NEXT PRESIDENT WILL TONE DOWN ANTI-IMMIGRATION RHETORIC
by Cynthia Tucker Atlanta-Journal Constitution Sat Feb 9, 7:56 PM ET
So much for Tancredoism.
Tom Tancredo is the Colorado congressman who ran for the Republican presidential nomination on a simple platform of nativism and undisguised contempt for illegal immigrants. Since his ill-tempered and simplistic views reflected the sentiments of the hard-core Republican base, several other members of the GOP field adopted a similar mean-spirited rhetoric.
As Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney -- Republican hopefuls with moderate records on illegal immigration -- tacked toward Know-Nothingism, Arizona Sen. John McCain stood largely apart, resisting the impulse to blame illegal immigrants for everything from terrorism to high taxes. As his signature legislation to legalize undocumented workers was routinely excoriated as "amnesty" by conservative talk-show hosts and right-wing bloggers, McCain barely budged.
In November, during a Republican debate in St. Petersburg, Fla., his GOP rivals worked to prove their anti-immigration bona fides, citing their support for such dubious measures as high fences and hot pursuit of Mexican landscapers. A clearly unenthusiastic McCain pledged to tighten the borders but declined to ratchet up his rhetoric.
"We must recognize these are God's children as well," he said. "They need our love and compassion, and I want to ensure that I will enforce the borders first. But we won't demagogue it."
Now, McCain is the likely Republican nominee. Among the losers in last Tuesday's mega-primary was the Tancredo Credo, which placed illegal immigrants at the center of every peril and every problem facing the American voter. With both remaining Democrats -- Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- having voted for comprehensive immigration reform, there is little chance the Oval Office will be occupied by an anti-immigration mossback.
Even Republican voters have moved immigration down to their second most-important issue, after the economy, according to Super Tuesday exit polls. The war in Iraq ranked third among GOP voters. Democrats, meanwhile, don't list immigration among their top three concerns. Instead, they emphasize the economy, the war in Iraq and health care.
Illegal immigration remains a complex and nettlesome issue, requiring a thoughtful and measured response. That, by the way, was represented by the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive reform bill, which failed when Republicans, despite support from President Bush, refused to vote for it.
While illegal immigrants burden the social infrastructure -- schools, hospitals and housing -- they also revitalize many neighborhoods as they open new businesses and buy additional goods and services.
Many immigrant children will start elementary school with poor English skills. That forces teachers to work harder and places an undue burden on schools that are already overcrowded. But those Mexican and Guatemalan schoolchildren will learn to speak English quickly because language skills are more easily acquired in youth. (The relative youth of illegal immigrants also helps the United States solve a demographic problem: As the U.S. birth rate falls, we are aging as a nation. We need a steady supply of younger workers.)
At the very bottom of the wage scale, illegal immigrants probably take a few jobs away from uneducated and marginalized American laborers. But the effect is minimal, according to researchers. The most comprehensive analysis has found that illegal immigration depresses wages no more than 50 cents to 60 cents an hour -- hardly a figure that makes or breaks a budget.
Those subtleties were drowned out by the Know-Nothing demagoguery that dominated the Republican presidential campaign. But with the GOP race largely settled -- and with Obama and Clinton conscientiously courting Latino voters -- the rhetoric will likely moderate.
That's because voters didn't fall for the scapegoating premise of Tancredoism. It was a bad product, and few voters bought it.
About the Author: Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a syndicated columnist whose commentary appears in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Back in 1966, it took a high profile raid of a Mardi Gras party at the Jackson Country Club to break the back of the nation's last statewide prohibition law.
After lawmen raided the party - attended by many of the state's social elite and several statewide elected officials - the Legislature repealed the statewide liquor ban and stopped winking at illegal liquor sales and consumption.
Now, 42 years later, federal officials have for the second time in two years caught the Jackson Country Club knowingly employing illegal immigrants. In September 2006, the feds arrested 18 illegal immigrants employed at the swanky private club.
Later that same year, as many as 43 illegal immigrants were shown to have been in the club's employ. Even after being caught, the club continued to employ the workers - saying their presence was "necessary for business."
