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Several claims made by anti-immigrant bloggers on FOX and other blog sites were debunked by the LA Times last year. The LA Times wrote that the claims, attributed to a supposed LA Times article, are an internet hoax . Read the blog below. Apparently certain bloggers have not gotten the news flash. They are still posting these so called "facts" and even writing tirades against illegal immigrants based on this mythical article. Internet hoaxes are nothing new and there is even a website devoted to debunking internet hoaxes. www.snopes.com
On Snopes.com I even found a category titled "Obama" and it's devoted to confirming or debunking claims about Senator Obama. Very interesting. Did you know Obama IS NOT a muslim?
What are some of the internet myths you have debunked or actually believed. I once debunked a photo of a GIANT crocodile being loaded onto a old truck by two black men. The photo was emailed to me by a friend exclaiming, "look at this!". The caption on the picture was, "Giant Croc found swimming in New Orleans after Katrina Storm." I knew the croc was far too big to be indigenous to America plus Louisiana has alligators not crocodiles. I noticed the truck was very late model with no license plates. The missing plates reminded me of vehicles I had seen in my trips abroad to third world countries. After a very quick google search I found the original post of the photo. The giant crocodile was captured in Africa.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/readers/2007/11/inter
net-immigr.html
« Whatever happened to...? | Main | Of crimes past »
Internet immigration hoaxProbably five times a week, the readers' representative office gets a question like this one received recently from Harvey Akeson of Tucson:
"Please help me, an e-mail is making the rounds stating the information is from the L.A. Times. It may or may not be true. Can you verify? Thanks."
Such inquiries have come in for more than a year -- most by e-mail, some by telephone. From the beginning, the notes have shown signs of having been forwarded to many others, who then forward them to many others, before one of the recipients decides to check with the alleged source.
The answer is: The L.A. Times never ran such a story.
"If this doesn't open your eyes nothing will!" So begin most of the e-mails that readers forward to us. Though the endings vary -- a typical sign-off is, "Send copies of this letter to at least two other people. 100 would be even better" -- the bulk of the note always consists of 10 "facts" that they are told came from the L.A. Times. The hoax e-mail goes like this:
1. 40% of all workers in L. A. County ( L. A. County has 10.2 million people) are working for cash and not paying taxes. This is because they are predominantly illegal immigrants working without a green card.
2. 95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.
3. 75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles are illegal aliens.
4. Over 2/3 of all births in Los Angeles County are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal,whose births were paid for by taxpayers.
5. Nearly 35% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.
6. Over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.
7. The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal aliens from south of the border.
8. Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties are illegal.
9. 21 radio stations in L. A. are Spanish speaking.
10. In L. A. County 5.1 million people speak English, 3.9 million speak Spanish.
(There are 10.2 million people in L. A. County)
Less than 2% of illegal aliens are picking our crops, but 29% are on welfare.
Over 70% of the United States' annual population growth (and over 90% of California, Florida, and New York) results from immigration.
29% of inmates in federal prisons are illegal aliens.
We are a bunch of fools for letting this continue.
Here's the response we've sent to those who ask:
No article has appeared in The Times with this list. And some of these 'facts' appear to have been misleadingly edited from articles that appeared in the L.A. Times as long as 20 years ago and are now being cited inappropriately. When this Internet rumor started last year, The Times' opinion website looked into this hoax; here is the link to those findings:
http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2007/02/some_
memes_neve.html
One example of how this is inaccurate is the claim that a Times story reported that "over 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages." This appears to misquote information from a May 24, 1987, article about the number of people living in garages in Los Angeles County. It reported that, at that time, about 42,000 garages were sheltering about 200,000 immigrants in L.A. County. That article provided detailed information explaining how the figures were arrived at but it did not allude to anyone's residency status.
Most readers thank us for the explanation and promise to get word back to those who forwarded the hoax e-mail. Added Akeson: "This hate stuff is very difficult because most people read it and pass it on without even thinking of facts or the hurt they are spreading."
