May 1, 2008

Students rally for immigration rights

The cadence blared out from megaphones, and got the time-honored response:
"What do we want?"
"JUSTICE!"
"When do we want it?"
"NOW!!!"
Several hundred students, mostly high schoolers, filled the south half of Monument Square at 8 a.m. this morning, for a brief rally demanding immigration rights. Then they marched up Sixth Street, past U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan's office -- he wasn't in -- and back around to Festival Hall, where six buses waited to take them to Milwaukee for an even bigger rally.

The only elected official I saw was Racine Mayor Gary Becker, who said, "Let's demand respect for everyone in the community." When asked whether all those kids shouldn't have been in school, the mayor said the event "is a good learning experience. I'd take my kids out of school for this."

Meanwhile, the Journal Sentinel reported today that Wisconsin's Wisconsin's Hispanic population grew faster last year than the nation's, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

In the past year, the state's Hispanic population grew 4.3% to 271,830. The state's percentage gain was greater than the national Hispanic growth rate of 3.3%.

"The Hispanic population here grew the most of any minority group - 41% from 2000 to 2007. With Hispanics constituting 4.9% of the state's population, Wisconsin ranks 32nd for its percentage of Hispanics and 24th for total Hispanic population," the J-S reported. The full story is HERE.




7 comments:

  1. Sorry
    Illegals must be send back have a kid in this county the child can stay you still have to go.
    100's of millions are spend on or because of illegals every year.
    time for this to stop now!
    Any office holder who will not back an end to illegals in this county must not be reelected.
    Build the Fence
    Jail employers of illegals
    Proof of status to rent or buy homes
    Proof of status for any type of government benefits

    ReplyDelete
  2. Based on a one-year in-depth study, Deborah Schurman-Kauflin of the Violent Crimes Institute of Atlanta estimates there are about 240,000 illegal immigrant sex offenders in the United States who have had an average of four victims each. She analyzed 1,500 cases from January 1999 through April 2006 that included serial rapes, serial murders, sexual homicides and child molestation committed by illegal immigrants.





    In April 2005, the Government Accountability Office released a report on a study of 55,322 illegal aliens incarcerated in federal, state, and local facilities during 2003.



    It found the following:

    @The 55,322 illegal aliens studied represented a total of 459,614 arrests – some eight arrests per illegal alien;

    @Their arrests represented a total of about 700,000 criminal offenses – some 13 offenses per illegal alien;

    @36 percent had been arrested at least five times before.





    95% of warrants for murder in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens.





    83% of warrants for murder in Phoenix are for illegal aliens.





    86% of warrants for murder in Albuquerque are for illegal aliens.





    75% of people on the most wanted list in Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Albuquerque are illegal aliens.





    24.9% of all inmates in California detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.





    40.1% of all inmates in Arizona detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.





    48.2% of all inmates in New Mexico detention centers are Mexican nationals here illegally.





    29% (630,000) of convicted illegal aliens in state and federal prisons at a cost of $1.6 billion annually.





    More than 300,000 illegal aliens in Los Angeles County are living in garages.





    More than 53% of all investigated burglaries reported in California, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and Texas are perpetrated by illegal aliens.





    More than half of all gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens from south of the border.





    More than 43% of all Food Stamps issued are to illegal aliens.





    More than 41% of all unemployment checks issued in the United States are to illegal aliens.





    62% of all undocumented immigrants in the United States are working for cash and not paying taxes, predominantly illegal aliens, working without a green card.





    More than 380,000 anchor babies born in the United States in 2005 were to parents who are illegal aliens; making those 380,000 babies automatically U.S. citizens.





    97.2% of all costs incurred from those births were paid by the American taxpayer.





    More than 66% of all births in California are to illegal alien Mexicans on Medi-Cal, whose births were paid for by taxpayers.





    Nearly 60% of all occupants of HUD properties in the United States are illegal aliens.





    In Los Angeles County, 5.1 million people speak English and 3.9 million speak Spanish.





    More than 34% of Arizona students in grades 1-12 are illegal aliens.





    More than 42% of California students in grades 1-12 are non-English speaking.





    More than 71% of all apprehended cars stolen in 2005 in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California were stolen by illegal aliens or transport coyotes.





    63% of cited or stopped drivers in Arizona have no license, no insurance, and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 63%, 97% are illegal aliens.





    66% of cited/stopped drivers in New Mexico have no license, no insurance, and no registration for the vehicle. Of that 66%, 98% are illegal aliens.





    Less than 2% of illegal aliens in the United States are picking crops, but 41% are on welfare.





    The lifetime fiscal impact (taxes paid minus services used) for the average adult Mexican illegal alien on the average American taxpayer is $55,000 over a five-year span. You personally are giving $11,000 every year to illegal aliens.





    K-12 school expenditures for illegal aliens cost U.S. Taxpayers $7.4 Billion a year (US Rep.



    Gary Miller)

    Illegal aliens consume $3.7 Billion annually in Medicare and Medicaid benefits since 40% of illegal aliens are on U.S.



