The Rainbow Coalition Evaporates Black anger grows as illegal immigrants transform urban neighborhoods.
Terry Anderson is angry. From his KRLA-AM radio perch in Los Angeles, the black talk-show host thunders, “I have gone on the streets and talked to people at random here in the black community, and they all ask me the same question: ‘Why are our politicians and leaders letting this happen?’ †What’s got Anderson—motto: “If You Ain’t Mad, You Ain’t Payin’ Attentionâ€â€”so worked up isn’t the Jena Six or nooses on Columbia University doorknobs; it’s the illegal immigrants who allegedly murdered three Newark college students last August. And when he excoriates politicians for “letting this happen,†he’s directing his fire at Congressional Black Caucus members who support open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. “Massive illegal immigration has been devastating to my community,†Anderson, a former auto mechanic and longtime South Central Los Angeles resident, tells listeners. “Black Americans are hit the hardest.â€
Though blacks have long worried that the country’s growing foreign-born population, especially its swelling rolls of illegal immigrants, harmed their economic prospects, they have also followed their political leadership in backing liberal immigration policies. Now, however, as new waves of immigration inundate historically African-American neighborhoods, black opinion is hardening against the influx. “We will not lay down and take this any longer,†says Anderson. If he’s right, it could upend the political calculus on immigration.
Black unease about immigration goes back a long way. In the 1870s, former slave Frederick Douglass warned that immigrants were displacing free blacks in the labor market. Twenty-five years later, Booker T. Washington exhorted America’s industrialists to “cast down your bucket†not among new immigrants but “among the eight million Negros . . . who have without strikes and labor wars tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities.†Blacks supported federal legislation in 1882 that restricted Chinese immigration to the United States. They favored the immigration reform acts of the 1920s, which limited European immigration, and also urged restrictions on Mexican workers: “If the million Mexicans who have entered the country have not displaced Negro workers, whom have they displaced?†asked black journalist George Schuyler in 1928.
But the 1960s brought a big change in the views of black political leaders, especially after President Lyndon B. Johnson and congressional supporters of liberalizing immigration claimed the mantle of the civil rights movement for their reforms, which became law in 1965 and resulted in a 60 percent increase in legal immigration over the subsequent decade. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that blacks and poor immigrants had much in common and could become political allies, which was why, in the run-up to the immigration bill’s passage, he endorsed the idea of letting Cubans fleeing Castro settle in Miami. Jesse Jackson would later herald the imminent arrival of a mighty “black-brown†or “rainbow†coalition that would—or so he claimed—propel him to the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. As it turned out, Jackson failed to win much Hispanic support, which mostly lined up behind Walter Mondale. But Jackson’s dream continued to spread among black politicians, including those in the Congressional Black Caucus, which became one of Washington’s most vocal groups opposing immigration restrictions.
Black leaders’ liberal views clearly helped soften anti-immigration attitudes within the African-American community. A 1986 New York Times poll found that a larger percentage of blacks than of whites believed that immigrants took jobs from Americans—but it also found blacks less likely than whites to favor immigration restrictions. In the California vote on Proposition 187, a 1994 ballot initiative that banned government benefits for illegals, blacks split nearly in half on the measure, while whites heavily supported it and Latinos opposed it. “Even confronted with evidence that immigrants are taking jobs from them, some blacks would say, ‘These are people who are fighting for their rights like us,’ †says Carol Swain, a Vanderbilt University political scientist and editor of the recently published Debating Immigration.
[b]But as immigration reignited as a national issue in 2006, ambivalence has increasingly given way to opposition to current policies—and even to anger. When Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a columnist for BlackNews.com, wrote a series of pieces sympathizing with illegal aliens, the volume of hostile mail that poured in from other blacks shocked him. Illegal immigration has sizzled as a topic on African-American stations like satellite radio XM’s “The Power,†with most callers demanding more immigration restrictions. African-American bloggers have excoriated black politicians who favor liberal immigration policies. “In the realm of pandering black elites, there is no more notorious public figure than [Texas] Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee,†wrote Elizabeth Wright in the online newsletter Issues & Views. “According to Jackson-Lee, those blacks who forcefully oppose mass immigration are simply naive and are being ‘baited’ [by white opponents of immigration] into taking such negative positions.â€
Recent polling data reveal the shift. Though a 2006 Pew Center national survey showed some of the same ambivalence among blacks toward immigrants, it also found that in several urban areas where blacks and Latinos were living together, blacks were more likely to say that immigrants were taking jobs from Americans, and also more likely to favor cutting America’s current immigration levels.
