Immigration Raids and Detentions
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U.S. Senate Newsrom, Press Release, June 11, 2008
This afternoon, U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) took to the floor of the Senate to deliver a major speech on immigration raids and detentions. He cited the numerous incidences of American citizens and legal permanent residents of Hispanic or other minority descent getting swept up in raids and the fear this has engendered in minority communities. Senator Menendez, who is the Senate sponsor of legislation to ensure basic medical care for detainees, also announced that he will be introducing legislation to prevent the unlawful detention of American citizens and permanent residents.
“The legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color,” said Senator Menendez. American citizens “are targeted because of their race, targeted because of their color—denied every fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Common sense repeatedly loses out to hysteria, and agents of intolerance repeatedly jump over the legal protections to which every single American is entitled.”
Senator Menendez mentioned several reported instances of the illegal detention or harassment of U.S. citizens and permanent residents of Hispanic descent. “Each of us in this country has to think, ‘What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?’”
“We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence.”
“Before we accuse someone of being undocumented, there’s one other document we should inspect first: it’s called the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for immigration and law enforcement on all levels to rededicate themselves to respecting the rights the Constitution guarantees.”
Full text of Senator Menendez’s remarks, as prepared for delivery:
M. President,
Our deepest obligation as United States Senators and as representatives of the American people is to make sure our nation’s founding promises are being kept.
With a few strokes of Thomas Jefferson’s pen, we were told that life and liberty would be unalienable rights, that a chance to seek happiness would be something to which we were all entitled.
Our rights grew over time—and over time we grew out of restrictions on who was entitled to those rights. African Americans threw down the chains of slavery. Women marched to the polls. People came from all over the world to become full members of our society, because of the promise that our country held and the guarantees that our government made.
But when agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement—also known as ICE—conducted raids in Texas not long ago, one 19-year-old U.S. citizen who was dragged from her home while she was still in her pajamas wasn’t thinking about that history.
An 18-year-old U.S. citizen who was shackled at his ankles, handcuffed at his wrists and tied at his waist wasn’t thinking about that history.
They were thinking to themselves, “My God, what’s happening to me? What’s going to happen to my family?”
When ICE agents banged on the door of a U.S. citizen named Arturo Flores, and pushed their way into his house in Clifton, New Jersey without showing a warrant; and when agents in North Bergen, New Jersey stormed into the house of a legal immigrant named Maria Argueta, in the middle of the night, and held her without cause, taking her away from her family for 36 hours—those loud knocks on the door quickly woke these law-abiding individuals up from their American dreams.
Hearing these examples, some people may say, “Well, this is what happens when people enter this country without going through the proper channels.” I hear it all the time because it is the mantra of people who defend ICE’s raids.
But these aren’t undocumented immigrants getting pulled from their homes in the dead of night. They are US citizens who are targeted because of their race, targeted because of their color. Denied every fundamental right guaranteed by the United States Constitution.
Our fellow citizens may not have been surprised that they were yanked from their homes. They might have known that their immigration status wasn’t even necessarily relevant.
They might have heard stories about friends who were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents, but who were seized in immigration raids, detained, and in some cases, deported. I’m talking about U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
They may have known that their accent, their name, the color of their skin, the place where they lived would have put them at risk. They may have known that—regardless of what our politicians and historians say—fundamental Constitutional rights still might not apply to them, in today’s America.
We’ve been hearing these stories for too long. It’s time they were told on the Senate floor, because together we need to face a blunt reality: our legitimate desire to get control over our borders has too often turned into a witch-hunt against Hispanic Americans and other people of color.
Common sense repeatedly loses out to hysteria, and agents of intolerance repeatedly jump over the legal protections to which every single American is entitled.
I’m going to tell just a few stories today, but there are plenty of others like them.
Last year, a 30-year-old mentally impaired man named Pedro Guzman, who was born and raised in Southern California, was arrested on misdemeanor charges and scheduled to be released—he’s a U.S. citizen, but somehow, his accent, his name and the color of his skin must have convinced immigration authorities otherwise. So instead of returning him to his home, they decided to deport him to Mexico.
Even after immigration authorities realized their horrible mistake, they made no significant effort to correct it. Pedro attempted several times to cross the border home to the United States, and was repeatedly turned away. He was forced to wander the streets of Tijuana, eating out of trash cans to survive—a U.S. citizen.
