I am sure there is exaggeration in both camps. But what I'm talking about is the abuse of power, infringement of human rights and the violation of our constitution, on numerous amendments. Talk about the raping of a country...don't blame this on the immigrants.
The problem is much deeper than that.

INS Violates Rights of Detained Children
(New York, December 22, 1998)--While most children around the country are celebrating the season's holidays at home with their families, this week hundreds of children in the custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) will be spending Christmas in detention, separated from family and loved ones.


These children have not been charged with any crime. Yet a significant number are being locked up in harsh, prison-like conditions where they are unable to communicate with anyone around them. Many don't understand what is happening to them, or why.

Jo Becker
Children's Rights Advocate at Human Rights Watch




Detained and Deprived of Rights
Report, December 22, 1998


In a new report released today, Human Rights Watch charges the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with violating the rights of unaccompanied children in its custody. The report finds that roughly one-third of detained children are held in punitive, jail-like detention centers, even though most children in INS custody are being detained for administrative reasons while their case is pending, not as a punishment for criminal behavior. Approximately 5000 unaccompanied children are detained by the INS each year.

Human Rights Watch focused its report on a Pennsylvania facility that the INS claims is one of the best in the country. However, the report found that too many children are locked up in prison-like conditions with juveniles accused of murder, rape and drug trafficking, where they are forbidden to speak their native language, instructed not to laugh, and, according to several interviewees, even forced to ask permission to scratch their noses. Human Rights Watch found that some children are strip searched and restrained by handcuffs during transport, and denied basic rights to privacy.

"These children have not been charged with any crime," says Jo Becker, an author and researcher for the report. "Yet a significant number are being locked up in harsh, prison-like conditions where they are unable to communicate with anyone around them. Many don't understand what is happening to them, or why."

The report also charges the INS with failing to provide children with adequate information about access to legal representation or their legal rights, and transferring children without the knowledge of their attorneys or families. Many children are denied information about their detention or education in a language that they can understand and may be confined for months at a time without direct access to a single person with whom they can converse in their own languages.

Human Rights Watch also charges that the INS has a troubling conflict of interest, since children are subject to the enforcement of immigration laws by the same agency responsible for their care and protection. Human Rights Watch urges the U.S. government to end this conflict of interest by assigning the care-taking function to an appropriate child welfare agency, which would have custody of the child while the INS assesses their immigration status.

"These children are arrested, imprisoned and frequently deported, all by the same agency that is charged with caring for them and protecting their legal rights," says Lois Whitman, executive director of the Children's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. "The U.S. government should assign the care of these children to an agency that will act in the best interest of the child."

The report, Detained and Deprived of Rights: Children in the Custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, is based on on-site visits and interviews conducted at the Berks County Youth Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania. An earlier Human Rights Watch investigation documented conditions of detention for children held by the INS in Arizona and California. Both investigations found numerous violations of children's rights, in breach of the U.S. Constitution, U.S. statutory provisions, INS regulations, the terms of court orders binding on the INS, and international law.

Human Rights Watch calls on U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and INS Commissioner Doris Meissner to ensure immediate and full compliance with all national laws and regulations as well as with internationals tandards concerning detention conditions for children. The organization also urges that:

*unaccompanied children awaiting determination of their status should not be detained, except in rare instances to protect the safety of the child;

*the INS immediately cease to place unaccompanied children in state juvenile justice or criminal justice facilities, or in other facilities with prison-like conditions;

*the US Congress should not charge the same agency with the care of unaccompanied, undocumented children and also the enforcement of the immigration laws against them;

*all children in INS custody should have access to legal representation at government expense;

*children should receive prompt, regular and thorough legal information in a language they can understand;

*the INS should provide a sufficient number of trained interpreters at facilities housing unaccompanied children, as required by the shifting language populations in the facilities.

US: Mandatory Deportation Laws Harm American Families
Legal Residents Often Deported for Minor Crimes
(Washington, DC, July 18, 2007) – The mandatory deportation of legal immigrants convicted of a crime, even a minor one, has separated an estimated 1.6 million children and adults, including US citizens and lawful permanent residents, from their non-citizen family members, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today.

How do you explain to a child that her father has been sent thousands of miles away and can never come home simply because he forged a check?

Forced Apart: Families Separated and Immigrants Harmed by United States Deportation Policy
Report, July 18, 2007



US immigration officials have deported 672,593 immigrants because of criminal convictions since 1997, after Congress passed legislation making deportation a mandatory penalty for a long list of crimes, including minor, non-violent offenses committed years before the laws went into effect. Many of those deported arrived in the US as children and were lawful permanent residents who had lived legally in the country for decades.

