Hudson, actually there are laws preventing certain people from owning property now. It used to be the mortgage/real estate industry put on blinders when it came to due diligence in their practices. Now its a bit different. The days of 'stated income' loans and so forth are over. In most states the money to buy something has to be well documented as to where it came from. In Texas for example they do a lot more to verify who a person is before they hand over that deed.

I don't know what sort of twisted economics your reading from. The wage isn't reflective of the person's status? Of course the two are very connected. Low skilled or not the two are hand in hand.

Another very clear and easy to follow example. Construction. KB homes got nailed with several class action law suits for shoddy construction. Part of that was based on the fact they admitted to hiring a large percentage of 'migrant' workers. They actually confessed to it, what a surprise. Most of whom are not qualified to build anything as evidenced by the number of homes falling apart. Their excuse was they could not afford to pay the prevailing wage of union labor in this country. Granted, a union member is probably over paid but at least they know what they are doing. They are liable for their work and have standards they have to keep. How many reports have you read about legal construction workers not finding work due to the mass hiring of illegals? I have seen many. So the argument that the status has nothing to do with the job is completely off base.

Swift meats and any other meat packer can not and should not be allowed to use the excuse of skinny profit margins to justify exploiting labor. They do pay based on status and their profit margins are not that thin. Look up the CEO's, board of directors, management, and any non-illegal working there. It isn't so bad. By definition it is the reason they hire illegals. To underpay them. Add to that the identity theft, unpaid taxes, and the net cost of what they did is very large to the consumer. The only profit made was by Swift meats. If the cost of the identity theft, lost tax revenue, cost of the raids, cost to the victims of the identity theft, workers who should have had those jobs, and unemployment paid out to them from the state were all added up it would amount to 4 or 5 times what they paid those people.

If the food prices jumped 4.3% there are other issues involved. We have also seen increases passed on from foreign imports and the difference in currency exchange rates also affect it. A lot of our food comes from other countries. I'll leave that alone for now. What I want to comment on is the rest. A 10 cent increase per pound in chicken is going to equate to 10,000.00 a month in my spending on necessities? How much chicken do you think I eat? I'd have to ask the wife but it isn't much. About 10 lbs, if that. So I'm looking at about a $1.00 for me. If anyone eats that much it might be to their advantage to have their own chicken ranch. An increase in the cost of production of any widget (chicken or otherwise) not caused by demand will cause the demand to drop, not increase.

If a plant or two has to shut down because they can not compete due to paying true prevailing wage the affect will be negligible since the demand also dropped. The demand dropped due to the consumer price increase. But even if demand were to jump the initial shortage would be temporary at best. Think about it. If you were a chicken packer and demand just increased 100% what would you do? If it were me I would open another plant to meet the demand. The chicken rancher would acquire more land to raise more chickens too. That is how it works in the world. If people want more of anything the makers of it will supply it since there is money to be made. Its that simple. Now, if you were speaking in general terms saying that if all illegals were terminated from their jobs and it would cause such a huge increase in prices across the board I would still disagree. The other costs we don't see on the surface for keeping all of them employed would disappear. All of the fraud costs I mentioned would be gone. The increase in pay for the legal workers would actually be less that the true cost of keeping the illegal on the payroll. Even if it weren't it would not amount to anything close 10,000 a month. And most people are not that tight in their budget either. If they were why is everyone buying gas guzzling SUV's ?

The last comment about globalization. Those ancient civilizations didn't have the kind of globalization we have now. Not even close. We do trade with the rest of the world. Perhaps too much. Try to find something in Walmart NOT made in China (lol).

The one thing that amazes me Hudson is you should know better. You have access and knowledge of actual costs and so forth and keep twisting the numbers in obtuse ways. Why? I can understand someone here who never owned a business or being privy to economic data making ignorant claims but I am perplexed as to why you continue to post economic nonsense.

The Robert T Stafford portion dealt with disaster relief and had a lot to do with the use of the military and looters during events like Hurricane Katrina. This is an entirely different scenario. Also the summary exempted the military during domestic violence and many other events. The purpose of the act was for what? It was to more or less to keep law enforcement from deputizing a military person into police service. If Bush decides to put the army on the border he can. It almost sounds as though you want our borders to be unprotected. Is that the case?