What’s behind the anger, as the Pew data hint, is the rapid change that legal and illegal Hispanic immigration is bringing to longtime black locales. Places like South Los Angeles and Compton, California, have transformed, virtually overnight, into majority-Latino communities. Huge numbers of new immigrants have also surged beyond newcomer magnets California and New York to reach fast-growing southern states like North Carolina and Georgia, bringing change to communities where blacks had gained economic and political power after years of struggle against Jim Crow laws. Since 1990, North Carolina’s Hispanic population has exploded from 76,726 people to nearly 600,000, the majority of them ethnically Mexican. In Georgia, the Hispanic population grew nearly sevenfold, to almost 700,000, from 1990 to 2006.
This Latino “tsunami,†as Los Angeles–based Hispanic-American writer Nicolás Vaca calls it, has intensified the well-founded feeling among blacks that they’re losing economic ground to immigrants. True, early research, conducted in the wake of the big immigration reforms of the 1960s, suggested that the arrival of newcomers had little adverse impact on blacks—one study found that every 10 percent increase in immigration cut black wages by only 0.3 percent. But as the immigrant population has in some places grown six or seven times larger over the last four decades, the downward pull has become a vortex. A recent study by Harvard economist George Borjas and colleagues from the University of Chicago and the University of California estimates that immigration accounted for a 7.4 percentage-point decline in the employment rate of unskilled black males between 1980 and 2000. Even for black males with high school diplomas, immigration shrank employment by nearly 3 percentage points. While immigration hurts black and white low-wage workers, the authors note, the effect is three times as large on blacks because immigrants are more likely to compete directly with them for jobs.
A case study of Los Angeles janitorial services cited in a Government Accounting Office report captures the enormity of the shift. It began in the late 1970s, as several small firms began hiring Mexican janitors at low pay, prompting building owners to drop contracts with the companies that employed blacks in favor of the cheaper upstarts. As the immigrant-dominated firms grabbed more business, industry wages slipped from a peak of $6.58 an hour in 1983 to $5.63 an hour in 1985. The number of black janitors in L.A. plummeted from about 2,500 in the late 1970s to only 600 by 1985. Today, the city’s janitorial industry, like apparel manufacturing and hotel services, is almost entirely immigrant.
Former mechanic Anderson felt the effects of low-wage immigrant competition in his old line of work. “I used to sell parts to body shops, and I knew Americans who were making $20 an hour repairing dented fenders,†he says. “Now, 95 percent of South Central L.A. body-shop jobs are held by recent immigrants making $7 or $8 an hour.†Says Joe Hicks, former chair of Los Angeles’s Human Relations Commission and now head of the nonprofit Community Advocates: “It’s hard to find a black face on a construction site or in a fast-food restaurant around here any more. People from the black community have noticed.â€
As the Hispanic population has expanded in formerly black areas, Latinos have also vied more intensely with blacks for affirmative-action slots, public-sector jobs, and political power. In one notable late-1990s case that presaged future confrontations, Hispanic leaders in South L.A. launched an official complaint that blacks made up the overwhelming majority of the county hospital’s staff. A federal agency then forced the hospital to hire more Latinos, provoking bitterness among local blacks. More recently, in Compton—where Hispanics have replaced blacks as the largest ethnic group, but where blacks continue to dominate local politics—Latinos have been grumbling that they don’t hold as many jobs in the public schools as they should, given their numbers.
This battle over quotas for public-sector jobs is a glaring example of how immigration is turning the race-based policies of the last 40 years, originally designed to help blacks, against them. For African-American leaders like Claud Anderson, head of the Harvest Institute, the turnabout represents a betrayal of the civil rights movement: only blacks deserve quotas. “When did our government ever exclude immigrants or deny them their constitutional rights, as they did African-Americans?†he asks. But for other blacks, the demands of Latinos and Asians that government set-aside programs include them are further evidence that racial preferences were misguided in the first place. “Blacks who support skin color privileges now will be singing a different tune later once government starts discriminating against them once again, this time in favor of Hispanics,†writes columnist and blogger La Shawn Barber.
The Latino influx into formerly black-majority urban neighborhoods has sparked deadlier kinds of conflict. While most violent crime in these areas is still black-on-black or Latino-on-Latino, interethnic violence is mounting, and in some locales, much of it—perhaps surprisingly, given high overall black crime rates—is Hispanic-on-black. In the heavily mixed-race community of Harbor Gateway in Los Angeles, for example, Latinos now commit five times more violent crimes against blacks than vice versa. Countywide numbers are just as startling. Though blacks make up just 9 percent of L.A. County’s population, they were the victims of 59 percent of all racially motivated attacks in 2006, while Latinos committed 52 percent of all racially motivated attacks.
