March 20, 2007
Choosing Victims
Kristin Collins of the Raleigh, NC News & Observer is all about feelings today, in a near-hysterical lament about the impact of immigration enforcement on local illegal alien families. Pardon me while I grab a tissue:
Maricruz and her husband had lived illegally in the United States so long she had almost forgotten it was a crime.Then, on Jan. 24, her husband disappeared.
U.S. immigration officials arrested him and 20 other workers at Smithfield Foods' gigantic Bladen County slaughterhouse. They drove him to Georgia and locked him up as an illegal immigrant.
You know Kristin, you just aren't making a strong enough case for their victimhood. Could you try a little harder?
Yeah, now this is what I'm talking about:
Maricruz said it was well-known in her village near Acapulco, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, that there were well-paying jobs at the Bladen County plant. Two of her brothers had already made their way to Tar Heel and were working for Smithfield.In Mexico, they lived with her parents -- a dozen people in a two-room house. Her husband earned money picking crops. The pay at Smithfield started at about $8 an hour. To them, it was an incredible sum.
They rented an apartment in the Robeson County town of Lumberton, about 100 miles south of Raleigh. Eight years ago they had a son, Andy, a U.S. citizen who has never seen Mexico.
Maricruz got a part-time job cleaning rooms at a hotel. Juan enrolled in English classes. They joined a Catholic church. They spent weekends with their extended family, all of whom lived within a 20-mile radius.
They regularly sent money to their families in Mexico, paying for their daughter to enroll in a university there. They started paying on a piece of land in Mexico, so they could one day return.
Maricruz said she never worried about their immigration status. She seemed only vaguely aware that their residency in North Carolina was illegal and said she didn't realize, until her husband's arrest, that they could be deported.
And then, on that Wednesday in January, Juan didn't arrive to pick her up from work. Smithfield officials told her only that her husband no longer worked there, she said.
Eight days after his disappearance, Juan called from Georgia's Stewart Detention Center.
"He told me not to cry," Maricruz said, "that he was OK."
But they do cry
A few weeks after the arrests, a group of families gathered in a Catholic church in Red Springs to tell their stories. Children played in the corners. Teenagers talked of their fears that their mothers would also be taken. Wives cried at the thought of returning to Mexico. Parents pleaded for the return of their grown children.
All said they had no idea why their family members had been chosen for arrest from the plant's more than 5,000 workers, about half of whom are Hispanic. All, including Maricruz, said their relatives were longtime Smithfield employees who had never been convicted of a crime.
Now, that's how you establish a good victimhood piece. Establish the "American Dream" aspects of their lives, while overlooking as much as possible the fact that they are criminally in this country. Collins refuse to ask the obvious question: How can these "victims" pay a coyote to smuggle them across the border (mentioned elsewhere in the article), buy false birth certificates and social security cards, and then claim of the woman she profiles:
She seemed only vaguely aware that their residency in North Carolina was illegal and said she didn't realize, until her husband's arrest, that they could be deported.
Kristin Collins isn't a reporter looking to find answers to obvious questions. She is an advocate transparently interested in promoting a cause.
To advocate for her cause, Collins overlooks stories that have been of far more importance to her English-speaking readers. That or perhaps Collins doesn’t know two other writers at the N&O, Thomas McDonald and Marti McGuire, who wrote recently. about an illegal alien that killed a father and son in a hit-and-run accident that saw a father and his nine-year-old son burned beyond recognition. The killer, Luciano Tellez, had twice been convicted of drunk driving in North Carolina, but had not been deported. Leeanna Newman was killed by another drunk illegal behind the wheel on Feb 6. Illegals account for 5-percent of NC's population, and yet they account for 18-percent of our DWI arrests and a string of recent deaths. It is an epidemic Collins ignores to promote her chosen cause.
This isn’t professional journalism. This is naked advocacy supporting criminal behavior.
Collins goes all out to get one side of the story.
The illegal alien families she profiles are allowed to be victims. Those that have been killed by illegals driving drunk apparently are not.
No one seems to mention the victims in the US as a consequence of allowing illegals to work here. Sure there are the stories of the definite lawless but how about the millions of situations were one has lost his job as a consequence of illegals brought in to undercut his pay. An individual can not fight back by trying to accept a lower pay scale as much of the cost of an employee is government mandated and only avoided by using illegals.
I wonder if the government realizes that if it does not enforce its laws or randomly does so that the law in general becomes irrevalent to the citizens of that country? This spills over into other areas of justice so that we no longer have respect for enforcement.
Posted by: David Caskey at March 20, 2007 09:27 AMYou have no idea who these people are and what they represent to the U.S. CY you need to take a trip to Mexico or Central America to understand who these people are and what they are doing in the U.S.
I live here, consequently, I see their culture from the inside on a daily basis. And it isn't pretty. They believe they are entitled to whatever they can take, be it from you, or anyone else that gets in their path. They are NOT good citizens here. Why would anyone think that would change because they have moved 3,000 miles to the north?