NeedHelp, Almost missed your question. Where did I get my info? The best source of all. The jail itself. I talked to a few of the guards and they told me the majority are there, over 90%, for criminal activity. They get picked up for something else and at some point it is discovered they are illegal and are handed over. If its a GC holder they get sent too since it usually amounts to a violation of their GC status. In most cases it is about drugs. Either dealing or using.

I'm not saying all illegals are drug users. There are stats that say the average illegal is less likely to commit a crime than a USC. If its true then its one less strike. I have to question that since many illegals use fake identities and in many cases their illegal status isn't even known while incarcerated in a state or fed jail.

In so far as the case with the electrocuted inmate. I don't think he deserved to die unless he was being held for a murder/rape/molestation class of crime. It isn't proper for either side of the debate to use his demise for propaganda. There is far too much evidence to support the removal of illegals that it doesn't even need to be looked at. Aside pointing out how the la raza press is using it to promote their agenda. That in itself shows how weak and inhuman their case is.

Merry Christmas ProudUSC! You've been called everything else already so I'll be certain to not 'call' you late for dinner!!

Merry Christmas to you, Explora! I could use some dinner about now - I missed mine!

Man born in USA endures arrest by immigration authorities



Published on Friday, December 28, 2007

By ELOÍSA RUANO GONZÁ***
YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

GORDON KING/Yakima Herald-Republic
Rafael "Ralph" Franco was mistakenly arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement police at his downtown Yakima apartment on Nov. 28. "I was a little nervous -- I didn't know what was going on," says Franco, who's an American citizen. Franco was released later in the morning after police realized they had the wrong man.

It seemed like a bad dream when 72-year-old retiree Rafael "Ralph" Franco woke up to a loud pounding on his front door, opened it, and found four federal agents waiting to seize him.

The longtime Yakima resident was arrested about 6 a.m. on Nov. 28 at his South Second Street apartment. Immigration officers believed that Franco, a U.S. citizen, was an undocumented immigrant convicted of several alcohol- and weapon-related crimes.

The four federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement seized and handcuffed him, and drove him to a holding cell a few blocks away. The agents planned to start a deportation process against him, even after Franco says he showed them his state identification card and gave his Social Security number.

Franco remained calm while agents led him out of the apartment where he and his grandson live. At the ICE office, the Mexican-American man told them about his family in California while they took his fingerprints.

"I didn't think they were going to pick me up," said Franco, who was born in California. "I didn't do something wrong."

The ICE Fugitive Operations Team soon discovered that Franco's fingerprints did not match those of the undocumented man they were looking for. Agents determined that the man they sought had stolen Franco's identity. They returned Franco home in less than an hour.

ICE officials say mistaken arrests like Franco's are unusual in the agency's sweeps around the country to nab undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes and were ordered by an immigration judge to leave the country. A. Neil Clark, ICE regional field office director, said it's rare for agents to arrest a victim of identity theft. It's even less common to deport them. "I have yet to see somebody wrongfully deported," Clark said.

That's little comfort to Franco, who remains nervous about being arrested again. "I don't know what to do," Franco said. "If (law enforcement) makes a mistake, I'll do time for somebody else."


Risk of wrongful deportation

The ICE Fugitive Operations Team this fall started sweeping through the Yakima Valley and up to the Canadian border in search of undocumented people, particularly those convicted of serious crimes. The team is one of three in the region, which covers Washington, Oregon and Alaska. The other teams are based in Seattle and Portland.

Franco was one of two people arrested Nov. 28 by the local Fugitive Operations Team. The other man who was arrested, Victor Lopez of West Valley, was seized because he lost his legal permanent residency when he was convicted of second-degree child molestation in 1994 in Yakima County. He was deported the same day.

ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said the Fugitive Operations Team arrested 889 undocumented people in the region during the 2007 fiscal year ending Sept. 30. Agents arrested 30,408 people nationwide in 2007.

