With anti-immigrant sentiment raging through the country these days and anger reaching the boiling point because of the possibility of a Muslim community center being built near Ground Zero in New York’s downtown Manhattan, a Muslim group called “My Faith My Voice” has launched an online video to fight back against “the rising tide of fear-mongering.”

By the Staff of New York Immigration Attorneys
The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
http://www.4immigration.com/

We positively adore this Immigration Hall of Shame list offered by Amy Novack, the Executive Director of Immigrant’s List (IL), a bipartisan political action committee dedicated to fair and meaningful immigration reform, in The Huffington Post:

1 – Former State Assemblywoman Sharron Angle (R-NV)

Former State Assemblywoman and current Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle has been criticized for her extremist views, including her views on immigration. The Minutemen-endorsed candidate has advocated the use of a voter-id program to “safeguard the election process” and opposed a scholarship program because it gave tuition money to legal residents who were not citizens.

2 – Former Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO)

Former Rep. Tancredo is perhaps the founder of the anti-reform world and one of its most vociferious spokespeople for years now. Tancredo is also a leading voice of the nativist view that all immigrants must be culturally assimilated.

3 – Former Rep. JD Hayworth (R-AZ)

Former Ariz. Rep. and senate candidate Hayworth has always had a stern anti-reform reputation, going back to his effort to kill the Kennedy-McCain reform package in 2006. But Hayworth also has offered an odd approach to fixing the immigration system: banning legal immigration from Mexico.

4 – Governor Jan Brewer (R-AZ)

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is responsible for a law that is nothing short of a state takeover of a federal power. While debate over SB 1070 could have been a catalyst for a much-needed national conversation about immigration reform, Brewer used the bill to inspire fear.

5 – Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA)

Senator Grassley has been at the forefront of the paranoia campaign against immigration reform for years. Most recently, and what puts him at the top of the list is his spreading the notion of an Obama back-door amnesty plan.

6 – Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX)

In 1995, Rep. Smith penned an op-ed calling for amending the 14th Amendment to address birthright citizenship. For the entirety of his career, he has used the immigration issue as a scare tactic for political gain. This year, Smith used an anti-immigration message to undercut support for President Obama’s healthcare reform plan.

7 – Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA)

Rep. Bilbray of California is one of the leading obstructionists of immigration reform. Besides heading the House of Representative’s leading anti-reform caucus, Bilbray was a key advocate of SB 1070. Recently, Bilbray has been rumor-mongering that President Obama plans to grant amnesty to undocumented residents by presidential order–which the Department of Homeland Security dismissed.

8 – Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS)

Rep. Taylor’s roots with the anti-reform movement run very deep. He has endorsed legislation to address birthright citizenship, has been endorsed by a leading anti-reform group Americans for Legal Immigration and has the highest score of any Democrat by the anti-reform group NumbersUSA.

9 – Rep. Steve King (R-IA)

Rep. King of Iowa has always erected obstacles in the path of fixing our immigration system. King called the 2007 Kennedy-Kyl reform effort a “hand grenade” and a “sham.” Most recently, he was an avid supporter of SB 1070, and cited The Bible in arguing that God was against immigration reform.

10 – Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)

Rep. Foxx of North Carolina has consistently engaged in the type of fear and misinformation campaign that undermines public support for immigration reform. Foxx has likened legal immigration to an “invasion,” and supports the use of dragnets to round up undocumented residents.

We at Spar & Bernstein would like to make these additions to the list:

1. Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) – for flip-flopping his way from a politician with a conscience, who once fought side by side with Teddy Kennedy for a pathway to legal citizenship, to an immigration hardliner – all in the name of garnering votes and winning back his Senate seat.

2. Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Maricopa County, Arizona) – We don’t know a more repugnant character in the immigration debate than Sheriff Joe. Like someone straight out of of Cool Hand Luke, this smug, self-proclaimed America’s Toughest Sheriff is singlehandedly responsible for bringing back chain gangs, forcing prisoners wear pink underwear, and expanding his jail system with tent cities. His apparent goal in life: making life miserable, if not a living hell, for anyone brown-skinned.

