Home > The Border Line > Archives > 2007 > December
December 2007
Lawmakers ask Bush for Christmastime clemency for Ramos and Compean
A bipartisan group of lawmakers asked President Bush this week to commute the sentences of two former Border Patrol agents serving long sentences for shooting and wounding a Mexican drug dealer and trying to cover it up.
The lawmakers — Reps. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas (pictured), Ted Poe, R-Texas, Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., and William Delahunt, D-Mass. — asked Bush in a letter to act quickly so that the two men could spend Christmas home with their families.
The agents — Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos — are serving 12 and 11 years in prison, respectively. Their case has become a cause celebre among conservative websites, talk radio shows and groups that advocate tougher border controls. Supporters say that the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against criminal intruders.
The White House released a new list of presidential pardons and commutations last week which did not include two former Border Patrol agents.
In the letter, the lawmakers tell the president that the average sentence in cases of manslaughter in 2006 was less than four years and for assault, less than three years.
“Mr. President, in this light, it is clear that the sentences imposed on agents Ramos and Compean are profoundly disproportionate based on the totality of the circumstances and sentencing guidelines. Their sentences were, quite simply, a gross miscarriage of justice,” the letter says.
Adding: “Mr. President, we respectfully request that you correct this injustice. We ask that you immediately commute the sentences of Ramos and Compean to time served so that they can spend Christmas at home with their families.”
Other members of Congress — including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas — have asked President Bush to pardon the agents or commute their sentences. Last week, a bi-partisan group of lawmakers in the House introduced a resolution asking for the immediate commutation of Compean and Ramos’ sentences.
The prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas, has staunchly defended the case.
Tancredo makes it official; endorses Mitt Romney
Rep. Tom Tancredo announced Thursday he is dropping out of the GOP presidential race and plans to endorse rival Mitt Romney.
Tancredo, a five-term congressman from Colorado who became famous for his fight against illegal immigration, made the announcement at a press conference in downtown Des Moines.
“I’m doing two things that I believe are in the best interests of this cause, and that cause is, of course, a secure America. I am withdrawing from the race and I’m endorsing Governor Romney for president of the United States,” Tancredo said.
Tancredo’s signature issue — the fight against illegal immigration — has become a major theme in the GOP presidential contest.
All leading candidates — including Romney, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee — are spending time and money trying to prove they are tough on illegal immigration.
Tancredo never made it passed the single digits in the polls, but his focus on illegal immigration helped make it a prominent issue in the race.
He ran two controversial ads which linked immigration to terrorism and violent crimes.
To read more, click here.
To read a profile of Tom Tancredo, click here.
Study: Hispanic voters to increase by 23 percent in 2008
About 9.3 million Latino voters will go to the polls in 2008, an increase of 23 percent compared to 2004, according to a new study by the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California.
“As the U.S. Latino population surges, we are seeing increases in registration and voter turnout due to increased naturalization numbers by Latino immigrants beginning in the 1990s and Latino youth coming of voting age,” said Harry Pachon, president of the institute.
Political experts say that Hispanic voters could make a difference in potential battleground states, including Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico.
Analysts also say that an increase in Hispanic voters would most likely benefit Democrats because Hispanics generally favor that party 2-to-1 over Republicans. In addition, a recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center showed that Republicans have lost support among Hispanics over the past year.
To read the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute report, click here.
AP: Tancredo to bow out
Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado plans to abandon his long-shot bid for the presidency, a person close to Tancredo said, according to the Associated Press.
AP did not identify the person.
Tancredo is holding a press conference today in downtown Des Moines, Iowa to “make a major announcement regarding the campaign.”
Tancredo’s signature issue — the fight against illegal immigration — has become a major theme in the GOP presidential contest and several candidates may be seeking his endorsement.
All leading candidates — including former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee — are spending time and money trying to prove they are tough on illegal immigration.
To read more, click here.
To read a profile of Tom Tancredo, click here.