Clark said mistaken arrests are possible during these sweeps. Just because he hasn't seen it "doesn't mean that somebody hasn't been wrongfully deported," he said. His office doesn't keep track of how many people were mistakenly arrested or deported. "They're not significant numbers," he said.

Although few people get mistakenly arrested and deported, ICE agents say they often run across identity theft. Dankers said she's heard of people stealing identities of U.S. citizens and legal residents who have died. It's common for undocumented workers to buy stolen legal documents and Social Security numbers to enable them to get jobs and driver's licenses in the U.S.

But Dankers said it's difficult for ICE to track the identity theft crimes because it doesn't handle identity theft complaints. The Federal Trade Commission handles that.

Clark said that when ICE agents move to arrest the wrong person, those people typically provide a U.S. passport or other documents to prove their citizenship or legal residency and stop the agents from making a mistaken arrest.

That didn't work for Franco, however. He said he showed the agents his state identification card and give them his Social Security number, which matched the number the undocumented convict had used.

Clark said the undocumented convict not only used Franco's name, he most likely used Franco's home address and Social Security number while appearing in court. That's what led the Fugitive Operations Team to think Franco was the convict.

Franco wasn't the only victim in this case, Clark said. "The court was deceived. Everybody was deceived. There's still somebody out there using his name."


Must carry legal papers

Nationwide, 145,186 people reported being victims of identity theft in 2007, according to the Federal Trade Commission. In the city of Yakima, 314 people reported being victims. Statewide, more than 5,300 people said their identity was stolen in 2007. That placed Washington ninth among the states in identity theft complaints. Credit card fraud was the most prevalent form of identity theft, with more than 1,400 people filing this type of complaint.

Not everyone reported identity theft to the police, though. Only 62 percent of people across the country who said they were victimized filed a report with police.

Franco said he has not reported his identity was stolen, and that he doesn't know what to do to clear his name. He has received bills from clinics he's never been to, he said.

Clark recommends that for protection against another mistaken arrest, Franco should carry a passport or other documents that identify him as a U.S. citizen. He also should carry a court-certified document indicating he is a victim of identity theft, which he can obtain from the Yakima County prosecutor's office. ICE said it can't give Franco such a document.

Kristin Alexander, spokeswoman for the state Attorney General's Office based in Seattle, said an identity theft victim's "best defense is to carry around a legal document." But she acknowledged that Franco has a more serious and difficult task ahead of him than the typical identity theft victim, whose biggest problem is that someone stole their wallet and is using their credit cards.

Since the other man has committed crimes under his name, Alexander said, Franco needs to report the matter to police, who could then forward the information to other law enforcement agencies, including the Washington State Patrol. Franco also needs to notify the three major credit reporting bureaus, and fraud alerts need to be put on all his accounts, she added. He should examine his credit report, which he can obtain free from the credit bureaus.

"There are lot of things (Franco) can do, but it'll take a lot of effort," she said. Alexander said agencies such as AARP and the FTC hot line might be able to help him.

Franco says he's grateful that ICE found the fingerprints that saved him from deportation. "I'm glad it's over, and I'm not in Mexico or prison," he said.

Nevertheless, he still fears he'll someday be deported to Mexico -- a country he's never been to. He's most concerned about being separated from his 15-year-old grandson, Robert. Franco is the boy's legal guardian. "Who's going to look after him?" Franco asked. "He's just a kid."

Clark said Franco shouldn't worry. ICE agents know who he is and where he lives.

That does not reassure Franco. "It's been coming on my mind every day," he said. "Maybe they'll pick me up again."

Raids on illegal immigrants shatter families seeking security

By THE REV. E. ROY RILEY • and RALSTON DEFFENBAUGH • December 28, 2007

Bertha came to the Lutheran pastor in Weehawken weeping uncontrollably. She is a single, undocumented immigrant with a child. Her husband brought her to this country some years ago and abandoned her. Bertha worked in a small garment factory until the Department of Homeland Security conducted a raid at her job site. She was the only one who escaped arrest for deportation.

Bertha hid under the floor boards below her work station. That was her emergency preparedness plan, because she has a 9-year-old son who is a citizen of the United States and lives in constant fear they might be separated. The raid ended, but Bertha remained distraught out of fear for her son. "If I had been taken away," she cried, "what would have happened to my son, Antony?"