3. Lou Dobbs (loudmouth radio broadcaster) –The guy resurrected his moribund career on the backs of undocumented immigrants, demonizing them virtually every night on CNN as if illegal immigration were the cause of all that’s wrong in America. While an avuncular looking sort – which is a nice disguise- Loud Dobbs has an amazing knack for spewing hate with a smile on his face, then denying up and down with that same supercilious smile that it’s hate he’s spewing.

4. Bill O’Reilly (Fox News blowhard) – Is there anyone who screams louder, rants more about illegal immigration and knows less about the subject? We report, you decide.

5. State Attorney Generals Ken Cuccinelli (Va.) and Bill McCollum (Fla.) – for trying to rise from the ashes of an eviscerated SB 1070 immigration policies even more Draconian than bad-ass Arizona.

By Mariana Vázquez-García
Managing Attorney/New York Immigration Attorney
The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
http://www.4immigration.com/

Attacks against immigrants seem to be making the rounds these days, with states seemingly eager to legislate racial profiling of anyone born South of the Border, Asian or Arab-looking.

But the fact is, anti-immigrant sentiment has been around for centuries. It is the very reason immigration laws were created in the first place: not to assist immigrants in the country, but, quite the opposite, to prevent them from being here in the first place. Do not forget that the first laws were created by people who could easily trace their roots to another country.

But I digress.

Attacks against immigrants always seem to bubble to the surface when the country goes through the type of tough economic times we are experiencing today – and with opportunistic, up-for-election politicians all too ready to heap all the blame on the most convenient target.

Calculating politicians tell their worrying constituency that job losses, crime, problems with too much government spending, and lack of security are in big part due to immigrants who come to the U.S. illegally to take jobs from US citizens or get hand-outs from the government. It is such an easy thing to do, and it is clearly a bullying tactic, picking on the weakest among us, people who cannot fight back with political clout.

Such sentiments and tactics, of course, will not end in this country any more than racism has.

It can be somewhat ameliorated by comprehensive immigration law reform. Perspectives can be altered through time, better education, and showing time and again the need for immigrants here and how immigrants and their descendants have helped build this country.

But end? I don’t think so.

Just like I don’t believe that illegal immigration to this country will end, regardless of the laws passed and regardless of the tactics used.

This country is the country built by immigrants and their descendants because it is so attractive to the rest of the world. It is the beautiful land of opportunity. It is the land built for you and for me. I believe that.

We @ The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein have been making this plea to Michael Moore for nearly a year now, first daily, then weekly – on Twitter, in emails, on Facebook.

It’s what we feel we must do, despite the fact that Moore has yet to repond to us on any level.

No problem.

We will continue, undeterred.

The fact is, the immigration debate desperately needs someone like Moore these days, now more than ever, with SB 1070 sprouting kindred – and equally unseemly – immigration law proposals in places like Virginia and Florida and God knows where next.

Moore’s filmmaking talents, as well as his incredibly provocative voice, will undoubtably bring this issue smack in the center of the American discussion – and have it stay there.

And that’s what has to happen if we can ever hope for any kind of real change.

We know, of course, that many will loathe Moore’s documentary to no end, as many will love it, but we also know that, based on his track record with major issues such as health care and gun control and Bush politics, no one, absolutely no one, will be able to ignore it.

That’s what immigration needs.

To be impossible to ignore.

To be talked about and talked about and talked about to death.

The kind of talk that gets people really thinking, that opens up people’s eyes to the reality, that gets people to move in a significant way.

So, please, if you agree with this, if you too would love have Moore’s next flick to take on the battle for comprehensive immigration reform as much as we do, pass this message on.

Shout it out whenever and wherever you can.

Tweet it like crazy.

Post it on your Facebook status.

Write blogs about it.

Contact Moore on Twitter, Facebook, or through any of the information on this page.

Just do it!