His mother Maria was worried beyond belief, and took off time from her job to search for Pedro. Finally, three full months after he’d been illegally deported, Pedro found his way home. When he came back, his mother said, after so much trauma, only half of her son had returned.
Each of us in this country has to think, What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?
The authorities harass U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent in other ways.
Last fall, under the cover of darkness, a dozen immigration agents stormed into the Long Island home of Peggy Delrosa-Delgado, a U.S. citizen and a mother of three.
They pushed through her 17-year-old son, herded her children into the living room, and one of them drew a gun on a family friend staying in the house. This was the second time they had done this, supposedly looking for someone named Miguel who had never lived there.
Another U.S. citizen named Gladis was at her home one day when eighteen vehicles drove into her front yard, and twenty agents jumped out.
Agents banged on the door and threatened to throw gas inside the house if they didn’t let them in. While the children in the house ran and hid in the bedroom, the agents broke down the door.
One of the agents grabbed Gladis and attempted to handcuff her.
Gladis said she could prove her citizenship, and gave them her social security card. After interrogating Gladis and her family for twenty more minutes, the agents left as fast as they came—
they had no warrant, no probable cause, no reason for their actions besides suspicion about someone’s name, their accent, and the color of their skin.
And there’s one more detail I should mention: Gladis was six months pregnant at the time.
Each of us in this country has to think, What if that happened to me? Why couldn’t that happen to me? What would happen to my children if I were taken away?
M. President, very shortly I’ll be introducing legislation to prevent the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
But the problem with our detention system is even larger. Beyond the U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are unlawfully detained, there are people who have come to the U.S. fleeing persecution, people who have committed no crime, but find themselves trapped and squeezed between the gears of the U.S. immigration system.
The Washington Post has recently run a disturbing series on the catastrophic state of our detention system. I encourage all of my colleagues to read it, and I ask Unanimous Consent to enter the articles into the record.
The whole series is staggering, revealing deficiencies in our detention system that most of us couldn’t dream up in our worst nightmares. The Washington Post has forced us, as a nation, to look in the mirror, and I for one am appalled by what I see.
We, the United States of America, the greatest democracy in the entire world, have been injecting people with heavy doses of drugs in order to deport them or just to move them around the system with more ease.
Immigration officials drug people going through U.S. facilities, and they drug people who are about to be deported. They drug some people so heavily that when they get off the plane they collapse on the tarmac, or they have to be rolled off the plane in a wheelchair.
They don’t only drug people to make it easier to kick them out. One story that stood out in both the Washington Post and a segment on 60 Minutes was that of a woman named Amina Mudey. Last year, Amina fled from Somalia to the U.S. to seek asylum after she was tortured and her family was killed before her eyes.
When she arrived at JFK airport, she was shackled, thrown in a van and driven to a windowless converted warehouse in New Jersey. Immigration authorities didn’t so much as find an interpreter.
Instead, they decided to lock her up, decided she was insane without even talking to her, and decided to inject her full of a drug to treat a disease she didn’t have. The side effects were awful. Her tongue swelled so much she couldn’t close her mouth. She drooled and vomited uncontrollably, and began to lactate.
When she complained, they upped the dose. She thought to herself, “maybe I’m going to die in here.”
Finally, five months after she was detained, she won her asylum case in court and was released from the detention center. Without the perseverance of her lawyer, Amina would never have emerged from her drug-induced state. She would never have found the asylum she so desperately needed.
This case sheds light on another grim reality: medical treatment at our detention facilities is atrocious. Over-medication is far from the only problem. Life threatening lack of care is also a serious problem. Take the heartbreaking story of Francisco Castaneda. Francisco entered one of our detention facilities battling cancer—although he didn’t know it.
All he knew is that he had significant lesions on his reproductive organs.
Offsite officials who never examined Francisco repeatedly denied him the biopsy he so desperately needed. After 11 long months in custody, Francisco argued for and eventually obtained a temporary release so he could pay for his own biopsy. Life-threatening cancerous tumors were found.
Despite amputation of the affected area and several rounds of chemotherapy, Francisco died of cancer at the age of 36.
A federal judge recently noted that this case appears to present, quote, “one of the most, if not the most, egregious Eighth Amendment violations [involving cruel and unusual punishment] the Court has ever encountered.”
The United States of America essentially killed Francisco Castaneda by denying him the medical care he so desperately needed. Why? Because he had entered this country without the proper documentation, at the age of 10, with his mother, fleeing civil war in El Salvador—a war the US had helped to fund, a war which sent thousands of refugees like him to our country.
