Cato Institute: Legalization could boost prosperity for everyone

According to an editorial from The Oregonian from Friday, the right leaning Cato Institute addressed the topic of undocumented immigration.

The report, Restriction or Legalization? Measuring the Economic Benefits of Immigration Reform, makes the case that the U.S. actually would have much to lose from a massive crackdown on undocumented immigrants and that legalization would benefit citizens and documented workers.

Read what The Oregonian Editorial Board had to say about legalization and the CATO Institute Report by linking here.

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Visas protect undocumented immigrants who are victims of crime

The Oregonian ran a story on "T" and "U" visas designed to help protect undocumented immigrants who are victims of crime.

The program, according to the article is not very well known. And, although there has been a law in place for 9 years to protect immigrants who are crime victims, the Government has only recently started approving the "T" and "U" visas.

The T visa provides legal status for victims of trafficking, including those who are recruited for labor or services through force, fraud or coercion. And the U visa is for victims of crimes such as murder, assault, rape and sexual exploitation.

The T and U visas allow applicants to secure legal status, a work permit good for four years, and a petition for family members.

For the complete story, please link here

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When the Tide of Anger on Immigration Turns to Threats of Violence

Opinion Editorial
June 21, 2009

Contact:
Francisco Lopez, Executive Director: (503) 269-5694
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director: (503) 488-0263

When the Tide of Anger on Immigration Turns to Threats of Violence

A response to The Oregonian article “A tide of anger on immigration”

The Sunday Oregonian's Opinion section featured a commentary on the topic of Immigration, which included statements from those opposed to reform. It didn't take long after the article was posted online for outrageous comments to start popping up. Among the scapegoating, hyperbole, bombast and fear-mongering, it wasn't hard to find a comment with a violent connotation directed at immigrants: "send them home on a bus or in a box." That offering has since been removed.

The despicable comments didn’t end at attacking immigrants; they were also levied at the editor of the article, The Oregonian staff, elected officials and churches, among others. The comments are all left by those using aliases to conceal their identity.

As Professor HoSang from the University of Oregon stated in the article, "There's not much interest in scapegoat politics. There isn't the audience, and the parties realize there's costs to this kind of strategy." This fact, of course, does not prevent members from groups opposed to immigration reform from engaging in it. And, is probably why Professor HoSang believes that immigration restrictionist organizations like OFIR or the Minutemen "are close to becoming fringe organizations", if they aren’t already.

With polls reflecting well over 70% of Americans supporting immigration reform, the claims by these immigration restrictionist groups that Oregonians support their position and message is a weak one, at best.

The views espoused by such groups and individuals are not new. According to Rita Simon, professor of public affairs at American University in Washington, D.C, the American public's attitude toward immigrants is part of an “old pattern”. She explains in the Oregonian article that there is a belief that immigrants who came earlier to the United States were better than those who are coming now.

"When the Irish immigrants first came, there were riots. When the Chinese came, they were banned," Simon said. "Now the Irish and the Chinese are looked upon as a positive experience. Because many recent immigrants come from Mexico and are illegal, they now tend to get the ire."

One has to question how productive these articles are when people can leave comments anonymously scapegoating, denigrating and inciting violence against immigrants. Just this month, members of a Washington State Minutemen group were charged with the brutal home invasion murder of a 9 year old Latina child and her father. In Ohio, a 17 year old Hispanic boy was assaulted by four teens who put a noose around the boy’s neck and dragged him through a parking lot while using racial epithets. And this last week, two others were sentenced for the brutal beating death of Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old Mexican immigrant. The teens involved in this case shouted ethnic slurs and told Ramirez to “go back to Mexico”.

There are no doubt countless of other incidents of violence directed at immigrants that either don’t make headlines or go unreported by the victims fearful of being re-victimized by a system that would separate them from their families. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) said that there has been a 40 percent rise in hate crimes against Latinos between 2003 and 2007. It is disturbing to think that such hateful speech and incitement might be causing the escalating violence against immigrants.

Although CAUSA supports the free exchange of views on immigration reform both for and against, we vehemently oppose the hateful rhetoric, scapegoating and the incitement of violence that has become such a common vehicle of those who can’t debate the merits of their anti-immigrant views effectively. Even without The Oregonian article, there is no shortage of hatred directed at immigrants on the internet and on radio talk shows.

The question is, at what point do these hateful comments on internet and radio turn into vicious and violent acts toward Latinos and immigrants? And, at what point do these incitements of violence affect our youth who turn to committing violence towards immigrants and ethnic minorities?

Our members, and surely many readers, look forward to The Oregonian holding listening sessions for those who have been affected by our nation’s broken immigration system and who believe that it is critical for Congress to pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform this year.

Posted at The Oregonian on June 23, 2009

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Uniting on Immigration Reform in Oregon

CAUSA is working with many Oregon based organizations as well as National Organizations to pass fair and just immigration reform. Yesterday, the Oregonian ran a story on our efforts here in Oregon. Please visit this link to read Oregon groups unite on Immigration Reform, which appeared on the front page of the Metro News section.

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Respect for law is founded on a respect for truth

in the news

In an op-ed titled, "Illegal Immigration and Crime" appearing in Sunday's Oregonian yesterday, community volunteer and former attorney, Susheela Jayapal took on the false claims of Richard LaMountain. Last week, in our piece titled, Myths of Illegal Immigration and Crime, we reported on LaMountain's op-ed pointing out his false claims and anti-immigrant agenda.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND CRIME

SUSHEELA JAYAPAL

In his op-ed last Sunday ("Enable state's officers to aid federal enforcement efforts"), Richard LaMountain urged support for a proposed ballot measure beguilingly titled the Respect for Law Act. Among other things, this measure would repeal current Oregon law that prohibits using state law enforcement resources for activities focused solely on enforcing federal immigration law.

To make his case, LaMountain cites an array of statistics that purport to show that we're facing a tidal wave of crime committed by illegal immigrants. Therefore, he argues, local police should make the enforcement of immigration law part of their job. Police departments and organizations (including the Major Cities Chiefs Association, comprising the police chiefs of the 64 largest cities in the country) have strongly opposed measures such as this one, and for good reason.

First, they are unnecessary: Even assuming LaMountain's statistics are correct, local law enforcement agencies already have the authority and the tools to fight crime. Second, requiring local police to enforce immigration law would seriously erode public safety, not improve it. It would divert resources away from traditional police responsibilities, and it would destroy the relationships that urban police departments have built with their immigrant communities, deterring those communities from reporting crime or cooperating with police.

As for those statistics: They're either unsubstantiated or so taken out of context as to have been wrenched from any mooring in the truth.

Take, for example, the claim that illegal immigrants driving drunk kill 13 Americans a day. This claim is apparently based on another statistic frequently cited by U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, and other anti-immigrant zealots -- that 28 percent of all prison and jail inmates in the country are illegal immigrants. This percentage is applied to a federal count of the number of alcohol-related accidents reported in 2004, yielding 13 such accidents a day.

The problem is, that 28 percent number is just plain wrong. In 2005, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that fewer than 7 percent of inmates in federal, state and local prisons and jails were immigrants of any kind, legal or illegal. So that estimate of the number of people killed by drunken illegal immigrants? Also wrong.

One more example: LaMountain cites The Oregonian as reporting last summer that 1,000 of Oregon's prisoners were foreigners. That's true. He neglects to mention, however, that the article in question actually contradicts his position: The headline is "Illegal immigrants aren't filling local jails" (Aug. 19, 2007), and the general thrust of the piece is that crime rates for illegal immigrants "are on a par with the general population."

Respect for the law is founded on respect for the truth. LaMountain's argument in support of the Respect for Law Act is based not on truth, but on rank fear-mongering -- and as such, it deserves no respect.

Susheela Jayapal is a community volunteer and a self-described recovering lawyer. She lives in Northeast Portland.

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