The Jackson Country Club situation points up the hypocrisy and political grandstanding that the illegal immigration issue produces in this state and nation. During the 2008 legislative session, another spate of punitive bills has been introduced - including some downright silly ones - to make the state appear "tough" on illegal immigration.
But at the same time, legislators know as did the golfers and socialites at Jackson Country Club that immigrant workers likely to be illegal were serving their food and drinks, mowing their lawns and performing any other manual labor they didn't want to do for themselves.
Illegal immigration is a problem - as former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott was pilloried for recognizing - that begs for a comprehensive national solution, not piecemeal state fixes that aren't enforced. Mississippi doesn't need any more "feel good" immigration laws.
The fact of life is that many Mississippians who talk the talk against illegal immigration don't walk the walk. They see nothing wrong with hiring immigrant laborers - but they operate in a "don't ask, don't tell" fog of hypocrisy.
The one part of the Jackson Country Club debacle that is laudable is the fact that the feds are levying a substantial fine of $214,000. Only by punishing employers for failing to document workers will the supply-and-demand economics of illegal immigration be thwarted.
But as the folks over at the golf course are asking themselves today: "Who will do all this work that we weren't able to hire Jackson-area citizens to do?" Who, indeed? And for what costs?
Legislators should ponder that question before raising their hands to pass pandering state immigration enforcement laws.
From Katrina debris removal to the poultry industry to construction to landscaping to other Mississippi industries, immigrants have stepped in to fill labor shortages that our own citizens won't fill. Don't think so? Ask the country club set what they think about it.
Read reactions to this story
newtrick wrote:
"Who will do all this work that we weren't able to hire Jackson-area citizens to do?" Talk about a hard question - and one that usually sends a much needed conversation in the wrong direction. Twenty years ago we answer the nobel call to increase adult literacy by saying, "without an education, the only job you'll be qualified for is to ask folks what size fries they want with their burger". We're doing much the same with drop-out prevention - a nobel call as well. Our "sticks" versus "carrots" approach does not affirm the dignity of work that does not require post-secondary education and/or training. The benefits of an educated, trainable workforce are obvious;
however, it's not others we need to change but ourselves - teach all children to read; offer schools so good people want to drop-in; and promote the dignity all work provides and the documented benefits to children in working parent families regardless of family income. A positive approach will bring positive results.
The failure of Congress to reform U.S. immigration laws last summer was disappointing on many levels. Most troubling was the consequence of that failure for a vulnerable population: the 5 million children of illegal immigrants. People like the Diaz children of Windsor Mills - Edwin, 13, and Cynthia, 8.
As The Sun's Kelly Brewington reported recently, their mom was taken from home by immigration officers and deported to El Salvador, leaving her husband, a legal resident, to care for their children. It is hard to see how anyone gains from the government's action in this case, and easy to imagine the losses.
The nation's increasing emphasis on immigration enforcement lacks a strategy to cope with the moral consequences of that policy. Comprehensive immigration reform is dead for now, but simple changes in the law could at least give immigration judges greater flexibility to consider the effects on children when making deportation rulings.
Immigration enforcement is on the rise, especially workplace raids, which account for a small but rapidly increasing proportion of immigration arrests, according to a study for the National Council of La Raza and the Urban Institute. It found that, on average, the arrest of 100 illegal immigrants in a workplace raid will affect 50 children - many of whom may be U.S. citizens.
Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Businesses need immigrant workers but extremists 'are stirring the pots of hatred'
By Tom Harvey The Salt Lake Tribune Updated: 02/10/2008 07:06:28 AM MST
On the one hand, they want a legal immigrant work force in order to prosper or even to survive. On the other, they have been steamrolled by an opposition that crushed the recent proposal in Congress to reform the nation's immigration laws.
The federal raids took out about 10 percent of Swift's work force in Utah and five other states in December 2006. If that were a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I moment for other Utah businesses, the reality is that the nation's wink-wink system of employing illegal workers has changed little since then.
Indeed, that was unscored Thursday when immigration agents raided Universal Industrial Sales, Inc., in Lindon, and detained 50 undocumented workers, charged the metal fabrication business with haboring illegal aliens and arrested its human resources manager.
