as part of that agenda? After all, isn't that why groups like this have awards programs in the first place? Do you think there is even a remote possibility that they would honor a journalist for work that doesn't support their anti-immigrant agenda?
- For that matter, were you ever concerned with the anti-immigrant agenda of the cops that leaked your story to you in the first place?
- How much money did you receive in connection with the award and did this group pay your expenses to fly to and stay in Washington DC?
Van Derbeken:
I didn't know about the SPLC's report and I only heard about it when a group cited it last week in a letter to our paper. I haven't drawn any conclusions about it.
As to the rest of your questions, I believe my earlier statement addresses them, except to say that I was reimbursed for travel expenses, received a modest honorarium and the award itself, an engraved clock.
Jones:
I don't believe your earlier statement did address my questions, particularly the central question about why you chose to validate this group by accepting its award. For all I know from your answers, you wholeheartedly endorse its agenda, one that you refuse to comment on. Would you refuse an award from the KKK? Where do you draw that line and why did CIS fall on the acceptable side of it? Also, why would you refuse to disclose how much they paid you to associate yourself with them? "Modest honorarium" is a meaningless euphemism, and I think readers (yours and ours) deserve to know whether it was a large enough amount to influence your decision. I hope that you will address these important questions and honor your ethical obligations as a journalist to, among other things (according the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics):
- "Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility."
- "Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived."
- "Clarify and explain news coverage and invite dialogue with the public over journalistic conduct."
All I'm trying to do here is honor another of those tenets, "Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media," and I'm hoping that you'll cooperate instead of refusing to address my legitimate questions.
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Comments (16)
I don't have time to look at the full video right now, but it would be interesting to know what was said by the CIS organizers at the event ... while Jaxon was sitting there and listening. I don't buy the line that he "didn't know" they were a racist organization, and footage of other speakers at the event would quite explicitly prove that weak claim.
Jaxon Van Derbeken has this white, frat-boy vibe that annoys me. I love how reporters always claim to be "objective," and folks like me are accused of having a bias. Shows the need for more Internet news sources.
Posted by Paul Hogarth | June 19, 2009 05:22 PM
Hey Paul... how is CIS a "racist" organization? They appear to oppose illegal immigration. Sneaking into the country is criminal activity, you know.
Posted by D. Porter | June 19, 2009 07:50 PM
California the Golden state, American future, is fast becoming the poster child for an bankrupt third world State!
An unholy alliance of Socialist Democrat politicians, Unions, and Illegal Aliens supporters are feasting at the trough of tax payers paid benefits while taxing & regulating business and the tax paying public into poverty.
The pandering of Left Wing Democrat Politicians to their constituency of Illegal Aliens, open border supporters, and unions are driving business and citizens to other states & countries, while leaving the parasites & welfare leeches in an increasing bankrupt, crime ridden, dysfunctional state!
For years California has ignored economics 101 and imported poverty, Criminals and uneducated Peons from Mexico, which increased Medical, Welfare, Crime, Prison, etc. & adding a estimated 16 billion per year to Calif. State expense to provide for the invading horde of Illegal Aliens while exporting business and educated working tax payers.
Like all Socialist & Marxist States the results have been a astronomical increase in social welfare, schooling, prison cost etc. and a lowing of Living standards, Education standards, Tax receipts & finally Bankruptcy.
Failure to abide by our Constitution against invasion & enforce our Immigration laws and constraints on wages and benefits for public employees will result in turning the Golden State into MexiCalif and the end of the California dream!
The policies of Obama and Wash. DC Democrats are intent on following Calif. policies and are resulting in the same creeping socialist process across American.
Amnesty & Citizenship as a reward for their invasion of the USA, will result in the rest of the USA turned into a Spanish speaking third world cesspool, modeled on Mexico and follow California into a polluted, over populated, Spanish speaking third world Nation of Crime, Corruption, Poverty, Cruelly & Misery!
This will result in a population depending on Welfare and the Democrat party, thus assuring the lock on power for the Socialist Democrat party of the United States of Mexico!
Posted by Black Saint | June 20, 2009 04:24 AM
The Unacknowledged Holocaust
Back in the 60’s the Federal Government came into the public schools and brainwashed us as little children with the message that the children we were about to have were unwanted because the population was rising so fast. They launched a program called, “Zero Population Growth”. They pushed Family Planning and birth control pills. Now they call the same programs, "Safe Sex" but the results are the same. I think you and I both know that you only have to trick people for their few child bearing years and there is no going back.
Many of us never had a say in the future of our unborn.