“The laws are not only cruel in their rigidity, they are senseless,” said Alison Parker, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch’s US Program and author of the report. “How do you explain to a child that her father has been sent thousands of miles away and can never come home simply because he forged a check?”

Prior to 1997, immigrants who committed a crime were permitted to go before an immigration judge, who could exercise his or her discretion in imposing penalties. However, the legislation Congress passed in 1996 precluded immigration judges from considering whether deportation would be excessively harsh in light of the immigrants’ family relationships, community ties, US military service records, or the possibility of persecution if returned to their country of origin. The deportation takes place after the non-citizen has completed the terms of the sentence imposed for the crime.

The 88-page report, “Forced Apart: Families Separated and Immigrants Harmed by US Deportation Policy,” is the first comprehensive assessment of the deportation of non-citizens with criminal convictions and the impact on families and communities in the US. The deportation cases documented in the report include:

• A 52-year-old man who lived in the US as a lawful permanent resident for 40 years, served in the US military, has four US citizen sons, and was convicted of possession and sale of small amounts of drugs;

• A father of three US citizen children convicted of breaking into a car and stealing a $10 bottle of eye drops from a drug store;

• A young man who had lived in the US legally as a refugee from Laos since the age of four.

According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data included in the report, 64.6 percent of immigrants deported for crimes in 2005 had been convicted of non-violent offenses, including non-violent theft offenses such as shoplifting; some 20.9 percent were deported for offenses involving violence against people; and 14.7 percent were deported for “other” crimes.

Human Rights Watch used census data on immigrant family size to estimate the number of spouses and children left behind in the US after their spouse or parent had been deported because of a criminal conviction.

Reform of the 1996 laws was not included in the comprehensive immigration legislation Congress considered this year. However, in January 2007, Congressman Jose Serrano introduced a bill (HR 1176), which would allow immigration judges to consider the interests of US citizen children during deportation hearings. The bill would not, however, protect spousal relationships or other links immigrants have to the US, such as longstanding lawful residence or service in the US armed forces.

“Most members of the European Union and other major democracies take family relationships and other links to the country of immigration into account before a final deportation decision is made,” Parker said. “But immigration judges’ hands are tied in the US; there is nothing they can do to protect families or to acknowledge the many contributions non-citizens have made to their communities or the nation.”

Two immigrants deported because of criminal convictions, Wayne Smith and Hugo Armendáriz, have brought a claim against the US government before the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights. Smith and Armendáriz, both of whom have wives and children in the US, lived in the country as lawful permanent residents for 25 and 28 years respectively, before their deportations for drug offenses to Trinidad and Mexico.

A hearing in the case, for which Human Rights Watch submitted an amicus curiae brief prepared by the Stanford Immigrants Rights Clinic, will be held this Friday July 20, at the Inter-American Commission in Washington, DC.

Immigrants’ Rights under Attack in House Bill (H.R. 10)

U.S.: Proposed Laws Would Lead to Abuse of Immigrants
Press Release, June 16, 2004

Q: Does the proposed House bill raise human rights concerns?

A: Yes. Certain provisions of H.R. 10 jeopardize the rights of immigrants to be free from arbitrary detention, to claim asylum, to be protected from return to torture, and to receive a full and fair deportation hearing.

By threatening the rights of immigrants in this way, the bill blatantly contradicts the 9-11 Commission’s advice that the United States should “offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, [and] abide by the rule of law.” Indeed, on September 30, 2004, the Commission itself publicly announced its opposition to the House bill’s controversial immigration provisions in H.R. 10.

Congress should stay true to the Commission’s recommendations and protect the human rights of non-citizens as a part of its commitment to justice and the rule of law. Unfortunately, many of the legislative proposals under consideration falter badly on both counts.

Q: Who are the “immigrants” threatened by the House bill?

A: The immigrants who would be affected include legal permanent residents; undocumented immigrants; people legally admitted for work, education, or tourism; refugees; asylum seekers; and people with temporary protected status.

Q: Aren’t human and constitutional rights only for citizens of a particular country, in this case the United States?