Read or watch an interview, by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now, with the friend of Mexican immigrant Luis Ramiez the immigrant murdered by American teens in Pennsylvania. No charges have been filed against the known killers and supposedly no investigation has been started. Ariela Garcia was a witness to the savage beating. WHen black youths viciously attacked a white youth in Jena, Louisiana arrests were made and the most sever charges were filed against the attackers. Read the article on the conviction here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19488285/
When drunken American white teens beat to death an immigrant in conservative, Pennsylvania nothing is done. An example of an unfair justice system? I believe it is starting to look like one.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/fri
end_of_mexican_immigrant_beaten_to
democracynow.org
July 24, 2008
Friend of Mexican Immigrant Beaten to Death in Pennsylvania Gives Eyewitness Account of AttackLuis Ramirez, a twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant, was beaten to death last week by a group of teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was walking home last Monday night when six white high school students brutally beat him while yelling racial slurs. Despite eyewitness testimony, no charges have been filed. We speak with Arielle Garcia, a friend of Ramirez who witnessed the attack. [includes rush transcript]
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WATCHReal Video StreamReal Audio StreamMP3 DownloadMore…Guest:Arielle Garcia, friend of Luis Ramirez. She witnessed the beating.Rush TranscriptThis transcript is available free of charge. However, donations help us provide closed captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing on our TV broadcast. Thank you for your generous contribution.
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AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Shenandoah Valley in Pennsylvania. Luis Ramirez was a twenty-five-year-old Mexican immigrant who was beaten to death last week by a group of teenagers in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. He was walking home last Monday night when six white high school students brutally beat him while yelling racial slurs. When one of Ramirez’s friends tried to stop the beating, one of the teenagers said, “Tell your Mexican friends to get out of town, or you’ll be laying next to him.” Despite eyewitness testimony, no charges have been filed as yet.Ramirez came to the United States six years ago. He was the father of two children. He was engaged to Crystal Dillman, who grew up in Shenandoah.
We called the district attorney investigating the case, but he declined to join us on the program and said he had no comment.
I’m joined right now by Arielle Garcia, a friend of the couple who was an eyewitness to the attack on Luis Ramirez. She’s a high school senior in Shenandoah. We welcome you, Arielle, to Democracy Now!
ARIELLE GARCIA: Hi. Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. How old are you?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I’m seventeen.
AMY GOODMAN: And what year are you in high school?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I’m a senior.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us what happened, not this past Monday night, but the Monday before that? What happened to Luis Ramirez? Where were you?
ARIELLE GARCIA: He was at our house all day that afternoon. And it was around maybe 11:00, he asked us to take him uptown to drop him off, whatever, he was going to go home. So, we leave him at the Vine Street Park, and we drive away, Victor and I, and about two minutes later he called us and told us to come back, that people were beating him up. So we get back as fast as we could. And when we get there, he was—like the fight was over, like the boys were walking away, but they were still screaming like racial slurs, like “Go back to Mexico!”
And so, Victor and I ran up to Luis, and we said, “What happened?” But he was so mad, he wasn’t really talking to us. And those kids kept yelling stuff, and he went back, and the kids turned around, and the fight started again. So Victor, my husband, tried to like stop the fight. He tried to get the kids off of Luis, but kids were trying to fight my husband. So my husband got the kids off of him, and we couldn’t stop the fight between Luis and the—but next thing we know, Luis was on the floor. And so, me and Victor, we ran up to his side, and we were at his side. We were trying to wake him up, and the kids are still like kicking him and kicking him. And somebody—I don’t know who, but they kicked him like in the left side of his head so hard that that’s what killed him.
AMY GOODMAN: Now, where were you and your husband exactly as this part of the fight took place?
ARIELLE GARCIA: We were right by him on the floor. We were like kneeling by his side, trying to wake him up when they kicked him.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you know his attackers?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes, they’re in my class.
AMY GOODMAN: How many were there?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Six or seven.
AMY GOODMAN: You knew all of them?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you name them?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t20think I’m allowed to name them. I’m sorry.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you tell the police who they were?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: And what did the police say? Did the police show up that night?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, they showed up. First, the ambulance did, and they took our friend to the hospital. And about five minutes later, the police came, and I guess they were looking—I mean, we kept telling them where the kids ran, but they didn’t—they didn’t run towards there. I mean, they kind of stayed where it all happened. And I told them the names and everything.
AMY GOODMAN: And, well, this was more than a week ago. Have they been investigating since?
< /font>
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah. And like, still nothing.
AMY GOODMAN: Why did they say—when you showed them the direction that the kids had run, why did they not go after them at the time?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t know. They told me that it wasn’t their priority right now.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, “their priority”?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Where was your friend at this point? Where was Luis Ramirez?
