"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/12/'06 10:30AM
"Georgia Immigration" - (Google) News Sweep - 4/12/'06 10:30AM
4/12/'06 - The following article(s) were found in the media. Several stories are provided ... with links to the original sources ... for your convenience:
- U.S. has lost immigration battle (Gwinett Daily Post)
- Senator: Reform still a possibility this year (Online Athens)
- Out of the shadows (Connect Savannah)
- Immigration bill may lose felony proviso (CNN)
- Sen. Chambliss on Immigration (WNEG)
- Immigration marches: What's next? (AJC)
- Border security the first step (AJC)
----------------------------------
http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/index.php?s=&url_channel_id=36&url_article_id=13828&url_subchannel_id=&change_well_id=2
U.S. has lost immigration battle
04/12/2006
Let's face reality. The figurative shooting may still be going on, but the Second Mexican War is over. We won the first one in the 19th century. We may have lost this time, though most of our government remains in denial.
Illegal aliens from Mexico and other Latin countries have too many powerful allies. Besides, the mission of driving them out is impossible.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and the Catholic Church have become a potent and improbable coalition for allowing 11 million illegals (an estimated 1 million in Georgia) to become permanent residents. Chamber members see them as cheap labor. The declining church and struggling labor unions see more filled pews and more check-off dues providing renewed hope for their future.
Georgia's Catholic bishops, William D. Gregory of Atlanta and J. Kevin Boland of Savannah, have written a letter to their parishioners urging support of legalizing residency for undocumented Hispanic migrants, nearly all Catholics.
Whether the illegals are granted "amnesty" or "guest worker" permits doesn't matter. We simply cannot deport 10 million people. Our government does not have the ability to collar them or the capacity to ship them out. We also cannot afford to let the multitudes continue to live outside the law. The toothpaste is out of the tube; the genie gone from the bottle.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., is on the right track. While denouncing the idea of amnesty, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman also says he wants to make certain farmers are not harassed or penalized for hiring migrants, even if some of them slipped into the country.
Translation: Don't impede the flow of Mexican labor to American farms. U.S. agriculture is not interested in a major roundup of illegals that could hinder farm production.
Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., says he opposes granting amnesty until after our borders are secure. Our borders may never be fully secure, though they can certainly be made less porous. Change "amnesty" to "forgiveness with penalties." Call it the plan to "Welcome Workers to What's Left of the U.S.A."
The debate may turn out to be moot, at least for the present. The Senate failed last week to produce a bill to begin untangling the immigration knot. Some observers now believe Congress has become too gun-shy of the controversy to approve any meaningful measure in this election year.
The federal government let us down. Immigration and naturalization programs fell apart. Not only did the feds allow hordes of impoverished Hispanics to cross our border, they left the door open for God-only-knows how many illegal Islamic zealots bent on destroying us.
That is history. Consider the future. The Congress and president ought to be thinking about how to assimilate productive residents. They should dwell on making over the country into a new American melting pot. We ought to discourage continuing a mosaic of foreign cultures and languages within our borders.
New residents should be required to become proficient in English. Perhaps some should even be rewarded for adopting English. To allow the United States to become a multilingual nation could be the beginning of our end as the dominant world power. Bilingual countries don't work very well. See Belgium and Canada.
A few years back, state Sen. Mike Crotts of Conyers introduced legislation to make English the state's sole official language. Crotts had joined a national "official English" movement, which has since faded. The then-Democratic controlled state Senate declared Crotts' bill "too radical." He was all but laughed out of the General Assembly, which may be understandable for a body whose members do not exactly exemplify the best of the English-speaking world.
In today's atmosphere, Crotts' measure seems modest and moderate. Our current Legislature passed an anti-immigrant bill that has reinforced the state's reputation for extremism and fanned xenophobic passions. However, the measure, which started out with the "toughest in the nation" label, was amended to death before its toothless corpse was finally passed and sent to Perdue.
With more enlightened leadership, state government could have moved decisively to soften the blow of the inevitable — the conversion of a Hispanic horde into permanent residents or even productive citizens.
Proposing legislation to make illegal immigrants' lives miserable in Georgia is hardly the right approach. Severe punishment for their corporate employers also is out of the question — especially in a state government that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big business.
Let's get on with solutions to a problem created by political leaders who failed to watch out for our interests. This time, we should pay closer attention and pray for a bit more intelligence and a little less table-pounding.
Syndicated columnist Bill Shipp writes on Georgia politics. Write him at P.O. Box 440755, Kennesaw, GA 30160, or e-mail bshipp@bellsouth.net. His Web site is www.billshipp.com. His column appears on Wednesday and Sunday.
---------------------------------
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/041206/opinion_20060412015.shtml
Shipp: Failures of politicians produced current immigration mess
 |
Shipp more Shipp columns www.billshipp.com |
Let's face reality. The figurative shooting may still be going on, but the Second Mexican War is over. We won the first one in the 19th century. We may have lost this time, though most of our government remains in denial. Illegal aliens from Mexico and other Latin countries have too many powerful allies. Besides, the mission of driving them out is impossible.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and the Catholic Church have become a potent and improbable coalition for allowing 11 million illegals - an estimated 1 million in Georgia - to become permanent residents. Chamber members see them as cheap labor. The declining church and struggling labor unions see more filled pews and more check-off dues providing renewed hope for their future.