We could say, "Well, Bertha, you should have thought of that before you agreed to come to this country." All immigrant parents should have thought of their children's jeopardy before they came here. But for the vast majority of these young immigrant families, that is what they did. They weighed the jeopardy of their children; they wanted to give their children an adequate home, sufficient food and a good education � a chance for a better life. For the sake of their families, they mustered the courage to come to this country, where children are believed to be safe.

Increasingly, the federal government is resorting to SWAT-like raids and widespread jailing of immigrants as a way to enforce our immigration laws and to send a message to lawbreakers. In the past decade, the number of immigrants in prison-like detention has skyrocketed from a few thousand to nearly 30,000 people on any given day.

These harsh practices are having a devastating and counterproductive impact on families, children and communities. Ultimately, these policies are taking us down a path that demeans not only the dignity of those we detain but also our country's values and core identity.

No one knows what will happen to the other employees from Bertha's factory, but many are probably being detained in prison-like environments while awaiting deportation. In New Jersey on any given day, the federal government detains about 1,000 immigrants. Asylum seekers and others have filled the Elizabeth Detention Center, so county jails such as the one in Monmouth County must be used to hold the overflow.

Hundreds of immigrant families are also detained in facilities in Pennsylvania and Texas. Earlier this year, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service released a report describing the poor conditions in those family facilities and expressing grave concerns about how families, including many with young children, could be detained at all. For example, the facilities failed to provide adequate prenatal care to several pregnant women and often took days to respond even to emergency situations.

Several government and independent studies have shown that jailing immigrants is costly and ineffective. The federal government now spends more than $1.2 billion annually to detain immigrants at a price of more than $100 per day for each person. Other less costly alternatives do exist, but their expansion and development would require a creativity and thoughtfulness that precious few leaders in our government seem to possess.

People in our communities are looking for real leadership on immigration. We need honest, courageous discussion that confronts the difficult questions. How did we lose sight of the fact that we are a nation built almost entirely by immigrant people? How did we lose sight of that most fundamental of our values: the protection of children and families?

Lutheran pastors and church members are increasingly asking why the government must detain people who pose no threat to safety or national security. We ask that our government officials reconsider these policies that are transforming us into a nation that needlessly imprisons people who are productive members of our communities.

The Rev. E. Roy Riley is bishop of the New Jersey Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Trenton. Ralston Deffenbaugh is president of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Baltimore.

Crackdown on illegal immigration hitting its stride

by: Dan Genz

Prince William County’s one-two punch against illegal immigration is starting to hit its stride, with residents beginning to feel the impact of a crackdown on inmates and police training set to begin next week.

More than 450 inmates cycling through the Prince William Manassas Adult Detention Center have been flagged as illegal immigrants, and at least 240 have been turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

Training begins next week for the second, more controversial step of directing police officers to check the U.S. residency of people questioned for traffic offenses or minor misdemeanors. County officials say the policy will not take effect until at least March, allowing time for all 535 officers to complete an eight-hour training session.

Advocates of immigrants lament that the county is beginning an aggressive expansion as the effect of the jail checks are just beginning to be felt; critics of illegal immigration hail the plan as removing criminals from the community at a necessary clip.

There has been confusion in the community about whether the new police policy is already up and running because so many inmates have been checked at the jail, immigrants’ advocates said.

But county officials contend the reason is the jail’s new immigration-screening policy with ICE taking effect.

“We have not changed our policy,” Chief Charlie Deane told The Examiner. “We have always put people in jail for breaking the law. The only difference is, those who are at the jail will probably be screened.”

The screenings have flagged people arrested for crimes that run the gamut from trespassing to murder.

A Manassas lawyer argued at the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in December that suspects are being booked at the jail for crimes that once were dismissed at the scene.

