Richard Figueroa on May 01, 2010, at 12:35PM – #3

I'm sorry, this is NOT "The civil rights battle of our generation."

Immigration has been around for too many years to be the battle of our generation. Gay rights are the new battle. We are second-class citizens in OUR own country.

panasonicyouth on May 01, 2010, at 12:45PM – #4

I'm sorry, Richard, but the right to marry is pretty much at the bottom of the list in terms of importance. Marriage is for privileged straight people. We're talking about people who can't even be citizens in this country, which I think is far more damaging than being a second-class citizen.

Have some perspective about people other than yourself. Your "right" to get married is barely a concern to people who can barely subsist in this country.

Dixon on May 01, 2010, at 01:45PM – #6

Being a second-class citizen is "more damaging" than being unable to be a citizen, even a second-class one? Oh, panasonicyouth, you make me laugh. Grow up.

Craig on May 01, 2010, at 06:55PM – #12

The people of Arizona did not wake up a week ago and say " Let's start being mean to Brown people." For 50 years we the People ( Arizona, Calif, the entire USA) have allowed open borders amnesty, non existent borders, chalk drawn borders, eraseable borders of the USA. Finally Ariz said "Enough is enough". No one is saying all Mexicans are killers. But the killer of Jamiels Shaw Jr was a known illegal alien killer. Same with the killer of Cheryl Green, age 14, killed by a known illegal alien gangster in LA for being black. We have ethnic cleansing in LA in the year 2010. We have beheadings in Juarez Mex, and Tijuana and Phoenix. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the Western Hemisphere. Not all illegals are killers but 10 % are. 10% of 50 million is a huge number, 5 million. Ariz is not going to wait for the next dead body for the police to put yellow tape around. I will not risk my daughter's life guessing which 10% are the evil ones. Craig, Los Angeles

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 02, 2010, at 04:53AM – #17

Five million people are killers....

so they must be doing a terrible job...

because in 2008, there were 16,277 murders in the entire US. (and surely some of those people were killed by US citizens. ("5,334 murders where committed by white offenders, 5,943 were committed by black or black and Hispanic offenders, 273 were committed by offenders of other races, and 4,727 murders were committed by offenders whom race is not known.")

In the meantime, the homicide rate has dropped from a high of 9.8 in 1991, to 5.4% in 2008.

"Overall, the crime rate in the U.S. was the same in 2004 as in 1969, with the homicide rate being roughly the same as in 1966. Violent crime overall, however, is still at the same level as in 1974, despite having decreased steadily since 1991."

So Craig, what wrong with the 5 million illegal alien killers you are talking up?

And would you care to cite your source and provide a link?

My numbers come from the US Bureau of Justice Statistics and the FBI, and the lovely thing about the internet is one can get authoritative stats using the Google instead of, say, pulling them out of one's butt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

And Gloria Estafan wasn't in Miami yesterday, because she is now appearing in Vegas...(something a literate person would have been able to figure out if he just used THE GOOGLE) it is real hard...it took me 0.23 seconds to find this out.

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 02, 2010, at 04:59AM – #18

By the way, those stats I quoted from the FBI are a rate are based on by Volume and Rate per 100,000 Inhabitants.

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2008/data/table_01.html

Kevin Lynn on May 03, 2010, at 06:31AM – #25

I agree with Richard, this is not the civil rights battle of our time. What is of interest to me and perhaps some of those that are pro amnesty can point out, is why turn a blind eye to the duplicity of someone who enters this country illegally. That is a criminal act. Say what you want about the justification, but it in no way engenders a social contract wherein they could or should expect legal status.

As I have stated on prior blog, the presence of illegal aliens has and continues to force down the wages of native born workers and those who have entered the country legally. Again there is a lot of duplicity here; duplicity on the part of the employers who want a cheap exploitable class of labor and those who think all these illegals will one day become citizens and vote Democratic.

Moreover, if you want to see intolerance, just wait until the good Bishop Gomez takes the helm of the LA Archdiocese. His stated goal is to ensure that Prop 8 remains in effect and thanks to the combined duplicity of the players involved, he'll be able raise an army of poorly educated and superstitious laity to ensure that goal is achieved.

In closing, I am against illegal immigration because I am pro-labor. My father was a union man and I recall our family living through two long strikes. I can't believe we would have fared very well if there were a large waves of immigrants standing at the ready to take his job. I'm not a fascist, I don't hate brown people and I have made an earnest attempt to study the issue.

Jamie DeFrisco on May 03, 2010, at 10:36AM – #27

I agree with Guest #9. Although I do have to say that some families have come here legally and went through the process necessary to become part of this country. When you have people that come over here illegally and don't make an issue of it, you're telling everyone else that they don't need to come through legally. I don't have a problem with the people coming over, I just wish that they were doing it legally.

If all of the illegal immigrants left then a lot of businesses employing them will go out of business because they either can't afford to pay people more or they can't find people willing to do the jobs.

Gay rights are very important, but you shouldn't demean other issues. They are all issues that need to be dealt with, regardless of importance.