Georgia's Catholic bishops, William D. Gregory of Atlanta and J. Kevin Boland of Savannah, have written a letter to their parishioners urging support of legalizing residency for undocumented Hispanic migrants, nearly all Catholics.
Whether the illegals are granted "amnesty" or "guest worker" permits doesn't matter. We simply cannot deport 10 million people. Our government does not have the ability to collar them or the capacity to ship them out. We also cannot afford to let the multitudes continue to live outside the law. The toothpaste is out of the tube, the genie gone from the bottle.
Georgia Sen. Saxby Chambliss is on the right track. While denouncing the idea of amnesty, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman also says he wants to make certain farmers are not harassed or penalized for hiring migrants, even if some of them slipped into the country. Translation: Don't impede the flow of Mexican labor to American farms. U.S. agriculture is not interested in a major roundup of illegals that could hinder farm production.
Sen. Johnny Isakson says he opposes granting amnesty until after our borders are secure. Our borders may never be fully secure, though they can certainly be made less porous. Change "amnesty" to "forgiveness with penalties." Call it the plan to "Welcome Workers to What's Left of the U.S.A."
The debate may turn out to be moot, at least for the present. The Senate failed last week to produce a bill to begin untangling the immigration knot. Some observers now believe Congress has become too gun-shy of the controversy to approve any meaningful measure in this election year.
The federal government let us down. Immigration and naturalization programs fell apart. Not only did the feds allow hordes of impoverished Hispanics to cross our border, they left the door open for God-only-knows how many illegal Islamic zealots bent on destroying us.
That is history. Consider the future. The Congress and president ought to be thinking about how to assimilate productive residents. They should dwell on making over the country into a new American melting pot. We ought to discourage continuing a mosaic of foreign cultures and languages within our borders. New residents should be required to become proficient in English. To allow the United States to become a multilingual nation could be the beginning of our end as the dominant world power. Bilingual countries don't work very well. See Belgium and Canada.
A few years back, state Sen. Mike Crotts of Conyers introduced legislation to make English the state's sole official language. The then-Democratic-controlled state Senate declared Crotts' bill "too radical." In today's atmosphere, Crotts' measure seems modest and moderate.
Our current legislature passed an anti-immigrant bill that has reinforced the state's reputation for extremism and fanned xenophobic passions. However, the measure was amended to death before its toothless corpse was finally passed and sent to Gov. Perdue. With more enlightened leadership, state government could have moved decisively to soften the impact of the inevitable - the conversion of a Hispanic horde into permanent residents or even productive citizens. Proposing legislation to make illegal immigrants' lives miserable in Georgia is hardly the right approach. Severe punishment for their corporate employers also is out of the question - especially in a state government that is a wholly-owned subsidiary of big business.
Let's get on with solutions to a problem created by political leaders who failed to watch out for our interests. This time, we should pay closer attention and pray for a bit more intelligence and a little less table-pounding.
• Reach Bill Shipp at P.O. Box 440755, Kennesaw, GA 30160, or e-mail shipp1@bellsouth.net.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 041206---------------------------------
http://www.onlineathens.com/stories/041206/news_20060412053.shtml
Senator: Reform still a possibility this year
Illegal Immigration
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss has been getting hit from both sides on immigration for more than a decade, and the current debate over how to deal with the millions of illegal immigrants in the United States is no different.
What is different is that this year, for the first time since 1986, Congress is getting ready to pass far-reaching reforms that will dictate who is let into this country, how long they can stay and whether the illegal immigrants already here will be rounded up and sent home.
Chambliss touted his own moderate immigration reform ideas during a visit to Athens on Tuesday, speaking at an Athens Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon and later to a group of newspaper reporters and editors, the day after a nationwide protest against efforts to crack down on illegal immigration.
To people who want to seal our border with Mexico entirely and send home all illegal immigrants - estimated at 11 million by the Pew Hispanic Center - Chambliss said, "From a practical standpoint, we just can't do that."
To people who advocate amnesty - letting all illegal immigrants who are now here stay here legally - Chambliss said such an approach only will encourage more illegal immigration and tax resources as those immigrants gain access to government benefits.
"They're going to be on the welfare system; they're going to be on Medicaid," he said. "Nobody's thought of that."
Instead, Chambliss is pushing a bill that would give undocumented workers two years to return home, where they could apply for an expanded and streamlined guest worker program that would let them work in the United States 11 months out of a year, or to stay for 33 consecutive months if they then go home for six. It also would provide for a difficult-to-fake identification card and sets penalties for businesses that employ undocumented workers.
The bill stops short of amnesty or citizenship, but won't pull the labor pool out from under the South Georgia farmers and North Georgia chicken plants that rely on Hispanic labor, Chambliss said. Almost 30 percent of U.S. agricultural employees are unauthorized, according to the Pew Center.
"Without migrant workers - unfortunately, most of them are illegal - we would not have the ability to plant, tend or harvest crops down there" in South Georgia, he said.