“The police are holding them so that they can be further questioned by ICE at the detention center,” said Lisa Johnson-Firth of the Immigration and Human Rights Law Group.
http://www.examiner.com/a-1126558~Crackdown_on_illegal_...ting_its_stride.html
http://oneoldvet.com/?p=4319#more-4319
_________________

AMAZING these as-shats don't want illegal alien hispanics from other countries in Messyhole but we should welcome their illegal alien masses with open arms? Doesn't get any crazier than the loco Messyhole government



Mexico to use biochip to control illegal immigration

Mexico City, Dec 28 - Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM) has said it will introduce electronic registration for foreigners entering the country through the southern border to curb illegal immigration.

In a communique, the INM Thursday said Biochip implants would be used to control the entry of workers and visitors from Belize and Guatemala from March 2008, Spanish news agency EFE reported Friday.

The implant will replace the currently used local pass, which can be easily modified.

The biochip ID will allow total electronic registration of entries and departures, officials said.

The INM said a migration form for local visitors will be issued to residents of regions near the border with Guatemala, while the migration form for border workers will benefit workers in the area bordering Belize and Guatemala.

In 2006, Mexico nabbed 200,000 people trying to enter illegally through the southern border, according to INM figures.
http://in.news.yahoo.com/071228/43/6oy6m.html
http://oneoldvet.com/?p=4324

Help for immigrants divides congregations

CINCINNATI - He doesn’t speak Spanish and has no idea what America should do about illegal immigration, but Rev. Larry Kreps knows he’s now on a list somewhere of people willing to help illegal immigrants in a time of crisis.
It started out small enough. Months ago, a member of Kreps’ suburban Ohio congregation was looking for a place where local Hispanics could meet, and Kreps offered some space at John Wesley United Methodist Church. A Sunday school lesson on immigration followed in August.

Days later, with just a phone call for warning, dozens of desperate immigrants fleeing a massive raid on a nearby poultry plant turned up on the church’s doorstep, seeking sanctuary.

Kreps let them in, and members of his overwhelmingly white congregation sprang into action. Some brought food, some set up space in the gym and a choir room for the immigrants to sleep.

“Someone slipped me $100 to buy stuff,” Kreps recalled as he stood in the now-quiet church kitchen where the meals were prepared. It was a tense night as scared families and Kreps himself worried police or federal agents might come knocking.

“I wasn’t real clear legally whether authorities could come into a place of worship,” he said. “But we saw it as ‘What would Jesus do?’ in the simplest way -- that you help first and you ask questions later.”

But helping illegal immigrants has become an unpopular business in America. On the presidential campaign trail, Republican and Democratic candidates alike have backed down from any previous support for illegal immigrants, and ordinary Americans are treading just as carefully in the face of a growing backlash against the 12 million people here illegally.

One-third of Americans want to deprive illegal immigrants of social services, including schooling and emergency health care, a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll showed this month.

DIVIDED CONGREGATION

The political stalemate over immigration in America and stepped-up raids to deport undocumented workers has pushed the everyday crisis of illegal immigration into the hands of people like Kreps.

Susan Woodward, 54, helped feed the scared families who stayed at John Wesley church for two days. But she knows not everyone in the congregation thought the church should be helping people they view as illegals. As a result, outreach then and in the days since has been done quietly.

“It’s tricky. Things are being done unobtrusively, gently. The people who feel strong about giving support are doing it, but not drawing attention because they don’t want to create more conflict for the people they are trying to help.”

Sylvia Castellanos, who works for the Coalition for the Rights and Dignity of Immigrants, is slowly working her way through churches in Ohio, offering information sessions for congregations about the plight of illegal immigrants.

quote:

Sylvia Castellanos, who works for the Coalition for the Rights and Dignity of Immigrants, is slowly working her way through churches in Ohio, offering information sessions for congregations about the plight of illegal immigrants.

I hope her org is not a non profit receiving federal grant monies ! DISTORTION and Misrepresentation of the concept of "Immigrant" in usa.

Click here
for the website. It doesn't say whether they are for or non profit.

quote:

Originally posted by 4now:

quote:

Sylvia Castellanos, who works for the Coalition for the Rights and Dignity of Immigrants, is slowly working her way through churches in Ohio, offering information sessions for congregations about the plight of illegal immigrants.