By Brad Bernstein
President, The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
http://www.4immigration.com/

Right, reason, and a smart, Constitutionally-minded judge saved us from the national disgrace of SB 1070, knocked all the teeth out of a law that threatened to not only sanction the unseemliness of racial profiling, but turn Arizona into a paranoid “Where’s your papers?” police state.

But what happened in Arizona is only a single piece, albeit clearly the most talked about, in an alarmingly growing pattern of anti-immigrant sentiment out there right now.

Indeed, there are immigrants being “outed” on angry lists in Utah. There are right-wingers demanding a repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment as well as an instant end to birthright citizenship. There’s both Virginia’s and Florida’s attorney generals trying to pick up where SB 1070 left off, proposing even more Draconian measures – God help us! – than Arizona. And Tea Party groups, this Sunday, are planning to stage a large rally near the Mexican border, no doubt prepared to shake their fists and scream the most insipid things about illegal immigration, like Sen. Pierce’s twisted Pete Seeger rendering of “This land is my land, this land is your land – No, it’s not!”

Yes, loathing immigrants seems to be all the rave these days – they are Public Enemy No. 1, the scapegoat of the moment, a convenient target for all the jobless, under-employed Americans to vent their rage.

This is nothing new, of course. It’s just history repeating itself.

Aside the fact that a xenophobic bigotry toward immigrants has, on some level, existed in this country for over a hundred years, we have always, in every decade throughout our history, found a comfortable place to plant our hate.

In the 1940’s, it was Hitler and the Nazis; in the McCarthyisim 50’s, it was the dreaded Commies; in the 60’s, it was the Black Panthers fighting for equality and Civil Rights; in the 70’s, it was the Iranians and Ayatollah Khomeini, or the Japanese beating us on all technological fronts; in the 80’s, it was the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union; and in recent years, it’s been Al Qaeda and Bin Laden and the Axis of Evil.

Now, in a time where money and jobs are scarce, it’s those damn immigrants illegally crossing the border stealing who are everything from us, causing all our pain, the reason for all our ills.

What balderdash.

But it’s obviously human nature to need an enemy, part of our odd psychologoical makeup.

So, tag, the immigrants are it right now.

It’s a great way to avoid personal responsibility, to keep the solutions for our problems one step removed.

It won’t be until we stop all this nonsense that we’ll begin to heal as a nation, grow as a people, aspire to something higher – seeing immigrants not as a rampant problem, but a welcome solution.

That time must come.

A History of Xenophobia in America

Source: Tom Head, About.com Guide

Poet Emma Lazarus wrote a poem titled “The New Colossus” in 1883 to help raise funds for the Statue of Liberty, which was completed three years later. The poem, often cited as representative of the U.S. approach to immigration, reads in part:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free …”

But bigotry against even European-American immigrants was rife at the time Lazarus wrote the poem, and immigration quotas based on racial hierarchies formally passed in 1924 and would remain in effect until 1965. Her poem represented an unrealized ideal–and, sadly, still does.

American Indians
When European nations began to colonize the Americas, they ran into a problem: The Americas were already populated. They dealt with this problem by enslaving and ultimately eliminating most of the indigenous population–reducing it by approximately 95%–and deporting the survivors to undeveloped ghettoes that the government unironically referred to as “reservations.”

These harsh policies could not have been justified if American Indians were treated like human beings. Colonists wrote that American Indians had no religions and no governments, that they practiced savage and sometimes physically impossible acts–that they, in short, acceptable victims of genocide. In the United States, this legacy of violent conquest remains largely ignored.

African Americans
Before 1965, the United States’ few non-white immigrants often had to overcome considerable hurdles to settle here. But until 1808 (legally) and for years thereafter (illegally), the United States forcibly recruited African-American immigrants–in chains–to serve as unpaid laborers.

You’d think that a country that had put so much brutal effort into bringing immigrants here would at least welcome them when they’d arrived, but the popular view of Africans was that they were violent, amoral savages who could be made useful only if forced to conform to Christian and European traditions. Post-slavery African immigrants have been subjected to many of the same prejudices, and face many of the same stereotypes that existed two centuries ago.