Chambliss said he buys into the argument that some jobs, like butchering chickens or picking cabbage in 100-degree heat, are not ones Americans will do, especially for low wages.
Chambliss' attempt to attach his bill as an amendment, along with others, to comprehensive, bipartisan reform legislation in Congress led to the bill's demise Monday. Chambliss and other Republicans accused Democrats of choosing politics over policy by keeping the issue alive, while Democrats said Republicans tried to derail the compromise by adding the amendments.
Chambliss and most Republicans voted to kill the bill rather than let it come to a vote without the amendments.
Nevertheless, Chambliss said there's a "better than 50-50 chance" immigration reform will pass the Senate in the next two months. Senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives then would have to hash out the differences between the Senate bill and a more drastic House bill that makes being an illegal immigrant a felony. Chambliss is not a fan of such draconian penalties, he said, recounting a story about immigration agents who raided a South Georgia field in the 1990s, when he was serving in the House.
"You don't go around flashing guns at people who are digging onions," he said.
Published in the Athens Banner-Herald on 041206
----------------------------------
http://www.connectsavannah.com/show_article.php?article_id=510
Out of the shadows
Local voices weigh in on the immigration debate
By Linda Sickler
|
A local Hispanic family. (Photo by Eduardo Angel) |
The tide of undocumented immigrants coming over the border has become a matter not only of national importance but international scrutiny as well.
How do we deal with this often emotional issue in a nation that was itself built by immigrants? The issue is complex, and there seem to be as many opinions as there are people.
Over the past several weeks, Connect Savannah listened to some of these voices in order to shed some light on the problem. Some of the voices are Latino, some are adopted Latino, some are elected officials, some are clergy, and some are just concerned citizens.
But they all share a stake in answering the issue's central question: What makes an American an American?
Melody Ortiz immigrated legally to the United States to attend school, and currently works at Armstrong Atlantic State University as a Hispanic student recruiter.
Ortiz -- who's quick to point out that she keeps her advocacy totally separate from her job at AASU -- has put down roots in the community and is proud to show her love for her adopted country.
"We're from everywhere, not just Mexico and Central America," she says. "We're a group of very hard-working people that values family life. We support a conservative lifestyle. We're people of faith. We just want to work hard and provide the best for our kids."
Ortiz's grandparents were American missionaries who worked in Venezuela for 41 years.
"My mother was born there and my father is Venezuelan," she says. "I lived in Venezuela until I was 16, when I came to the United States to attend high school."
Culture shock soon followed. "Everything was different," Ortiz says. "I experienced a lot of racism, not against myself, but against other ethnic students."
Ortiz has not experienced the same problems some immigrants do, in part because her English is flawless.
"My family was very supportive of secondary education," she says. "Education was what brought my father's family out of poverty. I was told very early I would have to go to college. My dad had a media business. I started producing a radio program at a very early age."
Despite these advantages, when Ortiz first came to the United States, she was "very poor."
"I cleaned houses at age 16," she says. "I worked in a McDonald's, where I became the manager. My Latino friends were migrant workers," Ortiz says. "They were from Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, all sorts of places."
However, there was one vast difference between Ortiz and her friends.
"They weren't pushed to look at post-secondary education," she says. "They were encouraged to look for work after high school. The guidance counselors didn't feel Latinos should look at higher education. I was encouraged because I spoke English well and because my parents attended college."
Ortiz says she's been accepted here in a way many other Latino immigrants have not, and this lack of empathy troubles her.
"Everyone goes out and supports Mexican restaurants," Ortiz says. "They love our culture, our music, our movies, everything about us, but why don't they love our people?"
Ortiz says immigrants come to the U.S. simply to seek a better life. "Most Latinos don't come here because they want to," she says. "They come here because they want a better life for their children. All they want is the opportunity to live and work."
Hard-working, family-oriented, just here to seek a better life. These are common refrains, voiced again and again by talking heads on TV and by the millions of Latinos and reform advocates who've filled the ranks of pro-immigrant rallies all over the nation the past few weeks.
But however often these points are repeated, not everyone agrees with them. Hispanic immigrants, particularly those who are here illegally, are being looked at more closely than ever.
Last December, the U.S. House passed House Bill 4437 -- the Border Protection, Anti-Terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005. Critics interpret its most controversial provisions as making it a crime for social service agencies, churches and individuals to assist illegal immigrants.
Recently, the Georgia General Assembly passed a similar measure, the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. It prohibits tax-funded benefits for illegal immigrants and penalizes employers who hire them.
As for the U.S. Senate, it has struggled -- as of this writing unsuccessfully so -- to pass immigration reform legislation that would provide enhanced border security and open the way to legal status for many illegal immigrants.
Georgia's legislators in Washington are divided on many aspects of immigration reform. But on one thing they're united: The borders must be closed to illegal immigrants.
"New programs that attract people to come here illegally will only compound the problem," says Sen. Johnny Isakson. "If we don't secure our borders first, we'll only accelerate the volume of illegals entering our nation."
Isakson has proposed an amendment that would prohibit the implementation of a guest worker program until border security enhancements are made.
