Notre Dame Forum on Immigration: Barletta is still wrong

I just watched the full 110 minute forum on immigration sponsored by the University of Notre Dame. Finally, a constructive discussion of this most important yet contentious national issue.

Moderated by PBS's Rey Suarez, the panel included Senator Mel Martinez, Cardinal Michael Mahony of Los Angeles, Arizona Governor Janet A. Napolitano and Hazelton, PA mayor, Louis J. Barletta. While framed by the imperatives of Catholic social justice teachings, it was not a one sided open-borders forum. Barletta and three white male students from the audience represented the anti-immigrant side, while really only the Cardinal argued a strong pro-undocumented immigrant line. Martinez and Napolitano represented the more nuanced middle ground.

I highly recommend watching the forum. Why? Because the immigration issue is not going away soon, and given what has transpired thus far in the debate, it'll take a much better educated citizenry before sensible solutions will be politically doable.

I did, however, find it interesting watching and listening to Barletta who tried very hard to sound reasonable and even compassionate. But while he struck an earnest and even soft tone, his tactic was the same: Blame "illegals" for every horrific crime that's occurred in Hazelton, while obscuring his ineffectiveness as a community leader and mayor.

His rap didn't sit well with me, nor apparently with many others, including student Michael McKenna who wrote the following as part of a larger reaction to the forum posted online:

Mayor Barletta painted a fairly pristine picture of life in his town pre-immigrant, while glossing over the fact that Northeastern Pennsylvania has been declining economically for decades, arguably since the decline of coal mining after World War II. To ascribe all subsequent problems to immigrants is a classic case of scapegoating. The crimes he described were indeed horrific, but to suggest that they were committed by undocumented people on a scale disproportionate to their makeup in the population is difficult to believe. Also, a large percentage of the Latinos in Hazleton are Puerto Rican, who are by law U.S. citizens. But by creating a political climate of fear, very likely these U.S. citizens will suffer the social consequences as well.

McKenna makes an important point: Barletta props up his case against undocumented immigrants with distortions and myths about life in Hazelton. And a new study by Zogby International provides the evidence. The study found that on all of the negative conditions attributed to the city's undocumented immigrants--crowded schools, higher unemployment, higher crime levels, etc.,--none are true.

Congratulations to Notre Dame U. for the terrific forum. Now, if only we can get the folks on television, radio and the U.S. Congress to follow suit.

El Diario: Political blowback

Attacking immigrants is just not good politics. Some politicians learned this the hard way. In this election cycle, several politicians campaigned on anti-immigrant platforms—and lost. The most outrageous was Congressman Tom Tancredo, who ran for the Republican nomination for president. Tancredo is in favor of ending legal immigration.

Other candidates—namely Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney—tried to outdo Tancredo. But their sparring during the primary debates did not take them to the top of the Republican ticket. And ultimately, Republican nominee John McCain, by backstepping on immigration reform, failed to move the vast majority Latino voters. Latin American immigrants are 40 percent of the Hispanic electorate. The vast majority of Latinos support a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants.

The scapegoating of immigrants had its consequences locally. Republican incumbents like State Senator Serphin Maltese were not helped by their party’s shortsighted platform on immigration and the economy. And without a disastrous party, Maltese alone would have been counting his days in Queens, the borough with the largest immigrant population. Maltese voted against a state measure allowing non citizen students to pay the same rate of in-state tuition as native students.

But one of the most significant defeats in the northeast was of Mayor Lou Barletta of Hazleton, PA. Barletta appeared on the national radar when he pushed through a harsh anti-immigrant ordinance that was thrown out in a legal battle. With the admiration of enforcement-only zealots, Barletta ran for Congress. He lost on Tuesday.

Click here and here for more on Barletta; here for more on Tancredo; and here for why Maltese's opponent--Senator-elect Joseph Addabbo--was the better choice for Latinos and immigrants of Queens .

Undoubtedly, some politicians will resort to another fear-based campaign to rile up voters. But the tide of blaming immigrants may have run its course.

Link

A Nativist GOP Wired to Fail in a Diverse America

Today's GOP is under the firm grip of a pack of vicious, nativistic and egotistical loudmouths. For a political party its a deathly defect. Neal Gabler call's it the GOP's McCarthy gene. He theorizes that it's this "something deep in the DNA of the Republican Party that determines how Republicans run for office". They are repelled and even angered by diversity.