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 03, 2010, at 12:06PM – #28

Well, Kevin...if you are prolabor, you will be happy to know that that some of the bravest fighters for the new service and trade unions are undocumented workers who are being organized by SEIU and others. This is an old union tradition, because back in the early days of union movement in this country....who were the people who put their lives on the line fighting the bosses? Immigrants! From the autoworkers to the longshoreman to steel workers to machinists...on both sides of the fight were immigrants...including the scabs who were brought in during strikes. (you might notice a theme here...about scapegoating, and who is manipulating the situation. Hint: it isn't the poor people who actually do the hard work.

While you don't sound all that sympathetic to workers who are recruited offshore and brought here without documentation and are exploited by the bosses....you might be interested in who provides the bulk of home health care to our elders in large cities, who cuts most the meat in our consolidated meat packing business, who provides the bulk of the labor in the hospitality industry... Who cleans our offices after we have gone home...

and how ICE does the work of the bosses, when union activity is suspected. Neat trick, that.

If you are actually opposed the global economy which drives cheap undocumented labor in this country, you might want to address your concerns to actually imposing penalties on the people who benefit most from undocumented labor...

the growers

the people who own the sweat shops

the hotels and other aspects of the hospitality industry...

the Developers and contractors in the building industry (though there isn't much of that happening too much these days)

AND MANY, MANY MORE!

If you care, maybe you should address the problem of "demand," rather than take cheap shots at "supply."

This is a huge civil rights battle because, let's be frank, the Latino Community isn't made up of fools...even though they are mostly legal, they know who the target of this hysteria about "illegal immigrations" is. They know that their people have been here for scores of generations, but there will always be people who assume they are "wetbacks." And this phony issue has more to do with the coming time when hispanics will outnumber Anglos through most of the Southwest.

I am charmed you care about the unions. And a union member, I am sure you will be willing to pay the premium of having a living wage paid to all workers....and what will happen when the tax base widens again, and brings us an economy where families can survive on one salary, plus have decent benefits.

Yes, let's return to the social contract....and a decent social safety net and all that neat stuff we gave up when we decided we want to govern, school and provide services on the cheap.

In the end, Kevin....it is my observation, you get what you pay for.

And paying police officers to chase down bus boys and babysitters is really expensive.

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 03, 2010, at 12:38PM – #29

http://www.cis.org/articles/2001/back1001.html

In the interest of honesty, I would like make a correction regarding the history of trade unionism...and immigration.

In my cases, organized labor has lobbied strongly for immigration restrictions....and in many cases where driving forces behind things like the Chinese Exclusion Act.

However, great union leaders like Samuel Gompers and Harry Bridges were immigrants....and there were movements like the IWW (Wobblies) who attempted to organize immigrants.

But these days, as the unions face decline, the fastest growing unions are those attempting to organize in the service sector...like the SEIU, and they don't ask for green cards when working with people who care for our parents, clean our offices, guard our businesses, and otherwise do the invisible work which we would notice if it wasn't done.

By the way, there are reports that Caesar Chavez turned in scabs to the INS. Sure he did, but he didn't turn away undocumented labor from the UFW, either. He was no fool.

Kevin Lynn on May 03, 2010, at 05:35PM – #31

Yes Nancy, we do get what we pay for . . .

In the words of Harvard economist George Borjas, a leading authority on the economic impacts of immigration, any immigration policy will have winners and losers. People with more job opportunities and people with fewer; folks with more money in their pockets and folks with less. This is because individuals affected by immigration have different, often conflicting, interests. Borjas notes that large employers generally support high levels of immigration precisely because they drive down workers’ wages. If higher immigration levels did not decrease wages, the benefits to employers would disappear and they would have no reason to push for more immigration.

Progressives should want markets working for workers, not against them. George Borjas’ research indicates that during recent decades, on average, each 10 percent increase in the number of workers in a particular field has decreased wages in that field by 3.5 percent. Cesar Chavez was very aware of this whether they were scabs crossing a picket line or more, more and more non native workers willing to work for less.

So Americans need to think long and hard about immigration levels. We can help some poor foreigners by letting them come here and work. But such help necessarily comes at the expense of American workers.

If you want a cheap, large supply of labor, you are going to have to accept a fact that people will be poorer. I choose not accept that.

You mention the SEIU and the "bravery" of the people organizing undocumented workers. I believe the SEIU is making a grave mistake. By not attempting to stem illegal immigration, it is only continuing the downward cycle of wages we have been witnessing here since the late 1970's. It's a fools errand.

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 03, 2010, at 07:20PM – #32

Kevin,

we all might mourn a world our leaders traded away twenty years ago, and dream of rebuilding Fortress America, however if you think that George Borjas, who wants legal immigration cut back, forget about stemming the tide of illegal immigration--- has much sway with the people who buy and sell our law makers, I have beach front property on the Gulf, I would happily sell to you at top dollar. That ship sailed decades ago. (please read the recent Supreme Court decision on Citizens United, if you doubt it.) I agree with Thom Hartmann, btw, on a lot of stuff, but he is dead wrong on immigration, the day when the American working class could compete with imported cheap labor ended when White American Scabs walked into Hormel...and ended the meat cutters union as a viable contributor to raising living standards. Those scabs should not have been surprised when they were replaced.