"If my amendment is not voted on or does not pass, there's no way I can support this legislation in its current form," he says bluntly.
The last time significant immigration reform was enacted was the passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act.
"If we do not incorporate measures that will secure and seal our borders, we'll have recreated the problem we created in 1986 when we granted amnesty to three million, but failed to first secure the border," Isakson says. "Only this time, we'll deal not with just three million illegals coming, but millions and millions and millions more -- all because we looked the other way."
Isakson's Republican colleague in the Senate, Saxby Chambliss, has been focusing on the impact legislation would have on agriculture. He supports a guest worker program to ensure that Georgia farmers have a large enough pool of migrant workers.
"The workers come and perform the work and go back," Sen. Chambliss says. "We need to streamline the program, make it work for farmers. I don't want to have farmers worrying about the government looking over their shoulders to determine if they have illegal workers on their farms."
The responsibility of patrolling the border should not belong entirely to the U.S., Chambliss says. "We aren't getting the cooperation of the Mexican government we should have," he says.
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Savannah) says "there's no quick fix to defuse the current crisis of illegal immigration. The issue is complicated in Congress by geo-specific problems where states on the border want the border controlled immediately, and where agriculture-heavy states like Georgia want to ensure that there's a stead supply of available labor," he says.
"While the challenges to address this issue are clear, it is time for America to secure its borders first and then develop a non-amnesty temporary worker program," Kingston says. "The House passed a strong border enforcement bill last year. It is now time for the Senate to act."
Rep. John Barrow (D-Savannah) says amnesty would be just plain wrong.
"It isn't reform to adopt a bill that allows people to cheat. Any action that results in amnesty invites more of the same. It's important for us to recognize that we cannot solve the problems by legalizing illegal immigrants," he says.
"We must close the borders first. We cannot deal with the other problems if we don't stop the flow," Barrow says. "Around 1.2 million illegal immigrants were stopped by U.S. Customs and the Border Patrol last year. Of those, 500,000 got through. No country can take that year in and year out. We can do better."
Barrow supports construction of a fence along the border. "I don't like the image of a fence," he says. "But as much as I dislike the idea of a fence, experience has shown us fences make good neighbors."
Like Chambliss, Barrow says Mexico should do more. "We aren't the only ones who should be responsible for enforcing immigration law," he says. "Mexico has responsibility in this, too."
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is in part responsible for the increase of illegal immigrants, according to Barrow.
"NAFTA has helped the Mexican economy, but hurt the Mexican workers.
It's a huge foreign aid program that benefits Mexico," Barrow says. "Mexico is coming out like gangbusters and should take their share of responsibility for patrolling the border."
Sue Martinez teaches English as a second language and helps Latinos find the services they need to survive.
Although not Hispanic by birth, she says she certainly knows Latino culture.
"I married it, raised it and divorced it," she says. "I find the culture intriguing."
Martinez's interest in Latino culture dates back to elementary school. "I starting taking Spanish in New York in the third grade," she says.
While the experimental program was successful, there was a backlash from the community. Parents decided they didn't want their children to learn Spanish. However, since Martinez's class had already had instruction in Spanish, the lessons continued through the seventh grade.
"My exposure to the language definitely piqued my interest," she says. "I started to meet people from Latin American countries. My first serious boyfriend was from Puerto Rico. My next serious boyfriend was from Honduras."
Martinez was on vacation in Mexico in the 1970s when she met her husband-to-be, who was working at his family's store.
"He invited me for coffee," she says. "He introduced me to his family the next day. We were married in 1978 and lived in Miami."
The couple had two sons, then after five years of marriage, divorced. "It was a typical divorce," Martinez says. "But I remained intrigued by Latin culture."
Martinez herself knows what it feels like to be labeled as different. "My father was Jewish, my mother Catholic," she says.
When her parents married, the families were upset, Martinez says. Later in life, when she married a Mexican, the families were also upset.
One of Martinez's sons felt ostracized when he attended Valdosta State University. "Some people there believed Mexicans should be migrant workers," she says. "Now he's a graduate student at New York University, and his experience there has been totally different."
Interestingly, there are problems among Latinos that the rest of society does not see, Martinez says. Immigrants from one country may look down on immigrants from another country.
"Racism is pervasive in the Latin community," she says. "I often hear people from Colombia, Peru, and Panama say disparaging things about Mexicans."
Martinez believes that may be due to differences in educational levels. "My experience as an English teacher has shown for the most part that people who come from some parts of Latin America have better educations than people who come from Mexico," she says. "People without an education may have a lack of cultural polish."
They also may have more problems assimilating. Martinez was approached about a young woman who was pregnant and needed prenatal care. She was startled to learn how little the woman knew about Savannah.
"How do you deal with a whole population that doesn't know its way around the city, much less the culture?" she asks. "The immigration process has to be so exhausting, so daunting. They have to adjust in so many ways. They can't read the signs on the streets. They can't talk to everyone they meet."
Language isn't the only barrier. "They're often fearful of the consequences of revealing too much about themselves," Martinez says. "I've never been in a place where I was afraid they would throw me out. Some people live that way every day. Those people aren't likely to put down roots."