Tancredo plans “major announcement regarding the campaign”
GOP presidential candidate Rep Tom Tancredo is holding a press conference Thursday in downtown Des Moines, Iowa to “make a major announcement regarding the campaign.”
Could Tancredo, who is polling at around 2 percent, be dropping out of the race? If so, who will he endorse?
Tancredo’s signature issue — the fight against illegal immigration — has become a major theme in the GOP presidential contest.
All leading candidates — including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee — are spending time and money trying to prove they are tough on illegal immigration.
Tancredo is shown here at a debate earlier this month.
Tancredo blasts Democrats for dropping punishment for “sanctuary cities”
Rep. Tom Tancredo, a GOP presidential candidate, decried Democratic leaders Tuesday after lawmakers dropped a provision that would have punished so-called “sanctuary cities.”
The cities have policies that direct police and local officials not to check the immigration status of residents using city services.
The “sanctuary city” measure passed the House in June but was dropped this week as House and Senate negotiators reconciled two versions of a spending bill for the Department of Homeland Security.
Tancredo and other supporters said the “sanctuary city” measure would have rightly punished cities for “aiding and abetting illegal immigration” by denying the cities certain homeland security funds.
“The Democrat leadership in this Congress have gift wrapped this misguided sanctuary policy for their pro-amnesty friends while giving the rest of the American people a lump of coal in their stockings,” Tancredo said, in a statement.
The way cities treat illegal immigrants has become a major theme in the Republican presidential race.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has been attacked repeatedly for supporting such a “sanctuary city” policy while mayor of New York.
Giuliani inherited — and staunchly defended — a policy from his predecessor Ed Koch that barred city agencies from sharing information with the federal government on the immigration status of residents who use city services unless there was evidence of a crime.
Giuliani has said several times that the policy was necessary for public health and safety and that it helped reduce the crime rate in New York.
Giuliani’s campaign, in turn, has accused rival Mitt Romney of allowing two Massachusetts cities, Cambridge and Somerville, to give illegal immigrants the same protection while he was governor of that state.
Talk radio hosts descend on Iowa to chat immigration
Just days before the Iowa caucuses, at least 20 radio talk show hosts from across the country will descend on the state to bring attention to the issue of illegal immigration on Dec. 27 and 28.
The event — at the downtown Marriott in Des Moines — is being hosted by the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s Congressional Task Force. The group seeks lower levels of immigration.
“Immigration, and the urgent need to fix our broken policies and enforce our laws, will not go away and neither will the medium that has championed the interests of ordinary Americans in this debate,” said Bob Dane, manager of the event.
One of the participants will be Roger Hedgecock from KOGO in San Diego. Hedgecock organized a similar event in Washington, D.C. earlier this year called “Hold Their Feet to the Fire” to urge Congress to reject legislation that would offer a path to citizenship to illegal immigrants.
The legislation was later defeated in the Senate.
Key issue in South Carolina: immigration
In about a month, the political attention now focused on the early voting in Iowa and New Hampshire will turn southward, to South Carolina, a state with a proven record of helping decide presidential nominations.
Predictions are that among Republicans, immigration will be the key issue in that state.
“Both parties’ voters are angry, but Republicans seem to have found heir new social issue: immigration,” said pollster John Zogby.
Indeed, South Carolina has been “whipped into a frenzy” over immigration, said Greenville Mayor Knox White.
In a Clemson University Palmetto Poll in September, South Carolina Republicans ranked illegal immigration second only to the war in Iraq as the nation’s biggest problem.
“It is the biggest problem of the country,” said Roan Garcia-Quintana, a refugee from Cuba and now a U.S. citizen. “Our leaders have allowed us to be invaded.”
Garcia-Quintana is executive director of the South Carolina-based group Americans Have Had Enough, which, so far, has focused most of its criticism on Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who earlier this year was a major sponsor of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that critics complained amounted to “amnesty” for illegal immigrants.
“We’re going to make an example out of him,” Garcia-Quintana said. “We’re going to make sure he finishes no higher than fourth or fifth.”