"Republicans continue to push the idea that this is a center-right country and that Americans have swooned for GOP anti-government posturing all these years, but the real electoral bait has been anger, recrimination and scapegoating. That's why John McCain kept describing Barack Obama as some sort of alien and why Palin, taking a page right out of the McCarthy playbook, kept pushing Obama's relationship with onetime radical William Ayers.

There may be assorted intellectuals and ideologues in the party, maybe even a few centrists, but there is no longer an intellectual or even ideological wing. The party belongs to McCarthy and his heirs -- Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Palin. It's in the genes."

It's this part of the GOP's political DNA that accounts for the post-9/11 explosion of xenophobia, bigotry and racism. And just like McCarthy's witch hunts in the '50s gravelly wounded the once proud party of Lincoln, so again its modern day base instincts for fear mongering, intimidation, scapegoating and bluster are causing it to implode.

Nativist GOP losers are a growing list, including George Allen, Randy Graf, J. D. Hayworth, Virgil Goode, Lou Barletta, Tom Tancredo, Mitt Romney, Elizabeth Dole, John McCain and Sarah Palin.

It's why the GOP lost the once reliably red states of Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado to Barack Obama.

And it's why the GOP will likely lose Arizona, Texas and even Georgia in the not so distant future.

It's even why the Waco-Tribune -- in the heart of Red Texas -- had this to say in its post-presidential election wrap-up: The big question is if the GOP can reach beyond its far-right constituency and put aside the politics of hate and division that sank the McCain-Palin ticket. Otherwise, party hard-liners will lead it to further defeat.

Unfortunately for the party, that's not likely. As Neal Gabler observes:

And that is also why the Republican Party, despite the recent failure of McCarthyism, is likely to keep moving rightward, appeasing its more extreme elements and stoking their grievances for some time to come.

Related:
A Blue Texas? Latinos Will Decide
GOP's Racist, Anti-Latino Ad in Georgia U.S. Senate Run-off
Latinos Rising Lance a Nativist GOP?
Hispanic voters gaining strength in key states
The GOP's Bitter Harvest to Come
A Xenophobic Zeitgeist - Erasing GOP Latino Gains
WSJ -- The GOP's Anti-Latino Tone is a Loser
Linda Chavez: GOP's Self-Inflicted Wound
Republican Presidential Hopefuls Diss 1,000 Latino Leaders
The Coming Latino Voter Response to the Failure of Immigration Reform
Republicans: nativism is a proven loser
Clint Bolick: The GOP Must Now Prove Itself to Latinos
Linda Chavez' The Company You Keep: In Search of anti-Hispanic hostility
GOP Risks Losing Latino Voters

Photos (Top to Bottom): Joe McCarthy, Patrick Buchanan, Sean Hannity, Tom Tancredo, Lou Barletta)

Obama on Hazelton

Chicago, IL-- Senator Obama released the following statement in response to Judge James Munley's ruling that the city of Hazleton's anti-immigrant ordinance is unconstitutional.

"Today's ruling by Judge James Munley is a victory for all Americans. The anti-immigrant law passed by Mayor Barletta was unconstitutional and unworkable - and it underscores the need for comprehensive immigration reform so local communities do not continue to take matters into their own hands.

Recently, the U.S. Senate failed the American people by blocking progress on immigration reform for the second time in two years. We cannot put this off any longer.

The ongoing problems with our immigration system are dividing our country, and distracting us from the work we need to do in other important areas such as health care, education, and jobs.

We need to act urgently to create an immigration system that secures our borders and enforces our laws, reflects our best traditions as a nation of immigrants, and upholds the values and ideals that all Americans cherish.

I have been fighting for that kind of system for several years now, and I will continue fighting for that kind of system until we pass comprehensive immigration reform once and for all."

Hazelton's Anti-Latino Immigrant Code Struck Down

FLASH!!!!

The AP is reporting that Hazelton, Pennsylvania's anti-immigrant law has just been struck down by a federal judge.

Hazelton's Republican mayor Louis Barletta pushed through a housing law intended to make it unlawful for "illegal" immigrants to live in Hazelton. The result however was that the laws and their enforcement has had a detrimental impact on all Latino residents, including legal immigrants as well as U.S. citizens of Puerto Rican heritage.

Since many other towns adopted the Hazelton anti-immigrant housing codes, it's expected that those other laws will also be challenged.