Martinez says there are a lot of different opinions about what immigration reform could mean.
"I'm against any legislation that seeks to criminalize the immigration experience," she says. "And I don't think 9/11 is sufficient justification for it. I think there is more to it, perhaps a fear of the browning of America."
Martinez knows there are others who feel illegal immigrants are criminals. "I've talked to a few people who think it's comical that people who are breaking laws are protesting," she says.
"I think the United States has taken advantage of its position of power," Martinez says. "Much of the hardship the rest of the world faces is at least partly attributable to American power. We buy bananas cheaply and sell them dearly."
Carmen Alarcon is a journalist who is originally from Bogota, Colombia. She's been in the U.S. for seven years.
"Yellowstone National Park was what brought me here," Alarcon says. "I used to work in the national parks at home."
Alarcon was particularly interested in the thermal activity at Yellowstone, which is similar to activity in a park in Colombia. "They had a summer program that brought in people from all over the world," she says.
After their truck broke down, Alarcon and her husband came to Savannah and fell in love with the city. "This city crawls into your blood and never leaves," she says.
Alarcon says her own immigration experience went smoothly, other than dealing with the red tape. "I have a large amount of time in waiting and money spent in visas," she says.
"I've never had any type of experience that was really anything bad," Alarcon says. "Then again, it seems I'm always in the right place at the right time."
Alarcon writes for Las Voz Latina, which is distributed throughout Southeast Georgia and coastal South Carolina. She supports immigration reform.
"It's needed for the Hispanic community to become one, so people can see the faces of the people they are talking about," Alarcon says. "It's important that people see immigrants as human beings."
Helping others in need is a virtue that normally is praised. But in March, Georgia's Roman Catholic bishops expressed concern that pending immigration reform could cause serious problems for people who seek to help Hispanics in need.
On March 1, the Most Rev. Wilton D. Gregory, Archbishop of Atlanta, and the Most Rev. J. Kevin Boland, Bishop of Savannah, issued a six-page letter that calls for legislation that would protect undocumented workers.
On April 3, the bishops criticized the passage of the state immigration bill and urged Catholics to continue to reach out to help Hispanic immigrants, even illegal ones.
Father Michael J. Kavanaugh is pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Port Wentworth. Every Sunday, he conducts a Mass in Spanish for Latino families in the community, with between 150 and 170 attending on a typical Sunday.
It wasn't easy launching a Hispanic ministry. "I had little background in Spanish," Kavanaugh says.
But Kavanaugh saw the need for such a ministry. And the response was immediate.
"They love the opportunity to get together," Kavanaugh says. "About once a quarter, we have lunch after mass and everyone comes."
Even now, Kavanaugh's Spanish can be shaky. At one church event, he inadvertently added some humor.
"I had the parents and children get in the front pew and told the others to get 'underneath' them," Kavanaugh says. "We all laughed. They're amazingly patient with a priest who isn't fluent in Spanish."
As to potential punishment for helping illegal immigrants, Kavanaugh says much depends on the wording of a new bill.
"If being present in this country illegally is turned into a felony, it would cause many concerns," he says. "Particularly in terms of how it would divide families."
Kavanaugh has great respect for his Hispanic parishioners. "They're very patient," he says. "They also are very grateful. They're generous and they're very hard workers. They wouldn't like to sit around and collect welfare."
Yet there is often what Kavanaugh terms "a terrible xenophobia" Americans have for Latino immigrants. Also, there has been heightened fear of foreigners since 9/11, he says.
"Is it possible to deport 7 to 15 million people?" Kavanaugh asks. "It isn't possible. And we can't make life so uncomfortable for all undocumented persons that they'll pack up and go home."
The Rev. Alvin Jackson is president of the Liberty County Ministerial Alliance,
"We help people in our community," Jackson says. "We don't ask people if they are breaking the law. On the other hand, I don't think people should be breaking the law," he says.
"That is not to say we should turn them away. We should look at it on a case by case basis, how it affects the church according to the law."
Bishop Larry Shaw, pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ in Hinesville, knows firsthand the importance of helping others.
"Our church burned to the ground. The community helped us. I feel we owe this to the community," he says.
"We have a strong food program, and we give away clothing in our outreach program. Many people who were affected by Hurricane Katrina have come through our church.
"It's obvious they're in need, so we don't charge them anything," Shaw concludes. "We don't ask a lot of information. We deal with the immediate crisis they're in."
Melody Ortiz helped organize a rally in support of fair immigration reform that was held in Forsyth Park this past Sunday, April 9.
The intent of the rally, which police estimate attracted at least 1000 people, both Latino and non-Latino, was to show peaceful support for immigration reform.
"Integration and assimilation should be part of any new immigration reform. We can't separate families. Most families have children who are citizens even though the parents aren't. Some children are citizens even though their older siblings aren't," Ortiz says.
"Compassionate, moral and just immigration reform needs to take place," she concludes. "We need to assimilate these folks and integrate them into the community. That's what the American dream is all about."
