Another death of an undocumented immigrant. As much as we hear the drumbeat of "illegals commit crimes against upstanding Americans", we rarely hear statistics about how many immigrants are subjected to hate crimes.

Read all the way through this link (warning: AP) and see what you surmise from the description whether this was a hate crime or not.

•    "The Shame of Postville, Iowa," an editorial in Sunday’s New York Times, calls attention to an essay written by Erik Camayd-Freixas.  Mr. Camayd-Freixas is a professor and court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of last month’s ICE raid on the Postville community.  He was disgusted when he saw the injustice in the legal system that the workers were subjected to; instead of being deported immediately, over 260 workers were charged with serious identity fraud crimes and sentenced to 6 months in prison:

From Obama article 7-12 Wow, now he is getting on to something here. I think he turned on his "right" blinker to make that turn. He is just sooo transparent. He will be TOTALLY exposed in the near future.

This is an ongoing series from the national tour for THE UPRISING. You can order The Uprising at Amazon.com or through your local independent bookstore.

DENVER - Last week, I appeared on CNN's Lou Dobbs tonight to discuss the economic meltdown and the political fallout that will come from it. You can watch the clip here:

In 1988 Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis, the son of Greek immigrants, lost the election to George H. W. Bush. Before that, the last child of immigrant parents to be a major party nominee for President of the United States was in 1916, when Republican Charles E. Hughes, whose father came from Wales, lost to incumbent Woodrow Wilson. And today, 20 years later, we have the son of an African immigrant, Senator Barack Obama, as the Democratic nominee for president.

The phenomenal political striving of these children of immigrants speaks to the immigrant origin of our country. Since its foundation, our nation has witnessed the special contributions and success of immigrants and their children.

UPDATE #3:  So it has been a crazy 24 hours.  But what is most outragous is that Col. Doherty of the State Police actually said yesterday:

Doherty said state police will not be conducting immigration raids or sweeps. But he added, "I’ve taken a position that this is not a sanctuary state, and if we find someone who is here illegally or unlawfully, we will notify ICE."

Yet, within minutes, that is exactly what happened.  

Democrat Barack Obama yesterday promised Hispanic Americans, a key voting bloc, to press for immigration reform and improved access to health care in his first year if elected to the White House.

"The system isn't working when 12 million people live in hiding, and hundreds of thousands cross our borders illegally each year," Obama told the 40th annual National Council of La Raza convention, an influential Latino group.

"I fought with you in the Senate for comprehensive immigration reform, and I will make it a top priority in my first year as president," he said.

Recently both leading presidential candidates have increased their outreach to Latino voters with appearances at various events sponsored by prominent Latino organizations. Not surprisingly, the topics of immigration and immigration reform have played a central role in this outreach effort.

As an issue where both candidates feel they exhibit some strength with Latino voters, they have both attempted to utilize this perceived strength to make inroads into what most believe will be a crucial voting block this coming November.

But what we have received from both candidates thus far are vague promises and pleasant platitudes about "A Nation of Immigrants."

This is a complex issue, and as the history of failed efforts at reform clearly shows, it will take more than quick sound bites and quotes from Emma Lazarus to solve the problems with our failed current immigration system. In order to enact meaningful immigration reform that is practical, rational, fair and most of all humane, tough questions must be answered and problems dealt with.

Sometimes I am dumbfounded by the attitude of social conservatives. When it comes to economic theory, at least I understand the basis for the (true) conservative viewpoint. I don't agree with it, but it doesn't strike me as instantly and inherently absurd.

But social conservatism--conservatism which is focused on "moral" or "value" issues--just befuddles me. And not because the people who practice it are wrong (again, I can agree to disagree), but because they have absolutely no idea what they are talking about. The level of cognitive thought that goes into their reasoning is that of a fruit fly; their words are knee-jerk reactions to common-sense imagery which has been adopted and reinforced by common culture.

And sometimes an example of this rears its head in a way that makes me have to share my astonishment.

