Jews' "Southern Poverty Law Center": Discrimination against Latrinos in the South constitutes a "civil rights crisis" - Amnesty is only solution

SPLC Report Finds Low-Income Latinos in South Targeted for Abuse, Discrimination

Low-income Latino immigrants in the South are routinely the targets of wage theft, racial profiling and other abuses driven by an anti-immigrant climate that harms all Latinos regardless of their immigration status, according to a report released today by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The report — Under Siege: Life for Low-Income Latinos in the South — documents the experiences of Latino immigrants who face increasing hostility as they fill low-wage jobs in Southern states that had few Latino residents until recent years.

"This report documents the human toll of failed policies that relegate millions of people to an underground economy, where they are beyond the protection of the law," said Mary Bauer, author of the report and director of the SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project. "Workplace abuses and racial profiling are rampant in the South."

Under Siege is based on a survey of 500 low-income Latinos — including legal residents, undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens — at five locations in the South. The locations were Nashville, Charlotte, New Orleans, rural southern Georgia, and several towns and cities in northern Alabama.

The survey findings, coupled with accounts from in-depth interviews, depict a region where Latinos are routinely cheated out of wages by employers and denied basic health and safety protections. They are racially profiled by overzealous law enforcement agents and victimized by criminals who know they are reluctant to report crime to these same authorities. Even legal residents and U.S. citizens of Latino descent said racial profiling, bigotry and other forms of discrimination are staples of their daily lives.

A number of immigrants in the survey described the South as a "war zone."

"The assumption is that every Latino possibly is undocumented," Angeles Ortega-Moore, an immigrant advocate in North Carolina, told SPLC researchers. "So it [discrimination] has spread over into the legal population."

Maria, who came to Tennessee from Colombia, told SPLC researchers her immigration papers are in order, but she is still afraid of being stopped by the police. "You never know when you will come across a racist police officer," she says in the report.

Discrimination against Latinos in the region constitutes a civil rights crisis that must be addressed, the SPLC report says. The report concludes that comprehensive immigration reform — including a workable path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants — is the only realistic, fair and humane solution.

Reform legislation must be coupled with strong enforcement of labor and civil rights protections. This would make crime victims and communities safer, curb racial profiling and other abuses, and better protect the wages and working conditions of all workers, according to the report.

"We're talking about a matter of basic human rights here," said SPLC President Richard Cohen. "By allowing this cycle of abuse and discrimination to continue, we're creating an underclass of people who are invisible to justice and undermining our country's fundamental ideals."

Southern Poverty Law Center

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an American non-profit legal organization, internationally known for its tolerance education programs, its legal victories against white supremacists and its tracking of organizations it calls hate groups.

The SPLC is based in Montgomery, Alabama, in the Southern United States. It was founded in 1971 by Morris (Seligman) Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. as a civil rights law firm.

Current SPLC President and chief executive officer Richard Cohen

DHS Chief and Raging Bull Dyke Marxist Crypto-Jew Napolitano: Illegal Immigration Is Not a Crime

Newsmax
Wednesday, April 22, 2009

By: Jim Meyers

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano stunned many listeners during an appearance on CNN when she asserted that illegal immigration is really not a crime.

In an interview with CNN’s John King last week, Napolitano discussed Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., a strict enforcer of immigration laws who says he wants illegal aliens to be prosecuted and jailed.

King said: “A lot of Democrats in Congress want you to investigate him. They think he is over the line. He says he is just enforcing the law and the problem is the federal government.”

Napolitano responded: “Sheriff Joe … knows that there aren’t enough law enforcement officers, courtrooms or jail cells in the world to do what he is saying.

“What we have to do is target the real evil-doers in this business, the employers who consistently hire illegal labor, the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery.

“And yes, when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil. But anyway, going after those as well.”

The fact is, crossing the border without authorization is a crime. The statute reads: “Any alien who enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers . . . shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 6 months, or both.”

Obama Plans to Push Amnesty For Illegals This Year Despite Terrible Economy

Obama to Push Immigration Bill as One Priority

By JULIA PRESTON
NY Times
Published: April 8, 2009

While acknowledging that the recession makes the political battle more difficult, President Obama plans to begin addressing the country’s immigration system this year, including looking for a path for illegal immigrants to become legal, a senior administration official said on Wednesday.

Mr. Obama will frame the new effort — likely to rouse passions on all sides of the highly divisive issue — as “policy reform that controls immigration and makes it an orderly system,” said the official, Cecilia Muñoz, deputy assistant to the president and director of intergovernmental affairs in the White House.

Mr. Obama plans to speak publicly about the issue in May, administration officials said, and over the summer he will convene working groups, including lawmakers from both parties and a range of immigration groups, to begin discussing possible legislation for as early as this fall.

Some White House officials said that immigration would not take precedence over the health care and energy proposals that Mr. Obama has identified as priorities. But the timetable is consistent with pledges Mr. Obama made to Hispanic groups in last year’s campaign.

He said then that comprehensive immigration legislation, including a plan to make legal status possible for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, would be a priority in his first year in office. Latino voters turned out strongly for Mr. Obama in the election.

“He intends to start the debate this year,” Ms. Muñoz said.

But with the economy seriously ailing, advocates on different sides of the debate said that immigration could become a polarizing issue for Mr. Obama in a year when he has many other major battles to fight.

Opponents, mainly Republicans, say they will seek to mobilize popular outrage against any effort to legalize unauthorized immigrant workers while so many Americans are out of jobs.

Democratic legislative aides said that opening a full-fledged debate this year on immigration, particularly with health care as a looming priority, could weigh down the president’s domestic agenda.

Debate is still under way among administration officials about the precise timing and strategy. For example, it is unclear who will take up the Obama initiative in Congress.

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