One in Ten Latinos Asked for Papers for LWL: Living While Latino

The current climate of undeterred public immigrant-bashing along with an immigration policy of "attrition through enforcement" has cultivated unfettered hatred and bigotry against an entire ethnic population. A recent survey by the Pew Hispanic Center shows its toll: half of all Latinos, immigrant and non-immigrant, say that their situation in this country is deteriorating and is worse now than it was a year ago.

One in seven Latinos are reporting ethnic discrimination in finding or keeping a job and 10% said the same thing about housing. But the most stunning finding is that nearly one-in-ten Hispanic adults--native-born US citizens and immigrants alike--report that, in the past year, the police or other authorities have stopped them and asked them about their immigration status. One in ten Latinos were stopped and asked for "papers." What can that statistic represent other than a gross abuse of power by federal and local authorities?

Vicious public denunciations of undocumented, brown-skinned immigrants -- once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists -- are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, media pundits, and politicians and are surely fueling the problems that Latinos are facing. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as 'invaders,' 'criminal aliens,' and 'cockroaches.' In Virginia, a Prince William County and ardently anti-immigrant community task force appointee has suggested spending tax dollars to look into whether "illegal aliens have a preferred breeding season." He has also referred to undocumented immigrants as "scourge that's plaguing neighborhoods" and an "invasion of this country."

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has been tracking anti-immigrant rhetoric and activities for several years and has noted a marked upswing in violence against Latinos coinciding with the national debate over immigration policy. Approximately 300 anti-immigrant groups have formed in the last three years, and just this past April, neo-Nazis commemorated Hitler's birthday by holding an anti-immigrant rally on the U.S. national mall. According to annual hate crimes statistics published by the FBI, anti-Latino hate crimes rose by almost 35% between 2003 and 2006. Of the 1,305 victims of hate crimes motivated by ethnicity or national origin reported to the FBI in 2006, 62.8% were targeted because of anti-Latino bias.

Living in fear of deportation and discrimination and worrying about your livelihood and safety is no way to live and it's certainly not how Americans expect to live. In fact, it's the sort of life that our forefathers sought to protect us from. Debate, discussion, and disagreement around the pressing immigration issue are natural, legitimate, and necessary. Hate, fear and vitriol rhetoric are not.

Comments

[EstCst70]

Stats from ppic.org show over 10yrs 500,000 illegals entered annually (19% of our population growth) and 77% reside in the homes of legal relatives. 90% of illegals are of latin decent -65% are from Mexico. That's a lot of illegals coming over our southern border and latin citizens who WILLINGLY BREAK THE LAWS of our nation.

Getting pulled over while going to the grocery store is one thing, but I think it responsible for the sake of our nation for increased security checks at borders with the highest problems.

I feel for our latin citizens and the backlash they may suffer, but am dismayed by so many that don't seem to blame and even aid illegals - showing no regard for the laws of our nation nor the good people who struggle through the proper immigration process every day.

It's not a race issue - that's diversion, an attempt at intimindation through misapplied political correctness. It's a right versus wrong issue. Cross the border illegally - wrong. Identity theft - wrong. Lying on a job application - wrong. Not paying taxes - wrong. Beneifting from services for our citizens - wrong. Hiring illegals - wrong. Conducting business with illegals - wrong. Harboring illegals - wrong.

Our laws are in place for this purpose - to define right from wrong for the sake of the greater good of our citizens. This problem is going to cost our citizens one way or another, we need to stick by our laws instead of

[IBMMuseum]

For those that say it is nothing more than a minor inconvenance, my family's 2nd Border Patrol stop was because we exited an interstate to find a bathroom for my 8-year old daughter, and agents thought that merited being checked out. It was lucky she didn't crap her pants for the length we were detained. Keep in mind that we complied with *all* of the agent's requests (even though he never identified himself), and the delay was mostly because he was unfamiliar with our immigration documents

Those that go on that it is because there is so many illegal immigrants in the United States, so the agents need to make more vehicle stops, is against my 4th Amendment rights of unreasonable search and seizure, detaining me beyond a reasonable amount of time...

Others say "if you are doing nothing wrong" or "just state that you are a U.S. citizen", I respond that in all of the three stops the agents were aware of that status, but still detained us, a U.S. citizen and legal permanent residents, further for questioning...

Defend your rights against suspicionless stops and checkpoints now, before it becomes too late...

[IBMMuseum]

Rather than get off track, I will respond to the title of the article about 1 in 10 Latinos reporting being stopped for papers in the last year. The author is absolutely correct in that it can't be explained by anything other than an abuse of powers by the authorities. I fully believe we are headed down a track of becoming a Police State, where "papers" will have to be presented on demand.

