Fueled by a surge in the Hispanic population, Florida will get two new congressional district. A state senator wants Hispanic voters to prove they are citizens first.
By Mary Ellen Klas And Michael C. Bender, Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau
Miami Herald (October 20, 2011)

TALLAHASSEE — A state senator’s comments ignited a fierce rebuke from his colleagues Thursday when he said that voters should be screened for citizenship before legislators draw a congressional district to favor Hispanics.

Sen. Alan Hays, R-Umatilla, rekindled the divisive debate over illegal immigration when he told the Senate committee reviewing a series of congressional redistricting plans that “before we design a district anywhere in the state of Florida for Hispanic voters, we need to ascertain that they are citizens of the United States.

“We all know there are many Hispanic-speaking people in Florida that are not legal,” he said. “And I just don’t think it’s right that we try to draw a district that encompasses people that really have no business voting anyhow,” he said.

“He is calling on a witch hunt before a Hispanic district can be realistically considered,” said Rep. Janet Cruz, D-Tampa.

Florida will receive two additional congressional seats because of its population growth in the last 10 years that, according the U.S. Census data, was largely fueled by the surge in the state’s Hispanic population. Hays made the comments in response to a proposal being considered by the Senate Reapportionment Committee that would create a Hispanic-majority district in Central Florida, where the Puerto Rican population has exploded.

Cruz pointed out that Puerto Ricans are American citizens at birth.

While no one on the committee responded to Hays’ comment on Tuesday, the remarks were published in an Orlando Sentinel blog, provoking outrage from the Hispanic caucus. Several members of the Republican-dominated group met late Wednesday and considered drafting a letter of complaint, said caucus chairman, Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Miami. Sen. Garcia said he asked Hays for an explanation and Cruz and Rep. Luis Garcia, D-Miami, demanded that Hays apologize or resign.

Rep. Garcia said Hays’ comments reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of state law. “Either he is ignorant or prejudiced, neither of which are qualifications for him to serve on this committee,” he said.

Said Rep. Jose Diaz, R-Miami: “I think that it is unfortunate that anyone would question whether or not Hispanic voters are American citizens,” he said. “It is basic Government 101 that in our country only U.S. Citizens can exercise the right to vote.”

After criticism surfaced Thursday, Hays left a Senate budget hearing early and declined numerous requests for comment.

He told Sen. Garcia that he had called the supervisor of elections office in his home district of Lake County, which confirmed to him that there is no requirement for citizenship to become registered to vote.

But Lake County Supervisor of Elections Emogene W. Stegall said that Hays is mistaken if he believes there is a problem with illegal residents registering to vote.

“We’ve never had a problem with illegal voting in Lake County, no way,” said Stegall, who has served in the county’s election’s office for 40 years.

She said that while the state stopped requiring proof of citizenship when it enacted the 1995 Motor Voter law that allows people to register to vote when they obtain a drivers license, requirements for obtaining a drivers license have increased. Drivers now must show three forms of identification to obtain a motor vehicle license and the license may serve as the sole form of ID to register to vote.

As head of the Hispanic Caucus, Sen. Garcia said he spoke to Hays who told him ” he was willing to talk to any member of the Hispanic caucus and explain what he actually meant.” Sen. Garcia said he “was comfortable with that.”

But Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, said she found Hays’ comments “irrelevant” to the redistricting process. She said it would be difficult for the Legislature to draw districts while considering illegal immigrants. The Census survey does not ask people to report citizenship and Census officials believe that even legal immigrants traditionally underreport their numbers.

“If we knew who they were and we could adjust for them in our districts, we would know who they were and we could report them to [federal immigration police] INS,” Bogdanoff said.
Sen. Thad Altman, R-Vierra, however, defended Hays. “I don’t think he meant it in a way that was negative or demeaning or detrimental,” Altman said. “I think he was trying to state the fact that if we are drawing districts and using large populations that have no legal rights to vote or no ability to vote then we are not really doing our job in drawing districts that are fair.”

Staff writers Adam Smith and Marc Caputo contributed to this report

In Tea Party Republican Arizona, teaching Mexican American history is illegal because that history is purportedly “un-American” and foments the “overthrow of the government.”

The shamelessness of people who rally under the Confederate flag—a flag of treason, whose adherents renounced their U.S. citizenship, declared war on our country, and actually tried to overthrow our government!—claiming our history is “un-American” is breathtaking.

Let’s look at a few instructive snippets from scholars regarding this “subversive,” “un-American” history:

Carole Christian documents how during WW I Mexican Americans enlisted in great numbers, urged on by Spanish-language newspapers that reported the “courage and sacrifice, sometimes of their lives,” of these soldiers.

Raúl Morín describes the immense contributions and bravery of Mexican Americans during World War II and inKorea. One chapter details how “Company E, the All-Chicano Company,” whose members won many medals for bravery, was instrumental in winning several major battles.

John Culhane writes of the courageous WW II-Korea exploits of 57 Mexican American young men who lived onSecond Street(“Hero Street”) inSilvis,Illinois, many of whom lost their lives and were awarded medals for bravery. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, this constituted “…the largest number of servicemen from the same ethnic group to come from any area of comparable size during these conflicts.”

