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DEL.ICIO.US‘Suddenly, there were Mexicans everywhere’
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Gainesville, Ga., is the star in today’s Washington Post article detailing the role of small-town America in killing the immigration reform bill.
Here’s one snippet:
A stay-at-home mother of two, [Stephanie] Usrey has dreaded shopping at this particular branch ever since a Friday afternoon about five years ago, when she said she suddenly noticed she was the only non-Latino customer.
“That was the first time I looked around and said, ‘Man, I didn’t realize how many Mexicans there were here,’ ” Usrey, 39, recalled.
And here’s another:
Nowhere were the bill’s opponents more influential than here in Georgia, whose two Republican senators, Johnny Isakson and Saxby Chambliss, originally helped craft the legislation.
Two days after its unveiling in May, Chambliss was booed at his state’s Republican convention. Isakson’s office received more than 21,000 calls from opponents of the bill, compared with 6,000 from supporters.
Thursday, both Georgia senators voted to kill the bill they once supported.
The article carries a serious demographic point. It argues that the current illegal immigration backlash resulted from a new migration pattern that developed in the 1990s — when southern border-crossers leaped beyond the seven or so “gateway” states and into middle America.
Comments
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By Zathras
June 29, 2007 11:02 AM | Link to this
The Post article is exactly right. To many Americans in rural and suburban communities the influx of mostly Mexican and Latin American people — not all of them here illegally — is as big a shock as they’ve experienced since the civil rights era. Every negative aspect of a sudden change like that gets magnified, and that is what Georgia politicians are scrambling to respond to.
Immigration reform is dead until at least 2009, which means the policy status quo of ineffective border enforcement and a continued flow of illegal workers into states like Georgia will continue. People should understand that, by 2009, two things will have happened.
First, the shock will have worn off — not for everyone, maybe not even for most people, but for a lot of folks. People don’t like sudden changes in their lives and communities, but they do adjust to them, and Americans are actually much more adaptable than people in other countries.
Second, the national political environment is becoming increasingly toxic for Republicans. The Republican President is widely, and accurately, seen as having led the country down the wrong path in many ways, and the GOP is strongly identified with him. This makes it likely that when immigration reform does again come up in Congress, it will be with a Democrat in the White House and larger Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.
What these changes will mean is that the intensity of the public reaction against this year’s immigration bill will be difficult to replicate in 2009, when the next one comes up. They also mean that the next one is going to be far more accomodating to immigrants than the one that was just rejected in the Senate. Republicans from states like Georgia had some leverage this year to get some of the things they wanted — for border enforcement, limits on the guest worker program and other areas — in the immigration bill, if they’d felt themselves able to defy the talk radio crowd. The next time Congress takes up immigration that leverage will be gone.
That’s the context of the victory that the anti-reform groups and the politicians that went along with them won this week. They couldn’t bring themselves to participate in a reform bill this year; their reward will be to watch from the sidelines as a bill they dislike much more is passed in two years.
By myconju
June 29, 2007 11:34 AM | Link to this
Zathras,
You may be right. But, the real issue wasn’t how to controll the illegal alien problem the way some believe. The idea was to differentiate between illegal aliens coming across the border to work and those coming to this country to do us harm. As you stated illegal aliens coming to work are still going to come. We just won’t have a record of who they are.
I don’t know that subsequent legislation will be more accomodating. Seems you are making that statement to either frighten or provoke those people that worked to destroy the legislation. I do know we need a way of tracking these individuals, which is why I supported the legislation.
I generally don’t think much about illegal immigrants. I have immigrant neighbors, but I have found them to be just as accomodating as neighbors as anyone else. There are always going to be one or two bad apples in any bunch. I supported the legislation because I felt it gave the government a way to track what immigrants we have in this Country.
It would make me feel safer to know that the government has a record of who is in this country.
By Debbie
June 29, 2007 11:37 AM | Link to this
Republicans led the charge to kill this Immigration/Amnesty Bill. Conservative activists made countless phone calls. The “Country Club”, Rockefeller Republicans, control this party no more.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QkayR5V_Akk
http://www.numbersusa.com/hottopic/senateaction0507.html
Reasons to Deport Illegal Aliens…
$11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77
$2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
$2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
$12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html (This one does not work but it is the same one as no. 5 below http://transcripts.cnn.com:80/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html.)
$17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
$3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
$90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for
Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html (This one did not work but it is the same as no. 7 or 9. http://transcripts.cnn.com:80/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html)
$200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroine and marijuana, crossed into
the U. S. from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
The National Policy Institute, “estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.” (No longer available from http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf but can be downloaded free from http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/publications.php?b=deportation)
In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
“The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States “. http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml (Try this one instead: http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html#Illegals)
So using the LOWEST estimates, the annual cost OF ILLEGAL ALIENS is $338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR! So if deporting them costs between $206 and $230 BILLION DOLLARS, get rid of em’, We’ll be ahead after the 1st year!!!
