Illegal Aliens Invade Bristol Virginia-Tennessee

We asked you... Tuesday, Apr 11, 2006 - 08:47 AM

JONESBOROUGH - More than 500 people marched through the streets of Jonesborough, TN yesterday as part of the nationwide effort for immigration rights. The demonstrators want changes in the law that would allow millions of aliens here illegally to become U.S. citizens. Many call current laws unfair, saying they pay taxes too. But many in the Tri-Cities think illegal immigrants don't deserve special treatment.

News Channel 11 conducted a web poll asking, "Should illegal immigrants be allowed to stay in the United States?" Of nearly 300 viewers, a whopping 88 percent say no - Illegal immigrants should not be in the United States. This is even after much of the national press distorts the issue by calling it immigration.

Under Title 8 Section 1325 of the U.S. Code, "Improper Entry by Alien," any citizen of any country other than the United States who:

Enters or attempts to enter the United States at any time or place other than as designated by immigration officers;
or Eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers;
or Attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by a willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact; has committed a federal crime.

Violations are punishable by criminal fines and imprisonment for up to six months. Repeat offenses can bring up to two years in prison. Additional civil fines may be imposed at the discretion of immigration judges, but civil fines do not negate the criminal sanctions or nature of the offense. By all definitions they are criminals. The correct term is illegal alien.

This blog will focus not so much the sad stories the press puts out about illegal aliens, but will present the facts the politically correct try to hide.

Quoting the Center for Immigration Studies article The High Cost of Cheap Labor Illegal Immigration and the Federal Budget:

If illegal aliens were given amnesty and began to pay taxes and use services like households headed by legal immigrants with the same education levels, the estimated annual net fiscal deficit would increase from $2,700 per household to nearly $7,700, for a total net cost of $29 billion.

Wrong on immigration

Thursday, April 06, 2006

Re "Immigration challenge" editorial, the Herald Courier ignored the real cost of illegal immigrants. A study in North Carolina shows that in 2005, these criminals and their criminal employers cost legal workers $2 billion in lost wages and $870 million in jails and welfare. On a national level, that's an estimated $200 billion in lost wages, and $75-$100 billion in social services, not counting emergency rooms. Add those costs to a quart of strawberries.

Poverty is profitable to business, and good for tourism and retirement communities. It's absurd to raise minimum wage, then flood the same depressed labor market with millions of "guest workers." With 8 million unemployed and several times that under-employed, we don't need them. Even in low-wage, poverty-ridden Bristol, we have employers bringing in illegal immigrants to replace local workers. We need a living wage; not imported poverty in order to maintain our proud heritage of established poverty.

To compare the Irish, Italians, etc., who came legally to this country to these criminals is insulting. Who's behind this? A coalition of big business bent on destroying American workers, an assortment of liberal/Marxist groups bent on destroying our culture and bringing down our borders, and racist Latino groups such as La Raza. States with large illegal immigrant populations are taking congressional seats (and electoral votes) from legal Americans in other states. What do we owe people waving Mexican flags? Let's not forget the Catholic Church, which should be stripped of its tax-exempt status for meddling in politics.

I commend U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher for voting for HR4437 and Lou Dobbs for reporting on it. With all respect, the Herald Courier is dead wrong on this issue. Build that wall, no amnesty, and no guest workers.

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, Va.

I'm dead set against illegal immigration, but there's not a thing most illegal aliens do I wouldn't do myself to have a better life for my children. I worked security at a construction job where most of the workers were Hispanics, I suspected many were illegal.

They were the hardest working and most honest individuals I'd ever seen. I hit it off with one named Louis, who taught me a person with a college degree, how to properly do drywall. (I was remodeling my own house because I couldn't afford to hire anyone.) He was my teacher and I'll never do drywall as well as he could. The fact was they couldn't find nobody to do this work even paying $12 an hour. A little respect works wonders.

Don't blame the typical Mexican farm or construction worker for this mess. Blame the exploitive business owner, lazy American on welfare, the political left trying to deconstruct and destroy our borders and culture. In particular blame everyone that wants a cheap gardener, nanny, or under-priced service or product produced by people in nasty jobs they have never worked or would never work themselves.

I don't want Louis deported, but I don't want or will tolerate Mexican flags on American streets or have my country reduced to a multicultural, socialist cesspool. The people behind this are not people like Louis, but those with a political agenda that wouldn't invite Louis home to dinner. Don't blame Louis and others. If I sound harsh with Mexicans, etc. I apologize, it isn't them.