To read more, click here.
Thompson: Illegal immigrants welcome at “Huckabee University”
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, a GOP candidate for president, attacks rival Mike Huckabee’s immigration record in a mailing in Iowa which is posted on the Politico website.
The mailer shows what looks like the entrance to a college building with the words “Huckabee University” engraved in stone. The flyer says: “Huckabee University: Illegals welcome. U.S. citizens need not apply.”
It also says that as governor of Arkansas, Huckabee “championed an effort in Arkansas to give in-state tuition at state colleges and taxpayer-funded scholarships to illegal immigrants.”
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has also gone after Huckabee on immigration.
Huckabee supported for a bill in Arkansas that would have provided tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal immigrant children.
Huckabee defended the measure at a GOP debate, saying it “would’ve allowed those children who had been in our schools their entire school life the opportunity to have the same scholarship that their peers had” and that “we’re not going to punish a child because the parent committed a crime.”
To see the Thompson mailer, click here.
Mexico boycott over Republican immigration policies?
Mexico’s foremost expert on immigration is calling on Mexicans to do whatever they can to stop Republicans from winning the White House next year, including a boycott of companies that donate to Republican candidates.
Jorge Bustamante, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants and a sociology professor at the University of Notre Dame, this week called Republican Party policies on immigration “immoral.” Writing in the Mexico City daily Reforma, Bustamante said the Republican candidates share an immigration stance that “lacks even the most minimum recognition of the demand for the Mexican migrant labor.”
He called on Mexicans to harness “the real power we have as consumers” to boycott big companies that do business in Mexico and fund Republican candidacies. Bustamante didn’t name any particular companies, but said “that is public information available to anyone with basic understanding of how to navigate the Internet.”
Latinos say they are hurt by immigration debate, enforcement
More than half of U.S. Latinos — including citizens, legal residents and illegal immigrants — worry about being deported themselves or seeing a family member or close friend kicked out of the country, said a report released Thursday.
In addition, many said that the national debate over illegal immigration has made it more difficult for them to get a job or buy a home, said the report by the Pew Hispanic Center, a non-partisan research group in Washington.
“Latinos are feeling a range of negative affects from the increased public attention and the stepped up enforcement measures that have accompanied the growing national debate over illegal immigration,” said Paul Taylor, acting director of the center.
The study found that a majority of Hispanics believe that the failure to enact an immigration overhaul in Congress has made life more difficult for all Latinos in the United States.
In lieu of Congressional action, states and local governments have approved an unprecedented number of laws, regulations and procedures to crack down on illegal immigration. The federal government has also stepped up workplace enforcement and is building more fences on the Southern border.
The Pew report, which is based on a nationwide survey, found that many Hispanics disapprove of these actions. Seventy-five percent said they opposed workplace raids, 79 percent said they did not like local police taking an active role in identifying illegal immigrants, and 55 percent said they disapproved of states checking for immigration status before issuing driver’s licenses.
To read the report, click here.
Immigration ads a staple in GOP primary
One features the bloody victims of Central American gang violence. Another warns that 800,000 foreigners are crossing the border every year. And another denounces driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.
Immigration ads are permeating the airwaves in early primary states more than ever before and experts say they could be a harbinger of what to expect in the general election.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney released an ad this week, going after Mike Huckabee’s immigration record. The spot compares the two former governors on the issue, saying that Romney “stood up and vetoed a bill to give in-state tuition for illegal aliens” while Huckabee supported such a measure in Arkansas. It also says that Huckabee “even supported tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”
Bill Benoit, a professor at the University of Missouri’s Department of Communication who has studied political advertisements from the 1950s to the present, said the number of immigration ads this year is unprecedented.
Although the issue is playing out primarily in the GOP primary, Benoit said it could spill over to the general election, even if immigration is not voters’ top concern.
To read more, click here.
Two of the most controversial ads of the primary season — by long-shot Republican candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado — focused on immigration, his signature issue.