ARIELLE GARCIA: He was gone. He was in the—on his way to be [inaudible].
AMY GOODMAN: What was their priority? Did they say that to you?
ARIELLE GARCIA: No. They were pretty rude, some of them. Not all of them, but most of them were pretty rude to me.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean they were rude?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Like, I told them where the kids ran, and they wouldn’t go after them, and they told me that “Somebody said there was someone with a gun here, and we have to search your car.” And they searched Victor, like they put his hand behind his back, and like they put him against—
AMY GOODMAN: Victor is your husband?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: The boys ran off. Was it all boys?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Were they white? Were they Mexican?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, they were all white.
AMY GOODMAN: All white, and you know them all?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Uh-huh.
AMY GOODMAN: Have you seen them in school? Or school is out, so you haven’t seen them since.
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yeah, no, I haven’t seen them. I mean, we’ve seen one of the kids. He was like playing—
AMY GOODMAN: If you could talk as loud as you can, Arielle, it’s a little hard to hear you because of the crackling of the phone.
ARIELLE GARCIA: Oh, OK.
AMY GOODMAN: Speak right into the phone.
ARIELLE GARCIA: OK. Yeah, we have seen one of the—like one of the guys recently. We saw him in the backyard of his house playing, as if, you know, like nothing happened. It is frustrating. Our friend is dead and these kids are living life. That kind of frustrates us, because our friend9 9s dead, and these kids are like living life. It just frustrates me, like they can live without feeling guilty or anything. I just hope that the correct charges are pressed against them.
AMY GOODMAN: Did you speak to any of these kids, since you knew them, in the midst of the fight or afterwards? Did they say anything to you?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes. After the fight, I ran after one of them, and I said, “Hey!” I said, “Why did you do this to my friend? You killed him.” And they said—he says, “No, no, I didn’t kill him. He’s still breathing.” And I said, well—and I smelled like—I smelled alcohol, and I said, “Oh, you’re drinking?” And he said, “Yeah.” And he said, “Don’t say our names. I’m out of here.” And he ran.
AMY GOODMAN: He said, “Don’t say our names”?
ARIELLE GARCIA: He said—yeah, he said that .
AMY GOODMAN: Do you know why they attacked Luis?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Do I know? No. I mean, Victor and I weren’t there when it all started. But like I said, when we got there, it was all racial. Everything.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you mean, it was racial?
ARIELLE GARCIA: They were screaming racial, like “Get out of here, Mexican, whatever. Go back to where you came from.” I mean, they were saying bad stuff that I can’t say over the phone.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re showing pictures right now. For our radio listeners, you can go on our website at democracynow.org to see pictures of Crystal, Luis Ramirez’s fiancee, and pictures of Luis, as well, and their children.
So they were shouting racial ep ithets. They were—what is the atmosphere in Shenandoah? What is the attitude to Mexican immigrants?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I think it’s—most of the time, it’s OK. But there are times when there are racial slurs. I mean, with my husband, I’ve been with him four years, and like, I’m telling you, there are many times that I’ve heard people scream racial slurs to him. You know, like I was pregnant with my son, and they told me, “What’s that in your belly? Another person I’m going to have to pay for? Another Mexican on welfare?” Like stuff like that. It’s disgusting.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to see happen in this case? And how is Crystal? How is Crystal Dillman, Luis’s fiancee and mother of his kids?
ARIELLE GARCIA: She’s doing OK, but she’s pretty upset and she’s frustrated that nothing has been done yet. She wants justice for her family. And we do, too. We want justice for our friend. I feel like that wasn’t his time to die. I fee l like those kids should be—they should be treated as adults in this case. They should be treated as adults that committed a homicide. I don’t understand why it’s being put off here.
AMY GOODMAN: Luis’s body has been sent back to Mexico?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: To his family?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: What has been his family’s reaction? And where does he come from in Mexico?
ARIELLE GARCIA: I don’t know the town. I don’t know. It begins with a “G”. But he—his body was sent back to his mother, and she was—when she found out, she was hysterical. I mean, Crystal told me that she was screaming on the phone, and she didn’t know—she didn’t understand, and she didn’t want to believe it. And he’s arriving there today, actually. He’ll be in Mexico City, and they will be sending him back to where his home city was.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you, Arielle, for joining us. Are you at all afraid of speaking out?
ARIELLE GARCIA: Am I afraid of what?