English and Scottish Americans
Surely Anglos and Scots have never been subject to xenophobia? After all, the United States was originally an Anglo-American institution, wasn’t it?

Well, yes and no. In the years leading up to the American Revolution, Britain began to be perceived as a villainous empire–and first-generation English immigrants were often viewed with hostility or suspicion. Anti-English sentiment was a significant factor in John Adams’ defeat in the 1800 presidential election against the anti-English, pro-French candidate Thomas Jefferson. U.S. opposition to England and Scotland continued up to and including the American Civil War; it was only with the two world wars of the twentieth century that Anglo-U.S. relations finally warmed up.

Chinese Americans
Chinese-American workers began to arrive in large numbers in the late 1840s, and helped build many of the railroads that would form the backbone of the emerging U.S. economy. But by 1880 there were some 110,000 Chinese Americans in the country, and some white Americans didn’t like the growing ethnic diversity.

Congress responded with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which stated that Chinese immigration “endangers the good order of certain localities” and would no longer be tolerated. Other responses ranged from bizarre local laws (such as California’s tax on the hiring of Chinese-American laborers) to outright violence (such as Oregon’s Chinese Massacre of 1887, in which 31 Chinese Americans were murdered by an angry white mob).

German Americans
German Americans make up the largest identified ethnic group in the United States today, but have historically been subjected to xenophobia as well–primarily during the two World Wars, as Germany and the United States were enemies in both.

During World War I, some states went so far as to make it illegal to speak German–a law that was actually enforced on a widespread basis in Montana, and that had a chilling effect on first-generation German-American immigrants living elsewhere.

This anti-German sentiment bubbled up again during World War II, when some 11,000 German Americans were detained indefinitely by executive order without trials or normal due process protections.

Indian Americans
Thousands of Indian Americans had become citizens when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923), holding that Indians are not white and therefore may not become U.S. citizens by immigration. Thind, an officer for U.S. Army during World War I, initially had his citizenship revoked but was able to quietly immigrate later. Other Indian Americans were not so lucky, and lost both their citizenship and their land.

Italian Americans
In October 1890, New Orleans police chief David Hennessy lay dying from bullet wounds he received on his way home from work. Locals blamed Itslian-American immigrants, arguing that the “mafia” was responsible for the murder. Police duly arrested 19 immigrants, but had no real evidence against them; charges were dropped against ten of them, and the other nine were acquitted in March of 1891. The day after the acquittal, 11 of the accused were attacked by a white mob and murdered in the streets. Mafia stereotypes affect Italian Americans to this day.

Italy’s status as an enemy in World War II was also problematic–leading to arrests, internments, and travel restrictions leveled against thousands of law-abiding Italian Americans.

Japanese Americans
No community was more significantly affected by the World War II “enemy alien” detentions than Japanese Americans. An estimated 110,000 were detained in internment camps during the war, detentions that the U.S. Supreme Court dubiously upheld in Hirabayashi v. United States (1943) and Korematsu v. United States (1944).

Prior to World War II, Japanese-American immigration was most common in Hawaii and California. In California, in particular, some whites resented the presence of Japanese-American farmers and other landowners–leading to the passage of the California Alien Land Law of 1913, which prohibited Japanese Americans from owning land.

A humanitarian group is fighting a different kind of immigration battle on Arizona’s border with Mexico.

Source: Immigration Policy Center

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is enshrined in U.S. history as the cornerstone of American civil rights, ensuring due process and equal protection under the law to all persons.

Equally important is the Fourteenth Amendment’s affirmation that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction are, in fact, U.S. citizens – regardless their parents’ citizenship.

Over the years, however, several bills have been introduced that would deny U.S. citizenship to children whose parents are in the U.S. illegally or on temporary visas. As restrictionist groups and legislators continue in their attempts to restrict or repeal birthright citizenship in State Houses
and the U.S. Congress, it’s important to remember that ending birthright citizenship would be unconstitutional, impractical, expensive, complicated and would not stop illegal immigration.