    Welfare (Federation for American Immigration Reform)

    $1.



    6 billion is spent annually in prison costs to house, feed and clothe illegal aliens who fill 32% of our federal and state prisons (Fox News Channel O Reilly Factor)

    $10 billion dollars are sent back to Mexico annually by illegal aliens (according to the Pew Hispanic Center), an amount which now makes it Mexico s 2nd largest industry.





    Leprosy, Hansen s disease, was so rare in America that in 40 years only 900 people were afflicted Suddenly, in the past three years America has more than 7,000 cases of leprosy.



    Leprosy now is endemic to northeastern states because illegal aliens and other immigrants brought leprosy from India, Brazil, the Caribbean, and Mexico (Thomson American Health Consultants; 2003)

    Tuberculosis was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17% increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188%.



    (American Medical Association (JAMA) June 2005)

    Illegal aliens make up 32% of State & Federal Prison populations (FNC O Reilly Factor)

    There are an estimated 240,000 illegal alien sexual predators currently in the USA (Violent Crimes Institute - May 2006)

    Over 1,000,000 sexual crimes are estimated to have been committed in the USA over the past seven years by illegal aliens (Violent Crimes Institute - May 2006)

    90% of all crime in Brooks County Texas is committed by illegal aliens (Brooks County Sheriff s Department April 2006)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Posted on Tue, Feb. 26, 2008
    Study debunks link between immigrants, crime
    By EVE HIGHTOWER
    ehightower@modbee.com
    last updated: February 26, 2008 07:43:31 AM

    Immigrants are less likely than U.S.-born citizens to be incarcerated in California, according to a Public Policy Institute of California study released Monday.

    The study by the San Francisco-based independent, nonprofit think tank also found:

    U.S.-born men are three times more likely to be incarcerated in state prison than foreign-born men.

    Foreign-born people make up 35 percent of California's adult population and 17 percent of the state prison population.

    U.S.-born men ages 18 to 40 are eight times more likely than Mexican men of the same age group to be in a state correctional institute.

    The institute's numbers stand in stark contrast to federal prison statistics. Though immigrants made up about 12 percent of the U.S. population in 2005, they made up 27 percent of the population in federal prisons, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report.

    Kristin Butcher, an associate professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who co-wrote the study, had this statistic in mind when she began research for the institute's report. Because people who have been arrested and are awaiting deportation are transferred to federal detention centers from county jails and state prisons, immigrants make up a disproportionate percentage of the federal prison population. She reasoned that the inverse must be true for state and county facilities.

    "Calls to curtail immigration, particularly illegal immigration, appeal to public fears about immigrants' involvement in criminal activities," the report states.

    "Everyone here is not a criminal," Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department spokesman Deputy Royjindar Singh said of immigrants.

    The report concludes that spending more money to reduce immigration won't necessarily make the United States safer, because immigrants commit crime less frequently than U.S.-born citizens.

    That's no surprise to Modesto-based Hispanic Leadership Council President Balvino Irizarry.

    "Immigrants are highly motivated. The first generation that comes has a strong incentive to work and take care of their families," he said, adding that immigrants' futures and families depend on them staying out of trouble.

    Butcher concedes that immigrants' low rate of incarceration in state prisons may partly be a result of immigration policy that involves screening prospective immigrants for criminal history. Foreign-born U.S. residents must show "good moral conduct."

    Even a misdemeanor can halt a citizenship application, said Sharon Rummery, northwest regional spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration.

    Butcher says while stringent immigration policies may help weed out unsavory people seeking U.S. residency or citizenship, she doubts policy proposals that call for even stronger limitations, such as increasing the education needed by those granted visas, will help reduce crime.

    Bee staff writer Eve Hightower can be reached at ehightower@modbee.com or 578-2382.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Citizens twice as likely to land in NJ prisons as legal, illegal immigrants
    by Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger
    Saturday April 12, 2008, 9:33 PM
    U.S. citizens are twice as likely to land in New Jersey's prisons as legal and illegal immigrants, according to new data that counter some of the most widely perceived notions about the link between immigration and crime.

    Non-U.S. citizens make up 10 percent of the state's overall population, but just 5 percent of the 22,623 inmates in prison as of July 2007, according to an analysis of New Jersey Department of Corrections and U.S. Census data by The Star-Ledger.

    As part of the federal government's attempt to fix an immigration system that has allowed deportable criminals to go back on the streets, federal agents started scouring the inmate rolls of New Jersey's state prisons last year.

    The goal was to identify criminal aliens so they could be deported once they finished their sentences. That effort yielded another dividend: the first-ever snapshot of the non-U.S. citizen population in New Jersey's state prisons.

    The statistics fall directly in line with several other new studies by sociologists that consistently have found the immigrant incarceration rates equal or lower to that of U.S. citizens. The findings contradict one long-held conception about immigrants and crime.

    The New Jersey statistics also come to light at a significant juncture, as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security seeks to give local police departments a greater role in enforcing immigration laws in New Jersey and across the country.