A: No. All immigrants—including those here illegally—are guaranteed the same rights as citizens, with only a few exceptions, e.g. the right to vote. The U.S. constitution grants to “the people” or “persons”—not just to citizens—the rights to due process and equal protection of the law, to freedom of speech and assembly, and to be free from arbitrary detention or cruel and unusual punishments.1

International human rights law uses much the same terminology to recognize these—and a few additional—rights of immigrants. The proposed legislation undermines several human rights obligations of the United States, including:


The U.S. is obligated to protect all immigrants against arbitrary arrest and detention, to ensure that immigrants facing deportation receive a fair hearing and appeal, and to guarantee a remedy for human rights violations that immigrants suffer. The U.S. undertook these obligations when it ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which mirrors many fundamental rights enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

Under the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its related Protocol (Refugee Convention), the U.S. must recognize the refugee status of individuals who have a well-founded fear of persecution, based on at least one of five grounds, and protect them from return to a place where they fear persecution.

U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention Against Torture) prohibit the U.S. from sending or returning a person to another country where there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being tortured.


Q: Does the House bill’s elimination of habeas corpus court review violate immigrants’ rights?

A: Under current law, immigrants can be deported for a wide variety of criminal convictions, but they can go to court using a petition of habeas corpus to ask for discretionary relief from deportation. Section 3009 of the House bill would eliminate judicial review by habeas corpus, making it impossible for immigrants with certain arguments against their deportation to have a fair day in court. For example, if an immigrant’s deportation would create extreme hardship for her family members, such as her U.S. citizen child, section 3009 would block her ability to argue her case before a judge.

This provision would impact tens of thousands of immigrants, including lawful permanent residents who have lived in the United States for many years and have U.S. citizen children and spouses. The crimes that render non-citizens deportable include crimes as minor as two shoplifting convictions.

Passage of this provision would violate article 13 of the ICCPR, which requires that deportation be undertaken “in accordance with law” and only after a hearing, where an immigrant can “submit the reasons against his expulsion … before the competent authority.”2 Non-citizens must also be able to appeal a deportation decision, according to article 13 of the ICCPR. While article 13 contains an exception for “compelling reasons of national security,” that section is inapplicable to people who have been accused of common crimes, such as drug possession, without any links to terrorism.

Q: Does the House bill allow the U.S. government to send a refugee to a place where he or she fears persecution?

A: Section 3009 of H.R. 10 would make it possible for the government to deport a refugee to a country where she fears persecution—including, for example, arbitrary arrest and detention for her political beliefs, sexual violence or rape, or other forms of torture—while her case is still pending in U.S. courts. This provision of the House bill would violate the most fundamental principle of refugee law, the prohibition against return to persecution, which is enshrined in article 33 of the Refugee Convention, and has become a binding principle of international customary law.

Under current U.S. law, judges have an option to issue a “stay of removal” in order to stop a person from being deported while his or her asylum case is being considered. The House bill would eliminate the judicial power to issue a temporary “stay of removal” to protect those persons with non-frivolous appeals cases from immediate deportation. This provision of the House bill would also violate article 33 of the Refugee Convention.

Q: Does the House bill set unjustifiable time limits on applying for asylum?

A: Yes. Section 3006 of the House bill withdraws protection from persecution or torture for immigrants who were not originally properly admitted to the United States and who have been in the country for more than one year but less than five years.

For example, this would mean that a student from the Darfur region in Sudan who entered the U.S. without permission two years ago would be prevented from seeking refugee status based on the serious human rights abuses going on in that region today.

This provision of the House bill violates the authoritative standards in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status (“UNHCR Handbook”),3 which states that a refugee may “ask for recognition of his refugee status after having already been abroad for some time.”4

Finally, section 3006 also permits the U.S. government to return individuals to a country where they would face torture, if they were not originally properly admitted to the United States and have been in the country for more than one year but less than five years. This provision would violate U.S. legal obligations under article 3 of the Convention against Torture.5

Q: Will the House bill unreasonably deny some refugees access to asylum?

A: Yes. All individuals have a right to seek asylum based on well-founded fears of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion, according to U.S. law, the Refugee Convention, and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Section 3007 of H.R. 10 would deny genuine refugees access to asylum, if they cannot prove that the person persecuting them was or will be “centrally motivated” by at least one of the five reasons, as opposed to having mixed motives for the persecution.

Persecutors rarely explain the reasons for their abuse to their victims. It is for this reason that neither the Refugee Convention nor the UNHCR Handbook provides any support for this proposed “central motivation” requirement. The proposed law would make unrealistic demands on those fleeing persecution to prove what their persecutor is thinking.

