The Star's "Behind Closed Doors" column fills us in on how Sen. Mike Delph (R-Carmel) is enraged at a recent headline in Indy's Hispanic newspaper, El Indy Latino, referring to him as El Diablo, or the devil because of his sponsorship of legislation to crack down on Indiana employers who hire undocumented workers. "I was horrified," he said. "At first, the Hispanic community was leveling charges of racism against me, but now they are referring to me as the devil. It is beneath the dignity of public debate."
While I've been critical of Delph for pushing this legislation because I believe the immigration problem needs to be dealt with at the federal level where our U.S. Constitution places this responsibility, Delph is not the devil. Delph recently contacted me to discuss this issue. I found him to be thoughtful and sincere in what he hoped to achieve with the legislation. The problem is that many of the people who support his legislation are driven more by their bigotry towards Hispanics than the principle of enforcing the rule of law. Delph saw that happen as soon as members of his own party in the House tried to weight his legislation down with various proposals to strip benefits from family households headed by undocumented aliens, which played right into the hands of his harshest critics.
I urged Delph to understand the potential harm his legislation might have on Indiana families, reminding him that many of these undocumented aliens have "natural born" U.S. citizen children and are married to U.S. citizen spouses. We have to figure out a sensible solution to the problem. Sens. John McCain (R) and Edward Kennedy (D) co-sponsored the Dream Act, which would provide a path to legalized status for many of these people while securing our borders and providing immigration officials with the necessary tools of enforcement. That legislation had been expected to pass the Democratic-controlled Congress and receive the signature of President Bush, who supports the legislation. Instead, it got dragged down by immigrant-bashing demagoguery. Even Sen. Evah Bayh, an earlier supporter of the legislation, turned tail when a crucial vote was taken in the Senate.
20 comments:
SB 345 is just a start! I was at the Marsh on west 38th Street and watched a Hispanic woman send five
hundred dollars out of the country
via western Union. This needs to be stopped.
If you take away the ability to send money out of the country; you
take away the reason for coming here illegally. SB 345 will restrict the illegals ability to earn money - the next step is to keep it here in Indiana/America.
"The problem is that many of the people who support his legislation are driven more by their bigotry towards Hispanics than the principle of enforcing the rule of law."
Truer words have never been spoken. These people who claim to be concerned about the rule of law, nevertheless will fight any change in the law that will change the immigration rules to make it easier for these people, unskilled Mexicans, to migrate to this country.
What makes me most upset is that what Sen. Delph is doing is inflicting serious long-term damage on my Republican Party. Democrats already have the African-American vote locked up. The largest minority group though is Hispancis, and they are religious, family-oriented and socially conservative. They are an ideal fit for the Republican Party. What people like Delph are doing is ensuring that they affiliate with the Democratic Party. Thanks, Sen. Delph, for making us a permanent minority party.
Remember, it was Delph who first mentioned the term, "Devil" when describing how others viewed him during an interview with the paper. Maybe the paper should have attributed the word to Delph. Nevertheless, the paper used the word HE USED to describe how others viewed him.
I am confused by those who attack some hispanics for coming to the country through means other than applying through the system when those people are often fleeing poverty or trying to make money to send home to support their families, while at the same time sitting quietly by when the cuban hispancis are treated differently if they step foot here they get to stay, get the benefits and get to send money home. It is a biggotry just like when the italians, the irish and others came to this country. Some people always need to walk on others to lift themselves up. Quit blaming everyone else for your problems. I'll bet that woman who was sending the money "out of country" (I question how you know that) worked harder than most to get the money. I also reviewed many of the other bills sponsored by Mr. Dleph and they look like the typical Eric Miller fare.
Bigotry? This has noting to do with
bigotry! I visit the homes of Indian's who are here illegally and eat lunch cooked by Chinese who
are undocumented aliens.
The difference between them and the hispanics is the volume of the
illegal immigration.
As to the GOP vote: George Walker Bush sucked up to Vicente Fox and said, "Come Amigo, come", and they did by the tens of thousands. This
is open borders......
Guess you pays for these wet-backs:
We The People while they send the money they make - usually, untaxed, out of the country!
We need to deport all illegal immigrants and mine the border.
I have been to the DMZ in Korea -
works for me.....
Sarge
A little of topic but could someone please tell me when El Sol will open again.
Sarge in one breath says this is not about "bigotry" and then in the next he refers to Mexicans as "wetbacks." Yeah, sure Sarge, we believe you.
Sarge,
Damn shame it was Captain Bonifas instead of you.
Some issues to take with your statements, AI:
1. On what evidence do you base your assertion that support of Delph's legislation is based on "are driven more by their bigotry towards Hispanics than the principle of enforcing the rule of law"? Frankly, everything I have seen, including the polling data on the issue, suggests exactly the opposite.