Additionally, Borjas seems oblivious to the fact that work done by foreign national and illegal immigrants have been done by illegal immigrants and foreign nations...especially farm work since post war times. (to you kids that is after WW2)

Here is a link to a pretty good response to Hartmann and Borajas and who use liberal populist arguments to immigration. (and find themselves in bed with Nativists and Teabaggers.) I don't expect you to read it.

http://immigrationfacts.info/Immigrants_and_Wages.pdf

Right now our markets are more driven by debt in Greece and a weak dollar than stagnating wages and the decline of the unions the US. We are now the world's security guards...with the only bright spot in the balance of trade being the motion picture industry. And I don't think too many illegal aliens are working in that business. But there are plenty of legal foreign nationals working there. Why? They have money and green cards for the upper middle class are not a problem, for some reason. Especially if you come from a country which never even come close to filling their immigration quotas. (like most of Northern Europe.)

Still it is noted you showed your true colors by not even paying even the smallest lip service to employer sanctions. People do that a lot, I notice. It isn't as much fun as attacking the weak, and scapegoating the people who care for our parents, our children, and do the menial labor which you think is taking jobs from Americans....even though those jobs have traditionally gone to immigrants and the working poor.

And the SEIU didn't become the fastest growing and most influence union in America by not organizing those who actually could benefit from a living wage, and decent benefits.

In the meantime, places like Walmart who hire plenty of native born Americans keep the unions out through lies and intimidation. You can't blame that one on the Mexicans.

By the way, assuming that helping service employees make a living wage being a fool's errand makes me question if you are aware of any economic realities in this country. Surely you are not blaming illegal aliens jobs being shipped off shore.....and the decline of the manufacturing industries in this country.

Kevin Lynn on May 03, 2010, at 08:43PM – #34

I suppose Nancy this is where we fundamentally disagree. You see, I believe globalization as it has been implemented is a belief system more so than an economic system. Hence, I believe it can be reversed.

Every choice we make has a consequence or consequences. Some of them are intended and some unforeseen. I believe curtailing immigration is the most prudent course of action in a very uncertain world and one with fewest ill consequences.

I find it interesting that usually into this part of the debate, someone such as yourself will stoop to casting dispersions saying things such as "makes me question if you are aware of any economic realities in this country." For me the delivery of ad hominem attacks signals the end of the discussion.

So I will turn the blog over to you now. Go forth and preach your gospel. You may now rant to your hearts content . . .

Nancy Richardson (@nanorich) on May 04, 2010, at 06:48AM – #36

I realize the grapes were sour, Kevin...but before you go away in a huff think about what you said...especially with regard to reversing globalization..

and in the current political climate, I don't think that our country is prepared the kind of worldwide economic catastrophe which would cause such a thing to happen. It is just as likely that we would suffer through decades of authoritarian fascism as awaken to a socialist paradise in the end.

Read the messages here, and see that your fellow anti-immigration advocates don't seem too open to spending money on education, better services...or seeing the wisdom of collective bargaining.

In the meantime, if one actually wanted to do something about keeping out nonwhite peoples from the south, you might actually think about solutions which would work: end the drug war. (these endless wacka-mole where drug cartels move around the Western Hemisphere, and get more ruthless as they go is one of the causes of anarchy in the south, and demand in the US is driving that market, pal.) The other thing which YOU REFUSED TO EVEN ADDRESS is Employer Sanctions. I can only speculate why, but let's just say, if you are honest about being a progressive, you wouldn't jump to the solution of some pie in the sky union organizing solution...and call upon your fellow anti-immigration activists to clamp down hard on those who import and exploit undocumented workers.

Real liberals are inclusive. They understand the reality of what demographic patterns will look like in the decades ahead, and they refuse to get in bed with teabaqggers and Stormfront nativists, if only for practical reasons....like being able to live with themselves.

And again....accepting reality allows one to think forward instead of getting stuck looking backward at time which ended decades ago...and is likely to happen again, as the Van Nuys GM plant is to reopen.

Jon on May 04, 2010, at 08:14PM – #39

Unionization as a solution to illegal immigration, eh?

Sandie Richards on May 05, 2010, at 11:27AM – #40

Again, my own 'rant' regarding DOT planning. With due respect to those who protect our First Amendment rights, I would hope that the Department of Transportation could GREATLY improve its planning and communication around street closures.

Downtown Los Angeles is prime real estate for public assembly of all types: demonstrations, marathons, jog-a-thons, what have you. This is wonderful to me; nonetheless, when folks are unexpectedly blocked IN or OUT from homes, businesses, etc, it just makes being located here an occasional nightmare and doesn't bring out the best in folks.

A more transparent, participatory process would ease some frustrations, and allow folks who live, work, play, and worship in Downtown L.A. to know what to expect and plan accordingly.

Any suggestions from DTLA denizens about how we might get together with DOT and make progress on these issues? Or, is there already a process in place and I haven't heard of it yet?

Wanting to be a part of positive progress! Thanks, neighbors.