    "I first got into this because I heard all these terrible complaints that immigrants were a big part of the crime problem," said Anne Morrison Piehl, an economics professor at Rutgers University who has researched incarceration rates among immigrants in California.

    "When you look at incarceration rates, you find immigrants much less likely than the native born to be incarcerated," Piehl added. "Once you control for the fact that immigrants are generally younger and less educated, then the data you find is even more surprising."

    Advocates of tougher enforcement say the numbers do nothing to lessen the need to crack down on immigrants who commit crimes, including using local police to do it.

    "I don't want anyone to think the illegal immigrant population in general causes any more crime than the legal population," said Morristown Mayor Donald Cresitello, who has applied to a federal program to deputize the town's police officers as immigration agents. "That's not my position and statistics show that. But we already have enough of our own criminals and we don't have to invite criminals in."

    MYTH OR REALITY?

    Immigrant advocates say the numbers are proof that the "illegal immigrant crime wave" touted by anti-immigration groups on television and the internet is more myth than reality.

    Several high-profile crimes committed by illegal immigrants, including the slaying of four college students in a Newark schoolyard last August, have fueled such misperceptions, they added.

    "It's popular fiction -- and the important word is fiction," said Shai Goldstein, Executive Director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network. "It has no foundation in reality as do most of the anti-immigrant arguments which are based on either misperceptions or outright bigotry and sometimes both."

    Under tougher immigration laws passed by Congress in 1996, any immigrant, legal or illegal, who is convicted of an aggravated felony may be deported when his or her criminal sentence is completed.

    But for years, understaffed federal immigration agencies could not keep up and that pushed many deportable criminals back onto the streets after they got out of jail or prison.

    While there is still work to be done in the state's county jails, ICE officials say their efforts to fix the problem in state prisons have been more successful.

    From July 2002 to July 2007, the number of state inmates subject to immigration detainers, or holds, more than doubled, from 570 to 1,195, according to data from the New Jersey Department of Corrections.

    Detainers, essentially notices that an inmate is not to be released without being turned over to ICE, are issued for both illegal immigrants and legal immigrants who may be stripped of their legal status because of their crimes.

    "We've got a handle on the state prisons," said Scott Weber, Newark district director of ICE's Office of Detention and Removal. "I'd be surprised if we were missing people."

    Despite the debate over what the data means, it provides the first snapshot of the criminal alien population in New Jersey's 14 state prisons.

    Many of them have rap sheets that vividly illustrate the huge holes in the system that allowed criminal aliens to avoid deportation despite repeat arrests and convictions. Still, in almost all categories of crime, they are less likely to be imprisoned than their U.S.-born counterparts.

    They account for 86, or 5 percent, of the 1,670 murder charges against state inmates; 27, or seven percent, of the 360 aggravated sexual assaults; and three percent of all drug-related charges. Since many inmates are charged with more than one crime, the number of total convictions exceeds the inmate total.

    Non-U.S. citizens account for 11 percent of all sexual assault convictions -- one of the only crimes for which they were equally, or slightly more likely, to be imprisoned than U.S. citizens.

    Researchers say the New Jersey statistics fall squarely in line with numerous studies performed in recent years.

    A study released earlier this year by Washington-based nonprofit Immigration Policy Center found that U.S.-born men ages 18 to 39 are five times more likely to be incarcerated than are their foreign-born peers.

    And, while the number of illegal immigrants in the country doubled between 1994 and 2005, violent crime declined by nearly 35 percent and property crimes by 26 percent over the same period.

    Piehl, the Rutgers professor, cited several theories behind the statistics.

    The process of immigration, which requires motivation and personal sacrifice, she said, may self-select types of people who are less likely to commit crimes. Once they get here, the harsher penalties immigrants face, namely deportation, also prevents lawbreaking.

    Immigration critics say the data paints only part of the picture of the relation between immigration, especially illegal immigration, and crime.

    Steven Camarota, research director at the Center for Immigration Studies, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C, called the New Jersey stats "good news" but cautioned they paint an incomplete picture.

    He cited U.S. Border Patrol statistics showing that 15 percent of the illegal border crossers it apprehends have criminal records. He also noted studies that show incarceration rates rise sharply among the children of immigrants.

    "There seems to be this silly notion among politicians and researchers that if the incarceration rate is proportional, then that settles the debate," Camarota said. "It isn't just a question of proportionality, it's a question of outrage that people who should not even be in the country and could have been weeded out for previous crimes are here at all."

    Brian Donohue may be reached at bdonohue@starledger.com or (973)392-1543.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The fact that they are means they broke the law knowing it was wrong
    to do so.
    If you want to use the idea they are here simply to make money to live then I am going to start selling drugs to kids I am only doing that to make money.

    ReplyDelete
  6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. "What do we want?"

    "MONEY AND STUFF!"

    "When do we want it?"

    "NOW!"

    "Where are we gonna get it?"

    "FROM YOU!"

    ReplyDelete