Heckling, Fistfight Mar Forum On Immigration
| AR Articles on White Racial Consciousness |
|---|
| Twelve Years of American Renaissance (Nov. 2002) |
| Race and the American Identity (Dec. 1998) |
| The Morality of Survival (Jul. 1995) |
| Morality and Racial Consciousness (Jan. 1995) |
| More news stories on White Racial Consciousness |
Organizers who brought together a panel of national experts for a forum on immigration reform sponsored by First Data Corp. on Thursday night billed the event as way to foster dialogue on a critical policy issue.
What they got instead is an example of how angry that debate has become.
Just minutes into the event, someone in the audience of about 300 people at North High School demanded that organizers first allow a recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.
While the panel of six academics and politicians talked about the effects of immigrants on the economy or the practicality of a national guest worker program, a small number of hecklers and the largely pro-immigrant audience periodically erupted into shouts and curses.
Halfway through, a fistfight broke out, and police arrested a woman friends described as a Hispanic activist after she struck a heckler on the head.
“All the other events have been perfectly calm,” said Wendy Carver-Herbert, a slightly shaken First Data Corp. vice president, referring to similar panels in Washington and Chicago.
“We intended this to be a very thought-provoking forum on an important topic that needs to be debated,” she said.
Many in the audience said the disruptions appeared well-choreographed, with hecklers spread throughout the audience, often defending or protecting one another.
But critics blamed the organizers for staging a forum they said was one-sided and shut out the opinion of immigration opponents.
“If they really wanted an open dialogue on immigration, they wouldn’t have set up a panel with such a glaring exclusion of people who hold opinions they don’t like,” said Michael McGarry, a member of the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform, which supports a crackdown on illegal immigration.
Still others said the anger and violence showed just how divisive the debate over what to do about the 8 million to 12 million illegal immigrants now living and working in the United States has become.
Some participants suggested that opposing a widespread amnesty for illegal immigrants was racist, while some in the audience said participants were “bashing whites.”
After hecklers told several Hispanic panelists “to go home”—suggesting Mexico—Thomas Saenz, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, shouted back, “I will not have you or anyone else tear up the Constitution of the United States. I am an American. I was born here.”
(Posted on July 23, 2004)