Hallelujah, Immigrant Bashing Didn't Work! Latinos To Decide Next President

As a Hispanic immigrant, who came on a boat from South America at age four, I am so thrilled that the jingoistic feeding frenzy that raged during the fall election debate has now subsided, with three of the remaining candidates supporting a path to citizenship.

Deporting 12 million people is never going to happen!

Illegal immigration is all the way down to number 7 on the list of voter concerns, according to a CNN poll, after the economy, Iraq, terrorism, health care, gas prices, and Iran.

But most importantly, Latinos - America's largest minority, with 44 million people - are the swing voters in this election, both in the primaries and in the general election. Clinton's strength among Latinos has proved to be her margin of victory in the Super Tuesday popular vote, especially as the late California vote becomes evident.

Clinton's margin of victory came from Hispanics --- seven out of ten --- and the Asian community, where she won 75% of the vote.

No candidate is going to win the Presidency without taking many --- of the heavily Hispanic -- swing states: California, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Florida.

Immigrant bashing didn't work, because of Hispanics' newly empowered political clout.

The reality is that the rantings -- talking about you, Lou Dobbs -- against undocumented immigrants was racist, and tended to make scapegoats of innocent people.

If the immigrants were blond, blue-eyed coeds from Canada, over-staying their student visas, there would have been no outrage.

It's cause the immigrants are brown and poor --- no matter what people say.

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Comments

[Clinton]

It seems to be an issue of labor organization. Outsourcing and illegal immigration might be less of a problem if there were strong international labor unions. The fact that there are people willing to risk their lives for the (to us) dubious privilege of mowing lawns or working construction for lower than the going rate is both a legal and a labor issue. Clearly the criminals who hire (exploit) these workers should be prosecuted (it would be interesting to see the political party distribution). But the workers themselves need to organize. Preferably in their home countries, free from US intervention in propping up their rulers.

[Mrrar]

...immigrants are going to decide the next election.. um.. yay? i guess? what?

[GnitenGoodLk]

My take:

In times of troubles, the vulnerable/poor/ethnics/etc are blamed. Nothing new. It's a sociological phenomenon.
http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/hendrix/2501-1.html

Bush caused this- deep global & economic troubles result in a revisit of the Alamo. Is it a working solution? Of course not. Getting rid of them won't raise wages, corporations and employers raise wages. You remove every single immigrant, they won't raise wages, they will just incite men vs women, or blue collar vs white collar, older vs younger, legal immigrant vs naturalized citizen vs native born, there's millions of divisive ways they can eliminate rising wages. Corporate welfare replaces public welfare. For every employee who earns a good wage, there is a board trustee/ share holder who is pissed off. That cuts into profits. It will always be under siege by people in power. Scapegoats serve them well. You want wage fairness, you need a united work force. That alone will raise wages and provide us with the quality of public institutions we need to have a well educated, well paid home-work force.

http://www.waycross.edu/faculty/hendrix/2501-1.html

We've already secured our Canadian border. The Mexican border: discussion is futile, it's in progress, whether it causes ruckus or not.

We can legalize these people under a specific classification, set conditions for limited access, they will be WORK visas.Having a valid address will be required. knowing they will be deported will inspire hard work and upward mobility. Creates taxpayers. Corporations don't want that, it eliminates the smoke & mirror scapegoat. When the work force is legal, union strength improves, our wages will rise. They know we can't deport them all , maybe at 1st, not permanently, even with good border control, overstayed visas are how many got here, shareholders are counting on that fear to keep them from being seen. But we can give them work Visas and get their wages reported, bank accounts, licenses. Incentives to come out of the shadows. Logic instead of scapegoating. Checkmate.

[marko77]

Illegal workers from Mexico (primarily) are being used by corporate and medium sized business to destroy fair wages for American citizens and legal immigrants. That's the bottom line.

Ceasar Chavez, who fought for the Farm Workers in the 60's in California, opposed employing illegal and legal immigrants as workers, because they enabled the agricultural business owners to pay ALL workers dirt cheap wages.

This is the issue!!! Lou Dobbs is right. All talk of "racism" is a smoke screen and hypocritical. Legal immigration will always be an essential part of America. Illegal workers will only harm everyone but the rich.

[csavage]

Do not forget-the Mexican government has stationed thousands of its soldiers on its southern borders to keep illegal immigrants from Central America out

Do not forget-our Mexican Americans who demonstrated for immigration reform took to the streets waving Mexican flags-not US flags. They have no interest in assimilating. I care for undocumented immigrants daily-and some documented ones as well. There is no interest in learning English, in fact, I've been criticized more than once for not being able to speak Spanish by these people.