Cheap Labor???

According to Bear Stearns report The Underground Labor Force Is Rising To The Surface "the United States is simply hooked on cheap, illegal workers." Stearns describes this as a "steroid-enhanced effect" and is "America's way of competing with the low-wage forces of Asia and Latin America." It has distorted numbers productivity, low inflation, housing starts, and retail sales while shifting costs elsewhere. Further:

The number of illegal aliens in the United States may be as high as 20 million people, more than double the official 9 million people estimated by the Census Bureau.
The total number of legalized immigrants entering the United States since 1990 has averaged 962,000 per year. Several credible studies indicate that the number of illegal entries has recently crept up to 3 million per year, triple the authorized figure.
Illegal aliens are gaining a larger share of the job market, and hold approximately 12 to 15 million jobs in the United States (8% of the employed) Payroll numbers understate true job growth and inflation has been artificially dampened by this seemingly endless supply of low-wage workers. The large infusion of the imported labor supply has reduced average annual earnings by approximately 4 to 6 percent.
Four to six million jobs have shifted to the underground market, as small businesses take advantage of the vulnerability of illegal residents. The social expenses of health care, retirement funding, education and law enforcement are potentially accruing at $30 billion per year. On the revenue side, the United States may be foregoing $35 billion a year in income tax collections because of the number of jobs that are now off the books. That doesn't include the cost of depressed wages or losses to state and local taxpayers.
The growing extralegal system in the United States has distorted economic statistics and government budget projections. It has inflated real estate prices, productivity numbers are exaggerated because the government is incorporating the output of millions of illegal immigrants, but not counting their full labor input. Long-term budget projections are probably overstated.
The implications of these massive inflows of workers are enormous. Although there are economic benefits to cheap, illegal labor, there are significant costs associated with circumventing the labor laws. The social expenses of health care, retirement funding, education and law enforcement are potentially accruing at $30 billion per year.

Illegal Alien Crime in Virginia and Tennessee

Investigators seize around $3,000 worth of property reported April 06, 2006 News Channel 11. Washington County, Tennessee investigators seize around $3,000 worth of property from a home on Taylor Bridge Road. We first told you last week about the arrest of Jose Cruz Torres at the home. Investigators say he had more than 100 grams of cocaine, marijuana, and prescription pills. Thanks to a Tennessee law that's only been in effect since last year, the man now owes thousands of dollars in drug taxes. The property seized today will now go to pay those taxes. Taxes From Illegal Drugs Bring Thousands Of Dollars To Tri-Cities Sheriff's Departments.

In another story, Dan Smith worked in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the past 13 years attached to the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and dealt primarily with seeking out and dismantling large illegal drug organizations. Though his office was in Johnson City, Smith's jurisdiction included the 10 counties of Northeast Tennessee...A large cocaine and marijuana case, called Final Harvest, dealt with a group of Hispanics from Morristown. "They were dealing with massive amounts of cocaine and marijuana - I'm talking about hundreds of kilos of cocaine and thousands of pounds of marijuana," Smith said. "We ended up prosecuting over 80 or 90 people in that particular case." Kingsport Times-News February 13, 2006.

Gangs in Virginia? These gang members aren’t black; they’re Hispanic, mostly illegal aliens. Not only are they shooting and knifing each other on the street in broad daylight (and killing bystanders), their very presence on the street is illegal. Michelle Malkin’s blog is the first place you should visit to find resources and information about the horde of illegal immigrants crowding out the nation’s public schools, draining its health care system and committing crime. Yesterday she cited a City Journal article by Heather Mac Donald, “The Immigrant Gang Plague”:

Federal law enforcement officials in Virginia are tracking with alarm the spread of gang violence from Northern Virginia west into the Shenandoah Valley and south toward Charlottesville, a trend so disturbing that they secured federal funds this May to stanch the mayhem. “This is beyond a regional problem. It is, in fact, a national problem,” said FBI assistant director Michael Mason, head of the bureau’s Washington field office.

Open-borders apologists dismiss the Hispanic crime threat by observing that black crime rates are even higher. True, but irrelevant: the black population is not growing, whereas Hispanic immigration is reaching virtually every part of the country, sometimes radically changing local demographics. With a felony arrest rate up to triple that of whites, Hispanics can dramatically raise community crime levels.