He was denied care because he tried to make a better life for himself and his family. These are hardly offenses that warrant death. We cannot, in good conscience, allow these conditions to continue. That’s why I’ve joined together with my colleagues, Senators Kennedy, Durbin, Akaka and Lieberman, to introduce the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act.
First, the bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to establish procedures for delivering basic health care to all immigration detainees in custody.
It requires DHS to give people in custody access to any medications they urgently need, both during detention and during any transfers.
Currently, a bureaucrat in an office can overrule a medical professional who is actually on site and seeing a detainee. This bill ensures that treatment decisions are made by the professionals who actually see the patients.
And finally, the bill would require DHS to report all detainee deaths to the Office of Inspector General and Congress.
We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence. This kind of action to ensure humane treatment and prevent unnecessary deaths at these facilities is long overdue.
Let’s not forget that many in immigration detention are there for minor violations, many because of administrative errors, or pending legitimate asylum cases.
At some point, this becomes more than a legal issue—it becomes a human rights issue, and it is our job to do all we can to secure our country while protecting the dignity of all human beings.
If we fail to do so, not only do we blemish ourselves, but we lose the moral high ground to be a beacon of democracy and a leader in human rights around the world.
M. President,
It is astounding to me that human beings could be treated as badly as some are being treated on our soil.
When innocent people are drugged, tranquilized and treated like animals,
When agents attempt to handcuff a pregnant United States citizen, break down the door to her home, and terrify her children and her family;
When an agency of the federal government deports its own citizen;
When all of this is going on, each of us in America has to think, What if that were my family? What if that happened to us? Doesn’t my U.S. citizenship, whether by birth or naturalization, protect me from this kind of abuse?
Some officials have claimed that these incidents are rare. Some of suggested that this is acceptable collateral damage in pursuit of undocumented aliens. They should tell that to Pedro, Gladis, Amina and everyone else, and all the families who have had to watch this happen. No matter how widespread this pattern of abuse turns out to be, one thing is clear: it isn’t rare enough.
There’s only one way to prevent that kind of abuse: it should be a universal policy, that before we accuse someone of being undocumented, there’s one other document we should inspect first: it’s called the Constitution of the United States.
It’s time for immigration and law enforcement on all levels to rededicate themselves to respecting the rights the Constitution guarantees.
That means respecting the need for probable cause and the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, the right to Due Process guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment, the full benefits of citizenship and Equal Protection for anyone born or naturalized in this country guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment—and the entire range of rights and protections our Constitution grants.
This is going to take real leadership, at every level of our justice system, from the Attorney General, to the Secretary of Homeland Security on down.
That’s the only way that those who by birth or naturalization have a legitimate right to pursue the American Dream, won’t have to watch as their lives turn into an un-American nightmare.
M. President,
This issue might not be the legislative business of this chamber right now, but it is always our moral business.
It’s always our moral business to defend the most fundamental principle on which our nation was founded: that all of us are created equal.
Stopping illegal detentions of Americans based on their race is about more than properly enforcing the law. Above all, it’s about respecting people who may be different from us, but who share the same birthright.
As Martin Luther King said, “We may have come on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now.”
If we’re worried about what to throw off the boat, it should be our oldest enemy: fear.
Once that’s gone, we can resume our course on the currents of freedom, and let our sails be filled with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you M. President, I yield the floor.
(Posted on June 16, 2008)
Comments
“Effort to secure borders turning into With Hunt against Hispanics”
This message brought to you by your local reconquista in New Jersey. The faces change but the whining is always the same.
Posted by Bobby at 6:35 PM on June 16
E-verify is good for everyone… it prevents the illegals from being exploited, it prevents citizens jobs from being illegally given to foreigners, and it benefits the federal and state governments who are guaranteed to get the previously missing tax revenues to which they are due (lessening the burden on us taxpaying citizens).
The only ones who don’t like e-verify are the illegals, and the corporations who have been making a killing giving citizens jobs to undocumented illegals. They do this to avoid paying fair market wages, TDI insurance, and payroll taxes, thereby allowing those same corporations to feather their wallets at everyone elses expense.
Enough is enough already.
I applaud E-verify, as well as the elected officials who have the guts to take on this un-pc hot potato and do the right thing by enforcing e-verify registration requirements for companies and vendors doing business with their states.
Go E-Verify!