AMY GOODMAN: Speaking out.
ARIELLE GARCIA: No.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, thank you for joining us. We’ll continue to investigate and follow this case. Arielle Garcia is a friend of Luis Ramirez. She witnessed the beating two Monday nights ago that led to his death. Arielle Garcia knows the people who killed Luis Ramirez. They’re her classmates in high school.
The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/24/friend_of_mexican
_immigrant_beaten_to
###
=====================================----------------
-------------------------------
Shown is the town of Shenandoah,. Pa. Tuesday July 15, 2008. Luis Ramirez, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries he received in a beating. He was beaten over the weekend after an argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the town's beloved high school football team, police said.
(AP Photo/Rick Smith) (Rick Smith - AP)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2
008/07/18/AR2008071801768_2.html?nav=hcmodule
http://tinyurl.com/64mgvr
----------------------------------------------------
Crystal Dillman, 24, left, sits with her children Kiara, 2, second left, and Anjelina, 3, and sister Lita Rector are seen at home in Shenandoah, Pa., Tuesday July 15, 2008. Dillman's fiancee, Luis Ramirez, 25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries he received in a beating.
(AP Photo/Rick Smith) (Rick Smith - AP)http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp
-dyn/content/article/2008/07/18/AR2008071801768_2.html?
nav=hcmodule
Minutemen are Racists!
Jul 24, 2008 | 9:40 PM PST
Category:
News
Some very good video showing the San Diego Minutemen's true colors. They are hateful, vulgar, racists, and low life. Anyone that supports them are too. Check out the video.
--------------
Right wing nuts that like to shout "nuke em' all" should read this. -------------------------------------------------
-----------
-
EFFECT OF 20 MEGATON NUCLEAR BOMBWhat Would Happen if a 20 Megaton Nuclear Explosion hit a City of 3 Million ?
Ground Zero
Within 1/100th of a second, a fireball would form in every direction from ground zero enveloping downtown and reaching out for two miles.
Temperatures would rise to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit, and everything — buildings, trees, cars, and people - would he vaporized.
2 to 4 Miles from Ground ZeroThe blast would produce pressures of 25 pounds per square inch and winds in excess of 650 miles per hour. These titanic forces would rip buildings apart and level everything, including reinforced concrete and steel structures. Even deep underground bomb shelters would be crushed.
4 to 10 Miles from Ground ZeroThe heat would vaporize automobile sheet metal. Glass would melt. At this distance, the blast wave would create pressures of 7 to 10 pounds per square inch and winds of 200 miles per hour. Masonry and wood frames would be leveled.
16 Miles from Ground ZeroThe heat would ignite all easily flammable materials -houses, paper, cloth, leaves, gasoline, heating fuel - starting hundreds of thousands of fires.
Fanned by blast winds still in excess of 100 miles per hour, these fires would merge into a giant firestorm more than 30 miles across and covering 800 square miles. Everything within this entire area would be consumed by flames. Temperatures would rise to 1400° F. The death rate would approach 10070!
Beyond 16 Miles
The blast would still produce pressures of two pounds per square inch, enough to shatter glass windows and turn each of them into hundreds of lethal missiles flying outward from the center at 100 miles per hour.
At 29 miles, the heat would be so intense that all exposed skin, not protected by clothing, would suffer third degree burns. Even as far as 40 miles from ground zero anyone who turned to gaze at the sudden flash of light would be blinded by burns on the retina and at the back of their eyes.
Within minutes after the bomb exploded 1,000,000 would die. Among the 1,800,000 survivors, more than 1,100,000 would be fatally injured.
Another 500,000 would have major medical injuries from which they might recover if they received adequate medical care.
Less than 200,000 people would remain without injuries - with very few doctors and with only limited medical facilities.
American racists dominate the anti-illegal immigrant movement and will resort to violence and murder. I believe the hateful rhetoric posted and distributed by hateful anti-immigrant groups and their allies in the news media, such as Lou Dobbs, have inspired the young to attack and kill. The police not wanting to call this attack a hate crime is outrageous. An attack against a black, jewish, or gay person which included racial, or anti gay slurs would have earned a hate crime charge against the attackers. Murdered at 25 by American racist killers who are only teenagers.
-------------------------------------------------
-------------
In this photo provided
Crystal Dillman,
Luis Ramirez lies in his hospital bed
hours before his death at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa.. Ramirez,
25, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, died Monday, July 14, 2008 from injuries
he received in a beating in Shenandoah, Pa.