Many cops and youth workers blame the increase in gang appeal on the disintegration of the Hispanic family. The trends are worsening, especially for U.S.-born Hispanics. In California, 67 percent of children of U.S.-born Hispanic parents lived in an intact family in 1990; by 1999, that number had dropped to 56 percent. The percentage of Hispanic children living with a single mother in California rose from 18 percent in 1990 to 29 percent in 1999. Nationally, single-parent households constituted 25 percent of all Hispanic households with minor children in 1980; by 2000, the proportion had jumped to 34 percent.

Count the Costs

May 15, 2006 Bristol Herald Courier

Really, I don't know what to say to our local Mexican restaurants that supported the protests. Since they chose to take a stand, I guess I can as well. I like Mexican food, but will no longer support those restaurants. I suggest others concerned about illegal immigration move their business as well. I wonder if there are any illegal immigrants or non-taxpaying people employed at those restaurants?

Here are some illegal-immigration statistics reported in the Los Angeles Times:

* Forty percent of all workers are working for cash and not paying taxes. Why would they want to be legal and pay taxes?

* Seventy-five percent of the people on Los Angeles'...most-wanted list are illegal immigrants. Nearly 25 percent of all inmates in California detention centers are here illegally.

* More than 300,000 illegal immigrants are living in garages.

* The FBI reports half of all gang members in Los Angeles are most likely illegal immigrants from south of the border.

* Of the 10 million people in Los Angeles County, 5.1 million speak English and 3.9 million speak Spanish. Less than 2 percent of illegal immigrants are picking crops but 29 percent are on welfare.

* More than 70 percent of the U.S. annual population growth (more than 90 percent of growth in California, Florida and New York) is from immigration.

* The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes minus services used) for the average adult Mexican immigrant is negative.

* They also send about $15 billion back to Mexico to assist their families and prop up the corrupt Mexican government that keeps most of its citizens in poverty. How about a revolt in their own country?

* It costs Los Angeles $276 million in welfare for 100,000 children of illegal immigrants.

I would be willing to say that at least a portion of those items mentioned above cost us locally as well. If we don't get control of our borders, these figures will grow and more states will see the impact as these illegal immigrants spread. This is not an issue of race or racism as the other side so often expresses when you try to have a logical discussion on the subject. This is an issue of physical and economic security for the United States. How can anyone consider it fair that citizens of this country keep up people that are here illegally? How can anyone can say that terrorists are not likely moving among the illegal immigrant population is beyond me as well!

Tim Williams Weber City, Va.

Leftist and Latino Racism

From Lou Dobbs Tonight April 13, 2006: Paul Crespo shares his views each day on his popular Univision Spanish-language radio show. To quote,

Well, one of the things that offends a lot of people, including a lot of Hispanic Americans, is using the race card, calling anyone who is in favor of controlling the borders and having a sensible policy to get immigration reform is somehow racist. And I think that that's insulting to a lot of people, including a lot of Hispanic Americans like myself, who don't agree with that characterization. We think that we need to control the borders...no other country in Latin America would tolerate foreigners going to their country and protesting for rights if they entered illegally.

No other country does. Mexico, for example, you're not allowed to participate in a protest or any kind of political manifestation unless you're an actual citizen of Mexico. Even legal residents aren't allowed to protest against the government. So I find it sometimes a little bit hypocritical of things that we will demand of the United States government that no other country in the world would tolerate."

But the fact remains liberals play the race card to attack anyone that questions this policy. This goes for organizations such as Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan, also known as Mecha, and La Raza, Spanish for "the race." Where is the liberal press on any of this?

The American Palestinians

A leftist anti-war group has seized control of the immigrant movement that staged mass protests across the U.S. on Monday, says CNN's Lou Dobbs.

Praising the Washington Post for being the only newspaper that has reported that the radical leftist group ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) was an active promoter of Monday's national boycott, Dobbs noted that the movement chose May 1, the traditional International Worker's day sanctified by the Soviet Union and Marxist movements throughout the year to stage their protest.

Speaking on his CNN show Monday, Dobbs said that "Some illegal immigration and open borders activists in the Hispanic community are deeply concerned about the involvement of the left-wing radical group [ANSWER]. But others, like Juan Jose Gutierrez, whom I've interviewed a number of times over the past several months, manages to be both director of Latino Movement USA and a representative of ANSWER.