Posted by Taxpaying Citizen at 7:12 PM on June 16
If our government would ever take notice when things started going haywire, maybe it wouldn’t seem like a witch-hunt. You have to take the bad with the good. You cannot be too sensitive this day and age. Everyday is war. Deal with it, as any HUMAN should.
Posted by at 7:14 PM on June 16
everyone please write this Menendez public servant and remind him that he works for US not for illegal aliens..if he wants, he can give them refuge in his own house, until we can send them all back to their places of origin.
Posted by at 7:15 PM on June 16
Before we accuse someone of being undocumented, there’s one other document we should inspect first: it’s called the Constitution of the United States. It’s time for immigration and law enforcement on all levels to rededicate themselves to respecting the rights the Constitution guarantees.”……………………Yes but the constitution says the federal government must protect the nation from invasion,I wish some of those idiots in congress would read the constitution.
Posted by Tony Soprano. at 7:18 PM on June 16
I know what would “astound” you even more “Sen.” Menendez. Take a trip to your beloved Mexico and see how non-Mexicans are treated there! Good Lord, what is wrong with N.J. that they would vote for this MEXICAN [and trust me he’s a MEXICAN in heart and mind, not an American- - just like Richardson] as a U.S. senator!!!!!
Posted by Tom S at 7:20 PM on June 16
If only the military were manning our southern border. Then Menendez would have nothing to whine about. Detentions and deportations, health care, and all the associated baggage illegal aliens burden our nation with, wouldn’t be an issue. No issue at all if the invaders never made it one foot across the border in the first place.
A real fence would improve the neighborhood quite a bit, too.
Posted by Edward at 8:06 PM on June 16
With over thirty million of Delarosa-Delgado’s co-ethnics having criminally invaded our country, perhaps she should consider that law-enforcement authorities are bound to make some mistakes before she cries us any more rivers.
Posted by at 8:12 PM on June 16
If the citizens and legal immigrants of hispanic descent are worried about getting caught up in the raids, then maybe they should be doubly mad at their illegal racial kin for casting a shadow of doubt over an entire race. Maybe instead of coddling the illegals and marching with them, they should turn them over to ICE. More deportations of illegals = less of them coming here, and less suspicion (eventually) on legal residents and citizens of hispanic descent.
Posted by at 8:37 PM on June 16
Well, gee whiz. Since the border jumpers who came here illegally HAPPEN TO BE HISPANICS, I guess it stands to reason that Hispanics would be the target of illegal immigrant raids.
Posted by Fed Up at 8:51 PM on June 16
“Our rights grew over time—and over time we grew out of restrictions on who was entitled to those rights. African Americans threw down the chains of slavery. Women marched to the polls. People came from all over the world to become full members of our society, because of the promise that our country held and the guarantees that our government made.”
LEGAL citizens are entitled to rights bestowed on LEGAL citizens.
A couple mistakes does not mean we invalidate our laws. Hopefully, law enforcement agents will learn from their missteps. If anyone is shown to have abused their position, let them be charged.
Posted by sbuffalonative at 9:16 PM on June 16
As an ex-New Jersey-ite( 50 years ), who has fled Marxist, anti-white-Christian, N.J. six years ago. Menendez, although apparently 100 percent white himself (Spanish-Cuban exile and has a white wife) is the Latino equivalent of traitorous Sen. Kennedy who has one mantra, everything taken from the Euro-American and redistributed to non-white or mixed blooded hispanics. He is a loud mouth , one trick pony, blowhard non-democratic, non-consitutional ,bigot.
Posted by Michigan Patriot at 10:10 PM on June 16
I’m sorry, Senor Hernandez….but your opinion doesn’t count. I prefer to hear what conservative (I mean REAL CONSERVATIVE) white men have to say before you. After all, they’re ones that built this country.
Posted by at 10:19 PM on June 16
“We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence.”
They may be human beings but they are human beings who have broken our laws and do not belong here. Since when has a detention center “amounted to a death sentence”? The hyperbole is just too much. If he wishes to talk about death sentences, he might refer to the number of American citizens who have actually been handed death sentences by illegals driving without licenses who murder thousands every years on our roads, or he might mention the number of other homicides committed by illegals against American citizens every year or why it is that fully one third of the inmates in our federal prisons are hispanics. Perhaps after answering a few of these questions, he can make his case for the more humane treatment of criminal hispanic aliens. Until then, he should keep his mouth shut.
Posted by at 10:52 PM on June 16
The man’s last time says it all. But I’ll say one thing for him. At least he represents the Hispanics who voted for him. Most of the senators don’t represent the people who voted for them at all. Despite most Americans wanting immigration curtailed and America’s own oil resources developed it doesn’t happen, does it?