----------------------------------------
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/11/immigration/index.html
Immigration bill may lose felony proviso
GOP leaders say they don't support legislation's tough language
RELATED
| Gallery: Protests across the country |  |
| • Schneider: A two-sided issue |
| • Interactive: Public opinion |
| • Immigrant supporters rally |
| • Greenfield: Size isn't everything |
| • A rise in Latino power? |
| • Interactive: Illegals in the U.S. |
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The top Republicans in both the House and Senate indicated Tuesday they don't support language in an immigration bill that would make entering the country illegally a felony.
The proposal has drawn the ire of pro-immigrant groups that have staged a wave of protests in recent weeks.
The provision making illegal immigration a felony was contained in an immigration reform bill passed by the House in December. But in a joint statement issued Tuesday evening, House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee both indicated they wanted the language dropped.
Frist and Hastert also criticized House Democrats, who, they said, opposed efforts by Republicans to strip the provision from the bill before it passed.
"Instead, they voted to make felons out of all of those who remain in our country illegally," their statement said. ( Watch the politics of immigration -- 2:28)
Frist and Hastert did not specify whether they wanted unlawful presence in the United States to be a misdemeanor or carry a lesser penalty.
Their statement was also silent on the question of whether they had come to any agreement on two issues that have split Republicans -- creating a guest-worker program, or allowing undocumented immigrants in the country illegally to work their way toward legal status.
The provision making illegal immigration a felony was part of a bill pushed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican. It passed the House in December by a vote of 239-182, with only 36 Democrats supporting the final version of the measure.
Responding to Tuesday's criticism of Democrats by Hastert and Frist, Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California, said "no amount of spin can change the fact that Republicans wrote and passed the Sensenbrenner bill, which criminalizes an entire population."
Crider also said Republicans "are feeling the heat" after demonstrations that brought out hundreds of thousands of protesters Monday at rallies in at least 140 cities in more than 39 states. (Full story)
Sensenbrenner, who sponsored the provision making illegal immigration a felony, said last week that he tried to remove it from the bill in December and remains open to making the change as the House and Senate try to reach an agreement on a final bill.
Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, a leading advocate of cracking down on illegal immigration, has accused Democrats of trying to keep the felony provision in the bill as a "poison pill."
But Sen. Edward Kennedy on Tuesday dismissed such characterizations.
"Actions speak louder than words, and there's no running away from the fact that the Republican House passed a bill and Senator Frist offered one that criminalizes immigrants," the Massachusetts Democrat said.
"This debate shouldn't be about making criminals out of hard-working families ... but rather about strengthening our national security and enacting a law that reflects our best values and our humanity," he said in a written statement.
Sensenbrenner's bill also calls for building 700 miles of security fence along the Mexican border and would also make assisting illegal immigrants a felony.
It does not include a guest-worker provision, as President Bush has called for, or a legalization process for people already in the United States illegally. Critics dismiss that idea as "amnesty," while supporters call it "earned citizenship."
House GOP aides said Tuesday that language aimed at punishing people who help illegal immigrants was aimed at smugglers who bring people across the border, not at charities who assist the migrants.
As protests against the House bill mounted in late March, the White House and the Republican National Committee raised concerns that the anti-immigration sentiment coming from some corners of the GOP would turn off Latino voters that Bush and his political team have worked hard to court.
But Republican leaders must also contend with a growing chorus within their conservative base to crack down on illegal immigration. (Watch importance of Latino vote questioned -- 2:07)
Senate attempts to pass an immigration reform bill stalled last week when a measure establishing a guest-worker program and a mechanism for legalization failed to overcome opposition from conservative Republicans.
CNN's Deirdre Walsh contributed to this report.
----------------------------------------
http://www.wneg32.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WNEG/MGArticle/NEG_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1137835294118&path=
 |
U. S Senator Saxby Chambliss spent Tuesday in Northeast Georgia. He met with business leaders and the media at a local restaurant. That's where NewsCHANNEL 32 took the opportunity to discuss the latest on Immigration Reform.
It was one of the largest turnouts ever for the Athens-Clarke County Chamber of Commerce business luncheon. A certain Senator who happened to be the guest of honor is probably the reason. Saxby Chambliss enjoyed a dish of meat and potatoes before talking about something with a little more flare.
"We spent the last two weeks in the Senate dealing with one of the most sensitive, emotional, politically charged issues I have ever seen in my 12 years in Congress," the Republican Senator explains.
He's referring to Immigration Reform. Monday, hundreds of thousands of protestors demonstrated across the country in support of a bill that grants amensty to illegal ailens. Sen. Chambliss says the large number indicates two things. The first is it isn't practical to round up all illegals and lock them up or send them back to where ever they came from.
"We had 30,000 in one area in Atlanta Monday. We didn't have the capability to do it Monday and they were all in one area," says Chambliss.
The second is that no matter what side of the issue you stand, everyone is compassionate about their beliefs. And that means something has to be done. But Sen. Chambliss says amnesty can't be an option. He recalls a bill that was passed by President Reagan in 1986 that granted amnesty to 3.5 million illegals. At the time everyone thought that would solve the problem. But 20 years later the borders still aren't secure.
"Unless we secure the borders we got nothing. And we all agree it is the top priority," says Sen. Chambliss.