I hope her org is not a non profit receiving federal grant monies ! DISTORTION and Misrepresentation of the concept of "Immigrant" in usa.

They learned from the masters: LaRaza, LULAC and thousands of other hispanic raced based organizations using our tax dollars to sponsor and support anyone of their race/ethnicity. Legal status is optional.

Those who have invaded America based their organizations on a model of the civil rights movement. Smellvira claiming to be Rosa Parks of the "new civil rights movement"; the claims of Americans hating "brown" people, xenophobia, etc. It wouldn't surprise me if Jesse and Al are on all of the payroll of every racist hispanic group being funded by our tax dollars. They are all OBL's being paid millions for their services. Notice you haven't heard a peep out of either one of them, yet the MSM has never interviewed or confronted them and asked how they felt about the ethnic cleansing of Blacks by illegal aliens in California? Or why they weren't on the front lines protesting the jobs illegal aliens were stealing from non skilled Blacks?

They're all in bed with Corporate America, and the OBLs.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Beverly,

Fire and ICE

Hot rhetoric, immigration sweeps put Painesville at center of debate

David S. Glasier
DGlasier@News-Herald.com

12/29/2007


English-as-a-second-language volunteer teacher Alyea Barajas, right, of Painesville tutors a group of Painesville residents at St. Mary Catholic Church in Painesville.



Painesville is experiencing an ICE age.
Its start can be traced to the early morning hours of Friday, May 18.
That's when agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal agency better known as ICE, arrived in the city of 17,000 to conduct an operation called "Return to Sender."
With support from the Lake County Sheriff's Office and Painesville Police Department, ICE agents fanned out across Painesville in search of an estimated 30 Hispanic individuals. Some were in the country without proper documentation. Others were wanted for crimes or failure to appear for hearings on their status. All were noncitizens.

Advocates for the Hispanic community in Painesville and Lake County immediately voiced objections to what they called "the ICE raids," charging that ICE went beyond the stated parameters of its mission to detain individuals not on the original list of targets.

In Painesville's large Spanish-speaking community, stories circulated of ICE agents barging into homes and apartments to search for adult suspects while frightened children cowered in the wings.

"People here are fearful because of the raids and how harsh they were," said Marisol Colon, a Painesville resident and program coordinator of the Hispanic Outreach Program operated by Catholic Charities of Lake County.
Greg Palimore, a spokesman in ICE's Detroit office, offered matter-of-fact dismissals of those accounts of ICE operations in Painesville conducted in May and since.

"These are not raids, they are targeted enforcement against individuals conducted professionally and within confines of the law," Palimore said. "We've chosen to come after these individuals because they have committed crimes. We cannot turn a blind eye to that."
The detentions and deportations of about 40 Hispanic individuals from Painesville have taken place against the backdrop of an often acrimonious national debate over the status of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants within U.S. borders.

That debate has been raging for the last year and figures only to heat up as Democratic and Republican presidential candidates crisscross the country in advance of primaries, caucuses and the general election of November 2008.
Meanwhile, in Painesville, the big chill continues in the city's Hispanic community.

Polar opposites
Veronica Dahlberg and Claudia Leonard have diametrically different views of the immigration issue.

Dahlberg is an American citizen of Mexican-Hungarian heritage. A former Painesville resident now living in Ashtabula, she is executive director of HOLA, or Spanish Women of Lake and Ashtabula County.
She is active in other civic endeavors, including the Latino Business Association, Northern Ohio Region of the American Red Cross and Leadership Lake County 2007-08.

Leonard, a Concord Township resident, is the driving force behind the Grassroots Rally Team, a citizens group opposed to the presence of illegal immigrants on U.S. soil and in favor of strict enforcement of existing immigration laws.
In the immediate wake of the ICE operations in May, Dahlberg helped organize three public demonstrations against the operations and current U.S. immigration laws.

The first demonstration took place on the steps of Painesville City Hall the day after the original ICE operation.
The second demonstration, a few days later, started at St. Mary Church and ended in the city square.

The third took place on Father's Day.
Several hundred people, many of them Hispanic residents of Painesville, participated in each of those demonstrations.
"I am not really a protest type of person, and I don't think protests are always the answer, but we are trying to change the law here," Dahlberg replied when asked why she got behind the demonstrations.