One spotlights Central American gangs such as MS-13 and shows bloody pictures of victims of gang violence. A voice-over says that the gangs are now on American soil “pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives” and blames the violence on “gutless politicians who refuse to defend our borders.”
John J. Pitney, a political science professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, predicted that Republicans will keep stressing immigration during the nomination campaign but that they will take a more cautious stance in the general election.
“They know that it could backfire if they overdo it,” he said. “Ads that seem nativist could turn off moderate voters and alienate the dwindling number of Latinos who still consider voting Republican.”
Hillary Clinton releases Spanish-language ad and video featuring Bill
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination, released a Spanish language radio ad on Wednesday that will air in Iowa and New Hampshire.
Sergio Bendixen, a veteran pollster who is advising the Clinton campaign, said that the ad targets Iowa’s 20,000 Hispanic registered Democrats and New Hampshire’s 5,000 Hispanic registered Democrats as well as the independents in that state that can participate in the primary.
The spot, which features some Mariachi music, says that Latinos have a high number of uninsured children and are losing their homes because of the mortgage housing crisis.
It says Hillary Clinton will solve these problems and that “like Bill Clinton, she will support economic policies that will create millions of jobs.”
The campaign also released a Spanish-language video with a similar message. It features Bill Clinton speaking in English about his wife, with Spanish subtitles.
“She will never forget the priorities of middle class and working class Americans,” Bill Clinton says.
Neither the radio ad or the video mention immigration.
Bendixen said that Hillary Clinton’s support for “comprehensive immigration reform” is well known and that such a complex issue is difficult to put into a short advertisement.
To view the video, click here.
To listen to the radio ad, click here.
Bush’s latest pardon list does not include border agents Compean and Ramos
The White House released a new list of presidential pardons and commutations this week which did not include two former Border Patrol agents whose case has become a cause celebre among conservatives and groups that advocate tougher border controls
The agents — Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos — are serving 12 and 11 years in prison for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and trying to cover it up.
Lawmakers who support the agents were upset that Compean and Ramos were not on the pardon list. They say the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against criminal intruders.
Rep., Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said that President Bush’s list of pardons includes “eight drug dealers” but not the “unjustly imprisoned Border Patrol agents.”
Members of Congress — including Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas — have asked President Bush to pardon the agents or commute their sentences. Last week, a bi-partisan group of House members introduced a resolution asking for the immediate commutation of Compean and Ramos.
The prosecutor in the case, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas, has staunchly defended the case.
At a press conference, Rohrabacher said: “The President’s heartless ignoring of the fundamental miscarriage of justice in the case of agents Ramos and Compean…is a snub to the families and a slap in the face to millions of Americans who have pleaded with the president to show some mercy for Ramos and Compean… Instead he turns around and shows mercy to drug dealers and other criminals and leaves Ramos and Compean to suffer in solitary confinement.”
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked about the agents on Wednesday. This is what she said: “Well, there’s processes in place for pardons, and those two individuals, if they want to seek a pardon, they can go through the process, as well.”
The president granted 29 pardons and 1 commutation this week. Since the beginning of his administration, he has granted 142 pardons and 5 commutations, according to the White House.
Romney hits Thompson, Giuliani and Huckabee on immigration
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who is trying to hold off a challenge in Iowa from Mike Huckabee with criticism of the former Arkansas governor’s record on immigration, is using the same tactic in South Carolina, with one major difference.
Instead of targeting Huckabee alone, as he is doing in Iowa, Romney is taking aim in South Carolina at former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson as well as Huckabee.
A new mailer sent by the Romney campaign in South Carolina this week has photos of Huckabee, Giuliani and Thompson under the headline: “Compare the records on illegal immigration.”
The mailer’s caption for Huckabee reads “Special Benefits for Illegals; for Giuliani, “A Sanctuary City”; and for Thompson, “A Do Nothing Record.”