********ing is responsible for much of the carnage. Greater Los Angeles is now home to some 500 Mexican gangs—compared with some 200 black ones—and they’ve aggressively tried to push blacks out of mixed-race neighborhoods. More than just turf wars, the Latinos’ violence has included attacks against law-abiding African-Americans with no gang involvement; a horrifying example was the December 2006 murder of 14-year-old Cheryl Green by Mexican gang members in Harbor Gateway, a brutal crime designed to terrorize local blacks. Three years earlier, the same gang had killed a black man because he dared to patronize a local store that they considered “For Hispanics Only.†Meantime, federal authorities have indicted members of another Los Angeles–based Latino gang, Florencia 13, for random shootings of blacks in South L.A. The indictment chillingly accuses a gang leader of giving members instructions on how to find blacks to shoot.
“This all began in local high schools back in the early 1990s, but it wasn’t noticed by many people then,†says sociologist Alex Alonso, an expert in Los Angeles gangs. “When blacks and Latinos started sharing high schools, they fought, at first because they refused to celebrate each other’s ethnic holidays. Since then, the fighting has made its way into the streets and the gangs.†Alonso, who runs an online forum where gang members can vent, says that Latino-black relations are one of the hottest topics. Typical is this remark from a forum member: “Black folks in L.A. better wake up and realize that the ‘myth’ of the brown minority brother and sister, being black folks’ latent brothers and sisters in the struggle . . . is a wet dream. If black folks don’t soon realize this in L.A., unite and come together for their own survival—then it will be blacks walking around with their heads up their asses . . . asking: ‘What happened???’ â€
The violent neighborhood confrontations initially received little media attention outside Southern California. But the murder last summer of three black, college-bound students in Newark, New Jersey—allegedly by several illegal Hispanic immigrants, including a Peruvian with a criminal record named Jose Carranza—sparked widespread national coverage and a heated debate within the black community. The Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson, a conservative radio host and columnist, called the Newark killings and the California violence “a wake-up call†for blacks. Reflecting the new mood, Terry Anderson, the Los Angeles talk-show host, challenged black leaders like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to speak out. “If you make one simple change, and change Jose Carranza to a white man,†said Anderson, “I will guarantee you that [Sharpton and Jackson] would be screaming and marching in the streets.â€
Many blacks are also uncomfortable with the more prosaic cultural changes that accompany rapid immigration. Akbar Shab***, a telecommunications consultant, moved out of Gwinnett County, a middle-class Atlanta suburb with a large African-American population, after a huge influx of foreign-born Spanish speakers suddenly created a bilingual culture in the public schools, as well as such overcrowding that some schools had to hold classes in trailers. Since 1990, Gwinnett’s foreign-born population has increased tenfold, to about 185,000—now making up about 25 percent of the total population. “There were so many students speaking Spanish in my daughter’s kindergarten class that she felt isolated,†says Shab***, who has joined a group of blacks supporting immigration restrictions.
Some observers, aware of the historical irony, have even begun talking about “black flight†from Latino migration. In Los Angeles, for instance, the black population has declined by some 123,000 in the last 15 years, while the Hispanic population has increased by more than 450,000. “Black communities are being transformed, and it isn’t going down so well,†says Joe Hicks.
*Blacks may also be starting to realize that many Latinos hold intensely negative stereotypes about them. In a 2006 study that ten academic researchers conducted of various racial groups’ attitudes in Durham, North Carolina, 59 percent of Latino immigrants said that few or no blacks were hardworking, and 57 percent said that few or no blacks could be trusted. By contrast, only 9 percent of whites said that blacks weren’t hardworking, and only 10 percent said that they couldn’t be trusted. Interestingly, the survey found that blacks were broadly well-disposed toward Hispanics, though how long that will be true remains to be seen.
The rising tensions between African-Americans and Hispanics render the old hopes of a black-brown coalition chimerical. “In studies,†says Frank Morris, former dean of graduate studies at Morgan State University, “immigrants actually tend to say they think of themselves more like whites in America than like blacks, which is one reason why a black-brown political coalition has never existed anywhere except in the minds of black political leaders.†Morris, the former head of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, says that elected black leaders have sought to join forces with Hispanics not out of true common concerns but out of fear that demographic changes will leave them vulnerable to challenges from Latino pols. A research paper published by Morris and University of Maryland professor James Gimpel estimates that Hispanic candidates could win as many as six seats that blacks currently hold in the U.S. House of Representatives. Latino politicians understand that their own gains will come largely at the expense of black candidates. When black California congresswoman Juanita Millender-McDonald died suddenly last year, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus targeted her seat, realizing that her district was 57 percent Latino. The effort, which angered members of the Congressional Black Caucus, failed. But Hispanic congressman Joe Baca justified it: “It’s time we have one of our own that speaks on our behalf,†he said.