The American Immigration Council’s Immigration Policy Center (IPC) has developed a range of resources which present a strong case for maintaining and celebrating our tradition of birthright citizenship – a tradition which is intimately tied to our heritage of civil rights.

Source: TheDreamIsComing.com

Washington, D.C. Today, July 20th, over 20 undocumented immigrant youth from all over the country are risking arrest and deportation as they stage sit-ins at various congressional offices in Washington D.C. in order to urge congressional leadership to take action and pass the DREAM Act, a narrowly-tailored, bipartisan bill which would grant immigrant youth a path to citizenship. According to recent surveys by First Focus, 70% of the American public supports the DREAM Act.

They are holding sit-ins in the offices of the following elected officials: Senator Menendez, Senate majority leader Reid, Senator Feinstein, Senator McCain, and Senator Schumer.

Erika Andiola of Arizona states, “My parents sacrificed everything for me so I could pursue the American Dream. To deny my dreams is to deny the dreams of my parents. I’m doing this for them.” Andiola is a graduate of Arizona State University and holds a bachelor of arts in psychology.

After two months of coast-to-coast actions, including dozens of sit-ins, civil disobedience actions, and protracted hunger strikes by both undocumented youth and community members, they have decided to bring the cause of their lives to Washington D.C. The immigrant youth participating in today’s action hail from Illinois, Virginia, New York, California, Arizona, Kansas, Missouri, and Michigan.

Rosario Lopez of North Carolina states, “We have nothing to fear anymore except inaction. Our spirits grow stronger every day.” Lopez is a graduate of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, holds a bachelor of science in biology, and aspires to pursuing a PhD. In June, she participated in a 13-day hunger strike in front of Senator Hagan’s office.

Jose Torres of Texas states, “The DREAM Act is the critical first increment in a longer process of immigration reform. We’re here to fight for our dreams and the dreams of our communities.” Torres is a graduate of the University of Texas. He holds a bachelor of arts in business administration and aspires to attend law school.

At least 65,000 undocumented immigrant youth graduate from high schools every year, and many of them struggle to attend institutes of higher education and the military. The DREAM Act will grant youth who traveled to the United States before the age of 16 a path to citizenship contingent on continuous presence in the country, good behavior, and the attainment of at least a two-year university degree or a two-year commitment to the armed forces.

Guest Blog
By Deborah de Santos

According to DHS/ICE, immigration detention is not punishment.

I agree – it is worse than punishment.

Prison sentences are punishment. They have a stated beginning and end. Facilities for incarcerated criminals are regulated by law regarding minimum standards of care and housing. Immigrants have none of those rights or safe guards in detention. They can and are held indefinitely. The conditions under which they are held would be illegal if applied to criminals. For some, the conditions they endure are illegal if done to a dog.

My friend was detained by ICE almost two years ago. While trying to help him I have witnessed conditions that I did not think existed in this country. You’ve probably read the stories of a woman chained down to give birth and men dying in agony while begging for medical help. If New England is any indication, these are not isolated incidents – they are standard for ICE detention.

Seeing my detained friend looking like a skeleton with skin despite eating all he was fed was my first shock. I remedied that through weekly payments to his prison account. The monthly expense of keeping him fed and able to reach me by phone quickly exceeded my mortgage payment. Comparing notes with other detainee’s families I learned they were all struggling with those same costs.

I have personally witnessed a detainee whose jaw had been severely broken under a guard’s boot – years later it was still left un-repaired. There are many such stories: an immigrant denied dialysis and insulin till he landed in the ICU, cancer patients in need of medication sent to “the hole” (isolation), reports of abuse resulting in retaliation rather than investigation. One detainee wrote me: “I can assure you that even the Communist Secret Police didn’t torture me in such a manner that I am currently experiencing in the land of the free!”

The detention units themselves exceed common restrictions applied to hardened criminals. Immigrants are locked in crowded cells, some unable to use a bathroom unless allowed, kept in prison uniforms, given limited visitation, prevented from accessing lawyers or obtaining necessary documents needed to defend themselves, denied books and religious material and kept from accessing facilities available to incarcerated criminals in the same prison.