His plan includes adding more security at the borders. That could be in the form of extra man power, unmanned cars and cameras. Currently he estimates there are 20 million illegals in this country. A large percentage are here for the right reasons, and because of that Sen. Chambliss supports the idea of a temporary Visa.
"I have an amendment in progress now that in an agriculture perspective would require all workers in agriculture to transition back to their home country for two years and then come back in a legal status for a temporary period of time. It could be nine months, ten months, but no more than 11 months."
He expects the Senate to resume talks about this issue and it could be back up for vote in about 60 days.
--------------------------------------
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/atlanta/stories/0413natmarch.html
Immigration marches: What's next?
By BOB DEANS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/12/06
WASHINGTON — Ever since a quarter-million people thronged the National Mall to demonstrate for civil rights 43 years ago, the megamarch has become a vital feature of the American political landscape.
On Monday, nearly 200,000 people rallied in Washington over proposals for immigration reform. With companion marches in dozens of other cities around the country, the immigration organizers claim to have put a million supporters on the streets.
 JOHN SPINK / Staff | |
| New Jersey native Steven Valencia joins thousands of others Monday at Plaza Fiesta in DeKalb County during a march on immigration reform. Valencia's parents are from Colombia. | |
| | |
 |
It's not clear whether the rallies changed any minds on Capitol Hill, where weeks of legislative battles over immigration have centered on the contentious issues of border security and guest worker provisions for illegal immigrants.
"If there were 1 million people demonstrating, that's 1 million — out of 290 million — demonstrating against the laws of this country and against the wishes of the majority," Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-Ga.) scoffed in a statement. "They should instead go back to Mexico and demonstrate against their own government to create a decent country for them to live in."
Others, though, said the nationwide marches sent a powerful signal that lawmakers ignore the concerns of immigrants at their political peril.
"We better treat this issue with care, we better treat it with sensitivity, better treat it with humanity," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said at a political fund-raiser in Cincinnati for Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio).
"What this is building is enormous pressure on the Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration bill," New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, told the CBS television network. "There's enormous frustration out there."
Bill awaits Perdue
Georgia Senate Bill 529, known as the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, was passed by the Georgia Legislature in March. Gov. Sonny Perdue has until May 9 to decide whether to sign the bill. With a contested governor's election looming this November and public opinion polls in Georgia favoring a crackdown on illegal immigration, Perdue is expected to sign.
"The governor's decision on this bill won't be swayed by the protests. He's going to do what's best for the people of Georgia," said Perdue spokeswoman Heather Hedrick.
D.A. King, an anti-illegal immigration activist from Cobb County, said he believes the rallies in Georgia and throughout the nation will have the opposite effect organizers intended.
"They have, in fact, awakened the sleeping giant," said King, who helped push illegal immigration reform through the Georgia Legislature. "They have made a large number of Americans who were willing to tolerate this as a small problem wake up to the fact that this is a very immediate crisis. I am very grateful for what they did yesterday."
King, founder of an anti-illegal immigration group, The Dustin Inman Society, is holding a rally Monday at the state Capitol to protest illegal immigrants' demands for amnesty.
King said the rallies are "a dream come true" for him because they expose the true agenda of illegal immigrants.
"They want to live in the United States and they are demanding selective law enforcement," King said. "I double-dog dare the U.S. Senate to grant an amnesty now. I double-dog dare the governor of Georgia to not sign [Senate Bill] 529 now. The true agenda is apparent even to the most casual observer."
Still, Monday's march and rally in Atlanta, like those across the country, left even organizers astounded at the swelling of Latino and immigrant voices in the United States. And they are convinced they will influence Congress and the Georgia governor's office.
Scholars are saying it's too soon to tell.
Julian Herrera, a Latino pastor and another organizer of the effort, viewed the march as "a good start."
"It's not an end but the beginning of something very big," he said. "For the first time in the history of the state of Georgia, migrants united one day to march . . . . We want the senators to go back and go to work putting together a law that will allow immigrants to earn a living in the United States."
As for future events, Herrera said local leaders are discussing whether to join a planned boycott and work stoppage by immigrants across the country, both legal and illegal, planned for May 1. He said he has even heard from counterparts and friends in Mexico who plan to organize a boycott of American firms in Mexico that same day.
Adelina Nicholls, president of the Coordinating Council of Latino Community Leaders and another organizer of the march, said she fully expects a backlash from groups that want stricter limits on immigration.
"That's part of the historical process of social change," she said. "We're taking advantage of our own strength in numbers to support our point of view."
Nicholls said Latinos, both legal and illegal immigrants, have three advantages at the moment: numbers, economic power and moral authority, because they have endured injustice and struggle for their opportunities.
Timing could be off
Immigration academics said they could not deny the power of the images broadcast on television from the marches, but could not say whether that would influence the congressional debate.
Doris Meissner, the former U.S. Immigration Comissioner who is now a fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, said the marches are still too fresh in memory.
"A lot of people are very euphoric about them," Meissner said. "I think they are a real turning point. But it's too early to reach any conclusions about what Congress will do. . . . They are really impressive, the scope and the scale and the various places. There's an authenticity to them that is compelling. They are certainly keeping attention focused on these issues."