"As Gutierrez told us on my show, 'The time has come ... where we need to stand up and make a statement. We need to do what the American people did when they pulled away from the British crown. And I am sure that back in those days many people were concerned that was radical action.'

"Just how significant is the impact of leftists within the illegal immigration movement?" Dobbs asked, explaining that "It is no accident that they chose May 1 as their day of demonstration and boycott. It is the worldwide day of commemorative demonstrations by various socialist, communist and even anarchic organizations."

Radicalism, Dobbs continued "is not confined to Gutierrez and Latino Movement USA, explaining that Ernesto Nevarez of the L.A. Port Collective is promising to shut down the Port of Los Angeles today: '[Transportation and commerce] will come to a grinding halt. ...They are going to put a wall along the border with Mexico. We're going to put a wall between us and the ocean. And those containers ain't going to move.'"

Dobbs is not alone in citing ANSWER's involvement in today's protest. On their web site, the Los Angeles ANSWER group spelled out their backing, proclaiming "On May 1, stand up for immigrant rights. Join immigrants and supporters to make May 1 a national 'day without an immigrant.'

We will settle for nothing less than full amnesty and legalization for the millions of undocumented workers presently in the United States. Let's show the government, corporations and politicians that a powerful, united peoples' movement has the power to win Civil Rights, workers' rights and make history. No Work! No School! No Business as usual!

"The ANSWER Coalition, along with other pro-immigrant organizations, has been working hard to build May 1 and the overall immigrant right struggle. We've passed out over 150,000 flyers for May 1, gathered thousands of petition signatures demanding amnesty for all immigrants and held public street meetings all over Los Angeles to promote the movement. Join the struggle for full equality and justice today!"

Said Dobbs: "No matter which flag demonstrators and protesters carry today, their leadership is showing its true colors to all who will see."

$10 for a quart of strawberries or $5 for a head of lettuce?

$10 for a quart of strawberries or $5 for a head of lettuce is one excuse liberals make for mass illegal immigration. But is this really true? A recent study presented on Lou Dobbs Tonight confirmed what I already knew from other sources. Farm workers get paid only 5-6% of every dollar spent on food. We could increase their wages by 40% and add $10 a year to a family grocery bill. Or double their pay and add 6 cents to a $1 head of lettuce.

Happy anchor babies of the 1986 immigration bill.

Illegal Aliens Detained in Henrico County Virginia

21 Henrico County illegal alien detainees were among 1,187 employees arrested Wednesday at 40 IFCO plants in 26 states during a nationwide work site crackdown on illegal immigrants. At least 275 of the detained employees have voluntarily returned to their countries. The initial figure of 30, released Thursday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was the "targeted figure" of illegal immigrants that authorities expected to find at the IFCO Systems of North America plant in eastern Henrico County, explained spokeswoman Ernestine Fobbs, who released the earlier number. Fobbs couldn't provide their individual detention status or countries of origin.

Fobbs said after immigration agents raided the plant at 3707 Nine Mile Road, "they probably found that some [employees] had work authorization or were either permanent residents. But once they were processed, they had 21" illegals, not 30, she said. Lou Dobbs Tonight revealed (April 21) most of the ilegals were released and asked to appear in court at a later date. (Most will never show.) Even the illegals were surprised at how fast they got out. The whole deal was a PR stunt.(Ref. Richmond Times-Dispatch April 22, 2006)

The New Palestinians

Resa Laru Kirkland (aka War Chick is another of my fellow bloggers. Like Michelle Malkin she also notes the many parallels between militant Mexicans, Leftists, and the PLO/Hamas Arabs.

She says referring to Yasser Arafat, "it makes sense, after all, if you know that Mexicans are the Palestinians of America! In Mexico he has apparently built a following of the same lame-brained, easily-led sheep he'd fostered for decades in the non-existent land of Palestine...

So they take to the streets (ours) and march, demanding, like Islam, that we turn the clocks back and do as they say. They want the land we won in that long ago war back." I won't gto into the nice things she says about failed Mexican culture and their need to deal with that failure and correct it.

She is right on the money here, "They take a partial truth--just like Islam has tried to do--and twist it into a lie. The vast majority of immigrants who came to America during its large worldwide invitation CAME HERE LEGALLY, a fact that illegals ignore with impunity.

In fact, those immigrants spent months at Ellis Island in quarantine, having their health, their mental fitness, their mentalities and abilities thoroughly examined before they could even be considered.