Nicolás Vaca, the writer, dismisses the notion that African-Americans and Latinos are natural allies. “A divide exists between Blacks and Latinos that no amount of camouflage can hide,†he writes in his book The Presumed Alliance. Vaca says that the split has been evident for years, though largely ignored by the media and political leaders. He contends, for instance, that the 1992 Los Angeles riots, sparked by the LAPD’s beating of Rodney King, became on the ground a black-brown confrontation in which the majority of businesses destroyed were Latino. At the same time, Vaca argues, Latinos believe that, since they had nothing to do with black oppression in America, they owe blacks nothing and “come to the table with a clear conscience.â€
Such talk portends problems for the Democratic Party, where Hispanics and African-Americans are two crucial constituencies. Courting the growing Hispanic vote, virtually all the top Democratic leaders in Washington support liberal immigration policies, including some form of amnesty. So far, the party has been able to embrace amnesty without threatening its traditional lock on black votes. Republicans are missing an opportunity, thinks Vanderbilt’s Swain. “Some Republicans have positions on immigration that would resonate in the black community, but only a few have tried to take advantage of black anger on immigration,†she says.
For Swain, white members of Congress who favor restrictions on low-wage immigration may be representing black interests better than the Congressional Black Caucus does. Many blacks, she believes, now recognize that former political allies like the Democratic Party, white liberals, and unions have abandoned them in favor of immigrants, who represent the newest Left cause—and that the black political leadership isn’t doing anything about it.
Black politicians, noticing the growing anger within their communities, have started to shun the immigration debate. Major civil rights organizations didn’t participate in the Latino marches and protests in favor of amnesty last spring. At the Congressional Black Caucus’s annual legislative conference last September, no sessions tackled immigration, despite the issue’s national prominence. And when Sheila Jackson-Lee proposed her liberal immigration-reform bill in 2006, only nine of the CBC’s 43 members cosponsored it.
Black politicians would influence the direction of future immigration debates merely by sitting them out. Back in 1994, when initial polls showed that 65 percent of California blacks backed Proposition 187, African-American politicians and civil rights leaders began an intense campaign to change their minds, ultimately cutting black support for the proposition by 15 to 20 percentage points. But in the current environment, with discontent growing among many black voters, it’s unlikely that many African-American politicians would be as willing to undertake a similar campaign. As Earl Ofari Hutchinson recently acknowledged, “Black leaders are looking over their shoulders.â€
Blacks could play a far more decisive role, though, if their political leaders felt threatened enough to pursue tougher immigration policies actively. Such a move wouldn’t be unprecedented. In the late 1980s, blacks reacted bitterly when Congress proposed an amnesty for illegals. The pressure that they put on black representatives prompted the Congressional Black Caucus to ensure that the immigration bill that eventually passed included tough sanctions against employers who knowingly hired undocumented workers, though court challenges eventually watered them down. Today, black America appears to be in the throes of a more profound shift in attitudes—one that could make the African-American voter a crucial part of the immigration debate.
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Support for Fabian's Prop. 93 Plummets -- Certain failure ahead...
by Jon Fleischman - Publisher (bio) (email) 1-24-2008 8:30 am
In my career as a political professional, I have had an opportunity to work as the campaign coordinator for a successful statewide ballot measure (Prop. 227, in 1998, to end bilingual education in support of English immersion). But it doesn't even take someone with a lot of experience to make an early call on the fate of Proposition 93 a.k.a. "The Big Lie" a.k.a. the "Fabian Nunez Career Politician Term Limits Weakening Initiative."
This measure is going to be soundly defeated by California voters, preserving our state's strong legislative term limits, and upholding the idea that the state legislature is supposed to be a place where citizens give of their time for a few years, and then return home to live under the laws they create. Californian's will re-affirm their decision that they simply do not was a class of career politicians under the Capitol dome.
The statewide Field poll has announced their latest numbers on Fabian's ploy measure, Prop. 93 -- showing the measure has steeply dropped in support (as we predicted here on the FR -- that once voters understood that politicians "conveniently" slipped in a clause to allow them to all serve more time in office).
Conventional wisdom is that a ballot measure needs to go into election day with over 50% support. The Field Poll puts the measure at 39% in favor, 39% against, with 22% undecided.
I am sure that Fabian and company are not in a hurry to have you look back to the last Field Poll, just a month ago, that had the measure at 50% support, 32% oppose. As voters become more educated on this measure, they are lining up against it.
Of course, to make matters worse for Nunez, the No on 93 campaign effort, headed up by Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, which has had a modest tv campaign taking place for couple of weeks has made a major media commitment through the election, ensuring that an informed electorate will likely bring 93's numebers down even more!