As a spouse of a Hispanic legal immigrant, I, a Caucasian U.S, citizen that has served 22 in the military, have been stopped THREE TIMES in the last year by Border Patrol agents in vehicles to question me about my immigration status. Our first stop was inconsistant to not even check my wife and stepchildren´s immigration documents. The second time the agent did not identify himself or his agency, and detained us for a full half hour because he and his partner were unfamiliar with the visa documents we presented. On the last stop, with me alone, the agents told me my vehicle matched the decription of someone smuggling illegal immigrants - and then detained me (the agent knew I was a U.S. citizen; I was on my way to my military duty) for another 20 minutes for questioning.

[Mares]

One should also wonder who exactly is the money source paying the Pew Hispanic center to conduct and promote this propaganda... perhaps the same corporate interests that seek to exploit illegal immigrants so as to displace citizen workers and drag down wages (increasing corporate profits)???
Given that we are facing the threat of a bailout to Wall St. which will further collapse our economy, leading to massive poverty and homelessness in the US, we can not afford to act on foolish and misguided notions. Our economy will not survive without American citizens being able to work and support themselves. We have tent cities rising up across the US, American citizens and their children pushed into homelessness, so corporate elites could outsource jobs and import foreign workers for what jobs haven't been outsourced.

If you support this same status quo, you are supporting rationales for maintaining fascistic and corrupt foreign governments and slavery. You do not lift the lot of the poor in other countries by justifying the same crushing poverty be imposed on American citizens.. all that is achieved by those ends is the further subjugation and oppression of the poor in other countries. Also, that pain trickles up, and none of you will be immune to it.

[Mares]

It has avoided enacting the reforms it promised to make when it co-wrote NAFTA, because it's been able to avoid having to do so as the Bush administration and the democrats in congress have embraced the idea of not enforcing our immigration laws, our laws protecing American citizen workers, and wage protections. Not very progressive stances to take.. one wonders why so called "progressives" side with the the same US Chamber of Commerce and Business Roundtable, that are the enemies of minimum wage, wage and workplace and environmental protections??? If those same Mexican citizens stayed in Mexico, and emulated the actions of working poor Americans of the previous century, protesting for higher wages and increased opportunities, the Mexican government would be forced to provide them.

One in ten isn't very many. Other polls tell us that an illegal alien is four times more likely to get a job in the US, than an American citizen (again, they do come in black, brown and white) . It's also been proven that claims of "jobs Americans won't do" and "worker shortages" favorited by the corporate elite, the Bush administration and democrats in congress, are LIES. It's also been proven that illegal immigrants DO displace Americans in the workplace, and drag down wages. Please go to http://borjas.typepad.com and read the studies linked in the right hand column. Dr. George Borjas, a world respected economist at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

[MdeG]

This unfortunately sounds about right to me. In way too many places, it's become more and more acceptable to raise the chorus of "They're all illegal" (not true) and to use it as a basis for suspicion, abuse, reporting to authorities. At least in my town, the climate is really loathesome. People call the cops, ICE, code, about the most normal activities. I know one guy whose neighbors call the fire department every time he barbecues. Another lady who can't have a friend park in her driveway without the cops being notified of a "loud party" in progress. (They usually send my next-door neighbor, a policeman who is married to someone from the same country; he walks in, sees 2 people chatting, says "OK, where's the party this time?") The bigots are working the system for all its worth. This discredits the town authorities, who then are assumed to be just persecuting when they say things like "Really, you can't barbecue on your porch, it's dangerous." Not only are people harassed and inconvenienced, but real safety messages get drowned out in the ruckus. People stay indoors, so the streets are abandoned and less safe. People are scared to report crimes. It's not good, for any of us.

[Mares]

So, MdeG you have no problem ignoring the realities of millions of poor American citizens being displaced. Tell me, do you believe that it's acceptable to suppress wages and discriminate against American citizens in the workplace?

Perhaps your concept of "diversity" embraces the third world mindset that believes the wealthiest have the right to impose a caste system?

[Mares]

Sorry, but this is more of the same attempt to distract us from the valid issue at hand. Illegal immigration is seriously harming American citizen workers, who happen to be black and brown as well as white. One should also ask what "papers" in particular these "Latinos" (There is no such thing as a Latino, Latin America has a population of majority Hispanic ancestry, some of Portuguese ancestry and very few of indigenous ancestry. Latino is a catch all devised to distract from the Spanish legacy of genocide against the indigenous, rape and pillage, as well as it's history of creating the trans-Atlantic slave trade) claim to be asking for?

Are they referring to the Mexican consular card? Amazing thing about that is that even the Mexican government doesn't accept the consular card as legitimate identification, yet they demand we do. Or is it a reference to forged & stolen documents, or is this another reference to amnesty (green cards)??? The majority of illegal immigrants in our country are overwhelmingly Hispanic, and the vast majority of those are from Mexico, the 14th wealthiest country in the world. Mexico has a large and thriving middle class, many billionaires and millionaires (a tax base), and no national debt.