They had to first learn English and study American history and politics, have a working knowledge of the Constitution and capitalism, learn our laws and our ways and agree to abide by them, have some skills and a plan, know where they were going and how they were going to get there.

They had to assimilate and cooperate, and they did so because they wanted to be Americans and leave behind the land they left. There was no just walking in here and taking without giving. If these standards were good enough for past immigrants, why aren't they a requirement for Mexicans?"

As she says very well, "And the number 1 reason that you aren't welcome here? Because it's wrong. It's wrong to break the law, it's wrong to demand what is both illogical and unreasonable, it's wrong to abandon one country and then demand that your new one submit to you rather than you to it, and it's wrong to suck our welfare and education programs dry just so you don't have to face your failures back in Mexico. And make no mistake; Mexico's current status is the fault of a people who have done nothing to change it. That is despicable."

In search of a better life?

"They made a perilous trip to U.S. shores in search of a better life" attempts to compare legal immigrants of the past with illegal criminals of today. That simply isn't the case, Ellis Island is not the Mexican border. At Ellis those deemed unfit, sick, etc. were turned away.

Reports of third-world illnesses like smallpox and tuberculosis are rampant in illegal alien communities. Many of these immigrants weren't the lowest common people either, and had no welfare system to plunder. They had to work and learn fast how to help themselves. They also learned English.

WCYB local channel 5 in Bristol on April 18, 2006 tried to present a sympathy story for illegal aliens, but it backfired. Here was a 20-year-old illegal Mexican girl living in a basement in Johnson City whining about how scared she was to go out because she would be deported. Her illegal alien boyfriend (husband?) worked at a local restaurant. She claims she spent money to get here, and if deported she would lose her investment.

But the story gets worse. She needed a translator because in two years she still can't speak a word of English. She just popped two babies, was illiterate, and unskilled. Known as "anchor babies," illegals seek to have children on US soil that by a technicality in the Constitution makes their children automatically citizens. As automatic US citizens, her kids get welfare, she is on welfare, and the taxpayers are stuck with the bills. Good going WCYB.

More "birthright" US citizens, also known as anchor babies.

Los Angeles, Mexico

We can't accept illegal immigrants

April 16 Kingsport Times-News

Re. illegal immigration demonstrations, if all the unemployed in the U.S. would march for jobs, the numbers would be more than any reporter could count. One demonstrator was asked how NAFTA destroys Mexican communities, as her sign proclaimed. "It's cheap American corn," she said. "The Mexican subsistence farmer cannot compete, so they have to come here to find work." All union members opposed NAFTA. It hurt the foreign workers just as much as American workers.

American corporations who moved factories to foreign countries are the winners. They continue to exploit foreign workers, and they are to blame for the influx of illegal immigrants today. Let's send the illegal immigrants home and let them re-enter legally regardless of how long it takes. They should never have been here in the first place, and taxpayers wouldn't have to support them. If Americans did what they have done, we would have been sent out of foreign countries.

How can illegal immigrants state that they are paying taxes? Don't they need a Social Security number to file income taxes? They are paying taxes on purchases, but not on their wages. By them accepting sub-minimum wages it makes it difficult for an American citizen to get a job. Congress should ask each state to have all the citizens who would take a job register and just see how the unemployment statistics climb.

The American people cannot accept these illegal immigrants while we have our own people doing without food, housing, heat, health care and transportation. I have nothing against foreigners who want to make America their home, but I do resent the implication that we Americans are treating them unfairly. Take the necessary steps to get to America legally and we will embrace you.

Thelma G. Big Stone Gap, Va.

Enforce the laws we have

April 13, 2006

First, I wish to applaud the writer of the April 6 letter, "Wrong on immigration." The letter was right in every detail, but left out a few other details that folks should understand. Any of you who has watched on television as a president takes his oath of office will hear him state that he will defend the United States from "invasion." If you look up "invasion" in the dictionary, you will be shocked to see that the United States is, in fact, being invaded.

This issue could be resolved at the stroke of a pen by committing resources to seal the southern border. There also are laws on the books to deal with this issue which, sadly, go unenforced. (So why do we need more legislation?) Politicians are afraid of losing the Hispanic vote or see that "importing poverty" from Central America will somehow strengthen their political party. Our elected officials are ignoring our wishes in favor of their own agenda. It will be our children and grandchildren who inevitably pay for our lack of attention to this issue.

Kim S. Bristol, Tenn