In the Swift case, court records show that the company dutifully filled out required forms known as I-9s when hiring employees. The company also had used a federal program under development called Basic Pilot, which was meant to help identify the illegal use of Social Security numbers. Workers were required to present a Social Security card and another form of government-issued ID with a matching photo. Beyond that, Swift was legally required only to keep the information in its files.
Records show that undocumented Swift workers simply purchased SSNs and IDs on the street for about $800, which easily got them work.
JBS Swift & Co., the new name of the company bought by the Brazilian meatpacker JBS S.A. in July, turned down several requests for interviews.
But experts argue that a meatpacking company the size of Swift had to have known whether it hired workers without proper documents.
"It stretches credulity to state they had no idea they had these workers," said Jessica Vaughan of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C. think tank.
For businesses such as construction, landscaping, agriculture, hospitality, meat processing and food services, hiring immigrants has become a matter of course. But with strenuous opposition to "amnesty" for the 12 million undocumented people already in the U.S. (an estimated 100,000 in Utah) stalling federal immigration reform or other reforms that might create a guest-worker program, Swift's labor problems are now widely shared by others.
"It's now much bigger than a meat-processing issue," said James Mintert, professor of agriculture economics at Kansas State University. And if the Swift raids exposed the meatpacking industry's practice of hiring low-wage immigrants who used stolen or fake IDs to get jobs they could not have gotten legally, the aftermath also has raised plenty of questions about immigrant labor in Utah - and there appear to be few answers. Normally, business interests in Utah and nationally are politically powerful, but in the case of immigration-reform legislation they backed in Congress this year, they've found themselves overwhelmed. Utah's senators received perhaps 100 calls in opposition for every 10 in favor of the immigration-reform bill that failed to pass the Senate in June, said Clark Ivory, CEO of Ivory Homes, the state's largest home builder.
"The reason that immigration reform has failed is that extreme elements are stirring the pots of hatred. [They] are anti-Hispanic, very vocal and very vindictive with these politicians," Ivory said. "A moderate, thoughtful and quiet voice that comes from business is not heard over that extreme voice that comes from the far right wing."
The business community wants to abide by the law, and it wants the nation to control its borders, he said. But that community also wants reform that provides an adequate skilled and unskilled work force, which has been a constant challenge in recent years.
In the past two decades, Utah's economy has gone through changes that have created a greater need for more low-skilled workers than a native-born population could or would want to fill, said Pamela Perlich of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the University of Utah.
During that span, Utah saw a huge boom in commercial and residential construction - projects such as the LDS Church conference center, facilities for the 2002 Winter Olympics and the rebuilding of Interstate 15 and construction of TRAX light rail.
In addition, a demographic shift to a higher percentage of workers with four-year college degrees (10.2 percent in 1960, compared with 26.1 percent in 2000) meant more Utah-born workers landed higher-paying jobs.
"As more of our native-born population moves up the ladder, we still continue to have demand for people in tortilla factories or meatpacking plants or people to clean buildings or make beds in hotels," Perlich argues.
But there are plenty of people inside and outside the business world who don't buy that argument. Robert Wren, for one, thinks something more sinister is in play.
Wren is chairman of UFIRE, a Utah group advocating enforcement of the nation's existing immigration laws, and although he agrees that "business needs a work force," he argues that "what has happened is that having an illegal immigrant work force allows them to get a cheaper employee.
"They aren't willing to pay what the job should be paying to get an American to do it," he said. "And by hiring more and more illegal immigrants, we basically depress the wage rates in America."
Ivory and Perlich counter that it's not that simple and that there is no way to fill available jobs without resorting to immigrant labor. Economists, too, generally agree that the nation as a whole has benefitted from immigrant labor - but disagree on how much native-born, low-skilled workers who directly compete with immigrants have been hurt economically by the influx.
Regardless of who's right, Utah businesses have been lobbying Congress for reforms that would expand the number of visas available for workers, not only those in entry-level jobs but also those in highly skilled positions, such as the high-tech sector.
"Without effective immigration reform, there's going to be a huge shortage of labor for the construction industry," said Scott Parson, president of Staker & Parson Cos., a Salt Lake City sand and gravel, concrete and road construction company. He has been involved in the immigration question on behalf of the Salt Lake Chamber.