I am the result of two living cells. One from each of my parents. They are the result of two living cells, one from each of their parents. I wasn't just born. I am a continuation of life. I am a living thing that reaches back into time perhaps 400 million years and the result of billions of joining of pairs of cells. It is possible that if you were to follow my cells back to my parent’s cells and beyond that my family tree touches every living thing here on earth. That is if we limit ourselves to believing life was created here on earth. If it rained down from the immensity of the universe it could reach back into that immensity of time and space, and who knows what relationships and who knows what species.
My family line succeeded, at least until I came up against the Federal Government and their plan to control the population.
I have seen them do little else to control the population.
The open border, United States laws only apply to some, is a serious slap in the face. No, not a slap in the face, it reaches well beyond that. Maybe back to the beginning of time and stretch to the bounds of the universe.
Posted by Carson | June 20, 2009 06:13 AM
Hey carson why is it that you always like to comment the same thing about the 60's birth control?
What exactly does that have anything to do with immigration policy?
Posted by missingxtension | June 20, 2009 10:09 AM
There's the "the U.S. stole the southwest" argument.
Well, the land in dispute was "owned" by Spain for a couple of centuries. Then by Mexico for about 25 years. During these periods, there weren't more than a few thousand Spaniards or Mexicans in the entire territory. It's been owned by the U.S. for about 160 years now, much longer than Mexico's reign. And the U.S. has actually done something with the land, made it habitable for tens of millions. The difference between American and Mexican "twin cities" straddling the border is like night and day, yet the land is obviously the same. It's not the dirt that's important, it's the people. Put another way, if culture didn't matter, Mexico and Central America would be paradise.
Then there is they are all God,s children argument.
Isn't everyone God,s children? If so, then guess the open borders crowd are saying everyone and anyone has the right to Invade this Nation, waving their flags, demand their rights, while feasting at the trough of public welfare and Kill, Rape and Rob thousands of American citizens each year! There are 100,s of millions probably billions from India, China, Africa, etc. that would like to immigrate to the USA. If it ok for Latinos to pour across our borders then unless the open borders crowd are racist it should be ok for any and all of the world people no matter their Education, Religion, Race, Criminal convictions, Diseases, or Terrorist ties to invade this nation & be rewarded with American citizenship!
There's the "lettuce" argument
We'll be paying $50/head if we don't have illegal aliens working in the fields. As Phil Martin, ag economist at UC Davis shows, the field labor cost in a $1 head of lettuce is about 6 cents. Triple those wages and Americans will do the jobs. (They're not career positions. They're seasonal jobs for young people, starting in the world of work. I have did similarly menial jobs.) And you'll be paying 10% more for lettuce and other produce. Do you spend $1,000/year on produce? OK, you'll pay $100 more.
The lettuce argument also parallels that for the retention of slavery.
Immigrant Argument!
There's the "everyone's an immigrant except for the 'Native Americans'" argument. Well, the American Indians didn't sprout from the land, they came across the Bering land bridge from Asia. So if the criterion is "You're an immigrant if you had an ancestor who immigrated here," then American Indians are immigrants, too.
In that case, "immigrant" is no longer a useful word, since Everyone's an immigrant.
Illegal pay taxes Argument!
There's the "illegal aliens pay tons of taxes" argument. Sure, they all pay real estate taxes (in rent) and sales taxes (most states). Those working on the books (typically using stolen Social Security numbers) pay FICA and, perhaps, income taxes. But they're mostly ill-educated and low-skilled and pay very low taxes connected to their working -- in fact, most claim the Earned Income Tax Credit, i.e. negative income tax! If a family with both parents working has two kids in school, that's at least $15k/year just for schooling, way more than the taxes on, say, $35k/year aggregate income.
Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation has done the systematic accounting on all this. A typical household headed by a low-skilled illegal alien is a net drain of about $20k/year for the rest of us, year after year. (Low-skilled Americans are a similar burden, but they're part of the national family, not gate crashers from other societies.)
Illegal Bad..Amnesty good Argument!
There's the "illegal immigration is bad, but make them citizens and problem solved" argument. Nope. If that were the case, legalizing (i.e. amnestying) the illegal aliens would solve the problem. But they'd still be (on average) low-skilled workers whose burden on the rest of us would continue. In fact, once legal they'd be able to access more public benefits programs, so their cost to the rest of us would actually rise substantially. In addition to bringing in their relatives under chain immigration in a never ending chain! In short, all of the problems of mass illegal immigration are shared & increased by mass amnestying them.
Then there is the straw man Argument this Nation cannot afford to deport 12 million people!