Section 3007 of H.R. 10 would also allow decision makers to question asylum seekers’ credibility because of their “demeanor” and allow asylum to be denied to persons whose first and later statements to immigration authorities are inconsistent. These new standards for assessing the credibility and consistency of asylum seekers do not take into account that refugees fleeing torture, rape, and other forms of persecution may be traumatized and may not recall or feel comfortable discussing every detail of the abuses they suffered in their first encounter with an immigration officer. Governments must be sensitive to these issues when hearing asylum claims because, as the UNHCR handbook states, “an applicant for refugee status is normally in a particularly vulnerable situation. He finds himself in an alien environment and may experience serious difficulties, technical and psychological, in submitting his case to the authorities of a foreign country, often in a language not his own.”6

Q: Would H.R. 10 allow people to be sent to countries where they risk torture?

A: Yes. The international rule against subjecting any person to torture, either by deportation or by direct acts, is absolute. It applies to all persons without exception. Yet section 3032 of H.R. 10 would allow the return of certain people to situations where they would be tortured. This would be a clear violation of U.S. obligations under the Convention Against Torture.

The proposed law prevents certain immigrants convicted or suspected of terrorism or other crimes from seeking protection against removal to a country where they fear torture. This is contrary to current U.S. law, which allows all persons to seek protection against removal to countries where they risk being tortured and to ask a court to hear fears of torture by using the writ of habeas corpus.

There are legal alternatives to deporting suspected terrorists or convicted criminals to countries that torture. Under current law, such persons can be deported to another country where they would not be in danger of being tortured. Neither does existing law prevent deportation once the danger of torture has ended (e.g. because of a change in government).



1Only three constitutional rights—voting in elections, holding certain political offices, and the absolute prerogative to enter and remain in the country—are denied immigrants outright.
2An exception is provided in the treaty for cases in which “compelling reasons of national security” arise, but the vast majority of non-citizens would be deported under the proposed section for ordinary aggravated felonies or crimes of moral turpitude, and therefore their expulsion would not raise national security questions.
3The UNHCR Handbook has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court to provide “significant guidance” in construing U.S. obligations under the Refugee Convention, INS v. Cardoza-Fonseca, 480 U.S. 421, 439 n.22 (1997).
4UNHCR Handbook, Para. 94.
5Article 3 of the Convention against Torture was incorporated into law by the passage of the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act in 1998.
6UNHCR Handbook Para. 190.

Questions on Illegal Immigrants Lead to Raid on Nonprofit’s Office


By GEORGIA KRAL


NEW HAVEN — As Connecticut grapples with the remnants of a weekend storm and shivers in sub-freezing temperatures, a nonprofit group that helps many poor residents pay their heating bills is reeling after federal agents raided its offices on Thursday.

More than a dozen Kevlar-armored agents rushed into the Community Action Agency of New Haven, said Amos Smith, the organization’s president and chief executive. The agents, from departments including Health and Human Services, had a warrant demanding all documents from 2003 onward, he said.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” Mr. Smith added. “Only in the movies.”

He said the agents asked staff members if they had been instructed to accept applications from illegal immigrants — who are not eligible for aid — or from friends of local politicians who did not meet eligibility requirements. The agents, who arrived in the afternoon, took as many as 90 boxes of documents and three computers from the organization’s offices, and did not finish until 3 or 4 a.m. Friday morning.

While the agency was able to process applications on paper instead of on computers during the raid, Mr. Smith said some applications were lost, and he said he was worried about possible delays in assistance for some of the agency’s clients.

“Any paper left lying around was swept up,” he said. “We’re going to spend a lot of time figuring out what’s missing and figure out who those people are.”

The Community Action Agency has a long history of fiscal problems and was briefly taken over by the state in 2005. Mr. Smith, who arrived 16 months ago, acknowledged that there had been troubles in the past, but said that the present staff was “trying to get better.”

But an agency employee said illegal immigrants had been receiving energy assistance for many years, with a sharp increase in the past two years.

“That’s why they raided the offices on Thursday,” the employee said.

The employee had reported to state officials that illegal immigrants were receiving assistance, filing complaints last June with the office of the state attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who confirmed the complaint was received and said his office had received similar complaints.

The employee then contacted State Representative Vincent Candelora in June and contacted federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, in September.