Ivory and others worry that with federal legislation stalled and a new presidential administration still a year away, the Utah Legislature might step into the void the way its counterparts have in a few other states, where laws against hiring illegal workers have been tightened and immigrants' use of public services has been restricted.
RH Reality Check Posted February 8, 2008 alternet.org
Over the summer, the 110th Congress failed to push through flawed, yet essential legislation that would have moved the immigration debate forward. Despite this setback, comprehensive immigration reform will continue to be a key issue throughout future election seasons and legislative sessions.
Immigration is a multifaceted issue, but one component that should not be overlooked as progressives continue to work on this issue is the reproductive health of immigrant women.
About 36 million foreign-born people live in the United States as of 2005--12 percent of the U.S. population. Over half of these immigrants are from Latin America, just under one-third are from Asia, 14 percent are from Europe, and the remaining 6 percent are from Africa, North America, and elsewhere. Slightly less than 50 percent of these 36 million immigrants are women, and 95 percent of these women are of childbearing age.
Female immigrants, both documented and undocumented, often work in industries that are low-wage and do not offer health insurance. They may not speak English and are likely to have reduced access to culturally and linguistically competent reproductive health information and services. As a result, access to affordable, quality reproductive health care is of significant concern to these women.
A vocal anti-immigrant lobby has touted sweeping mischaracterizations about immigrants, including beliefs that immigrants do not contribute to the economy and that they are to blame for skyrocketing health care costs. Each of these assumptions is incorrect. Immigrants are net-contributors to the U.S. economy, including $7 billion annually to the Social Security Trust Fund alone, and they consume significantly less health care than native-born Americans.
A Progressive Agenda Connects Reproductive Justice with Immigrants' Rights
Reproductive justice involves more than the right to end a pregnancy. Safeguarding an individual's right to determine her or his own reproductive future is an integral part of an overall agenda to promote social justice. That vision includes the ability of all people, whether American-born or immigrant, to:
Become a parent and parent with dignity. Determine whether or when to have children. Have a healthy pregnancy. Have healthy and safe families and relationships. Rejecting the efforts of comprehensive immigration reform opponents to control the reproductive decisions of immigrant women is an important component of ensuring continued reproductive freedom for all Americans and the humanity of all immigrants. By investing in the reproductive health care needs of female immigrants, we ensure a society that is healthy, productive, and just.
Population Control Efforts Have Been Tied to Anti-Immigrant Sentiments in the Past
Racially restrictive immigration policies have peppered U.S. history. Some policies have tried to control the population's composition by barring admission to a number of women of childbearing age from specific countries or ethnic groups. The Page Act of 1875, for example, served to restrict the entry of "obnoxious" Asian individuals from entering the United States. The law claimed to deny entry to prostitutes and unskilled laborers but functioned primarily to prevent Asian women, including the wives of immigrants already living in the United States, from entering the country.
The early 1900s saw attempts at population control and social engineering by the eugenics movement. The philosophy behind the movement purported to improve the human race through reproductive interventions, including selective "breeding" and forced sterilization of "undesirable" populations. Even as recently as the 1960s and 1970s, thousands of Latinas, especially those of Puerto Rican and Mexican descent, were sterilized in public hospitals following childbirth without their knowledge or fully-informed consent.
Anti-Immigrant Sentiments Threaten the Reproductive Rights of Immigrant Women Today
Even today, efforts to manipulate the composition of the U.S. population persist.
Anti-immigrant policies create barriers to immigrant women's reproductive health care
In most states, immigrants who have been in the United States for less than five years -- regardless of their legal status -- are denied Medicaid coverage for essential reproductive health care, such as prenatal care, despite the fact that they pay taxes and contribute to the economy. Only emergency services like labor and delivery are covered.
The Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 requires that American citizens applying for or enrolled in Medicaid must present proof of citizenship, such as a U.S. passport or birth certificate, before receiving services. Although it does not disqualify documented immigrants who have met other eligibility requirements from receiving Medicaid coverage, the DRA has resulted in many eligible immigrants mistakenly thinking they have to be citizens in order to obtain services.