Ricardo Santillán’s “Rosita the Riveter” describes the contributions of Mexican American women who operated the factories, manufacturing ammunition and other war materiel during WW II.

Christine Marín wrote about the Asociación de Madres y Esposas (Association of Mothers and Wives) who developed a network of “VictoryGardens” so that the country’s harvest could go to feed the troops, sold war bonds, collected and sold scrap metal, and picked cotton, donating the proceeds to the WW II war effort.

Ralph Guzmán memorialized how Mexican Americans from southwestern states were 19.4% of Vietnam War fatalities but comprised only 10% of the population in those states.

Proportionately, Mexican Americans surpass all other ethnic groups with respect to the number of Congressional Medals of Honor earned for valor in combat.

After WW II, these patriotic men and women encountered “No Mexicans Allowed” signs in public places. Robert Oppenheimer describes a typical incident of a Mexican American WW II veteran, in his medal-decorated uniform, who was refused service in a restaurant. “White” cemeteries refused to bury Mexican American veterans.

Compare the decency of these patriots to the racism they faced: In Silvis, the home of Hero Street, Mexican American WW II veterans were not allowed to join the whites-only VFW chapter, but when the “white” VFW building was later razed and the members had no place to meet, the Mexican American chapter welcomed the displaced members to their chapter.

It is a perversion and a libel of monumental proportions to categorize the history detailed above—and similar historical dynamics regarding the immense economic, labor, cultural, political, educational, social, civil-rights, etc., contributions of Mexican Americans to our country—as “illegal” and “un-American.” Especially by people who rally under the treasonous Confederate flag.

By Pamela Constable, The Washington Post

Foley, Ala. — Trailer by trailer, yard sale by yard sale, and pew by empty pew, a poor but tightknit immigrant community on Alabama’s breezy Gulf Coast is rapidly disintegrating.

This time it is not a tornado or hurricane uprooting families and scattering them to the winds. It is a new state law, largely upheld last week by a federal district judge, that seeks to drive illegal immigrants from the state by curtailing many of their rights, punishing anyone who knowingly employs, houses or assists them, and requiring schools and police to verify immigrants’ legal status.

Other states, including Arizona, Georgia and Colorado, have passed similar laws in the past several years in a growing trend by state legislatures to crack down on illegal immigration within their borders in the absence of comprehensive federal action. But Alabama’s new law is the toughest passed so far, and it is the only one to withstand federal lawsuits and other legal challenges, allowing it to take virtually full effect.

Across Alabama, news of the court ruling has swiftly spread panic and chaos among trailer parks and working-class areas where legal and illegal immigrant families from Mexico and Central America — as many as 150,000 people, by some estimates — live and work at jobs their bosses say local residents largely refuse to do.

In Foley, a sprawling seaside resort town where hundreds of Hispanic immigrants work in restaurants, sod farms and seafood industries, many families last week were taking their children out of school, piling their furniture into trucks, offering baby clothes and bicycles on front lawns for sale and saying tearful goodbyes to neighbors and co-workers they might never see again.

“This is the saddest thing I have experienced in my 18 years as a priest,” said the Rev. Paul Zoghby, who ministers to a large Hispanic flock at St. Margaret of Scotland Church. “We’ve already lost 20 percent of the congregation in the past few weeks, and many more will be gone by next week. It is a human tragedy.”

After evening Mass on Thursday, families mingled worriedly in the church lobby, asking how to get help and debating where to flee.

“I have a cousin in Nashville. Maybe we’ll try there,” said a muscular construction worker, holding a sleeping infant in his arms.

Others said they planned to head for Texas or Florida, where the laws are not as strict. None wanted to return to Mexico, where they said wages are pitifully low and violent crime is a constant threat.

Tough choices

Many such families have legal and illegal members, which presents them with wrenching choices. One illegal couple’s daughter, born in the United States, just won a college scholarship; another such couple’s daughter was recently engaged to a local boy. Both decided they would flee Alabama anyway, reluctantly putting family unity and safety before individual opportunities.

“This law has shattered all our dreams,” said Maria, 35, a house cleaner and mother of two from central Mexico, weeping and clutching at her husband for support in a church meeting room. An illegal immigrant, she asked her last name not be used. “We do the jobs no one else wants to do. We pay taxes. We do not harm anyone. Now the government says they don’t want us here, but we have nowhere to go. All the doors are closing on us. We can’t even drive a car without being afraid. I cannot believe this is God’s will.”

The new law passed the state legislature in June after an unprecedented Republican sweep of both chambers last year and the election of a Republican governor, Robert Bentley. Amid a sustained economic slump and rising unemployment, this political majority finally gave longtime advocates of a crackdown on illegal immigrants the votes they needed.

Sponsors of the measure are unapologetic about its tough provisions. The law makes it a criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to register a car, pay a utility bill or rent an apartment, and it similarly penalizes anyone who hires, shelters or signs a contract with an illegal immigrant.