Mr. Blumenthal said his office was providing “information and assistance” to Health and Human Services in its inquiry. Mr. Candelora, of North Branford, and State Senator Len Fasano, of North Haven, asked the State Department of Social Services for an audit of the agency in September. Mr. Smith said some illegal immigrants had received energy assistance because the computer system’s drop-down menu for Social Security numbers provided a made-up or temporary number if applicants did not recall their numbers. This system dated to 1982 and was designed so as not to penalize elderly people, for example, who forgot their numbers, Mr. Smith said. That allowed illegal immigrants to file applications.

But Tamika McKinnie, a former employee of the agency, said she and other workers were told to allow illegal immigrants to complete applications.

“If a person was not a U.S. citizen, you were told to gather as much information as you could,” she said. Ms. McKinnie said she was laid off last spring after more than three years.

At a joint legislative briefing on Oct. 9, James H. Gatling, president of the Connecticut Association for Community Action, a network of agencies involved in the heating aid program, said computer programmers had checked the statewide database for “pseudo” Social Security numbers and found 330. He added that the association helped about 100,000 people with their heating bills.

Mr. Smith said that his agency had recently changed its policy at the behest of state officials and that “people without a Social Security number now get processed manually.”

The raid, which was first reported by the online newspaper The New Haven Independent, came at a time of rising conflict over illegal immigration nationwide. Over the summer, New Haven introduced the Elm City Resident Card, a program that allowed illegal immigrants to obtain forms of identification from the city. Some critics said that the program provided sanctuary for those living here illegally.

As for the agents’ questions about friends of politicians receiving assistance from the program, Jessica Mayorga, a spokeswoman for Mayor John DeStefano Jr., said the mayor and the city did not have any “solid relationships” with the Community Action Agency and did not know why those questions were asked. Don White, a spokesman for Health and Human Services, confirmed the raid but would not provide further details.

The Community Action Agency and the other organizations take applications from poor people who need help playing their heating bills. The agencies then determine which applicants are eligible for the federally financed Connecticut Energy Assistance Program. Tax records show that in 2006, the New Haven agency helped 13,299 individuals in defraying heating costs.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell said in a press release that the raid would not interrupt the work of the agency. Michael P. Starkowski, the commissioner of social services, said three computers were sent to New Haven to replace those that had been seized, and that four people from a social services agency in Waterbury had been assigned to help at the office.

Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/nyregion/18heat.html?...nyregion&oref=slogin
_________________

This article reminded me of an intolerant bigot who "gets sick when she hears people speaking their guttural Spanish". Hateful bigots are everywhere...

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/related/217082.php

American attacked in Germany by man who shouted 'Heil Hitler'

Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.20.2007

BERLIN – An American was attacked in western Germany by a man who heard him speaking English and shouted "Heil Hitler," police said Thursday.
The incident happened in the early hours of last Saturday at a McDonald's restaurant in Gelsenkirchen, in the industrial Ruhr region, police in the city said in a statement.
They said the 54-year-old American, who was not identified, was speaking in English with his partner, and a stranger asked why they were not speaking German. The woman said her friend did not speak German well, and the American asked "What's your problem?"
Police said the stranger then said: "We are in Germany. German is spoken here," before shouting "Heil Hitler" and raising his right arm. The Hitler salute is illegal in Germany.
The American threatened to call police. As he reached for his mobile, police said, the stranger head-butted him, and he fell to the floor. The assailant then repeatedly kicked his left ankle.
Police said the assailant fled and the American was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery for his leg injury.
Police released two video surveillance photos showing the suspected assailant and appealed to witnesses to come forward.

Good one, Whknapp!

Your gutteral English is making me ill Whknapp!

Just kidding!!

I know you are, NHF...

This happened at a McDonalds? Hm, where is that company from? I would think that Micky D's would insist on English being spoken at its restaurants since it is a US company. But since German is the official language of the country there seems to be a conflict here. The name McDonalds is apparently Irish so what do they have to say?

http://www.azstarnet.com/opinion/217128.php

America is a country of immigrants

Our view: Anti-immigrant sentiment is fueled by lack of understanding and an unwillingness to learn about others

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.21.2007

One of the observations we have made about the acrimonious debate over illegal immigration is that many of the people who are complaining are new to Arizona. Others have noticed, too, that much of the intolerance concerning immigration comes from people for whom contact with immigrants is a new experience.

Such intolerance has to stop. It's not healthy for our communities and has the potential to lead to social unrest.

Anecdotally, we have noticed that whenever we editorialize in favor of comprehensive immigration reform or other changes that don't involve only increasing border security, we receive many letters from retirement communities or new developments in Southern Arizona. We also get a flurry of letters from across the country.