On a closing note, I guess it looks like "Team Fabian" was fudging the numbers as they were spreading around a "58% Support" number. Now they can wear that egg on their faces through February 5.
Employers could be sued for cost of educating illegal immigrants
Associated Press - January 23, 2008 6:25 PM ET
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) - Hiring illegal immigrants could put businesses on the hook for costs ranging from education to welfare, under a bill introduced in the Legislature.
The bill (LG1170) brought Wednesday by Senator Tom White of Omaha would provide for the recovery of costs for public education, health care and public assistance programs used by illegal immigrants and their families, spouses or other dependents. The measure applies to those who "knowingly or recklessly recruited or employed illegal immigrants."
Action could be brought by the attorney general, a political subdivision or a citizen.
Over Ten Percent of Mexico's Population Lost Through Emigration NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS Visit our website: http://www.nafbpo.org
Foreign News Report
La Jornada (Mexico City) 1/24/08
A report by the World Bank placed Mexico at the top of the world in the number of emigrants and at third in the amount of individual monetary remittances from abroad. Titled "Migration and Remittances FactBook", the report says 11.5 million Mexicans - 10.7 % of its population - have left for "other countries". There has also been a growth in the number of professionals emigrating, mainly physicians.
Remittances have reached 25 billion dollars annually. The report also called the U.S./ Mexico border the world's largest migratory corridor. -------------------
a.b.c. (Mexico City) 1/24/08
507 Nuevo Laredo police officers were tested for drugs; military forces are patrolling the city and setting up urban traffic checkpoints in a continuing search for weapons.
(note: a quite similar event report by El Diario of Ciudad Juarez yesterday fell through the cracks and was not reported; they are using vehicles with roof mounted machine guns. Our apologies for the omission.) --------------------
Diario de Yucatan (Merida, Yuc.) 1/24/08
1. The Chief of Police of Rio Bravo, Tamaulipas and twelve of his subordinates were arrested by Mex. army personnel when it was found that their radios were connected to frequencies used by the Gulf Cartel. El Porvenir (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) added that there were also four police from Nuevo Laredo who are now under arrest.
2. X-Ray inspection of packages at the postal facility of the Mexico City Airport detected 85 packages originating from various U.S. cities and addressed to different Mexican cities. The contents: nine hand guns, an AK-47, and 1,738 rounds of ammunition of different calibers, plus five shotguns. Federal agents seized the packages. ----------------
El Bravo (Matamoros, Tamaulipas) 1/24/08
Now that the Mex. army has disarmed the local police, area businesses are closing up at nightfall for fear of being assaulted and robbed. -----------------
El Debate (Culiacan, Sinaloa) 1/24/08
Mex. navy personnel in Sinaloa located 3 marihuana fields covering an area of 13,150 sq. meters in the vicinity of Guasave and Sinaloa de Leyva. And in La Mojonera, Sinaloa, federal forces located a 13,00 sq. meter field of marihuana and one of poppy covering 1,000 sq. meters. ( 1 sq. meter= 1.195 sq. yds.) ------------------
El Financiero (Mexico City) 1/24/08
(note: our report does not normally carry items originating within the U.S.. This is an exemption)
Leaders of the Mexican community on Chicago said they will ask President Calderon for his support of the various activities they plan to undertake to demonstrate their important social and political presence in the United States. Pres. Calderon plans to visit Chicago on Fe. 14 and will also stop at Los Angeles, New York and Boston. Fabian Morales, councilor of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad, said "…for example, this is an election year, where we must get people out to vote, that is going to strengthen us and show that our presence is not temporary…because the enemy is not at home, but outside, it has white skin, they think differently than we do, it's the Minuteman, and those are the ones we are going to attack." ------------------
El Porvenir (Monterrey, Nuevo Leon) 1/24/08
update: the murderer of Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar is arrested in Pueblo Yaqui, Sonora, and was taken to Mexicali, Baja Calif.; he is said to have a prior record as a smuggler. Previously, the search for him has now been revealed to have been at Manzanillo Ave. # 102, Colonia Santa Clara, Mexicali; there, "false visas" and all necessary equipment to make false documents was found: there were 28 U.S. rubber stamps, 311 permit formats, 31 border crossing cards, 47 "temporary permits to stay" in that country, software programs and 73 ammo. rounds of different calibers. The 80 motorcycles & ATV's, plus one boat and 1 kg. of marihuana were at Tepic # 46, Colonia Santa Clara, Mexicali. Both those properties belong to Gerardo & Federico Miramontes Zavala. --------------------
Milenio (Mexico City) 1/24/08
130 "undocumented", mostly Guatemalans, were detained as they traveled northbound in two buses on the Mexico City - Veracruz highway. -------------------- -end of report-
U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo -- the recent one-note presidential candidate -- today issued a statement responding to complaints by legislators from Mexico about immigrants self-deporting to Mexico. (See our earlier post.) In the process he brainstormed an idea that, well, only Tancredo could come up with. Here's part of his statement:
Tancredo pointed out that in 2005, the Mexican government actually produced and distributed copies of a "Guia del Migrante Mexicano" (Guide for the Mexican Immigrant) which contained "practical advice" for Mexicans on how to safely sneak into the United States.