But Meissner said the two-week congressional Easter break that for now ended debate could deal a death blow to any hope of an immigration reform bill before the coming elections.
"It's a really critical time in the next two weeks because members are back in their districts," she said. "But there was a lot of political momentum last week that came to a halt and it can be hard to recapture those political moments regardless of how many demonstrations there are."
Closer to home, Fernando Riati, a professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Georgia State University who was at the march, also said he saw the power of the marches.
"I heard some say that the reason this is happening is that they have touched a real nerve and people feel offended and humiliated by being treated as criminals," he said.
But whether that will translate into influence in Congress is harder to guess, Riati said.
"That will depend on so many other factors and on the backlash," Riati said. "The politicians are in a very tough place now because they have to almost choose sides and they could end up on the losing end. For a politician, that must be a very frightening idea."
"There is something about coming to the Capitol and doing what the First Amendment talks about that has power for participants and observers," said Lucy Barber, author of the book "Marching on Washington: the forging of an American political tradition."
"It doesn't change the world overnight," Barber said. "But it has the potential to, and often does, spur increased political activity."
Longtime civil rights leader the Rev. C.T. Vivian draws several comparisons between Monday's march and rally to those of the civil rights movement.
"They were comparable in that they moved not only in Washington, but across the nation," making it clear this was a national, state and local issue, he said. Secondly, those marching were pushing for greater freedom and participation in American life.
Additionally, both movements received support from others in the community, said Vivian, who estimates that he has participated in as many as 50 marches. For instance, Monday's march in Washington included blacks, whites, illegal and legal immigrants.
Staff writers Teresa Borden, Carlos Campos and Shelia M. Poole contributed to this article.
http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/wooten/index.html
Border security the first step
Published on: 04/11/06
The collapse of efforts to pass an immigration bill that included a convoluted and wholly unworkable citizenship proposal came because "politics got ahead of policy," said U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.).
Politics clearly did. On this issue, as with most others that divide the country, the politics of upcoming elections has become so powerful that Congress is virtually immobilized.
Republicans are torn between a base incensed by the failure to take border enforcement seriously followed by proposals to advantage illegals who disregarded the law, while trying to avoid repeating the alleged mistake of former California Gov. Pete Wilson. His 1994 support for Proposition 187 to deny social services and education benefits to illegals is presumed to have driven Hispanics into the Democratic camp.
Most likely, however, California would have gone solidly Democratic anyway, but his support did coincide with the growing Hispanic clout. For Republicans, therefore, the trick always has been to satisfy public demand for secure borders with long-term political interests.
Republicans do need a segment of the Hispanic vote. Otherwise, it's far too easy to stereotype the party, as partisan critics are always wont to do.
Both of the proposals that were in play last week — the one that emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee with the support of eight Democrats and four Republicans, or the Thursday night proposition that contained the unworkable amnesty — had major flaws.
The insistence of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that no amendments be permitted was a guarantee nothing would pass. Election-year politics.
One amendment that should have been permitted — and it probably would have passed — was offered by U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.). "It is an amendment," he explained to the Senate, "that very simply says no provision of any act we pass that contains a guest worker program will go into effect until first the secretary of Homeland Security has certified to the president and to Congress that our borders are reasonably secure."
That is the key. That is the essence of where immigration overhaul should go. First, secure the borders. Then deal with routes to citizenship.
Isakson noted that in recent weeks he had gone to San Diego and Tijuana, and to look at enforcement in Fort Huachuca, Ariz. A Predator unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle "has a stretch of the border secure because we have eyes in the sky 24 hours a day, seven days a week," he said. "For $450 million we can deploy a fleet of 26 of those unmanned Predator aircraft to have eyes in the sky 24/7 along the entire 2,000-mile border."
That would, of course, allow for more efficient use of border patrol agents.
Congress and President Ronald Reagan attempted 20 years ago to solve the problem by granting amnesty to 3 million illegals. Two decades later, it's 11 million to 13 million. "Whatever passes this United States Senate requires first and foremost the securing of our border," Isakson said, "because if we do not, we will have re-created the problem we created in 1986."
U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who also opposed the no-amendment proposals, agreed: "Our top priority in this immigration reform debate is to provide for real and comprehensive border security."
Certainly, a route to citizenship should exist for illegal immigrants. And, just as certainly, this nation needs to examine anew whether automatic citizenship should continue to be a birthright for visitors and illegals.
But as Chambliss and Isakson assert, the absolute top priority is border security. To have any credibility, Congress needs to demonstrate that the will and the means exist to protect the borders, while creating a legitimate system for establishing immigrant identity and status.
It is fairly amazing that on Monday, people who are in this country illegally gathered in mass demonstrations to oppose legislation by the governing body of a nation that can be deemed to have "invited" them only because it has declined to enforce the law.
Until Congress proves that it is capable of enforcing the law at the border, it has no credibility in attempting to devise programs that invite more forgeries and other false documents.
• Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
---------------------------------------
--
Erik Voss
erik@ICAtlanta.org
404-457-5901 Direct
<< Home