(AP Photo/Crystal Dillman)
http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Mexico-Danville2C-Pa/pho
to//080718/480/38b3ea70b56240b1a56a54bc6c188de7//s:/ap/
20080718/ap_on_re_us/immigrant_killing_students
http://tinyurl.com/5wlq3j-------------------------------------------------------
------------------
Fri Jul 18, 1:24 PM ET
Friday, July 18, 2008 (AP)
Immigrant's beating death exposes tensions in Pa.
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer
(07-18) 11:12 PDT Shenandoah, Pa. (AP) --
Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago to look for work,
landing in this town in Pennsylvania's coal region. Here, he found steady
employment, fathered two children and, his fiancee said, occasionally
endured harassment by white residents.
Now he is headed back to Mexico in a coffin.
The 25-year-old illegal immigrant was beaten over the weekend after an
argument with a group of youths, including at least some players on the
town's beloved high school football team, police said. Despite witness
reports that the attackers yelled ethnic slurs, authorities say the
beating wasn't racially motivated.
Hate crime or not, the killing has exposed long-simmering tensions in
Shenandoah, a blue-collar town of 5,000 about 80 miles northwest of
Philadelphia that has a growing number of Hispanic residents drawn by jobs
in factories and farm fields.
An investigation continues, and no charges have yet been filed, but police
say as many as six teens were involved in the fight, which ended with
Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth. He died early Monday of
head injuries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew
up here, said Ramirez was often called derogatory names, including "dirty
Mexican," and told to return to his homeland.
"People in this town are very racist toward Hispanic people. They think
right away if you're Mexican, you're illegal, and you're no good," said
Dillman, who has two young children by Ramirez and a 3-year-old who
thought of him as her father.
On Dillman's fireplace mantel hangs a medallion of Jesus that Ramirez was
wearing the night he was beaten. Ramirez had an imprint of the medallion
on his chest, marking where an assailant stomped on him, she said.
Police Chief Matthew Nestor acknowledged there have been problems as the
community - the birthplace of big band musicians Tommy and Jimmy
Dorsey and home of Mrs. T's Pierogies - has tried to adjust to an
influx of Hispanics, who now comprise as much as 10 percent of the
population.
Teenagers have sprayed racially tinged graffiti and yelled racial slurs at
the newcomers, he said.
"Things are definitely not the way they used to be even 10 years ago.
Things have changed here radically," Nestor said. "Some people could adapt
to the changes and some just have a difficult time doing it. ... Yeah,
there is tension at times. You can't deny that."
Police are still interviewing suspects and witnesses. Preliminarily,
though, they have determined that Ramirez, who worked in a factory and
picked strawberries and cherries, got into an argument with a group of
youths that escalated into a fight in which he was badly outnumbered.
"From what we understand right now, it wasn't racially motivated," Nestor
said. "This looks like a street fight that went wrong."
Retired Philadelphia police Officer Eileen Burke, who lives on the street
where the fight occurred, told The Associated Press she heard a youth
scream at one of Ramirez's friends after the beating to tell her Mexican
friends to get out of Shenandoah, "or you're going to be laying next to
him."
Shenandoah Valley High School principal Phillip Andras said he knew little
about the alleged involvement of any football players. A call by the AP to
the athletic director was referred back to the principal.
But the players' possible involvement has added to interest in the case.
Football, along with the town's many block parties and festivals, is a
major attraction; home games typically draw thousands of fans.
Arielle Garcia and her husband, who were with Ramirez when he was beaten
late Saturday, said they had dropped their friend off at a park but
returned when he called to say he had gotten into a fight.
She saw someone kick Ramirez in the head, she said, and "that's when he
started shaking and foaming out of the mouth."
The Garcias said they heard the youths call Ramirez "stupid Mexican" and
an ethnic slur.
Burke, the former Philadelphia officer, said she saw shirtless youths
swarming around Ramirez, called 911 and went outside, when she heard a
youth yell obscenities and make the get-out-of-Shenandoah remark.
Despite the witness statements, Borough Manager Joseph Palubinsky said he
doesn't believe Ramirez's ethnicity was what prompted the fight: "I have
reason to know the kids who were involved, the families who were involved,
and I've never known them to harbor this type of feeling."