Romney, on the other hand, offers a “record of results” and provides “strong leadership on illegal immigration,” the mailer asserts.
The mailer makes no mention of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who was the key Republican sponsor of a broad immigration bill earlier this year that would have given a path to citizenship to many illegal immigrants and created a temporary worker program.
In the latest Mason-Dixon poll, which was released this week, McCain is running a distant fifth in the Republican presidential field with 10 percent. The leader in the poll was Huckabee (20 percent), followed by Giuliani (17 percent), Romney (15 percent), and Thompson (14 percent).
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Romney: immigration ad not negative
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on Wednesday that his recent ad about rival Mike Huckabee’s immigration record is not negative.
“It’s not negative. It’s accurate. It’s an ad that shows the differences on a very important topic. And actually, if you agree with Mike Huckabee’s position, it’s a positive ad for him. If you agree with my position, it’s a positive ad for me,” Romney said, on NBC’s “Today” show.
The advertisement, which started airing this week, compares the two former governors on the issue, saying that Romney “stood up and vetoed a bill to give in-state tuition for illegal aliens” while Huckabee supported such a measure. It also says that Hucakbee “even supported tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”
Romney said in the interview with Matt Lauer that the advertisement was not an attack on Huckabee’s faith or his character but a “contrast ad” that highlighted two different positions on an important issue.
“I’m perfectly comfortable with people, if they accurately portray each other’s issues, describing those differences,” Romney said.
In response to the advertisement, the Huckabee campaign said it was disappointed that Romney “favors smearing his fellow Republicans as his primary campaign strategy.”
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Minutemen founder endorses Huckabee
Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minutemen Project, a citizen border patrol group that President Bush has likened to vigilantes, endorsed Mike Huckabee in the GOP presidential race Tuesday.
Huckabee said at a press conference that he was honored to receive the endorsement.
“No one can question Jim’s commitment to this country and the immigration problem. He has mobilized a group of volunteers to go to the border and draw attention to the issue of immigration. All of us want a policy where people come to this country through the front door, not the back door,” Huckabee said.
Gilchrist praised Huckabee’s recently released immigration plan that calls for fencing the border, eliminating some categories of legal immigration and other security measures. It was the latest in a string of efforts to show the former Arkansas governor is tough on illegal immigration.
The endorsement came as his rival, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, is attacking Huckabee in a television ad for supporting scholarships for illegal immigrant children during his tenure in Arkansas.
See the Romney ad below.
Romney attacks Huckabee on immigration
In what is being called the first attack ad of the GOP presidential primary, Mitt Romney is going after Mike Huckabee’s record on immigration.
The advertisement, which started airing today, compares the two former governors on the issue, saying that Romney “stood up and vetoed in-state tuition for illegal aliens” while Huckabee supported such a measure. It also says that Huckabee “even supported tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal aliens.”
Huckabee is a former governor of Arkansas and Romney is a former governor of Massachusetts.
See the ad here:
Huckabee spokesman Joe Carter responded to the advertisement with this statement sent toThe Politico: “We’re disappointed that Governor Romney favors smearing his fellow Republicans as his primary campaign strategy. But the voters in Iowa are too savvy to fall for such desperate tactics. They have seen both Governor Huckabee’s plan on immigration enforcement and border security and the less detailed approach put out by Governor Romney. As his ad notes, the choice does matter. We believe that on January 3rd Iowa voters will make the right choice.”
Huckabee has been dogged by accusations that he is soft on illegal immigration. In an effort to quash such concerns, he released a nine-point plan last week that calls for fencing the border, eliminating categories of legal immigration, and other security measures.
Huckabee also released an ad in which he promises to “fight to secure our borders” and to reject amnesty and “sanctuary cities” where police and local officials do not to check the immigration status of residents using city services.
You can see the Huckabee ad below.
Huckabee new ad calls for border fence, no amnesty
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee will begin airing a new ad on Tuesday that purports to show he is tough on illegal immigration.