The governments here actively encourage them to go, because they send remittances,(cash), that help keep the local economies afloat. El Salvador is a prime example. The single largest sector of the economy is based on remittances; more than the total of all other exports or sources of income, incuding the tax base.
So, he makes $8 and hour and she has a part time job. Depending on overtime, he grosses less than $20k. If she makes less, together they probably gross less than $30k. Take away ~16% for SS and Medicare taxes and they probably bring home less than $24k net.
They send money back to Mexico which means they have less than $24k to live on. If this puts them close to the poverty point, do the taxpayers subsidize the rest? Sure, they be making more money than in Mexico, but aren't the expenses of living here going to be proportiantely higher as well?
If they are near the poverty point, why would we want to encourage more people to come here illegally to live at the poverty level?
Posted by: SouthernRoots at March 20, 2007 10:51 AMMy grandfather came here illegally in the early part of the last century. He worked hard as a lumberjack, in coal mines, as a carpenter, as a farmer. He paid taxes, registered for the first WW draft, had a family, sent his sons off to the second WW. I don't think you conservatives actually know any immigrants, or you're willfully ignorant of the character or situations of the many good people who keep your food prices low.
Posted by: Pennypacker at March 21, 2007 03:18 AMDid you understand me when I said I live here in Central America? Do you honestly believe I could live in a foriegn country for more than five years and not know something about the people that surround me? Habla la lengua? You are getting the dregs,(and worse), that no one here wants. Why is this hard for you to understand?
Posted by: Bill at March 21, 2007 06:26 PMHey pennypacker, most of my ancestors came over here fairly recently, so I know something about them and what their lives were like. So don't presume to tell us what we do and don't know.
As for this blog post, may I remind you of an important point that it makes? A nation has the right to control its borders and to screen those who wish to immigrate. Or do you wish to welcome criminals too? You might also speak to native-born American poor people, who worry about increasing job competition from immigrants. If you really care about people you should pay attention to them too.
Posted by: pst314 at March 21, 2007 09:50 PMSo don't presume to tell us what we do and don't know.
Fine, your family made it, as did mine. (Mine were illegal Finns -- your ancestors maybe legal, maybe not.) Tell me what you know or don't know about today's immigrants, legal or otherwise. Please speak from your personal experience. Explain also how the restaurants you enjoy could be cheaper without the dishwashers doing their work. Or the produce you buy. Or the tree you need cut down.
Posted by: Pennypacker at March 23, 2007 01:06 AMPennypacker, don't feed us that 'they are doing jobs that American's don't want to do' canard. The reason we have lower food costs has nothing to do with illegals washing dishes. It has everything do do with being a country where the Rule of Law reigns supreme and having a vibrant economy based on free-market capitalism.
I'm the son of an immigrant. A legal immigrant. She didn't jump the fence but rather through hoops so she could be here legally. Illegals are basically spitting on her efforts. I take it as a personal affront. They are criminals and should be deported.
Posted by: Dan Irving at March 23, 2007 08:09 AMJust to be clear - I'm all for easing immigration restrictions (not amnesty - those here illegally are crimminals and should be kicked out). I think diversity is our greatest strenth.
If you want to be an American you should be able to walk into a U.S. Embassy, pledge your allegiance to this country (ie give up your native citizenship) then be given your SSN and be told your dues are due on April 14th.
Posted by: Dan Irving at March 23, 2007 08:13 AMMy parents had a joke about how my mother's ancestors came on the Mayflower and my father's ancestors met them as they landed.
I am trying to politely inform you that the illegals entering the U.S. are, by and large, not the people you think them to be. I make this statement based on my many years living in Latin American countries. Here, scoff-laws are extremely common, the norm, in fact. In general the people here do whatever they want to do, when they want to do it. Every day is a challenge and a struggle.
Here the poor are very poor and the rich very rich. Little or nothing in between. Some go to work, but when I ask them why they want to go to the U.S. they tell me that even the poor there have two cars and that the governmet will give them what they need to live. Being poor does not excuse one from recognizing authority and obeying the law. The act of violating an international border here gets you jail time and deported.
Pennypacker, don't feed us that 'they are doing jobs that American's don't want to do' canard. The reason we have lower food costs has nothing to do with illegals washing dishes.
I have never argued that illegal immigrants are doing jobs that Americans don't want to do. There are Americans who would gladely do those jobs. But if there were no foreign workers to compete against, the red-blooded Americans doing their jobs would ask for more money. And your food prices would go up. It's simple economics. If you were really a free-market capitalist, the immigrant problem wouldn't bother you at all.
But I suspect that the anti-immigrant hysteria doesn't have anything to do with economics, it has to do with a distrust of foreigners.
Take your pick, you can't have them both. (BTW, I'm a so-called liberal, but did I like Clinton? No, because I didn't like NAFTA and other policies that destroyed the blue-collar America that gave me my own opportunities. I knew where my priorities were, despite ideology.)
Posted by: Pennypacker at March 25, 2007 02:44 AM