Leonard said she and some like-minded fellow residents of Lake County formed the Grassroots Rally Team after reading about and watching TV news reports of those pro-immigrant demonstrations.

"That was the last straw. It really roused us," Leonard said. "What's happening in Painesville is a microcosm for what's happening nationally with illegal immigration. In the last couple of years, a lot of us average, working-class people have gotten fed up with this."
The Grassroots Rally Team organized a gathering on the city square June 2 to voice its opposition to the presence of illegal aliens on U.S. soil.

Leonard said the group has "about 15" active participants and has organized three public events since then.
The most recent was Oct. 26 at the Social Security office in Painesville.
"We have no ax to grind with legal aliens from Mexico or any other foreign country," Leonard said. "But if you're here illegally from Mexico, England, Germany, the Middle East or anywhere, we have a problem with you. Illegal aliens are breaking the law. Period."

Leonard said members of the Grassroots Rally Team favor repeal of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. That amendment, passed shortly after the end of the Civil War, stipulates that "all persons born or
naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States."

Grassroots Rally Team literature also urges support for passage of the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, a bill introduced in the U.S. Congress by Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., which would disallow the automatic conferring of U.S. citizenship on babies born to illegal aliens while they are on U.S. soil.

"We feel the 14th Amendment is abused now by illegal aliens coming here to have children so their kids will be citizens. Most Americans don't think it's right for there to be anchor babies," Leonard said.

Asked to comment on Leonard's stated positions about illegal immigration, Dahlberg took special umbrage to the reference to "anchor babies."

"How can you attack an innocent child and put an ugly name like that on a newborn baby? That is beyond the pale and gets to the core of the people we are dealing with here," Dahlberg said.
"She (Leonard) and other users of anti-immigrant rhetoric are spewing hatred and doing a disservice to this country," Dahlberg added.
"I can't imagine what kind of people get their jollies by going after people who work hard in this nation's factories and farms. History will judge them accordingly."

Leonard, apprised of Dahlberg's comments, didn't back down from her stated positions.
"We are not attacking innocent babies," Leonard said. "She (Dahlberg) is using that language to appeal to pure emotionalism. The people hurting the children are the parents who come here knowing they are committing a felony.
"Short of wholesale round-ups and deportation, we need to make it less hospitable here for illegal aliens," Leonard added. "If we do that, they will self-deport. They're only here for the jobs and the money."

Dahlberg isn't budging, either.
"I am very sure that every day, Claudia Leonard is eating fruits and vegetables picked by Mexican hands," Dahlberg said. "And I'm sure she's eating chicken and beef processed by Mexican hands, illegal Mexican hands.
"These immigrants from Mexico and other countries are coming here for a better life. They are the new pilgrims."

Life in the melting pot
Six months have passed since the first ICE operation, and its aftershock is still rippling through Painesville and its diverse population of white, black and Hispanic residents.
"The action by ICE had an effect on some of the investments Latino businesses have made in the community," Painesville City Manager Rita C. McMahon said.

"A number of their ventures have been pulled back. Business has been down. The Latino
community is less interested
in getting out. We know the (Latino) population is still here, but there are fewer people on the street."

Euclid resident Carlos Munoz and his wife, Marta, have their fingers on the collective pulse of Painesville's Hispanic community. Two nights every week, the Munozes travel to St. Mary Church to teach English and citizenship classes.

All of their students, Carlos Munoz said, are Spanish-speaking immigrants eager to get a toehold in U.S. society.
"I've had maybe 250 of these people become citizens," he said. "Everybody wants to have papers and be a regular citizen who votes. Last month, one of my students, Antonio Llamas, died just a couple of days before he was supposed to take the citizenship test. He was 70. Age didn't matter. He was so excited."
From the men, women and children of Painesville who come to the church for classes, Carlos Munoz gets the sense that life for the city's Spanish-speaking community has fundamentally changed since May.

"After ICE, people here are very afraid. It's a bad situation," he said.
The Rev. Steve Vallenga, p