These legal barriers, combined with cultural and economic obstacles, have led to immigrant women receiving fewer basic reproductive health care services such as annual Pap smears, breast cancer screening, HIV/AIDS testing, and access to contraceptive options.
Right-wing rhetoric about immigrant women's reproductive decisions has been used to influence the recent immigration debate
Anti-immigrant activists have accused immigrants of sneaking across the border to have "anchor babies" in the United States so that the child can then sponsor the parent to live legally in the United States. The reality is that by law a person must be 21 years of age in order to sponsor a parent to obtain permanent legal residence.
Currently, parents may be separated from their children and deported to their country of origin at any moment, which causes great anxiety and stress for their American-born children who must choose between living with their parents and pursuing educational and economic opportunities. The fear of immigrant women giving birth to citizen babies led to the introduction of the Citizenship Reform Act of 2005, reintroduced this session as H.R. 133 with a companion bill called the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007 (H.R. 1940). These measures would flout the 14th Amendment's guarantee of birthright citizenship by denying citizenship to children whose parents are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.
The conservative think tank Center for Immigration Studies has published a report that argues that the "family values" of immigrants are not as strong as commonly believed, given that their out-of-wedlock birth rates are roughly equivalent to that of American citizens. The implication is that any policies that make it easier for immigrants to enter the United States or become citizens will contribute to what conservatives see as the further erosion of so-called American family values.
This type of rhetoric is likely to resurface as Americans continue to debate our country's immigration policies. Progressives must be ready to identify these attacks and respond.
Organizations Working on Immigration and Reproductive Rights
The National Coalition for Immigrant Women's Rights is comprised of a number of organizations that are working together to support comprehensive immigration reform and social justice for all immigrants. Founding members include:
Legal Momentum
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health National Organization for Women
This fact sheet was created and originally published by the Center for American Progress.
Problems with communication, carriage of firearms, jurisdiction impede efforts
By DEAN BEEBY The Canadian Press Mon. Feb 11 - 6:19 AM
OTTAWA — A tangle of conflicting laws on both sides of the border is tying the hands of joint Canada-U.S. border squads, undermining efforts to nab international criminals, says a newly released report.
Team members can’t radio one another. They have to surrender their sidearms when crossing into the other country. And they’re forbidden from crossing the Canada-U.S. boundary except at official border stations, even though criminals prefer the isolated points in between.
"Communication among partners and the co-ordination of activities has not been fully achieved," says the document, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
"Legislative issues pertaining to the carriage of firearms across the border and to the jurisdiction of law enforcement personnel, combined with the lack of enforcement resources, mostly on the Canadian side, are impediments to the pursuit of criminals or suspects across the border."
The censored internal report, prepared by the Public Works Department, examines the first five years of the Integrated Border Enforcement Teams, or so-called IBETs, which expanded nationally in April 2002.
The teams include RCMP officers, Canadian and U.S. border guards, American immigration and customs officers, and the U.S. coast guard.
The Mounties, the lead agency for Canada, have committed 150 officers and $25 million a year to the program, which traces its roots to 1996 when officers in British Columbia began working closely with their counterparts in Washington State.
There now are 23 IBET teams situated along 15 regions of the Canada-U.S. border, poised to catch drug smugglers, illegal immigrants and terrorists. An estimated 240 crime groups use the border for illegal activities.
The evaluation of the IBETs, completed in late 2006, found a raft of problems, including incompatible radios that won’t communicate with equipment from the other side of the border.
The radio problem is partly legal: a cat’s cradle of federal, state and provincial laws require special licensing to use designated frequencies on each side of the border. There are also technical hurdles, which a stopgap solution in place since 2002 has failed to resolve.
Gun laws in each country also effectively prevent officers from routinely carrying their duty sidearms and similar weapons into the other country.
Canadian laws are so strict, in fact, that an RCMP officer who is given extraordinary dispensation to carry a sidearm into the United States must forfeit the weapon at the Canadian border on re-entering Canada.
Laws in each country also force all IBET officers to check in at official border stations before crossing into the other country, forbidding them to cross at isolated areas preferred by criminals.