DHS/ICE claims detention is not punishment.

I would like to know what their definition of punishment is.

Deborah de Santos is a human rights and immigration activist living in Northern New Hampshire. Check out her website @ www.OBFThePeople.org

Source: The Associated Press

PHOENIX – Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has signed a bill targeting a school district’s ethnic studies program, hours after a report by United Nations human rights experts condemned the measure.

State schools chief Tom Horne, who has pushed the bill for years, said he believes the Tucson school district’s Mexican-American studies program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by white people.

Public schools should not be encouraging students to resent a particular race, he said.

“It’s just like the old South, and it’s long past time that we prohibited it,” Horne said.

United Nations Questions Arizona Immigration Law

In the five months we at The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein have been doing this blog, while we put everything we have into everything we post, we’re especially proud of these. If you haven’t read all of them yet, we urge you to do so. Please. We guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Enjoy!

Spar & Bernstein’s 20-Point Plan to Fix Broken Immigration System: Our Changes to the Law
http://bit.ly/dkdNHy

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Dream Walker Felipe Matos
http://is.gd/81cHV

Spar & Bernstein’s 10 Commandments to Being a Successful Immigration Attorney
http://bit.ly/7aeYNz

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Immigration Activist Will Coley
http://is.gd/90shU

A Look Inside The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
http://bit.ly/c27J2i

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Author/Ph. D. William Perez
http://bit.ly/abgMw6

Spar & Bernstein’s Split Take on Comprehensive Immigration Reform in 2010
http://bit.ly/89Z7b8

Martin Luther King’s Dream & The Miami Dream Walkers
http://tinyurl.com/y8treqt

What’$ Your Personal Injury Case Worth?
http://bit.ly/cMObE6

Top 10 Ways to Screw Up Your Personal Injury Case
http://bit.ly/bk9Ea8

Busted Dreams
http://bit.ly/78RXKt

20 Ways to Know You’re Addicted to Your Blog
http://bit.ly/7gQGax

10 Things I Learned as Assistant District Attorney
http://bit.ly/6vCZMM

Spar & Bernstein’s Take on Immigration Detention: The View from Hell
http://is.gd/64Lcy

Spar & Bernstein’s 50 Favorite Immigration Tweeters List – Complete
http://is.gd/7hZxF

Top 10 Tax Relief Questions
http://bit.ly/cSc3ql

Spar & Bernstein’s 10 Rock-Solid Immigration Tips
http://bit.ly/3ew86H

Top 10 Qualities to Look for in a Lawyer
http://bit.ly/4nYEKK

Immigration Court Etiquette
http://bit.ly/6aSfE1

An Immigration Attorney’s Immigrant Story
http://is.gd/7CEG6

Spar & Bernstein’s Top 10 Tips for Giving Testimony in Immigration Court
http://bit.ly/4BdLqr

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Phoenix Journalist Terry Greene Sterling
http://bit.ly/5IGpN0

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Filmmaker Ruth Leitman
http://bit.ly/32KYL9

Spar & Bernstein’s Exclusive Interview with Novelist Leslie Kohler
http://bit.ly/4Rhkha

Please, if there are any other posts you feel should’ve made this list, tell us and we’ll add it ASAP!

Have a great day!

Immigration and Diversity in America
By Kevin Powell

Arizona has a very serious problem. Arizona’s problem is us. It does not want us here.

I am paraphrasing words spoken by Malcolm X back in the 1960s in reference to the American racial segregation policies of those times. Those words could have been spoken in any era of our country’s history. The word “us” could refer to Native Americans. Or Irish Americans. Or Italian Americans. Or Jewish people. Or to the Chinese who were excluded from certain communities and states. Or to the Japanese detained during World War II. Or to Arabs and Muslims, especially since September 11th.