Original Post at The Sanctuary.

I'm here in San Diego where Barack Obama just spoke at the annual National Council of La Raza (NCLR) conference.  NCLR flew out me here and provided with me accommodations at the luxurious San Diego Marriot Hotel & Marina.  I was given the opportunity after I helped publicize NCLR's latest We Can Stop the Hate video using Digg and StumbleUpon, among other new media tools. 

The Shame of Postville, Iowa

"Anyone who has doubts that this country is abusing and terrorizing undocumented immigrant workers should read an essay by Erik Camayd-Freixas, a professor and Spanish-language court interpreter who witnessed the aftermath of a huge immigration workplace raid at a meatpacking plant in Iowa."

New York Times Editorial, July 13, 2008.

http://www.nytimes.%20com/...

Who is paying for this?

I've been doing some research into  long term benefits of immigration - especially the illegal kind.  Nightprowlkitty's latest blog on the ICE raids, followed by criminal sentencing and deportation of immigrants  at Postville convinced me to pipe up on the subject.

I don't know how to write about this, but I'm going to try anyway.

I've been following the discussion on immigration for over a year, and there are a lot of complexities to it and a lot of back story.

But this story is so terrible that I don't think you need to know all the details of the law or intricacies of how we got to where we are in the United States as far as our broken immigration policies are concerned.

This story is about an essay written by Dr. Erik Camayd-Freixas, a certified Spanish interpreter for federal courts, who was present at the ICE raid in Postville, Iowa.

I found out about this essay in a circuitous way.  I first read the entire essay at The Sanctuary where Duke had it up in its entirety.  Immediately after reading it, I rebooted the essay and found he had removed it ... turns out Dr. Camayd-Freixas had asked him to refrain from posting it after finding that the New York Times was going to do a front page story on it.  Duke and other pro-migrant bloggers complied.  Now that the story has been published, the essay is once again up at The Sanctuary.

Just days after stepping on the third rail of American politics with his proclamation that Social Security is "an absolute disgrace," John McCain may once again have stepped in it on the immigration issue.  His new ad praising the contributions of Hispanic-Americans, titled "God's Children," has much of the conservative blogosphere frothing at the mouth.  Meanwhile, the imbroglio will only serve to once again highlight McCain's just-in-time reversals on the comprehensive immigration reform he once advocated.

You know with friends like John Boys who needs an enemy. It seems they  either can't remember what they said when or when to keep their mouths shut on policy. Personally they can keep it up until November.

Today Rep. Florida Senator Mel Martinez (R) blasted Obama on a McCain press conference call for sabotaging comprehensive immigration reform.

"He was AWOL, he was working against us," Martinez said

.

Are you listening Sen. McCain?

The BBC reports on the finding of the bodies of 2 missing American soldiers in Iraq, Alex Jimenez and Byron Fouty. Both had been missing over a year.

Of course I expect nothing but cliches from you. And it goes without saying our hearts go out to the families. But draw a larger picture, Senator. The Jimenez family had to be told in Spanish that their son's body was found.

This Op-Ed in the Hill is one of the few I've seen in a hill paper (i.e. Politico, the Hill, Roll Call, etc) which actually hits McCain for his double talk. Sadly, there's a lot more examples than this article could cover... What happened to the John McCain of 2000?

Ya know, all Zeke can figure is that the GOP "Forgot" to create a plan on what to do about the Latino Vote this fall.

On one hand, we got people like Dean "My Party Sucks" Heller, who wants to use Fear of the BROWN Man to split off White Rural voters to his side by doing things like proposing "English Only" Balloting. In other words, Burn the Latino Vote to get the Redneck Vote. Great plan Deaniac. Thanks for being part of the problem.

Then we have John "De-Mavricked" McCain who is actively courting Latino voters here in Nevada by bragging up his Anti-Abortion stance and "Conservative Values". I wonder if Latino voter will figure out that "Conservative Values" include deporting anyone that calls themselves Juan, instead of John.