The hurdles are in sharp contrast to Europe, where seven countries — Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Austria — have signed the Prum Convention, which enables close police co-operation, including the cross-border carriage of weapons.
The RCMP director of the IBET teams cautions there are no quick solutions to the problems cited by the evaluation.
A $1-million, year-long pilot project to be announced next month will field-test a new radio system that will harmonize equipment and avoid the legal quagmire of telecommunications laws, said Insp. Warren Coons.
"We believe that the legal issues won’t be a part of it, and that the technical issues will be resolved as well, as far as taking disparate radio systems and matching them up and allowing us to communicate with each other," he said in an interview.
Talks are also underway between Washington and Ottawa to draft a policing treaty that would resolve many of the jurisdictional issues.
The president of Mexico made his first trip to the United States since he was elected into office.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon touched down in New York on Sunday, and is expected to make several stops across the country.
He also has plans to meet with Governor Schwarzenegger during his trip.
Some say coming to the U.S. during an election year is good timing on the part of the Mexican President.
"His visit can push immigration to the top of the agenda and force the candidates to talk about it. And he can showcase the benefits and the hard work of the Mexicans that are here in the U.S.," said Camille Cook, an Immigration Attorney in Fresno.
Some Valley residents also believe President Calderon's visit to the U.S. will be a step in the right direction for the immigration debate.
"I think he has an opportunity to let people know he cares about them, and that he is trying to give them freedom to come into our country," said Fresno resident Johnny Rey Barreno.
President Calderon will not be meeting with President Bush or any of the remaining presidential candidates, but he is expected to speak about issues such as border control, deportations and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants.
Mother of two happy to be alive after losing legs in accident By MARSHA DORGAN Register Staff Writer Thursday, February 07, 2008 AddThis Social Bookmark Button
The Napa woman whose legs were crushed when she was hit by a drunk driver Sunday night has a long, tough road to recovery.
Doctors at Queen of the Valley Medical Center operated on Lilian Clark the night of the crash, amputating both of her legs just above the knee, according to her husband, John Clark. Clark, 38, is the mother of two boys, 4 and 6. She was pinned between the rear ***per of her car and a 1990 Plymouth driven by Francisco Pacheco, 24, of Napa.
The crash happened around 6:30 p.m. Sunday on South Terrace Drive, north of Shetler Avenue.
After the crash, Pacheco put his car in reverse and sped away from the scene. Neighbors followed him to his house about a block away, where they held him until police arrived and arrested Pacheco on felony DUI, hit and run and driving without a valid license. Pacheco has a prior misdemeanor DUI conviction from January 2007. He is on probation.
He is being held in the county jail on $100,000 bail.
Pacheco does not have auto insurance.
“I have no idea at this time what will be involved in Lili’s recovery. I know there will be months, maybe years of rehab, and she will have to be fitted for prosthesis,” her husband said.
A fund has been set up to help the family with medical expenses and to bring Lilian Clark’s family from Chile, where they live, so they can help out with the children and their family member’s recovery.
Donations may be made at Washington Mutual Bank, 699 Trancas St., Napa, 94558. The account is under the name Lilian Clark and Children.
Clark said that on the night of the accident, his wife had double-parked her car and was putting their sons, Jake and Sam, in their child safety seats.
“She went around to the back of the car to get to the driver’s door. I was right there. I said ‘see you later,’ and within a split second I heard tires screeching and saw this car come roaring down the street about 50 miles an hour and just slam into the back of Lili’s car, pinning her between the two ***pers,” Clark said.
With the impact of Pacheco’s car, John Clark said, “The trunk popped open, and she flew inside. Then, the guy threw his car in reverse and left. Lili just fell to the ground in a heap. The neighbors ran out of the house. I was yelling ‘Call 911.’ They said they already had and asked me which way the guy went. They followed him in their car and found his car parked in front of his house down the street.
“I was holding Lili. She was conscious. All she kept saying was ‘Check the kids.’ Her legs were crushed, and she was just worried about the kids,” he said. “The kids were crying and saying ‘What happened to Mommy?’ The neighbors helped me and we kept the kids from seeing what happened. Just horrific, horrific is the only way I can describe it.”