So to focus solely on that sweltering state we call Arizona would be a terrible mistake. That is simply too easy. Yes, Arizona’s new anti-immigration law identifying, prosecuting, and deporting illegal immigrants is detestable, inhuman, and, no doubt, racist toward the mostly Latino population affected by it. And yes I have residual memories of Arizona refusing to honor Dr. King’s birthday as a holiday during the Reagan era. But this is not some isolated example of pure ignorance. As much as I’d like to say otherwise, the sad reality is that our nation has a history of taking two steps back (the rise of the Tea Party, and this new Arizona law) for every step forward (the historic election of President Barack Obama).

The deeper issue is that after 234 years, the United States of America still does not know what it is, or what it wants to be. The America I see as I travel the country as a speaker and political organizer is a land of great diversity, of many races, cultures, and tongues. A nation where the world’s population has come, some willingly, some out of necessity, and some, like my ancestors, by brute and lethal force. But come we have, and here we are, in this grand but shaky experiment, to see if we really can “form a more perfect union” as the U.S. Constitution puts it.

But as long as the narrative of America is told by the conquerors and not the conquered, —to loosely quote the late great historian Howard Zinn in his landmark A People’s History of The United States—then we will continue to have a country where hostile White crowds morph from the Klan to the Dixiecrats to the Tea Party, remixing the tired slogan “We want our country back” for a new generation of bigots who claim to be patriotic but who might struggle with the American History questions on the game show Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?

One indisputable fact is that from the time of America’s “founding,” immigration has been crucial to this nation’s growth—and also a source of conflict. Anyone who doubts this should re-watch Martin Scorcese’s grossly underrated film Gangs of New York, in which newly arriving Irish Catholic Whites found themselves pitted against “Native” Whites on the eve of the Civil War. We know that this particular immigration explosion lasted well into the 1920s.

Here we are now in the early morning of the 21st century, and we’re experiencing the biggest surge of immigration in nearly 100 years. But this time they are not coming from Europe. They are coming from Latin America. From Asia. From Africa. From the darker and more “exotic” parts of the globe. They work hard. They raise families. They play by the rules. And they are terrified of being deported. They are called “foreigners” and “illegal aliens” as if their contributions to our society, indeed their very existence, was somehow undeserving of respect.

Those who participate in the marginalization of immigrants don’t have the good sense to recognize that, along with slave labor, America was built on the backs of immigrants. Then and now. Maybe it’s because I grew up in Jersey City where, because my generation was the first to go to integrated schools, I learned to love and appreciate people of all cultures. As a child, my friends were Black and Puerto Rican, Dominican and Jewish, Polish, Italian, and Irish, with a little German thrown in for good measure. I remember my Filipino and Indian friends too. I saw difference, yes. But I also saw humanity. And I was fascinated, not repulsed or terrified, by this rich cultural diversity.

Yes, I did go through a period in my life, during college, where I embraced hardcore Black nationalism. What Black kid at a majority White university might not do the same during those formative years? I was a highly sensitive young person, trying to figure out who I was.

But somewhere between my years on MTV’s “The Real World,” those years with VIBE magazine, my cross country drive from Atlanta to Los Angeles, and my visits to 46 of America’s 50 states these past 15 years or so, I began to broaden my thinking, to shift my passion from rage to love. I also began to feel a sense of kinship with people. All people.

Now of course I realize my life experiences have been rather unique. But even if you cannot or choose not to travel as I do, nothing prevents you from picking up a book. A good one to start with is Zinn’s, cited above. And nothing prevents you from turning your own fear and hatred and into courage and love. When we are unjust to one group, we are also being unjust to God, and to ourselves. That is the crux of the problem with Arizona’s despicable law, with the Tea Party zealots who continue to create a climate of violence in the era of Obama, and with you, or I, if we see this going on around us and we say absolutely nothing. To me there is no worse form of cowardice than inaction in the face of injustice. Or complete silence.