Posted by Vlad The Emailer at 11:36 PM on June 16
You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. If we cross all our T’s and dot all our I’s they will mash our system down in a mire of legal foot dragging until their growth rate equals our ability to deport. This will make the corporations happy since they’ll keep their illeagles working cheaply.
Posted by PAT at 1:26 AM on June 17
“They may have known that their accent, their name, the color of their skin, the place where they lived would have put them at risk.”
Well, when you have millions of people with the same skin color, names and accents entering the country illegally, what do you expect??? Don’t blame America legal US hispanics, blame the illegals. ICE has every right to target hispanics when they are the main ones entering the country and unfortuneatly a few legal one may be targeted by mistake. Also, any illegal or asylum seeker who wants to leave a detention center is free to do so at any time by agreeing to deporatation. If they didn’t like their medical care, they could simply go back to their home country. Also, would their home countries like Mexico provide free medical for americans, legal or not??? No way.
Posted by at 8:05 AM on June 17
As one poster so very well responded to an earlier AmRen article…
“At the present time, given the pattern of invasion, certain racial and linguistic characteristics constitute a de facto military uniform which simply cannot be ignored.”
Posted by Jackers at 9:37 AM on June 17
In the first sentence of the Constitution, the Founders say that they founded America “for ourselves and our Posterity.” period. Not anyone and everyone too lazy and cowardly to fight for freedom in their own nations. Deport. Shut the gates.
Posted by terry at 10:39 AM on June 17
Our enemies have deliberately created this problem over many years, and have refused to make any serious effort to correct it. Even today, these ICE raids are only window dressing intended to keep right-wingers happy until the fall election. What is needed is a mass migration of 70 to 80 million people back to their countries of origin, to return this nation to the 90 percent White condition of my youth. This is not possible if we follow the laws, so the laws must be suspended. I believe it was Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said, “The Constitution is not a suicide pact.” When the Nation has been cleansed of invaders and their treasonous enablers, we can establish a new constitution, improved by hard experience.
Posted by Schoolteacher at 12:35 PM on June 17
My relatives and my self have been stopped by immigration and Homeland Security , just for walking in an airport and speaking a language other than English among ourselves.
The immigration personnel were professional and after the first commands were also polite.
Perhaps they were shocked when everyone in our group switched to perfect American English as soon as spoken to in English. We were picking up relatives and one of their co-workers who are in or work for the US military and all were in civilian clothes.
BECAUSE we were polite there were no problems -just a steady checking of papers and a request that those who were checked and cleared move away from the group that still needed to be checked.
The group included several Hispanics (all Puerto Ricans in the US military). Everyone in the group has or currently works as an interpreter for the US government outside the USA. Embassies and military units need interpreters but NO one in the USA should need to be fluent in any language other than English.
None of us expect the government or our fellow citizens to speak anything other than English.
I would defend the speaking of any language in which one is comfortable with friends and family but NEVER should the English language be neglected and all of us expect schools and other interactions with government or other citizens to be only in English.
Posted by Oldman at 12:56 PM on June 17
Hispanics played no role whatsoever in the founding of this nation and not one of our Founding Fathers has a Hispanic surname. The reason Americans lump Hispanic legals and illegals together is because the overwhelming majority of legal Hispanics support their illegal brethren. We are sick of their language, their crime, their corruption, their culture and their faces. We resent their parasitic presence in our society and American anomosity against these alien invaders grows daily. In the end this issue will be settled through armed violence since they have no respect for our laws and nothing else will drive them out and keep them out…
Posted by at 1:14 PM on June 17
When you make an omlet you have to break a few eggs. All this article represents is Mexicans standing up for Mexicans. Certainly a few innocents are going to be arrested but that just goes with the territory. Once they prove they are citizens they get released. Small price to pay for secure borders in my opinion.
Posted by at 1:34 PM on June 17
“they will mash our system down in a mire of legal foot dragging until their growth rate equals our ability to deport. This will make the corporations happy since they’ll keep their illeagles working cheaply”
What an interesting concept. Almost like a Sci Fi visual. Im not sure I agree with your slam of corporate America. It’s disillusioned workers who have let American business down. The better the company was they worked for, the more disloyal and underhanded were the workers. That’s all water under the bridge now though. And defending American business isn’t going to be too popular.
Posted by at 2:40 PM on June 17
” So instead of returning him to his home, they decided to deport him to Mexico.”