The guide contained tips on everything from crossing rivers and navigating the desert to ones "rights" as an illegal alien if apprehended. The booklet is widely available online. This increased the flow of illegal aliens into the United States - illegal aliens who will be returning to Mexico through Sonora as enforcement efforts in the U.S. intensify.
"Perhaps the Department of Homeland Security and Government Printing Office can return Mexico's 2005 favor and help local officials in Sonora cope with the influx of returning Mexicans," said Tancredo. "We can develop a 'Guide for the Returning Illegal Alien' packed with helpful information like how to get back to various points in Mexico from the U.S. border, and a reminder that illegally immigrating is, well, illegal - and has consequences."
Tancredo said he is exploring the option of drafting legislation to authorize the production of the booklets. ---------------------------------------------
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Press Release Source: Illinois Coalition of Latino Elected Officials
Latino Officials Deliver Wake-Up Call Thursday January 24, 7:13 pm ET
CHICAGO, Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- An Illinois Coalition of Latino Elected Officials today called on liberal Democratic colleagues to endorse qualified Hispanic candidates or not expect their support in return.
Calls were made today by a majority of Latino elected officials representing Illinois, Cook County and Chicago political districts.
"Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for non-minority liberal Democrats," said Alderman/ Committeeman Manuel Flores, 1st Ward. "Unless they are willing to endorse qualified Latino candidates, they should not expect to seek our support for their candidacies in their wards and districts."
The decision to make outreach calls came after a Wednesday meeting of the Illinois Coalition of Latino Elected Officials representing nearly two dozen Hispanic, public office holders at the city, county, state and federal levels.
"It is unfortunate that so many non-minority lakefront and liberal Democrats have such short term memories," said State Sen. Antonio Munoz, 1st District. "They ask us to help them with Latino support in their communities and then when we seek backing for our qualified Hispanic candidates the liberals make excuses or don't return our calls."
Latino officials were also calling on all registered, Chicago area Hispanics to vote for qualified Latino candidates in the February 5 Democratic Primary Election.
The next trilateral summit among the presidents George W. Bush, Felipe Calderon and the prime minister Stephen Harper will be in the city of New Orleans in April, the presidential advisor Ed Gillespie informed today.
The official announcement will be done by the American president in the framework of its last report of government, that will be given this night before a joint session of the Congress.
Bush will speak also of immigration. 'The illegal immigration is complicated but it can be resolved. And it should be resolved in a form such that preserves our laws and oursl highest ideas", the president will say according to a statements divulged by the White House.
The spokesman of the White House Dana Perino does not expect nevertheless that the problem will be resolved this year.
'He does not have illusions that this Congress will make decisions for an integral migratory reform... He does is not going to ask the Congress to approve it. He is conscious that reform will not occur this year ', added Perino.
Although Bush supported a migratory reform that included a route to the legalization of millions of undocumented immigrants, the initiative was blocked in the Senate, due to the opposition of a majority of Republican senators.
Last Edited: Monday, 28 Jan 2008, 3:45 PM CST Created: Monday, 28 Jan 2008, 3:40 PM CST
A 28-year-old illegal immigrant who has taken refuge in the same Humboldt Park church where Elvira Arellano sought sanctuary from the law for a year will be considered an immigration fugitive if she does not leave the country Monday night will be subject to arrest, federal authorities say.
In defiance of a deportation order, Flor Crisostomo began her “sanctuary†today, confining herself indefinitely inside Adalberto United Methodist Church at 2716 W. Division. She will stay in the church’s second-floor living quarters. She was due to surrender to federal authorities Monday.
Crisostomo sat quietly among several dozen parishioners during a service Sunday as the Rev. Walter Coleman rallied his congregation around her.
Trouble for Crisostomo, who came to the United States seven years ago from Guerrero, Mexico, began when she was arrested in 2006 during a series of federal raids on a company that employed illegal immigrants.
Crisostomo, who is unmarried, thinks she is doing the best thing for her three children, who live in Mexico with her mother, according to friend and church council president Emma Lozano.