We've often wondered why this is so. We received a possible answer last week at an immigration forum in Phoenix sponsored by the Communications Institute. One of the recurring themes was that many Americans are having trouble adapting to changes in their communities — be it their hometowns or their adopted communities in the Sun Belt states, including Arizona.

Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an organization that periodically watches the border for illegal immigrants, said, "The natives are restless. The natives have not had time to accommodate to the changes in their communities.
"Overnight in communities from Nebraska to Iowa to Minnesota — everywhere across the country — the social friction has increased beyond belief."
Daniel T. Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policies at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank, noted: "There are some people who are not only opposed to illegal immigration, they are opposed to immigration — period."

The way we see it, some people don't like the fact that immigrants are coming into their communities, bringing with them their culture and languages other than English.

Also, people who leave the Midwest or the Plains and resettle in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona find, to their surprise, that places like Tucson are very different from the towns they've left.

Americans everywhere have a right to speak up about illegal immigration. But those who rail against illegal immigration should not expect the world to revolve around them.

Immigrant bashers cannot realistically expect that their hometowns will look the same way they did 50 years ago. Nor should they expect border communities that have always been bilingual and multicultural to conform to their ideas of what an American city should look like.
Yet some Americans believe it should be their way or the highway concerning immigrants — regardless of their legal status.
Sean Noble, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., said his office has polled constituents who call to complain about immigration and found that 95 percent are people who relocated to Arizona.

"Those of us who are native Arizonans have grown up with immigrants all of our lives — for generations — and for us to have an influx of people from Mexico is not a challenge," Noble said at the immigration forum. "People who have not grown up here don't understand how that dynamic works."
The bias against immigrants seems to occur whether they enter the country legally or not.

Noble said that when Shadegg introduced a bill in 2006 to expand the number of H-1B visas given to highly educated foreigners — would-be legal immigrants — his office received 11,000 letters, faxes, e-mails and phone calls, most in opposition to the bill. Noble said only about 3 percent of those communications came from people in Arizona.

Such intolerance of foreigners is not what made this country great. America has traditionally absorbed foreigners, their languages and cultures and become stronger in the process.

The vitriol aimed at the immigrant community, led mostly by ratings-hungry talking heads or idealogues on radio and television, is harmful.
Ward Bushee, a top-ranking editor at the Arizona Republic, said rancor around the immigration debate has the potential to lead to social unrest.
"Neighbors are being pitted against each other and the conversation has turned quite ugly," Bushee said. "There's a very angry tone to what's happening here. Where does that go? If you look at long-term racial issues, some very terrible things have happened in big cities when things got out of control."
We believe Americans can ease the tension surrounding the immigration debate simply by spreading the message of tolerance.

We can start here in Southern Arizona by telling new neighbors and Americans in other parts of the country that living in a multicultural city has many more benefits than pitfalls.

UM hello . . sorry but we are no longer A NATION OF IMMIGRANTS we are Americans. Oh and BTW, when we were a "NATION OF IMMIGRANTS" THEY WERE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS WHO WERE INSPECTED FOR DISEASES AND WERE GIVEN PAPERS AND GRANTED CITIZENSHIP AFTER MEETING ALL CRITERIA.

WE HAVE NEVER BEEN A NATION OF ILLEGAL ALIENS UNTIL MEXICO DECIDED WE SHOULD BE. WE HAVE NEVER BEEN A NATION OF ILLEGAL SPANISH SPEAKING NON ASSIMILATING CULTURAL AND FINANCIAL LEECHES UNTIL VICENTE FOX THREW HIS BOTTOM OF THE BARREL LEECHES OUT OF MEXICO AND HANDED MILLIONS OF YOU MAPS PRAYING YOU WOULD DIE IN THE DESERT IF YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT TO THE INVASION PARTY IN THE US. So STFU, that DOG DON'T HUNT NO MORE.

quote:

The Community Action Agency and the other organizations take applications from poor people who need help playing their heating bills. The agencies then determine which applicants are eligible for the federally financed Connecticut Energy Assistance Program. Tax records show that in 2006, the New Haven agency helped 13,299 individuals in defraying heating costs

Now this is what ticks me off.. When the alloted money is used up.. the financial aid to a legal american family is not available because it was spent on some one that was illegal and should not have been here.

I do not want my hard earned tax dollars being spent on or benefiting people that are not authorized to be here. There are too many legal citizens here that need help. Many of these programs are limited in funds and should not be robbed by fraudulent pratices.