Never noting if our Politicians had abide by our Constitution and enforced our Laws there would not be 12 millions to deport. Even worse, there is not 12 million but between 20 and 30 million but the government prefers to lie and down play the number! ( Same as the 1986 Amnesty was more than double the government estimate, so will this one be) At any rate deportation would save billions in the long run over what they will cost this Nation in welfare in the coming years. Every person with less that a high school education cost a average of 55 thousand over their life time, so apply that times the 12 million plus all their relatives & their relatives in a never ending chain & deportation would be a great bargain and save billions if not trillions in the coming years! But deportations is not necessary, just close our borders and enforcing our Laws with E-Verify. Fine companies, imprison executives and cut out the welfare they will self deport. No jobs, No Welfare equals no Illegal Aliens!
The flood of immigrants drives wages and living conditions in our central cities toward those of the Third World & has already destroyed Calif..
This tidal wave imposes sprawl, gridlock, pollution, and environmental damage on our metropolitan areas & Nation.
Immigrant families needing services overwhelm our schools, taxpayer-funded health care facilities, and other public agencies.
Those requiring services don’t assimilate and, instead, expect to be served in their native languages.
American civic culture frays as each ethnic group establishes its own grievance lobby and pushes for preferences.
Communicable diseases such as tuberculosis (new, drug-resistant strains) return & New diseases like Mexican Swine flu break out!
Shortages of water and other resources loom, especially in immigration-blitzed Southwest.
Most that come across our open borders come from countries where, Crime, Corruption, Poverty, Misery, Anti-education, and hate for Americans has existed for centuries and is normal. Should anyone be surprised they bring those same family values across the border with them?
Posted by Black Saint | June 20, 2009 10:51 AM
For folks who may want to learn more about the evident and clear connections of CIS to anti-Black, holocaust denial, hatred of dark skinned people, and homophobia, check out this video from the Southern Poverty Law Center-rather easy to find.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpiq1nAK4a0
John Tanton who started CIS, is hugely connected to the the white power movement and it is not surprising that this article will attract the most vile of commentary from people who have no respect for the dignity of human life no for the diversity of it.
Also please note that Shawnda Forde, the Minuteman who recently went on an alleged hate crime killing spree against Latinos was a SPOKESPERSON for FAIR, and organization connected to CIS and also started by John Tanton. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErqCmLiWQj8
When did hate speech against Latinos and immigrants suddenly become acceptable and in San Francisco? For the Chronicle to accept this award-either their agenda is questionable or their investigative reporting is...either way unacceptable.
Posted by Bobbi | June 22, 2009 09:12 AM
My brother Richard became very ill with liver disease, hepatitis three. He became so ill he could not work and lost his health insurance, he had to come live with me. He tried for five years to get social security disability, they sent him to doctors and said he was not sick enough. Finally he collapsed and was taken to hospital by ambulance. He was put into the county health system (Hillsborough county FL.). When he got out of the hospital I had to take him to a county clinic (I will say the care was very good) but I was shocked when we walked in and everyone except my brother, myself and the doctors were Mexican. My brother worked most of his life until he got sick, he was treated like a bum by a government agency. After five years my brother finally received retro-social security benefits after I wrote the judge and sent all his medical records. My brother passed away 13 months after he started receiving benefits. I often wonder if he had received them when he should have would he still be alive.
Illegal emigrants get free medical/dental, prescriptions, food, and other assistance. Under President Obama they even get a free cellphone from SAFE-LINK with 70 rollover minutes a month. I know people say they do jobs that Americans will not do. I think many Americans would take these jobs if they could get free medical/dental, prescriptions, food, cell phone and service. Where I live we have agencies that advocate just for illegal immigrants, I am the only one who advocated for my brother.
I do not hate illegal immigrants most of us would do the same. I blame our elected officials for letting this get so out of hand.
Business that employ illegal emigrants should have to pay directly into Children's & Families, they should pickup the cost. I do mean directly into C&F if not it will just be misused. How many members of the Walmart family are on the world most rich list? How many of Walmart's employees get public assistance? Many middle-class people cannot afford health insurance yet they pay for healthcare of millions of illegal immigrants.
Christine from Florida
Posted by Christine | June 22, 2009 11:39 AM
I'm not even sure where to begin to address the anti-immigration misinformation and hysteria here, but let me make one point: there simply aren't any government programs that undocumented workers qualify for that US citizens don't. That's just inaccurate, although if anyone wants to correct me and cite one, I'd be happy to hear it. And if there are public health programs that immigrants can access along with everyone else who qualifies, that's a good thing, particularly given your irrational fears that they're carrying disease. Y'all can't have it both ways.