As its backers see it, the law is a long-overdue panacea that will open up thousands of jobs to struggling Alabamans squeezed out of the market by cheap illegal labor. They also hope the law — after surviving legal challenges by the Justice Department and other groups — will pressure the federal government to overhaul its immigration system.

“I have no doubt that this is the best thing for the long-term economic health of our state and no doubt that this is what a majority of the people of Alabama wants,” said state Sen. Scott Beason, chief sponsor of the measure. “We have almost 10 percent unemployment, and we need to put our people to work. I understand there are concerns, but the law needs to be given a chance.”

Despite such assertions, the law has aroused condemnation and concern from an assortment of Alabamans, including some unusual allies. White farmers, including conservative Republicans, complain that their field crews have fled and that their crops will rot on the vine. Black church and civil rights leaders, whose communities suffer from high unemployment, decry the law as a reprise of Alabama’s racist history.

“These Republican politicians are running for office on Christian values, but this law is in blatant disregard of Christian values. It is bringing back the shameful and ugly past of our state,” said the Rev. Roger Price, pastor of Birmingham’s iconic 16th Street Baptist Church, which was bombed in 1963 during the civil rights conflict.

“I admit we have an immigration problem,” he said, “but this is not the way to solve it.”

Local government officials in heavily Hispanic communities have also expressed worry, confusion and indignation over aspects of the law. Some police officials privately say they are uncomfortable about how far they should go in checking drivers’ legal status. Some school officials are upset about the effect the law has had on Hispanic parents who fear they will be deported while their children are in class.

William Lawrence, the principal of Foley Elementary School, said frightened immigrant families withdrew 25 students last week, even though all the children were U.S. citizens. He said the Hispanic community was swept by rumors that parents would be arrested when they came to collect their children. Many families asked teachers and others to act as their children’s emergency drivers or legal guardians.

“We are doing all we can to reassure parents that their kids are safe, and things have calmed down some, but this was extremely wrong,” Lawrence said. “I hope our lawmakers did not do it deliberately. They won, because now people are leaving. But there is no reason to create such terrible fear of parents being separated from their children.”

Alabama, a largely agricultural state, has long relied on seasonal Mexican farm laborers to harvest peaches, tomatoes and other crops under temporary guest worker visa programs. What has made the past decade different, officials said, is a surge of illegal immigrants who have put down roots, taken permanent jobs at low wages and drained public health and education budgets. Officials estimate the state spends about $280 million per year on public services for illegal immigrant families.

Republican lawmakers said they want to bolster the national guest worker program to return to an orderly legal flow of foreign field laborers, but a number of farm owners interviewed last week said that the program was cumbersome and inadequate and that they could not find local American workers willing to toil long hours in hot fields.

“There is a lot of heavy lifting and manual labor, and you are out there in the sun and the rain. It is just not attractive to Americans,” said Mac Higginbotham, an official with the Alabama Farmers Federation.

The group represents about 40,000 farmers and opposed the new immigration law.

“We have people losing 40 to 60 percent of their crops this season,” Higginbotham said. “The law is affecting everyone.”

Residents’ reactions

In Foley, some residents have been frustrated by the influx of Hispanic immigrants, especially those that are illegal. Some longtime parishioners left St. Margaret when it initiated a formal ministry to Hispanics. A few Hispanic church members mentioned incidents such as drivers yelling that they should go home or pharmacists demanding to see proof of legality before filling prescriptions.

“If I were Mexican, I would probably want to come here, too, but they need to become citizens in a legal way and pay taxes like the rest of us,” said Mary Reinhart, a Foley resident who works at a resort near the beach.

People “start businesses that undercut everyone because they work so much cheaper with illegals,” she said. “There needs to be more regulation and a proper way to make them legal.”

But there was also an outpouring of sympathy and sadness from longtime inhabitants of Foley toward Hispanic families they had gotten to know as neighbors, co-workers, tenants or employees. Even some who said they opposed illegal immigration and supported the new law seemed to feel conflicted about seeing families they had come to know and like suddenly leaving.

At a Mexican restaurant where Zoghby, the pastor, treated several Mexican families to farewell tacos and beer Thursday, a gray-haired customer came over and hugged one of the departing guests.

At a half-empty trailer park where several Hispanic families were packing up on Friday, the longtime manager, Tom Boatwright, watched glumly.

“They are my very best renters,” he said. “They are hardworking and never cause trouble. I really hate to see them go.”

A mile away, in a development of new houses, one Mexican family was loading a decade’s worth of belongings into a pickup truck and a neighboring family had spread clothing, toys, furniture and bed linens out on the lawn for sale. A stream of people pulled up in cars and trucks to browse, most of them white Alabamans. Several said they supported the new law or wanted to see the border shut down, but all treated the Mexican families with cordial familiarity.

“I don’t know what to think. The law is supposed to be doing one thing, but it seems to be doing the opposite,” said Lisa Snow, a grandmother who was rifling through baby clothes at the yard sale. Snow said she had just lost her office job but was sorry that the Mexican families were losing everything. “It just feels very personal now,” she said.