“She would not be able to support them in Mexico. When she left, her kids were very skinny children with nothing. Then she started sending money back to them. Now they have food, clothes, books,†Lozano said.
Crisostomo, who has been an immigration activist for more than two years, may soon be joined by other illegal immigrants contemplating taking sanctuary at the church, Lozano said.
"If Ms. Crisóstomo does not comply with the immigration judge’s order by tonight, she will become an immigration fugitive," U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Gail Montenegro said.
"ICE officers have a sworn duty to enforce the nation’s immigration laws and the authority to arrest those who violate the laws," Montenegro said.
"ICE prioritizes enforcement actions based on implications to national security and public safety. Ms. Crisóstomo will be taken into custody at an appropriate time and place with consideration given to the safety of all involved."
Monday, January 28, 2008 Sen. Barack Obama greets worshipers after a morning servi... Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton accepts a campaign poster for...
(01-2 04:00 PST Washington -- Sen. Barack Obama easily won the African American vote in South Carolina, but to woo California Latinos, where he is running 3-to-1 behind rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, he is taking a giant risk: spotlighting his support for the red-hot issue of granting driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
It's a huge issue for Latinos, who want them. It's also a huge issue for the general electorate, which most vehemently does not. Obama's stand could come back to haunt him not only in a general election, but with other voters in California, where driver's licenses for illegal immigrants helped undo former Gov. Gray Davis.
Clinton stumbled into that minefield in a debate last fall and quickly backed off. First she suggested a New York proposal for driver's licenses for illegal immigrants might be reasonable. Then she denied endorsing the idea, and later came out against them.
Asked directly about the issue now, her California campaign spokesman said Clinton "believes the solution is to pass comprehensive immigration reform."
"Barack Obama has not backed down" on driver's licenses for undocumented people, said Federico Peña, a former Clinton administration Cabinet member and Denver mayor now supporting Obama. "I think when the Latino community hears Barack's position on such an important and controversial issue, they'll understand that his heart and his intellect is with Latino community."
Obama's intention is to draw distinctions between himself and Clinton on what are otherwise indistinguishable positions on immigration. Both have adopted the standard Democratic approach of favoring tougher enforcement along with earned legalization.
The Illinois senator is differentiating himself in three key areas: driver's licenses, a promise to take up immigration reform his first year in office, and his background as the son of an immigrant (his father was Kenyan) and a community organizer in Chicago.
Obama made the promise to Latino leaders to take up immigration reform in his first year after Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., chairman of the Democratic caucus, said his party might not raise the divisive issue again until the next president's second term, assuming a Democrat wins.
Latino leaders felt betrayed. For them, an immigration overhaul is a top priority in light of state and local crackdowns on illegal immigrants and federal raids in workplaces across the country.
Clinton has not made such a promise, saying only that she would make her best efforts.
"Those issues are huge," said Obama supporter and state Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, vice chairman of the California Latino Legislative Caucus.
Democratic pollsters Stan Greenberg and James Carville issued a direct warning on the driver's license issue in an analysis last month designed to guide Democrats through the treacherous immigration quagmire.
"The findings about driver's licenses are particularly notable," they said. Two-thirds of surveyed voters oppose them, the pollsters found, and the safety argument fails to dent the widespread conviction that granting a driver's license rewards illegal behavior.
But it will definitely work with Latinos, said John Trasviña, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "Clinton and (Sen. John) Edwards have said no driver's licenses for unauthorized immigrants," Trasviña said. "Sen. Obama has said you get a driver's license if you know how to drive. And that message I think will resonate in the Latino community as we get closer to California."
The latest California Field Poll shows Clinton leads among Latinos 59 percent to 19 percent. That's bigger than the margin that handed her Nevada just over a week ago and about how well former President Bill Clinton did with Latinos in California when he won the state in 1992 and 1996, said poll director Mark DiCamillo.
One in 3 Californians is Latino, and although they make up just 14 percent of the electorate, they are 1 in 5 Democratic primary voters, according to the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.
"That's a very sizable group and a leading indicator in terms of younger and new voters," president Mark Baldassare said. "That's just the demographics of our state. They're a really crucial group."
Clinton's biggest asset is "El Presidente."
Thanks to Bill Clinton's presidency, during which he lavished attention on California, and her own eight years as first lady, Hillary Clinton enjoys enormous name recognition among Latinos.
She has also done her spadework. Clinton picked up early endorsements from leading Latinos such as Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez and fabled farmworker organizer Dolores Huerta.
Clinton opened her new East Lost Angeles campaign office Saturday with three Latina members of Congress: Hilda Solis, Grace Napolitano and Lucille Roybal-Allard.
Obama has lined up several lesser-known officials, including Assemblyman Joe Coto, D-San Jose, chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus, as well as Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Cerritos, who split from her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Clinton backer from Garden Grove.