Posted by Steven T. Jones | June 22, 2009 12:20 PM
As I've had to point out to so many people billions of times: being in the country illegally is not a criminal violation, it is a civil infraction, akin to getting a speeding ticket. Anyways, I'm sure that wouldn't change certain group's hatred of "illegals." If the US made all of the "illegals" legal, those groups would still hate them, so I am fairly certain their roots are racist and not actually rooted in the law. Knowledge of the law and how it came to be would lead any rational person to realize that the law is disfunctional and bad. What do we do when we have a bad law on the books? we ignore it. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us that, and we've been doing it ever since. If respect for the law is really what this is about, then anti-immigrant groups should do themselves a favor and start driving the speed limit. It is the law, afterall.
Posted by Jon | June 22, 2009 08:08 PM
As I've had to point out to so many people billions of times: being in the country illegally is not a criminal violation, it is a civil infraction, akin to getting a speeding ticket. Anyways, I'm sure that wouldn't change certain group's hatred of "illegals." If the US made all of the "illegals" legal, those groups would still hate them, so I am fairly certain their roots are racist and not actually rooted in the law. Knowledge of the law and how it came to be would lead any rational person to realize that the law is disfunctional and bad. What do we do when we have a bad law on the books? we ignore it. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us that, and we've been doing it ever since. If respect for the law is really what this is about, then anti-immigrant groups should do themselves a favor and start driving the speed limit. It is the law, afterall.
Posted by Jon | June 22, 2009 08:12 PM
As I've had to point out to so many people billions of times: being in the country illegally is not a criminal violation, it is a civil infraction, akin to getting a speeding ticket. Anyways, I'm sure that wouldn't change certain group's hatred of "illegals." If the US made all of the "illegals" legal, those groups would still hate them, so I am fairly certain their roots are racist and not actually rooted in the law. Knowledge of the law and how it came to be would lead any rational person to realize that the law is disfunctional and bad. What do we do when we have a bad law on the books? we ignore it. Martin Luther King Jr. showed us that, and we've been doing it ever since. If respect for the law is really what this is about, then anti-immigrant groups should do themselves a favor and start driving the speed limit. It is the law, afterall.
Posted by Jon | June 22, 2009 08:13 PM
Jon, and to the other appeasers. Crossing the border may not be a fellony, however fake and stollen SS#'s are if not mistaken. Do you have not feelings for the victiams of SS fraud. Have you read some of the stories about people life being ruinned over identity theft? Those are SERIOUS crimes. This is a HUGE problem.
When a chicken plant is raided, and 400 illegal aliens are rounded up, do you see that as a problem for the working American looking for jobs?
When I grew up, over the summer most of the kids worked the fat food joints. 22 years later, you are hard presssed to find a kid working in any. Do you know why that is?
It is estimated over 300,000 anchor babies where born in the last couple years to illegal alien woman. At about 7k a birth, how much money does that add up to be? Who pays for that?
After that birth, the gov offers assistance for food, and care. Who pays for that?
Hispanic gangs are becoming a huge threat. Open borders have only helped their groups grow. They break the law, and simply run across the border back into mexico never to be found. Is that ok with you?
We have Mexican Cartels growing Pot 30 miles from my house armed with AR-15's. That really bothers me, does it you?
Oh yeah, say what you will. Call me a racist, a bigot whatever. I do not give one damn about that. These illegal aliens do not belong here. And if we turn a blind eye to the crimes commited, it will only entice more illegals to come over.
My wife and her parents came over here legaly, so did my great grandfathers.
You simply can not take on 20 million low skilled people.
I do understand there are many many hardworking honest illegals. I worked in the landscape field for 10 years. That said, they ALL broke the law, and should pay the piper. PERIOD.
Posted by Chris King | June 23, 2009 02:18 PM
It takes a selective or ill-informed political memory to call a *defender* of immigrants an "appeaser."
Posted by Martha Bridegam | June 23, 2009 05:43 PM
Martha Bridegam: - I have nothing against immigrants. I simply hate Illegal Immigration. Huge difference Ma'am....... But then, you are most likley blind as a bat.
Posted by Chris King | June 24, 2009 03:09 PM
It wasn't the chronicle that "incited anti-immigrant" sentiment -- it was the illegal immigrant Edwin Ramos, an MS13 gangbanger who mowed down an entire family. To be honest, most San Francisco residents are getting sick and tired of La Raza and other special interest groups that push their agenda at the violent expense of SF's law abiding citizens (immigrants included). Let's face it, SF Juvenile Justice Dept and their supporters took advantage of the sanctuary city policy and now illegal immigrants are paying the price. Here's another victim:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/08/MNEI1A2O16.DTL
Posted by Marco | October 9, 2009 01:08 PM