1 post tagged “immigration”

Our Congressional representative, Sylvestre Reyes, sounds off about recent anti-immigrant hate-speech and resultant actions in this Newspapertree op-ed:

From certain cable news and radio shows, blogs, and even from some
speeches on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, one might be led to presume that a border community like El Paso-Juárez is a dangerous and crime-ridden place. The recent debate over comprehensive immigration reform exposed these narrow-minded stereotypes, and it is sad and frustrating to me that, thanks to this heightened rhetoric, people might fear communities like ours. This fear is unjustified. Of course, crime exists, but, as the largest international twin city on the U.S-Mexico border, with a large immigrant population – El Paso is a safe place to call home.

Believe me, he speaks for the city, especially when we daily hear spiteful, venomous verbiage spewed about immigration, whether legal or illegal, the border, whether guarded or not, and all those jobs illegal immigrants supposedly take away from those who act as if their grand-parents were never immigrants themselves.

In response, the Southern Poverty Law Center has collected answers to claims issued by such fear-mongers as Tancredo, Dobbs, O'Reilly, et al. Hmm...sounds like a law firm cum ad agency, no?

On the other hand, all is not polka dots and moonbeams here.

We have problems, but we are trying to work through them as Bobby Byrd can attest. And whether we can or cannot will undoubtedly depend on if we can keep our heads about us while all around us loose theirs, and then blame it on us...well you know the rest...or should.