So let me say this very plainly: immigration is the American civil rights issue of the 21st century. As an African American it pains me to see the Facebook posts by young Blacks saying “we should just kick the aliens out of the country.” I get it: when a group has been marginalized and discriminated against as long as Black folks have been in America, a certain paranoia sets in. Some of us Blacks have been so well conditioned to the idea of being a “the minority” in this nation, that we just cannot imagine being shoved aside by this rapidly growing Latino population. Our employment status, or lack thereof, has led many Blacks to suggest—in the meanest ways possible—that Latinos have taken our jobs. That is not even the issue. The real challenge is why do we continue to have mass poverty, high unemployment, and so few opportunities for so many Americans, whether they are Black, Latino, or a working-class White person from a rural community?

So, yes, let’s boycott Arizona until this law is overturned. If Arizona is now going to stop and harass Latinos as if they were some kind of fascist state, then that state does not deserve a dime of your hard-earned money. But let’s not stop there. My campaign for Congress has articulated a new vision for America’s immigration policy, detailed on my website www.kevinpowell.net:

• Change immigration policy from a paradigm of protectionism and fear to one of pragmatism and opportunity

• Fully fund USCIS to allow our immigration service to modernize its systems, eliminate its backlog of applications, and assist millions of Americans currently eligible for citizenship

• Create a fair path to citizenship for those inside our borders that focuses on integrating law-abiding immigrants into our national fabric and strengthening our communities

• Reduce corporate America’s ability to use immigrants as economic pawns by ensuring that companies pay workers fair wages

• Promote unity and harmony by strengthening the lines of communication between local government, law enforcement, and immigrant communities

And more than any of these, let us begin to treat Latinos and other new immigrants, no matter where we reside, as human beings, not as servants, not as a source of cheap labor, not as people who ought to learn English—or else. If we truly want to communicate with them, let us start by giving them the same degree of love and respect that we give ourselves. And by the way, my fellow Americans, there is nothing wrong with learning, say, Spanish. The fact is that Latinos will be the majority population in America in a few decades. And how embarrassing is it that so many citizens of the most developed nation on the planet cannot speak a second language—as citizens in so many other countries do?

Finally, let’s stop saying this is a post-racial America. As long as we live in an America that can pass laws like this, then it’s clear to me that Barack Obama’s November 2008 victory was not the ultimate achievement some of us may have thought it was. Our work has only just begun.

# # #

Kevin Powell is 2010 Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives, the 10th Congressional District in Brooklyn, NY. You can reach him at www.kevinpowell.net.

Reprinted by permission of author.

And hips don’t lie!

En Espanol.

By Mariana Vazquez Garcia
Head Immigration Attorney, The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein

Arizona’s new immigration law has triggered different emotions in me, including feelings of outright protest.

At times, I am livid.

At other moments, I am positively offended.

And yet other times, I am hopeful.

I’m livid at the hypocrisy of the Arizona politicians and their supporters. I’m offended that the governor says she will not tolerate racial profiling in her state, yet must know full well that is exactly what will happen – if it doesn’t already. But I’m hopeful that at the very least economic problems will be sure to follow in Arizona and that they will be well deserved. I’m hopeful that the challenges filed against that piece of garbage will prevail and that the federal government will finally work in passing a good immigration law .

I’m hopeful that maybe this economic woe will teach at least some that it is not easy to run businesses, to clean houses or offices, to do their own landscaping, to do their own cooking, to run restaurants, to serve on others, etc. Just because Latinos go quietly about their work, it does not mean that our work is less important than anyone else contributing to this country.

I’m hopeful that maybe some will finally learn or accept that their home state – as well as the rest of the country, for that matter – was built by the hard work of illegal immigrants (all the way back to the Pilgrims), some who have been able to legalize their status and others who simply dream of the chance to do so all the while working jobs no one will take, working hours no one else will work, working harder than those with legal status, and always working for the greater benefit of those with status and in power rather than for themselves.

I do understand the need and desire to halt people from crossing into this land, but the Arizona law does nothing to prevent that from happening.

Instead, it is now open season on Latinos, legal or not, in Arizona.

So, I join the boycott of Arizona and hope for a better life for us all!