Weekly Immigration Wire: Why Are Hate Crimes on the Rise? Immigration NewsLadder
by Nezua, TMC MediaWire Blogger
On May 30, 29-year-old Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter Brisenia Flores were shot to death, purportedly by a group of far-right anti-immigrant activists who broke into the Flores home by posing as police officers. On Friday, Shawna Forde, anti-immigrant activist and Executive Director of the Minutemen American Defense, (MAD) along with accomplices Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola were arrested on two counts of first-degree murder and burglary charges related to the Flores murders.
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo notes that the MAD website denounces the murders, but wryly adds that the distancing is "a tad belied by headlines down the page," like "Subhuman Mexicans (God's Children?) Prey on Countrymen." The Flores murders are part of a palpable political and social climate of hostility and revulsion toward Latin American immigrants that is running amok in our nation.
As Democracy Now reports, the FBI has noted a rise in hate crimes against Latinos, which isn't difficult to verify anecdotally. And, according to Laura Flanders at GritTV, "economics, racial panic, immigration, [and] right wing rhetoric" all play a crucial role in this rise. If our government continues to spend resources that help portray people as both predatory and "subhuman," it will continue to foster a perception that violence against this class can be committed in good conscience.
This national, anti-immigrant fervor has resulted in a courts system in which "countless immigrants are subjected to harassing or denigrating treatment" and "have no assistance in navigating the byzantine court process," writes Mary Giovagnoli at AlterNet. She reports that "misguided deportation-only strategies have led to a breakdown in our immigration court system." The system is overloaded, backlogged, and not operating effectively or humanely.
The U.S. immigration process is in disrepair due to neglect and improper stopgap measures (like agreement 287(g)), just as broken bones will fuse in any manner if not set correctly. We are mired in an interim period and tensions will continue rising until we take on the challenge as a nation. In any part of the process, from application to arrest to detention to deportation, there are glaring problems. RaceWire touches briefly on the lack of accountability in the detention system.
Is the increasing absorption of virulently racist mentalities into mainstream groups a terrible confluence of unrelated factors, or a predictable reaction to the "browning" of this country? At the same time the U.S. military has relaxed its rules on accepting recruits with ties to white supremacist movements, so have circumstances allowed for "a new crop of anti-immigrant groups to enter the mainstream dialogue, even though many have ties to hate groups with violent records," as Miriam Zoila Pérez writes for Feministing.
The video above depicts Shawna Forde as a spokesman for one of these hate groups, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). FAIR made news on Tuesday for disingenuously presenting statistics that demonize immigrants as a strain to the economy. At AlterNet, Walter Ewing exposes the tortured logic FAIR employs and makes the case that "once ... inconvenient truths are taken into account, FAIR's 'cost' evaporates."
It wasn't long ago that we reported on how many anti-immigrant pundits were using the Swine Flu to create a toxic anti-immigrant/anti-Latino climate. And sadly, none of those people understand how hate speech leads directly to violence. Talking Points Memo makes the alleged murderers' ties to the anti-immigration movement clear.
When the government build walls to stave off fears, it is, ironically, reinforcing that same emotion of fear. When hostile and punitive legislation is enacted, fear of the Other is mixed with aggression. When a fearful and aggressively rigid mindset is applied to social fluctuations that require flexibility and change, the result is an increase in the return of that negative energy.
And yet, hope will live on. And sometimes that hope will lead to historic change. Which is why we must keep writing and talking, keep pushing, and keep challenging all the injustice we find.
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All murders are, at their core, hateful, and the murder of a child abominable. However:
By conflating the murders with the fact that Forde and her cohorts had ties to anti-immigrant groups, and that their victims were Hispanic, an impression is created this is, perforce, a hate crime. However, according to Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, the three were out for drug money and hoped to kill the family to cover their tracks. Flores was, allegedly, a narcotics dealer.
Another question: What was the membership of Forde's group? It was an offshoot of the national Minutemen group, which forced her out because of her radical views. In no account of this story is her group, "Minutemen American Defense", not described as "small".
Are hate crimes really increasing in frequency, or are definitions of what constitutes hate crimes becoming more broad? Overwhelmingly, the crimes tallied by the FBI do not involve violence; the loose (to the point of deceptive) term "intimidation" accounts for the largest number of these "crimes".
And what, pray tell, does this mean?:
The government is doing this? In what way? If your intention is to create the impression a race war, or violent anti-immigrant crusade, is occuring in this country - and has reached crisis status - you must come up with evidence more credible.
June 18, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama Committee Votes to Give Stimulus Jobs to Illegal immigrants.
The American people are wondering if the Obama administration is holding back E-Verify, as a pawn in an immigration game of chess. Is this one of their political ploys to force through another Amnesty like in 1986, then I guess--THE PEOPLE--will have no say in their future? But with hundreds of pro-sovereignty groups, it’s—NOT--going to be an easy task? E-Verify which has been compromised over and over again, to satisfy the US Chamber of commerce, some unions, mainly the Catholic church, ACLU and organizations that is anti-American such as La Raza. E-verify as it is upgraded would start the rollback of illegal immigration in the workplace, removing the cheap labor dilemma.
Worried about their bountiful profits from cheap labor the business community, have used any means possible to demonize this tool. They have afforded many errors to its use, complaining that thousands of people have been ejected from jobs. Yet they have never informed the avid population, that errors can be resolved by stopping off at the local Social Security office. Only the illegal workers are not going to trespass in this government agency. You would think with the massive public outcry about using E-Verify, politicians would be weary of voters in the next re-election. But--NO--35 members voted not to identify all employees and new hires through the E-Verify.
Three separate E-Verify amendments failed to pass through the House Appropriations Committee earlier today. Two amendments were introduced by Rep. Jack Kingston and another by Rep. Ken Calvert. E-Verify should be a permanent tool and everybody on the payroll must be identified as legal. With a dark cloud of second AMNESTY looming very soon, it can only be foiled by the American people. Only your frustrated voices erupting in Washington will freeze another Blanket Amnesty. The costs will be astronomical to the American taxpayer, but not to the corporate world. Say--YES--to e-verify! Say--NO--to any AMNESTY. Call your Senator or Congressman. Digest more of the facts and unbiased truth at NUMBERSUSA, JUDICIAL WATCH, CAPSWEB, and ALIPAC. At AMERICANPATROL, learn about the massive upsurge on illegal alien criminal activity.
June 18, 2009 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink