By Guest Column James Simpson——Bio and Archives--April 13, 2013
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Any foreign-born individual, including naturalized U.S. citizens, documented immigrants, and undocumented immigrants.Then we have “Undocumented” Immigrants:
Foreign-born individuals who (1) entered the country illegally, (2) overstayed their visas, or (3) work without authorizationIllegal aliens, in other words. But using their terminology, all of these categories come under the neutral heading “immigrant.” So now they can conflate the two categories without discriminating between legal and illegal immigrants and ascribe the positive characteristics of the one to negative characteristics of the other. Thus we have:
Foreign born scholars, scientists and engineers make this country more prosperous and more secure.How many illegal aliens are “scholars, scientists and engineers?” Here’s another screecher:
One of every four engineering and technology companies started in the United States between 1995 and 2005 had immigrant founders.Surely these were all illegals, too?
Overall, the fiscal impact of immigration on public-sector budgets is small and likely to be positive in the long run.Once again, a large number of highly-trained legal immigrants are taking advantage of the high demand for jobs in technology. They do make a significant positive contribution, as legal immigrants always have. But illegals are almost entirely low-skilled. The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector estimates that federal, state and local governments spend three dollars in welfare benefits for every dollar received from low-skilled immigrants. It will get even worse if amnesty is granted to these people because they will have access to even more benefits, but will likely not improve their earning capabilities commensurately. Rector claims that retirement costs for illegals granted amnesty could run to $2.5 trillion. Providing amnesty for illegals would result in chain migration of as many as 100 million people, he argues. The vast majority of those would have the same profile as illegals currently here with the result of added budgetary, legal and cultural strains. Regardless, according to the Associated Press and USA Today, among others, illegal aliens must now be referred to as “undocumented immigrants.” Calling them anything else can lead to charges of racism, or worse. Logic and truth are out the window.
…the word “Hispanic” is devoid of meaning and legitimacy. It does not denote a racial, ethnic, linguistic, or cultural group. It is an artificial term created to maximize political power for extremist elements within the Spanish-speaking minority. This law, which was endorsed by several “Hispanic” organizations including the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and La Raza, contained two significant elements: (1) the subject: “Americans of Spanish origin or descent,” and (2) the legal status: “American citizens.” Both qualifiers were soon dropped in an effort to maximize political influence by maximizing numeric size. In 1977, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) adopted the shorter title of “Hispanic”… Since then, “Hispanic” is defined as “A person of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, or other Spanish culture or origin, regardless of race.” The new definition sought to further inflate the numerical size of the “Hispanic” community.According to Mark Lopez of the Pew Hispanic Center:
[A]bout two-thirds of Hispanic-Americans identify themselves not as belonging to the general Latino culture, but to their specific country of origin or their parents’ homeland. “The notion of a pan-ethnic identity is actually an American concept,” said Lopez, an American citizen whose grandparents emigrated from Mexico. “If I go to El Salvador and I say I’m Hispanic, they’re going to think I’m from Spain, or they’re not going to know what that means. They don’t see a pan-ethnic identity. They see themselves as Salvadoran.”Activists can’t even decide if they should use the world “Hispanic” or “Latino.” A study called “Latino or Hispanic Panic” said 75 percent of activists don’t like either term. Of those that do:
In Texas, a Pew Hispanic Center poll found that 45% of Latinos prefer the term Hispanic and 8% prefer Latino. Note this leaves 47% of Latinos in Texas who prefer neither term. In the other four most populous Latino states—California, New Jersey, Florida and New York—the Pew poll found that people are more likely to prefer “Latino.”Finally, not every Hispanic is a Hispanic! At a Swarthmore College lecture titled, “Is Antonio Banderas Latino?,” Professor Rodolfo Francisco Acuña asserted that being “Latino” is a function of “life experience,” meaning that one had to experience racial or class discrimination to earn the title “Latino.” “No matter what people may think of Banderas as a person, he is European and not part of a class that has historically suffered discrimination.” So, in other words, you are only a Hispanic/Latino if you are the “right kind;” one who will ascribe to the ideological goals of the Left. What does this mean for all those “economic migrants?” CASA, however, sees it for the political advantage:
Casa of Maryland, which advocates for immigrant rights, views the Hispanic community as a single bloc “because together they have greater power as a community to address issues that are affecting one particular nationality or all,” advocacy specialist Helen Melton said in an email.So does one of CASA’s biggest political supporters, Maryland Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez: “Everybody is feeling the need to come together because it’s only larger political forces that are going to be able to change the negative climate we’re facing.”
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) founder Mario Obledo said: “California is going to be a Hispanic state, and anyone who doesn’t like it should leave. They should go back to Europe.” “Eventually,” he said the following month, “we [Hispanics] will take over all the political institutions of California.” Former NCLR [National Council of La Raza] President (1974-2004) Raul Yzaguirre called proponents of California proposition 187, which would have denied budget-busting social services to illegals, “racists” and “xenophobes.” Prop 187 won but was blocked by a judge. They got their way and California is now bankrupt. He also said, “US English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” Hillary Clinton appointed Yzaguirre to co-chair her presidential campaign.When Minutemen volunteers declared they would monitor CASA’s day labor centers for illegals, CASA president Gustavo Torres said: “We are going to target them in a specific way. Then we are going to picket their houses, and the schools of their kids, and go to their work…”
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Items of notes and interest from the web.