It says Huckabee “will fight to secure our borders” and will say “no” to amnesty and “no” to sanctuary cities.
Huckabee, who is surging in recent polls, says in the ad: “Build a border fence. Secure the border and do it now.”
See the ad here:
Huckabee, a GOP candidate for president, has been dogged by accusations that he is soft on illegal immigration. Critics point to Huckabee’s support for a bill in Arkansas that would have provided tax-payer funded scholarships for illegal immigrant children.
In an effort to quash such concerns, the ordained Baptist preacher released a nine-point plan last week that calls for fencing the border, eliminating categories of legal immigration, and other security measures.
To read more, click here.
Headlines differ on Spanish-language debate; no “alien” talk in Miami
The Spanish language GOP presidential debate Sunday night at the University of Miami inspired very different headlines from two large wire services. Check it out:
The Associated Press: “GOP Hopefuls Temper Anti-Immigrant Talk.”
Reuters: “Republicans Talk Tough Against Illegal Immigration.”
For what it’s worth, the Miami Herald seemed to agree with AP with the headline, “A Softer Tone In Bilingual Debate,” but the New York Times was more like Reuters, saying, “Republican Candidates Firm on Immigration.”
Another interesting note on the unusual debate — none of the GOP presidential candidates used the term “illegal alien” during the 90-minute exchange which was broadcast by Univision to a Spanish-speaking audience.
To read more, click here.
Tancredo: “A Spanish debate has no place in a presidential campaign”
GOP presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo released a statement Friday explaining why he was boycotting the upcoming Republican debate hosted by Spanish-language network Univision.
“It is the law that to become a naturalized citizen of this country you must have knowledge and understanding of English, including a basic ability to read, write, and speak the language,” Tancredo said. “So what may I ask are our presidential candidates doing participating in a Spanish speaking debate? Pandering comes to mind.”
In addition, he said: “America has been a melting pot of people from all over the world but it can not survive as a nation if our immigrants do not assimilate. A common language is essential to that goal. Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual but it has perilous consequences for a nation. As such, a Spanish debate has no place in a presidential campaign.”
At the debate Sunday in Miami, Fla., candidates will answer questions in English and their answers will be translated for Spanish-speaking viewers. All other Republican candidates are attending.
Democratic presidential hopefuls participated in a similar debate in September.
Tancredo is shown here at a debate hosted by CNN and YouTube.
Poll: Republicans losing Hispanic support
Republican gains with Hispanic voters have dissipated in the past year, according to a new survey by the Pew Hispanic Center.
About 57 percent of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or say they lean to the Democratic Party, while 23 percent align with the Republican Party — a 34 percentage point gap in partisan affiliation. In July, 2006, the gap was 21 percentage points.
The report also showed that Hispanics could be an important swing vote in the 2008 election. Four of the six states that President Bush carried by five percentage points or less in 2004 have large Latino populations, including New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado.
Hessy Fernandez, spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said that Hispanic voters judge candidates based on where they stand on the issues and that the Republican Party is more closely aligned with Hispanics “than liberals like Hillary Clinton who want to create a government-run health care system financed by garnishing wages, massive tax increases that hurt small businesses and families, and surrender from the War on Terror’s central front.”
To read the report, click here.
Democratic candidates look for “amigos” online
Democratic White House hopefuls are looking for voters everywhere — including Spanish-language social networking sites such as MiGente, MyGrito and MyBatanga, reports La Politica, a Web site devoted to Hispanic voters.
Sen. Barack Obama’s profile page on MiGente.com has more than 43,000 “friends.” The Illinois senator also has a presence on MyBatanga and MyGrito.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York has a page on MyGrito and her campaign plans to be up on Batanga before the end of the year, the story says. Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is on MySpace en Espanol.
Peter Leyden, director of the San Francisco-based Institute of New Politics, which recently issued a report on social networking as a campaign tool, said the sites are “a particularly effective way to reach young people,” La Politica says.
To read more click here.