While Clinton has the backing of the United Farm Workers, Obama has picked up the endorsement of Unite Here, a heavily immigrant service workers union.
Both camps discount speculation of simmering racial hostility that might make some Latinos reluctant to vote for a black man.
"The familiarity with President Clinton has given her a very, very big lead from the beginning," said Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer for the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor who is campaigning for Obama.
If there were racial animosity, "obviously we would have to address that very directly," Durazo said. But mostly the response Durazo gets when she asks Latinos about Obama is, "Who is he? I don't know who he is," whereas with Clinton, the answer comes back, "We know Presidente Bill Clinton."
Maria Echaveste, a UC Berkeley law lecturer advising the Clinton campaign, agreed. "Everyone is so quick to jump on" the racial angle, she said. "But, frankly, I think the explanation is a much greater number of people know her and love Bill Clinton."
Huerta, a longtime Latina activist and co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, scoffed at Obama's credentials with Latinos. Clinton worked in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas as a young woman, she said, while Obama was missing in action during two major activist events in Chicago, once when Elvira Arellano sought church sanctuary to avoid deportation, and another time when two Latino men were falsely accused of murder.
"He's now trying to build a relationship, but it's just not there," Huerta said. In Nevada, casino workers dubbed themselves "Hilarios," she said, meaning Hillary supporters. "This came from the people."
With Obama, she said, "A lot of them would say, 'Señor como se llama?' They didn't know Obama's name."
Latinos also trust Clinton, Huerta said. "Support for her is not just support; it's enthusiastic support. In fact, I haven't seen anything like this since the Bobby Kennedy campaign back in '68."
Obama has begun airing campaign ads on Spanish-language TV and his supporters are working hard to promote Obama's activist Chicago roots, which Peña declared forged "a personal connection with Latinos that no other candidate has had."
Added Durazo, "He's the son of an immigrant, he's the son of a single mother who sacrificed a lot to make sure he got his education. All of those issues resonate with a hotel housekeeper, a construction worker, a day laborer. ... I have great hope that we're going to break through that gap in a big way."
E-mail Carolyn Lochhead at clochhead@sfchronicle.com.
Illegal immigrant vows to stand ground HUMBOLDT PARK | Holed up in same church where Arellano held out
KARA SPAK Staff Reporter
Saying she hoped the fear of God would keep federal agents away, undocumented immigrant Flor Crisostomo on Monday vowed to stay in a Humboldt Park church indefinitely to keep Congress focused on immigration reform.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, a defiant Crisostomo said she did not believe she was breaking U.S. law, nor did she see herself as hiding.
Arrested in an immigration raid in April 2006, she was ordered to leave the country voluntarily by Jan. 28. Crisostomo sought “sanctuary†in the Adalberto United Methodist Church, the same church that housed undocumented immigrant Elvira Arellano and Arellano’s U.S.-born son Saul, for more than a year.
“I am taking a stand of civil disobedience to make America see what they are doing,†Crisostomo said in a statement that was translated into English. Speaking in broken English, she said immigrants are not terrorists but hard-working people contributing to the economy.
“The real problem is the color and the language,†she said.
U.S. immigration officials saw the issue differently, releasing a statement that said Crisostomo was given a voluntary departure order Oct. 12, 2006. After an appeal failed in December 2007, she was given 60 more days to leave the country on her own.
“Ms. Crisostomo will be taken into custody at an appropriate time and place with consideration given to the safety of all involved,†read the statement released by Gail Montenegro, spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Children back in Mexico
Montenegro said that it is also illegal to “knowingly harbor an illegal alien,†and those who do so can be subject to criminal prosecution.
Unlike Arellano, who was living with her son, Saul, at the church, Crisostomo’s three children, ages 14, 11 and 9, live with their grandmother in Mexico.
Crisostomo, 28, left her children in Guerrero, Mexico, seven years ago to work illegally in the United States. She was arrested April 19, 2006, during an immigration raid at a pallet factory where she earned $300 a week.
Arellano lived in the church for more than a year. She left in August 2007 to attend an immigration rally in California, where federal authorities arrested and deported her.
Next she'll claim its our fault she had unprotected ***, has 3 children (probably by 3 different sperm donors and she has no clue who or where they are) she knew she couldn't feed and obviously had no business having. Oh and of course it's Our fault SHE ABANDONED HER CHILDREN AND SPLIT UP HER FAMILY . . . BUT SHE'S HIDING IN A CHURCH AND WANTS GOD TO PUNISH US? GOTTA LOVE HER CHRISTIAN FAMILY VALUES [/END SARCASM]
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*Another American Victory
