A Hypocrite Bashes Immigrants
Remember David Vitter, the Louisiana pol who cavorted with prostitutes while proclaiming his strong family values? Well, it appears the Janus-faced Senator has returned to what he does best: bashing immigrants.
Vitter just introduced a bill that would ban millions of immigrants from being counted in the census. How? By only allowing US citizens to be counted in the 2010 Census (via NY Times):
Mr. Vitter's proposal, which would generally benefit non-urban areas where Republicans tend to dominate, could also affect reapportionment within each state."If Congressional and other redistricting was done in this manner, it would mean that regions of states that had fewer immigrants, such as upstate New York, would gain, while those with many immigrants would lose," said Andrew A. Beveridge, a Queens College sociologist who analyzed the census data. "This is going to disempower immigrants massively."
As we all know, it can take years to become a US citizen. At any given time, millions of Asian Americans and Latinos are waiting to become naturalized.
So Vitter's scheme is rather simple: if immigrants aren't counted in the Census, the states where they live will suffer in two critical ways. First, they could lose representation in Congress. What's more, they'll be deprived of their fair share of federal funding -- which is based on the census.
To her credit, Louisiana's other Senator, Mary Landrieu, rejected Vitter's ploy as an unconstitutional "political stunt".
Disappointingly, Anh "Joseph" Cao, the first Vietnamese American elected to Congress, tried to have it both ways -- but not before selling out the rights of immigrants:
Princella Smith, Cao's spokeswoman, said he is "emphatically against noncitizens being used in counting population numbers.""However, as an immigrant, Congressman Cao understands that it is a priority that minorities and non-English speaking citizens participate in the census," Smith said.
Eh? Methinks Rep. Cao lacks some serious spine.
Vitter's bill is undemocratic, unconstitutional, and un-American. Please call your two Senators and tell them to reject Vitter's odious plan.
Update: Yesterday I called Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's office (225.342.0991) to ask whether he supports Sen. Vitter's plan to disempower immigrants. To date, I have received no response.
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we need immigrants to come in this country
And we have to help them to be educated and assimilated with America culture and be positive participants in our society AND NOT TREAT THEM LIKE THEY DO NOT EXIST
when they become consumers, taxpayers , and citizens we all benefit
and the primary reason is, they contribute on our social programs'' social security'' and medicare, madicaide and more
since white people (like Vitter ) give birth to 1 1/2 babies per family and life expectancy improves dramatic , we will be in economic and social imbalance . a Nation of old white crabby people.
Wonderful strategy! The government uses the census to determine which areas should get what resources to meet basic needs - like police, fire, education, and emergency care. If you don't count immigrants, then the immigrant heavy areas (cities) will get less funding - meaning that more urban schools and hospitals will crumble and they will essentially live in ghettos!!! Of course, immigrants will be typically unappreciative of these humane efforts and vote Democratic even more in future elections, but Vitters and his friends will not be deterred since they are in no way doing this for political gain.
Um, am I missing the point here? I was under the impression that the purpose of a census was to have an accurate record of how many people were in a country. Such a record is desireable for any number of reasons, quite a lot of which (such as population density and disease control) have nothing to do with politics. That's why we make filling in the census obligatory. So, since it's desireable we have such a record, shouldn't we be counting every warm body, not just the ones we politically approve of?
Obviously they only want to count who they want to count.
It's all about juggling resources/money/votes and a few scams here and there !!
The census should count everyone living here. The fact that we have millions of illegal aliens living here should be an egg on our enforcement of immigration laws in this country, but we shouldn't bail out the people who are supposed to enforce our laws by not counting the people they have not done their job of deporting.
"Vitter just introduced a bill that would ban millions of immigrants from being counted in the census. How? By only allowing US citizens to be counted in the 2010 Census (via NY Times):"
I don't know why Vitter and the other Census Paranoids don't come out and honestly say that the only Americans they want counted on the census are White Anglo Saxon Males ... because that is their bottom line
Republicans think that poor US citizens should not be counted either. In North Carolina they wanted to take away the right to vote for citizens who make less than $20,000 year in the early 90s
I have a simple rule. If you toil in the fields picking the fruits and veggies I eat, or you prepare the food I eat, or you maintain the landscaping and build the homes in the community I live, etc., you count.
After waiting for nearly a decade for immigration reform, I've reached a point where I don't care how you got here as long as you're contributing and behaving. Our government sits on its hands and has failed to fix a broken outdated immigration system, so I've redefined what it means to be American. In my new worldview, simply being lucky enough to plop out of your mama's womb on the territory of the richest nation on earth, isn't enough to make you an American. You have to earn it now, at least if you want to convince me you're truly American. You have to be a fundamentally decent, moral and hard-working person who over the long haul gives more than takes.