By Will Jones
June 29, 2007 12:25 PM | Link to this
Closet-queen, draft-dodger Bush did 9-11 as his father killed Kennedy and his grandfather financed Hitler before him. Can you say “Anti-Christ?” Both parties had Congressmen and Senators outside the Capitol witnessing the jumbo jet flying up from the Pentagon just after the missile hit. They talked about it on Larry King that night and a map of its path was in the paper the next day…before their “stories” could be “coordinated” - Norman Mineta’s eyewitness of Cheney’s standdown order notwithstanding.
“Good Cop”/”Bad Cop” - they are in it together for Rockefeller and Rome against The People and the Immigration issue is discussed above by Roman Catholics unwilling to identify themselves or the fact that they support Rome’s treasonous “Anti-Christ” Fifth Column’s attempt to destroy Fourth of July America as outlined in the “National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Ministry,” from their Council of RC Bishops.
Once The People adopt anew a Whig Consciousness, as we held on July 4, 1776, and recognize Rome’s hand behind the serial, bi-partisan treasons and abominations which have been committed against Our Constitution and Our Sovereignty, a new and successful movement will arise to sweep out the corrupt collusion of a Democratic House led by a Mafia-connected Roman Catholic drug-addled Speaker, a Senate with the likes of Isakson, Chambliss and Pinky Reid, Mobbed up Roman Catholics McCain and Ted Kennedy, a Roman Catholic-dominated Supreme Court and a White House created by an unconstitutional “Bush v. Gore” with false war in Iraq for RC BIG OIL, and Afghan heroin pouring through Bush-pals’ Dubai to the streets of our city.
Let us begin the work of learning History, that this Garden of the World, America, not be undone by the tyranny of caesaropapism that has ruled the earth for thousands of years before us.
Build the Border Wall and prevent attacks on Our Nation from within or without. Bring to justice those traitors who committed 9-11 and wish to destroy the threat of an enraged Middle Class by promoting illegal immigration of Rome’s excess slave population to make us punch “2” for English and forget the greatness that was bequeathed by Our Founders after they defeated King and Pope so long ago. The war goes on and The People must prevail. Life is a jungle and this is the “Devil’s planet,” but America must remember and defend our Covenant to be The Land where Truth and Justice rule and the People are Sovereign.
By MB
June 29, 2007 12:52 PM | Link to this
Will, Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you. Take your meds and ponder that.
By Be Nice
June 29, 2007 1:28 PM | Link to this
Geez Will were you beat up by one them there Roman Catholics as a kid? Sounds to me like you’ve been listening too much to one of those Evangelists that bash Catholis 60% of the time, ask for money 35% of the time and then quote the bible 5% of the time. Can’t we all just get along.
By deegee
June 29, 2007 3:08 PM | Link to this
Will Jones killed the bill. He called Isakson 20,999 times and scared the devil out of him.
By Loco_lee
June 29, 2007 3:38 PM | Link to this
We did not need a “Bill” to enforce the “Law”. Now that the Amnesty is dead ‘til ‘09 we can get back to enforcing the new “Georgia Security and Immigration Act” that goes into effect July 1st. The object is simple: to convince the illegals to go to another state and stop comming here. Ever since Florida and Alabama have enacted the 287(g) programs with ICE the illegals have been leaving those states and Georgia has had the highest influx of illegals in the country.
By Craig
June 29, 2007 4:11 PM | Link to this
Loco,
Who is going to enforce that law?
By Bitter EX democrackkk
June 30, 2007 6:32 AM | Link to this
Thanks for that info, loco…In NC, our ‘governor’ Sleazely has ok’d the issuance of at least 500,000 drivers licenses to ILLEGALs (now, even NEW JOISEY wont accept a NC license as valid)…
We have 3-4 counties in NC who have or are implementing the 287 ICE program…and we are pressuring our new democrackkk sheriff in Asheville/Bumcombe Co to do the same… Funny, his game now is rounding up illegal video poker games, and millions in cash, WITH NO ARRESTS!!!
For ANY sheriff to eschew priorities in this manner is an outrage…Sheriff’s departments are OBSOLETE!!!
Hey Will Jones, what kind of orders did the Pope issue to Bush on his recent Vatican visit?
By Becca
June 30, 2007 3:35 PM | Link to this
Imho if it comes down to it I am not above shooting the mexicans in the street.
By Judy H. Manning
July 12, 2007 5:37 AM | Link to this
Violence is not the answer. War does not determine who is right, it only determines who is left. Stoping the employers of illegals and those who rent to them, and taking away all chance of illegals receiving government benefits and changing the 14th admendment to stop anchor baby citizenship, is the best way to insure that they will deport themselves and save the American tax payers the expense of deporting them.