Do not forget-thousands of Irish immigrants-who came here legally, BTW-faced discrimination upon arrival. Thousands of Chinese immigrants, who came here legally, BTW-faced descrimination upon arrival. Thousands of German immigrants-who came here legally, BTW-faced descrimination upon arrival. Most European Americans resent your implication that we are racist. We resent people who flaunt our laws and abuse our social services with impunity.
Oh, I live in Texas, by the way, I've already been informed by more than one undocumented immigrant that I actually live on their land and, with any luck, they'll get it back in 50 years.

[S1m0n]

The most precient comment written in the post 911 era came from a Canadian reporter on the washington beat, who wrote: "The UNited States is going through one of it's periodic bouts of insanity".

The big upsurge in xenophobia was a major constituent of this craziness, and that has been driving the immigration debate in large measure.

However, the tide's now on the ebb. The nation is ready to come down; ready to start acting rationally again. Maybe even a little embarrassed at the wreckage.

The turn toward Obama is the evidence of this. By november, the xenophobic storm will be even farther into the past, and the politics of fear and of rage--drivers of politics for the past 6 years--will be fading into memory.

High time, if you ask me.

[dtd]

"It's cause the immigrants are brown and poor --- no matter what people say." And is it because we're Black and not so poor that they us? If anything, Lou Dobbs ratings will go up among African Americans who feel that they have contributed too much to this country to now me discriminated against by Latinos who should be the last people in this country exercising such bigotry!

[plutorage]

You never hear anybody explain that natives can take immigration up to a degree, but when it gets overwhelming as it has in certain areas of the US, it is only understandable that natives will react while politicians fiddle, thereby creating a political friction.

We've all heard the recent joke "I just moved back to the States from Miami." Well, Miami was always a place of immigrants, mainly from Bahamas, Haiti and Cuba - not to mention the large Jewish population from New York. But the flight from Miami only started recently in the nineties due to the overwhelming numbers of immigrants. It was quantity, not the "brown,poor" quality that changed matters.

I lived in a community once where a relatively large number of scandinavians moved in to work at a specialized company. Because the community was very small to begin with, the number of Scandinavians was relatively large and there was friction, suspicion, resentment, etc.

Talking about "brown and poor" is easy but it is not the whole story and not the essential factor in the equation.

[darcy]

I disagree with you completely. In the first place, illegal immigrants can't vote so they had nothing to do with Clinton's success. In the second place, many, many Hispanics who entered this country LEGALLY are totally opposed to amnesty.

[dbredes]

Once again we see a sad truth at work in American politics.

It is "no mistake" that Clinton in the last debate...reinforced the image that a black man who had attended her campaign function had lost jobs because of of immigrants.

It was only Obama who refused to acknowledge the lie and speak the real truth. Don't fall into scapegoating...There were poor before the latest barrage of the "Hispanic hating slime" Lou Dobbs "spews daily" on his show surfaced. Pitting the poor against the poor is an age old trick...It's called Divide and Conquer.

Clinton won't consider driver's licenses - why - It won't play well in the general election...For her...it's important to win..not stand for principle.

And the saddest part of all..Hispanics are ready to trade the "glad handing" of the Clintons over the substantive principled positions of Obama...

Another group votes against their own best interest - Thank you MSM - this is one you're winning.

[Overd0g]

I didn't hear anyone bashing immigrants. Illegal aliens maybe, but not immigrants.

[politicalscientist]

People should remember that Hillary Clinton is hated by the Right (often labelled as "divisive") because she has been engaged over time in trying to equalize options for people over time, starting with children through her work with the Children's Defense Fund and continuing with her support for Latinos through opposition to Proposition 187 in California, an anti-Latino ballot measure promoted by the Republicans. Because of her efforts, many poor children have health care through S-CHIP. Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, and Ron Dellums, current liberal mayor of Oakland and former Congressman from California, as well as other leaders of disadvantaged groups have endorsed her candidacy. It seems to me that Hillary should be given credit for having the most desirable friends and the Right enemies.

If Obama had a record like Clinton's, the Right would have found a way to label him as divisive, too. However, since he has had such a short public career compared to Clinton's, there is not much to examine, so, the Right has not yet done so. With his star rising, just watch what the Right will do with his record!

[Clinton]

This post is just so much sloganeering. Should have spray painted it on a freeway underpass. It is a fact that many of the illegals and their Hispanic supporters are ardent nationalists (even racists) who support a reconquista (reconquest) of the southwest US. Their poormouthing is a tactic.
There is no real intent to ever assimilate. It's just a scam, and many people are too intimidated to call 'La Raza' on it.

[FogBelter]

"The reality is that the rantings -- talking about you, Lou Dobbs -- against undocumented immigrants was racist, and tended to make scapegoats of innocent people."

Um, Mr Fleetwood, we have a little something in the United States called Laws. It's the reason you get a ticket if you are caught running a Red Light in your car ... or why you might go to prison if you murder your neighbor ... or why you can't walk into someone's house and take their TV if it appeals to you.