As the Mexican dude once said: “Mexico is where Mexicans are.”
Posted by at 3:27 PM on June 17
Well, here’s the Hispanic version of black conservatives fleeing the Republican party to vote for someone who is their ideological polar opposite just because he is of their race.
This news story tells us about Hispanics who are showing loyalty to their own racial group above all other things. Does anybody believe this Menendez would be pushing for more things favorable to “immigrants” if illegal aliens were coming into the US from Eastern Europe?
Non-whites concern themselves solely with matters pertaining to their tribe and their tribe only and to Hell with everything and everybody else. As long as the US exists in its present form, there will be non-white groups concerned exclusively with their respective interests. Assimilation will always be an impossibility, because non-whites want to retain their culture, traditions, and history, and they DO NOT want to adopt ours.
The Fourth of July will never replace Cinco de Mayo, nor will Presidents Day ever replace MLK Day. And for the elites to pretend otherwise is criminal, and they should be punished severely for burdening us with these aliens from, what might as well be, another planet.
Nothing reflects the failure of multiracialism any better than that.
Posted by Robert Kelly at 3:42 PM on June 17
Don’t be a boob and let the boob tube shake you. Simply sit down and write yet another letter to your elected representatives reminding them that:
1. The United States Must Secure Its Borders. Border Security Is The Basic Responsibility Of A Sovereign Nation And An Urgent Requirement Of Our National Security. Remind them that this should be done in a manner consistent with protecting the liberties of United States citizens to freely travel abroad and return and is not an opportunity for the Federal government to exercise authoritarian control over its citizens detaining them for bench warrants and unpaid traffic tickets for example.
2. We Must Hold Employers Accountable For The Workers They Hire. No Temporary Worker Program is needed. We have tens of millions of able bodied citizens in this country living below the poverty line and the magnet of jobs and free social care must end for non-citizens.
3. We Must Bring Undocumented Workers Already In The Country Out Of The Shadows… and send them home. HOW we do this; however, is extremely important and needs to be done in a manner recognizing human rights. Consider asking elected representatives to exercise foreign aid and expertise to both ease the transition of homeward bound illegals and influence origin countries for positive change. We’ve spent hundreds of billions of dollars policing Iraq and hundreds of billions of dollars in social costs just for illegal aliens in this country. It is a bargain to spend a few billion a year influencing governments like Mexico which failed to provide for their own people to finally take on that responsibility and working with them to build the expertise necessary to see positive change occur. It’s money well spent, something we should take seriously, and we will save much more than that many times over once the illegals have left.
4. We Must Promote Assimilation Into Our Society By Teaching New Immigrants English And American Values.
5. End Chain Migration and Restore Legal Immigration Levels to Conservative Norms..
You will have accomplished something positive today that you can take great pride in :)
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 5:04 PM on June 17
“We can never lose sight of the fact that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence.”
So? So are people that commit murder and burglary and robbery and rape. The point is they are criminals! Comprendez?
Posted by at 5:08 PM on June 17
Lots of us readers have posted concerning what notorious thieves Mexicans often are. Yeah, you might actually find as many as 5 HONEST Mexicans in every 1,000 or so… but this story on MSN News is good for a laugh… and once again supporting my contention that the MAJORITY of crimes by Mexicans don’t make the evening newscast or your local paper. This, of course, being the exception:
NEW YORK - Maybe he was trying to beat the heat. A Brooklyn restaurant cook is accused of stealing frozen lobster tails by stuffing them down his pants.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said Tuesday that Raymundo Flores has been arraigned on misdemeanor charges of petit larceny and criminal possession of stolen property.
Co-workers called 911 on Sunday to report a crustacean caper at the walk-in freezer at Junior’s Restaurant. Police say they found lobster tails that Flores allegedly had hidden in his pants and in bandages on his legs.
Posted by Fed Up at 2:19 PM on June 18
I have the dubious pleasure of living in Menendez’s district. No amount of reasoning will EVER get through to him. He is so pro-immigration of any kind it is useless to try and get him to “see the light”.
These people are traitors to our country, pure and simple. Yet they keep getting voted into office by the huge immigrant population here, who then have a “champion” for themselves in Congress. What’s even worse is that his counterpart in the same district is a white man who always votes the same as Menendez. When called on it, he uses the tired old argument that “my ancestors were immigrants too”.
I shudder for the future of our Nation.
Posted by Minerva at 10:18 AM on June 21