House Democrats face quandary on immigration
House Democratic leaders “are being whipsawed on immigration policy” by two groups — the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who is concerned about enforcement-only bills, and vulnerable Democrats from swing districts who say a “get tough” approach is necessary to keep their seats in 2008, The Hill newspaper reported Thursday.
Rep. Joe Baca, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, plans to address his fellow Democrats at a meeting next week to reassure colleagues that they can be tough while creating a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, the story says.
Meanwhile, Democratic leaders have let conservative members join legislative forces with ardent illegal immigration foe Rep. Tom Tancredo and allowed passage of a non-binding motion prohibiting the government from suing groups that require employees to speak English at work.
To read more, click here.
Menendez doesn’t want to see Tancredo ad
Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey said Wednesday he was not interested in seeing the latest television advertisement by GOP presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
When asked about the ad, which warns that open borders are leading to the raping of children by Central American gang members, Menendez said, “I make it my business NOT to look at Tom Tancredo ads.”
Menendez’ response sparked laughter at an immigration forum hosted by NDN, a Democratic group.
In a speech, Menendez said that Republicans are “willing to use Hispanics as political scapegoats” and will lose big in 2008 because of it.
Tancredo’s ad, revealed Tuesday, focuses on Central American gangs such as MS-13 and shows bloody pictures of victims of gang violence.
It says that the gangs are now on American soil “pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives” and blames the violence on “gutless politicians who refuse to defend our borders.”
Tancredo caused a stir last month with another ad that linked immigration to terrorism. That ad showed a hooded man blowing up a shopping mall.
To see the new Tancredo ad, click here.
Democratic candidates discuss deportations, learning English
Democratic candidates spent much time discussing immigration at their latest debate, after National Public Radio decided to make it one of three themes of the exchange.
They covered a wide range of topics including the cost of mass deportations, whether to deputize Americans to enforce immigration law, and the English learning curve of current immigrants.
Here are the highlights:
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York: “What we’re looking at here is 12 million to 14 million people. They live in our neighborhoods. They take care of our elderly parents. They probably made the beds in the hotels that some of us stayed in last night. They are embedded in our society.”
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois: “We’re not going to deputize a whole bunch of American citizens to start grabbing people or turning them in, in part because the ordinary American citizen may not know whether or not this person is illegal or not. Now, we should be holding employers accountable…But, you know, the notion that we’re going to criminalize priests, for example, or doctors who are providing services to individuals, and throw them in jail for doing what their calling asks them to do, which is to provide help and service to people in need, I think that is a mistake. I think that’s out of America’s character.”
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware: “They’ll speak English. Like every other large wave of immigrants, once they are bond with the second generation, they’ll all be speaking English. What’s the fear here? Give me an example where that hasn’t happened.”
Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut: “I’m very worried about the fear and hate-mongers out there who are going to divide this country very terribly on this subject matte
More Clinton: “You’ll hear the voices of those saying, ‘Deport people. Round them up.’ That is absolutely unrealistic, and it is not in keeping with American values. The best estimates I have is it would take about $200 billion over five years to round up 12 to 14 million people. It would take tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of new law enforcement officials. It would take a convoy of 200,000 buses stretching 1,700 miles. People in America would be outraged at the loss of their privacy and the invasion of their homes and businesses.”
Romney fires contractor who hired illegal immigrants
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, ridiculed by rival Rudy Giuliani for employing illegal immigrants at his “sanctuary mansion,” said he had fired the landscaper for his suburban Boston home after learning for a second time about undocumented workers laboring on the property, the Associated Press reported.
Romney said in a statement that he had given the contractor a second chance and termed the recurrence of hiring illegal immigrants “disappointing and inexcusable.”
Romney has made the fight against illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaign.
At a Republican presidential debate last week, Romney and Giuliani, a former mayor of New York, traded barbs on the issue, carrying over a theme from the campaign trail.
Giuliani defended his policy in New York where police and local officials did not check the immigration status of residents using city services.