Illegal Immigrants are criminals. They aren't innocent. They are breaking US Law ...

And as I recall ... the biggest fight Cesar Chavez had in his struggle for the rights of Farm Workers was to prevent the Farms from hiring illegal workers ahead of the legal Migrant Farm Workers his movement represented. Unless you are saying Cesar Chavez was racist against Hispanics, I would have to believe there are legitimate arguments against illegal immigration that are accepted by Hispanics as well.

So if your issue with Lou Dobbs is that he is pointing out that US Immigration Law is being broken to the detriment of the American People, including Hispanics ... that's your problem, not his.

[NABNYC]

I disagree. Whoever is president, the proposal to have a mass pardon of 12-20 million people who have come into this country illegally, and to give them all citizenship rights like they won some drawing at the fair, is going to be met by tremendous opposition after the election is over.

The whole idea is sponsored by corporate America. The same people who ship our jobs to China also want to essentially "privatize" all issues of immigration to the U.S.

The corporations will decide how many people come in. They already have a visa system in place which allows them to bring in hundreds of thousands of tech workers, engineers, doctors, every year, and pay them a fraction of what an American would earn. This is not a good thing.

Next up for the visa scam: CPAs, lawyers, and teachers.

Working people are being crushed by the unrestricted immigration into this country. A recession is coming. It's going to get worse.

It would be so nice to see a group effort dedicated to only one question: what is in the best interest of the American citizens. Period. That is the only issue that should be decided in the immigration debate.

Anyone who wants to represent the people of Mexico should go down to Mexico and run for office. Or become an organizer. But to say that all of Mexico's problems can be solved by that country sending all their men and their young people to the U.S. to work is absurd. It's bad for the U.S., which essentially is just creating lots of little Tijuanas all over the country. When you import poverty, you eat up the money available for social resources for the rest of us.

Who profits? The corporations. Who loses? All the rest of us.

[flatus]

"Clinton's margin of victory came from Hispanics --- seven out of ten ---....."

Yes, and 80% of black voters voted for Obama.

Birds of a feather......

[flatus]

"If the immigrants were blond, blue-eyed coeds from Canada, over staying their student visas, there would have been no outrage."

Well, of course not. Since they can speak English without accent and are largely Northern European, they would become invisible!

"Illegal immigration is all the way down to number 7 on the list of voter concerns,..."

Sheesh. Look at the concerns 1-6. Just as rape would come after murder on a concerns list, rape would still be an important concern.

[ResidentChimp]

I guess crime does pay. Politicians can pander to the 30 million illegals in our country while ignoring those who came here legally.

[1will]

"If immigrants were blonde haired blue eyed coeds from Canada overstaying their student visas there would be no outrage."
That's true. If they were however 12-20 million of them moving here permanently and illegaly there would be a problem. If 12-20 million blonde haired blue eyed illegal aliens with little or no education moved here illegaly there would also be a problem. If those blue eyed blonde haired coeds decided they weren't interested in assimilating or learning the language there would also be a problem.
The difference would be we would be able to call it what it is, a border security and illegal immigration problem instead of crying racism.
For some reason I never see those championing the cause of Mexican illegal aliens calling for unrestricted immigration of Africans or Asians. Racism?

[desmirl]

The Illegal Immigrant problem has ALWAYS BEEN A REPUBLICAN PROBLEM because the people responsible for the problem are the people who HIRE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS and who have always been given a pass by pro-business Republicans. Now, there are neither the resources nor the personnel to find and deport the illegal immigrants, and the Republicants are trying to play the "Not my Problemo" game. Oh, my....

[dragn1]

Yep all whites that are concerned with 12-20 million invaders and the resulting minimum 80 million family members brought in are all racists. It has nothing to do with the billions it will cost or the wages it will depress or the fact that the Mexican nationals have shown a desire for non-assimilation. Nope the white people who oppose it are all evil.

[clr2]

"Immigrant bashing"? There has never been "immigrant bashing". The talk has been about ILLEGAL ALIENS. Why do you lump them together? ILLEGAL ALIENS should be deported, those who hire ILLEGALS should be heavily fined, and we should return to the original intent of the 14th amendment and do away with anchor babies. We spend BILLIONS on ILLEGALS who don't belong here - we should be using that money on our own poor. All ILLEGAL ALIENS need to go back to their own countries and fix what is wrong there and sponge off those governments.

[jvarga]

We're never going to catch every person who speeds, therefor lets stop trying and just let everyone drive as fast as they want, damn the consequences.

Anyone who disagrees with me is a racist.

That's pretty sweet logic.

[eddiestardust]

You are so right.

Another thing that we can use to hit Republicans over the head with a figuritive
baseball bat.

When has a poor person ever hurt you?

I guess their answer is when you are a

REPUBLICAN?