Doctors amputated her legs that night. “There was no way they could save her legs.” She had over 60 breaks in her bones, Clark said.
Clark said his wife had undergone her third operation on Tuesday. “She knows what has happened. She’s such a strong woman, I just can’t believe it. Like I said, her main concern is the kids.
“They took the tubes out Tuesday and she got to see the kids. They need to know that mom is going to make it. Lili is in good spirits. She feels very fortunate to be alive. That woman is just remarkable,” Clark said.
Lilian Clark is from Chile.
“I met her when I was visiting friends in Chile in 1996. We struck up a friendship which blossomed. I tried everything to get her a visa to live in America. Nothing worked. I was finally successful in getting a fiancé visa. She came to Napa in 1999, and we got married,” Clark said.
Lilian Clark had worked as temporary office employee. More recently, she has been a stay-at-home mom.
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Victim lost both legs from crash; husband founded Napa's Minuteman chapter
By MARSHA DORGAN Napa Valley Register Saturday, February 09, 2008
Federal immigration officials have asked that Napa authorities hold without bail the man charged with felony DUI and hit and run in an east Napa accident that resulted in the amputation of a woman’s legs above the knee.
Francisco Pacheco, 24, is in Napa County jail on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold. ICE seeks holds on criminal suspects who the agency believes may be in the United States illegally. Such holds may result in deportation.
On Feb., 3, Pacheco, who was intoxicated, was driving his 1990 Plymouth on South Terrace Drive when he plowed into the back of Lilian Clark’s vehicle, which was doubled-parked.
Clark, 38, had just finished securing her two sons, 4 and 6, in their car seats and was walking around the back of her car to get to the driver’s door. Pacheco hit the rear ***per of Clark’s car, pinning her legs between her ***per and his front ***per.
Pacheco, who is on probation for a 2007 DUI conviction, fled. He was chased by Clark’s neighbors, who found him about a block away and held him until police arrived.
In addition to the current charges and the 2007 DUI conviction, Pacheco was picked up last July for misdemeanor DUI. That case is pending, according to Napa County Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold.
Pacheco had no insurance and does not have a valid driver’s license.
If found guilty of the charges from Sunday’s incident, Pacheco is looking at a maximum of six years in state prison, Goold said.
John Clark, the husband of the victim, has been active in the movement to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States.
In 2006, Clark started a Napa-based chapter of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps, a group that has observed border patrols and advocated more strict enforcement of immigration laws. He said his inspiration to form the group stemmed from the three-year effort he went through to legally bring Lilian, then his fiancé, to the United States from her native Chile.
“I am passionate about people coming to this country legally. I certainly learned that with the battles I fought to bring Lili here,” he said.
Clark said his wife is improving each day.
“I took the kids to see her. They know that something terrible happened to their mom because they were in the car when she was hit. When we went to the hospital, she showed them she didn’t have any legs. My son asked her, ‘Why did the bad guy take your legs?’” But Lili is such a remarkable person. She is so strong. She is more worried about the kids than herself.”
Dan Johnson, the Napa County Department of Corrections acting director, said when an inmate is placed on Immigration and Custom Enforcement hold, he is interviewed by ICE to determine if he is in the country illegally. If ICE, which is under Homeland Security, determines the inmate is here illegally or violated his or her visa, a deportation hearing is held.
“If it is ruled the person is to be deported, the individual is sent to a penal institution in Arizona to await for transport to their native country,” Johnson said.
Johnson said if the person is in custody at the jail and a criminal complaint has been filed, the deportation issue is dealt with after the criminal case is adjudicated.
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Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Hmm Isn't Maryland one of the states that offered drivers license to undocumented? Along with North Carolina who is also recognizing the same problem.
I totally do not understand this so called punitive approach as it is called. If the family needs to be kept together, then the husband should take the children and follow his wife. isnt that what most people would do??
If the wife was put in jail here for a crime.. would that not seperate the family . so what is their argument justifiable stupidity or what?
Those children can be traumatized, impoverished, even physically abandoned when parents disappear. The vast majority of them will grow up in the U.S.