(This version CORRECTS the gender of the friend in the 14th paragraph,
beginning "Retired Philadelphia ...".)
-------------------------------------------------------
---------------
Copyright 2008 AP
FOX viewers do not believe immigration enforcement uses racial profiling of hispanics. Here is another article that challenges that belief. "Your papers please", should be America's new national motto. ------------------------------------------------------
------------------
Does crackdown cross line?
Arizona efforts stir racial profiling claims
By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
12:26 AM CDT, May 26, 2008
PHOENIX - The newest tactic in America's quickening effort to gain control of its porous southern border starts with a cracked windshield, a broken taillight or even a failure to signal a right or left turn.
That's all the probable cause sheriff's deputies here in sprawling Maricopa County say they need to pull over a vehicle they suspect might be carrying illegal immigrants.
If the driver or the passengers fail to produce a U.S. driver's license or a proper Immigration visa, if they speak only Spanish, or if they can't otherwise convince the officer they are in the country legally, they are likely to be arrested, jailed and handed off to federal Immigration authorities for deportation.
To Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, these zero-tolerance traffic sweeps, which he recently stepped up in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods across the Phoenix metropolitan area, are a successful tool to root out the undocumented workers that many conservative leaders say have overwhelmed America's fifth-most-populous city just a three-hour drive north of the Mexican border. Arpaio's deputies have arrested more than 500 illegal immigrants so far this year.
RACE IN AMERICA
"We're hitting this illegal Immigration on all aspects of it," said Arpaio, the elected Republican sheriff for the last 16 years. "We know how to determine whether these guys are illegal, the way the situation looks, how they are dressed, where they are coming from."
But to a growing chorus of Hispanic activists, civil rights leaders and Democratic politicians, Arpaio's policy represents a blatant case of racial profiling. It is an extreme example, they say, of anecdotes that have begun surfacing across the country in which local police agencies respond to the national backlash against illegal immigrants by aggressively targeting Spanish-speakers for the offense of "driving while brown."
As a result, Phoenix has surfaced as the latest fault line scarring America's long-troubled racial map.
"We're absolutely seeing a rise in racial profiling," said Cynthia Valenzuela, litigation director for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. "It's simply not legal to use a minor traffic offense as a pretext for investigating Immigration status."
Indiscriminate sweeps
Arpaio's critics allege that both U.S. citizens of Hispanic descent and Mexican visitors with valid visas have been caught up in the sheriff's sweeps and held for hours in special jails until they could prove their right to be in the country. And they say the sheriff's tactics are provoking fear throughout Phoenix's Hispanic community, as well as reluctance on the part of Spanish-speaking crime victims or witnesses to cooperate with police.
One class-action lawsuit already has been filed against the sheriff, and civil rights groups say they are collecting evidence for more.
"If you are of Mexican-American heritage, if you have brown skin, there is nothing you can do not to be stopped," said Mary Rose Wilcox, the only member of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors who has criticized Arpaio's Immigration sweeps and the only Hispanic on the board.
"Deputies are asking for birth certificates. Do you carry a birth certificate with you? Should you have to?" she added.
Arizona's Democratic governor, Janet Napolitano, pulled $1.6 million in state funding for Arpaio's office this month because she said the sheriff's actions "were causing trepidation in the Immigration community."
Last month, Phil Gordon, the Democratic mayor of Phoenix, formally asked the U.S. Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into Arpaio's tactics, which Gordon said included "discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."
"I understand these are serious allegations," Gordon wrote to Atty. Gen. Michael Mukasey. "As mayor of the city of Phoenix, I must speak out when the rights of our residents are violated and the safety of our neighborhoods threatened."
Under a new city policy, Phoenix police also question anyone they arrest about their Immigration status and refer suspected illegal immigrants to federal authorities, but Gordon has expressly prohibited such questioning during routine traffic stops.
Arpaio, who styles himself as "America's toughest sheriff" and is famous for confining criminals in tented prisons and issuing them pink underwear, scoffs at all the criticism, which he dismisses as politically inspired.