“If we didn’t allow the children of illegal immigrants to go to school, we would have had 70,000 children on the streets at a time in which New York City was going through a massive crime wave,” he said.
Giuliani also accused Romney of having a “sanctuary mansion.”
In response, Romney said it would “not be American” to question the legal status of workers just because they “have a funny accent.”
Tancredo’s new ad says open borders leading to rape of children
GOP presidential candidate Rep. Tom Tancredo unveiled a new television ad Tuesday that said open borders are leading to rapes and other violence against American citizens.
The ad — which can be seen by clicking here — focuses on Central American gangs such as MS-13 and shows bloody pictures of victims of gang violence.
Than a voice says that the gangs are now on American soil “pushing drugs, raping kids, destroying lives” and blames the violence on “gutless politicians who refuse to defend our borders.”
It ends with the words: Secure the Borders. Deport those who don’t belong. Make sure they never come back. Tom Tancredo. President.
Tancredo caused a stir last month with another ad that linked immigration to terrorism. That ad showed a hooded man blowing up a shopping mall.
It condemned “spineless politicians” who “refuse” to protect the borders.
Many groups decried the ad as anti-immigrant and an attempt at fear-mongering, but Tancredo stood by the spot.
Prospects fading for increase in H1-B visas
With little time left in the Congressional calendar, high tech companies are scrambling to get an increase in H-1B visas this year, but the prospects are fading.
“Time is short and it is a bit of a long shot, but the urgency of our situation necessitates us continuing to walk the halls of Congress,” said Robert Hoffman, a vice president for government and public affairs at Oracle and co-chair of Compete America, a coalition of high-tech companies that includes Microsoft Corp. and Google, Inc. “As long as they continue to talk to us, we have reason to be hopeful.”
Hoffman said he is in discussions with House leaders and other key lawmakers, hoping to attach an H-1B amendment to a larger measure. But the task is difficult because Congress is facing a heavy agenda in the final weeks of the year, including 11 “must-pass” spending bills to fund various government agencies.
Lawmakers who strongly support expanding the visas also said there is still hope for legislation.
“There’s always a chance,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “It makes no sense to educate foreign students at our flagship universities in critical skills and training areas and then to send them away … and have them compete with us from their native lands.”
Critics say, however, that the H-1B program depresses wages for American workers and has many flaws, including limited enforcement mechanisms.
Legislation designed to protect American workers from being displaced by foreign H-1B employees has also stalled in Congress.
Top Hispanic advertisers include English-learning company
The latest issue of Hispanic Business magazine lists the top 100 advertisers to Hispanic consumers in the United States.
Number one is Broadcasting Media Partners Inc., an investor group that owns Univision Communications, Inc. It spent $210 million advertising to Latinos from June 2006 to June 2007.
Several well-known large companies also made the top ten including Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor Co., and AT & T, Inc.
An interesting niche business occupies the number three spot: Lexicon Marketing Corp., a language instruction company that owns the popular English learning program, “Ingles Sin Barreras,” or “English Without Barriers.”
Lexicon spent $146 million advertising to Hispanic consumers last year.
To see the full list, click here.
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Judge: Case against border agents “got out of hand”
Federal prosecutors may have overreacted in their case against two former Border Patrol agents serving lengthy prison terms for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and trying to cover it up, an appeals court judge said Monday, according to the Associated Press.
Judge E. Grady Jolly, one of three judges from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals hearing the case of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, questioned whether the two agents would have been charged if they had reported the shooting, the story said.
“For some reason, this one got out of hand, it seems to me,” Jolly said of the agents’ prosecution.
Compean’s lawyer, Bob Baskett, said he was encouraged by the judges comments.
The case has become a cause celebre among conservatives and groups that advocate tougher border controls. Supporters say that the agents were wrongly convicted for protecting the United States against a criminal intruder.
Members of Congress have asked President Bush to pardon the agents or commute their sentences.
U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of the Western District of Texas has staunchly defended the prosecution.
To read more, click here.