As Randy Capps of the Urban Institute points out, "The law, as written, leads to family separation," even as it does very little to deter illegal immigration. The situation was better before changes in the law greatly tied immigration judges' hands.
Now, only an illegal immigrant who has been in the country at least 10 years and can prove "extreme" hardship to a child under 18 has any chance of avoiding deportation. That standard is too tough, and it offers no hope to those facing automatic removal orders; they never get to see a judge at all.
Maryland has the 11th-highest total of illegal immigrants: 225,000 to 275,000, according to a 2006 estimate by the Pew Hispanic Center. The need to deal sensibly and compassionately with them is one reason this page supported last year's immigration compromise.
We still hope for a wide-ranging solution to this vexing issue that goes far beyond the scattershot, punitive approach of many bills pending in the Maryland General Assembly. Absent that, Congress should restore judicial discretion in deportation hearings, if not out of compassion for illegal immigrants, then at least for the children's sake.
Hmm Isn't Maryland one of the states that offered drivers license to undocumented? Along with North Carolina who is also recognizing the same problem.
I totally do not understand this so called punitive approach as it is called. If the family needs to be kept together, then the husband should take the children and follow his wife. isnt that what most people would do??
If the wife was put in jail here for a crime.. would that not seperate the family . so what is their argument justifiable stupidity or what?
Until recently, there were 8 states that gave illegals drivers' licenses. Since the Sptizer debacle was made public and Hillary flip flopped on the issues, only 4 remain. Those four states are currently reviewing and considering revocation of this catastrophic idiocy.
As for separation of families:
ITA. Of course the fact that millions of them have "separated their families" by leaving them behind in Mexico is always negated such as the one holed up in the Aldaberto church, no LaRaza outrage that this so called "mother" hasn't seen her 3 children in SEVEN YEARS . Many start NEW FAMILIES after arriving here of course there is NEVER any mention of that fact either.
Separating families only counts when the US is deporting an illegal alien mother who has deliberately given birth after coming to this country in order to USE that child as a meal ticket/welfare recipient. The reality of the situation is they don't want to be separated from that monthly check and link card, the children are merely pawns in their scheme to garner media sympathy.
That being said:
Notice that the perpetually criminal drunk driver who caused the woman to lose both her legs status is FINALLY be checked. But of course we already know that he's an illegal alien from Mexico.
Add to del.icio.us
After the crash, Pacheco put his car in reverse and sped away from the scene. Neighbors followed him to his house about a block away, where they held him until police arrived and arrested Pacheco on felony DUI, hit and run and driving without a valid license. Pacheco has a prior misdemeanor DUI conviction from January 2007. He is on probation. 
“She went around to the back of the car to get to the driver’s door. I was right there. I said ‘see you later,’ and within a split second I heard tires screeching and saw this car come roaring down the street about 50 miles an hour and just slam into the back of Lili’s car, pinning her between the two ***pers,” Clark said. 
“I was holding Lili. She was conscious. All she kept saying was ‘Check the kids.’ Her legs were crushed, and she was just worried about the kids,” he said. “The kids were crying and saying ‘What happened to Mommy?’ The neighbors helped me and we kept the kids from seeing what happened. Just horrific, horrific is the only way I can describe it.” 
Doctors amputated her legs that night. “There was no way they could save her legs.” She had over 60 breaks in her bones, Clark said. 
Federal immigration officials have asked that Napa authorities hold without bail the man charged with felony DUI and hit and run in an east Napa accident that resulted in the amputation of a woman’s legs above the knee.
In addition to the current charges and the 2007 DUI conviction, Pacheco was picked up last July for misdemeanor DUI. That case is pending, according to Napa County Chief Deputy District Attorney John Goold.
Pacheco had no insurance and does not have a valid driver’s license.
“I took the kids to see her. They know that something terrible happened to their mom because they were in the car when she was hit. When we went to the hospital, she showed them she didn’t have any legs. My son asked her, ‘Why did the bad guy take your legs?’” But Lili is such a remarkable person. She is so strong. She is more worried about the kids than herself.”
“If it is ruled the person is to be deported, the individual is sent to a penal institution in Arizona to await for transport to their native country,” Johnson said.
justifiable stupidity or what?