"We don't racial-profile. That's all garbage. Everything [Gordon] has said is a lie," Arpaio said during an interview last week. "The politicians fear the Hispanic vote. They want to stay right on that fence; they don't want to aggravate the Hispanic community."
read the rest of the article at:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-pro
filing_wittmay26,0,4678882.story?page=2
I want to share this article with readers because so many FOX viewers and fans believe that all hispanics are illegal immigrants and that ICE is deporting only illegal immigrants. Well, this is not true. This article is only one of several on the internet reporting U.S. born citizens of hispanic heritage are being arrested by ICE and illegally deported, REMOVED, from THEIR OWN country of origin, the United States of America. As a hispanic born and bred in the U.S. this concerns me. Who will be next? ICE appears to be using racial profiling to determine who is not a legal U.S. citizen. This type of discrimination and illegal treatment of one group of citizens brings to my mind the similar treatment of Jewish Germans in Nazi Germany.
One reader on my blog has taunted me for "cut and pasting" articles into my blog. My reason for doing this? Readers that view only FOX New Channel and other right wing media should have the opportunity to read what other unbiased journalists are reporting. Walter Cronkite once said in an interview, " journalism should tell you what you need to know, not what you want to hear". Plus, I am not a professional journalist / writer and will not pretend to be one like so many bloggers on this site. My expertise is technical. These blogs have no credibility, usually no credible sources (if any sources at all) for the information they present, and most of the time they are at best poor writers. High school term papers written with these standards would be reject by the teacher.
Having worked with some excellent reporters I don't have a lot of tolerance for "posers" and bad ones at that.
MSNBC.com
A mother seeks a son wrongly deported
Amid Tijuana's chaos, hunt under way for young, mentally disabled man
The Associated Press
updated 4:10 p.m. PT, Sun., June. 17, 2007
TIJUANA, Mexico - Clutching a photo of her son, Maria Carvajal walks Tijuana’s sweltering streets searching for the mentally disabled man she says was deported more than a month ago despite being a U.S. citizen and then disappeared in this chaotic border city.
Carvajal says she has searched hospitals, shelters and jails here looking for her 29-year-old son, Pedro Guzman of Lancaster, Calif., who was jailed for a misdemeanor trespassing violation, then sent to Mexico on May 11.
Guzman’s relatives sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department last week in federal court, claiming Guzman was a U.S. citizen and had been wrongfully deported and demanding that U.S. authorities help find him.
“I’m searching for him because he’s my son. But it should be (U.S. authorities) searching for him,” Carvajal, a 49-year-old fast-food restaurant worker from Lancaster, said Sunday in Tijuana. “They made the mistake. Not me.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed Guzman had been deported and said the agency had done so correctly. “ICE has no reason to believe that it improperly removed Pedro Guzman,” read a statement.
U.S. official: ‘We are doing things to help ... ’
Officials at the U.S. consulate in Tijuana say they have made calls to help search for Guzman and asked other consulates in Mexico if they have information.
“We are doing things to help that we are not obliged to do,” said consulate spokeswoman Lorena Blanco.
Carvajal, a brown-haired woman with glasses who carries a piece of paper bearing a photo of her son, said he called the family on May 11 to say he was deported but the phone cut off before she could find out where he was.
She said she never thought she would end up having to search Tijuana’s hospital and morgues for her son, but vowed to keep on doing it because “I have to.” She is not carrying her son’s birth certificate with her, saying her main concern is finding him.
Guzman can’t read or write and has trouble processing information. Carvajal fears he could be an easy victim for robbers.
The lawsuit says Guzman was asked about his immigration status in jail and responded that he was born in California of Mexican parents.
Sometime after that, the Sheriff’s Department identified him as a non-citizen, obtained his signature for voluntary removal from the United States and turned him over to Customs and Immigration Enforcement, a division of the Homeland Security Department, for deportation.
ACLU: Birth certificate from L.A. county
The American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, which helped file the lawsuit, says it has Guzman’s birth certificate showing he was born at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center.
It also says that Guzman had previously done jail time for drug possession, so he had a record that could have been cross-checked before a deportation decision was made.
The Sheriff’s Department has said it followed procedures correctly.
In California, Guzman’s brother, Michael Guzman, said last week that during a phone call to the family the 29-year-old said he had been deported and asked a passer-by where he was. The family could hear the person respond: “Tijuana.”
Michael Guzman said his parents were from Mexico, but seven children, including Pedro, were born in California. Pedro, who takes the surname of his father, speaks both English and Spanish.
Carvajal said she keeps seeing glimpses of people on the Tijuana streets that she thinks are her son and runs toward them. But each time she finds she is mistaken.
“I have to fight for my son,” she said.
© 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19278902/
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© 2008 MSNBC.com