This means that, per my new rules, a Spanish-speaking hard-working Mexican migrant worker, documented or otherwise, is more American than many native-born English speaking Ivy League graduates and certain more American than hypocritical xenophobic nativists like David Vitter.
The US has a "rule" if you come into our country ILLEGALLY you should be deported. Too bad the US doesn't back up its own "rules".
DonQuixote- why not invite all of your ILLEGAL ALIEN friends to live with you? Then you could support them. Most American tax payers are sick of paying BILLIONS of dollars to support ILLEGAL ALIENS.
Ignorant statement nee.
Rules, shmrules,...
Rules have to be respectable to be respected. To a certain extent, they have to conform to the popular behavior, or else they aren't very good laws. The old "illegal is illegal" argument is a defective circular argument. It was illegal to aid and abet escaped slaves, it was illegal for Blacks to sit in front of the bus, it was illegal to drink alchohol during the Prohibition, it is illegal to smoke pot, it is illegal to be or pay for a prostitute, to speed, to talk on your cell while driving in CA, to underpay taxes, to take steroids in pro sports, and the list goes on.
We have a history of breaking dysfunctional, immoral, outdated rules that nobody follows anyway. It's very American to break such rules. Eventually they get reformed, which is also very American. Laws are not holy and sacred in the sense that, merely by being laws, they must be obeyed at all costs. They are created by fallible humans, and it is fallible humans who must reform them when they simply don't match reality.
So America has not figured out who-and-who should be counted for Census? Why shouldn't it be the total number of human beings in the US? It's Census, not voting. So much for the " American value of democracy". If US can't figure out who to count in a democracy, then why is it trying to establish democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan?? In Canada, every human being is counted because the essence of Census is to know the number of people in a country that are consuming the social amenities that the govt provides and to ensure adequacy and efficiency in those provisions.
Citizens should be the only people counted in the census.
Illegals are not who this bill is aimed at.......
Does that mean Green Card tax paying folks ??
If you knew how long it takes to have papers processed in the US - you would say, HURRY UP AND GET THE PAPERWORK OUT OF THE DOOR.
The idea of a census is to find out HOW MANY PEOPLE THERE ARE HERE IN THIS COUNTRY - not as the Republikans would like to have it and do a little re-districting on the way to the voting booth.
I don't suppose that these guys ever ask themselves why newly naturalized citizens overwhelmingly vote for people not associated with the Republican Party!
All the big electoral college states will benefit from counting all residents. Texas and Florida's GOP are not going to walk away from all the federal benefits associated with an accurate count of all residents in their states. Lousiana should lose one house seat as should Utah. Que pena.
For the republicans it's all about power and how to acquire it. They're not interested in what's right or wrong. While one may argue about including illegal aliens in the census, legal aliens are here with our blessing and need to be included. Any attempts to do otherwise are purely political gamesmanship and needs to be stopped and called out for what it is.
Too right.
Sen. David Vitter R-LA-Bennett R-UT have been offering an amendment to the Commerce, Justice, and Science appropriations bill that would require the U.S. Census Bureau to add questions regarding immigration & citizenship status of 20 to 30 million plus illegal immigrants and families in the 2010 decennial census. If these questions are not asked it is certain that--ALL--these illegal aliens will be counted in the census and states will lose billions of dollars in federal funds to states infamously designated as SANCTUARY STATES such as CALIFORNIA and gain Congressional seats (and electoral college votes) due to this counting of illegal aliens.DEMAND FROM YOUR SENATORS THAT SEN. VITTERS’ AMENDMENT BE INCLUDED. Only citizens and permanent residents should be counted. Just may be citizens and legal residents should--abstain--from being counted in the 2010, if the Democrats insist in illegal immigrants who broke our sovereignty laws.Vitter stated," If the current census plan goes ahead, the inclusion of non-citizens toward apportionment will artificially increase the population count in certain states, and that will likely result in the loss of congressional seats for nine other states, including Louisiana,”
If all the illegal immigrants were a little whiter the republicans would have given them citizenship.
If they all pretend they are anti Castro Cubans, then repubs will count them.
Gerrymandering the Census is the lastest lame attempt by the GOP to try to "take back America".
After McCain/Palin got a whoopin', they've decided if you can't win an election, you can rig the next one.
counting illegal immigrants as citizens is the gerrymandering.
They are not counting illegals as citizens, that is not true.
Would it trouble you to much to actually read the article? Serously, RTFA before posting.
What proof do you have that illegal immigrants would be counted?
More paranoia..
They seem to have decided not to wait that long and drum up a revol ution instead.
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