2. On what do yuo base your assertion that the DREAM Act would have secured our border? Or , for that matter, that it was dragged down by "immigrant-bashing demagoguery"? For one thing, while it may be somewhat accurate to state that the DREAM Act was "dragged down" by ILLEGAL "immigrant bashing demogoguery, deleting the adjective "ILLEGAL" was never the agenda or the idea behind the opposition. Second, I have seen no evidence thatthe DREAM Act would have secured our birder. Far from it, it would have effectivelymade the border even more vulnerable than it is now by granting amnesty -- and that is what it was, manesty -- t0 12 million illegal aliens who crossed into our country illegally, in exchange not for border secutiry, which the feds by law should have been providing all along, but for a PROMISE to provide border security. Which os the same thing they promised back in the 1986 amnesty and yet somehow never got around to implementing. Once bitten, twice shy.
I think there is something to the fact that if it was a bunch of Brits, Italians, Irish, Australians or Japanese a lot of people would be a little less worked up than they are about this.
The dirty little secret here is that our border is not secured because despite the myths, illegals do get jobs and pay taxes (including FICA) but often don't have valid social security numbers to draw benefits from.
Plus they do have children, growing our population much faster than the rest of us have been and these two factors are contributing to propping up our failed social security system a bit longer than otherwise might have been. This is at the expense of local and state spending on benefits and unpaid healthcare bills.
Take away the welfare state, minimum wage laws and clarify the 14th Amendment (birthright citizenship) and I'll bet you significantly decrease the illegal immigration problem.
At the same time, legal immigration needs to have significantly increased quotas or we'll have other problems.
The fact is illegal aliens cost our economy more every year than does the Iraq war. Try $338 billion a year! Here is a series of links to stories that will detail the cost.
_. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year. http://tinyurl.com/zob77
_. $1.9 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html
_. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. http://www.cis.org/articles/200/fiscalexec.html
_. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
_. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies._http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
_. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens._http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
_. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens._http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
_. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare and Social Services by the American taxpayers._http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html
_.
_. (Link not active ... was not able to verify this information)
_. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens._http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html
_. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two-and-a-half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html
_. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Homeland Security Report. http://tinyurl.com/t9sht
_. The National Policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period. http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf
_. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm
_. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States. http://www.drdsk.com/articles.html#Illegals
Total cost is a whopping... $338 BILLION A YEAR!!!
The last post is illustrative of the problem of extremists latching onto a popular cause like Delph's. The poster cites to statistics from:
The Center for Immigration Studies was founded and funded by FAIR founder and white supremacist, John Tanton. (www.cis.org)
www.rense.com (Rense is a neo-Nazi who denies the Holocaust happened)
National Policy Institute (a white supremacy organization)
Wow, anon 9:16. Did anyone ever tell you that the KKK ginned up and repeated endlessly similar "statistics" about poor blacks and Jewish, Irish, and Italian immigrants a hundred years ago?
I agree with anon 1:57.
Sarge, I have read your comments here frequently, and even agreed with some. I try to keep an open mind on all issues--if someone has new information, I need to hear it.
But after your hateful posts, which really surpassed reason, I won't ever put stock in anything you write.
How do you know the source and destination of the money the woman was sending? How do you now she's not a citizen? I just wired money to a relative who's a college student in China. Did it at Marsh Lo-Bill. Does that make me a "person to watch" in your eyes? You don't know my citizenship status, so, using your logic, you really ought to be suspicious of me.
Sen. Delph trained at the knee of Dan Burton. That's really all we needs to know.
This issue has many moving parts, and it's complicated. Sen. Delph has some strong points, but his legislation, most by reasonable standards, is fatally flawed.
I agree that Mike Delph is not the devil. Minor demon, tops.
Anon 11:19, I would add that some of the tactics used in this debate mirror Goebbels tactics as propaganda minister for Hitler. Watch Goebbels films. He'll tall about Jews being more prone to commit violent, often sex, crimes and being filthy disease carriers. Goebbels compared Jews to rats and would show them side by side. To his credit, Sen. Delph doesn't spout such nonsense, but many of his supporters do.
I'm glad to hear that you spoke with Senator Delph. I spoke with him briefly and have a strong sense that he is no racist, but a humanitarian. Senator Delph is also one of our pro-repeal legislators.
Thanks for giving this issue so much coverage, Gary.
Delph a "humanitarian", melyssa???
You have to severely restrict the definition of "human" for that to be true. Puleeze.
I am the wife of a man who was a permanent resident alien until he was arrested on a drug charge and sentenced to 10 yrs in prison, which was reduced to 8 yrs; he served 4. When he was about to be released the family was happy to be united again. He was released in September of 2004 and shipped to Kenosha Wisconsin where he was held for an immigration review. I had no clue where my husband was and was unable to receive calls or mail from him, until he arrived in Mexico; deported. I don't understand why the authorities would deport a man with a wife who is an American citizen, along with 6 minor children, all of whom are American citizens, without any consideration for the children and spouse. I was in college full time when this happened and had to quit to raise my children alone. It has been over 7 yrs now. How is it fair to tell my children they cannot be with their daddy because the government has taken him away from us?
Thank Goodness for Mike Delph! He has good Christian morals to make wise and fair choices. There are not enough jobs here for Americans and its the same old story, there jobs are being taken by illegal immigrants for "under the table" cash at a 1/4 of the payrate. The American system works. Americans work & pay taxes. Illegal's take work & don't pay taxes. The system can't work like this. It's simple, not bigotry or El Diablo, it's the American way of life. We've all heard it, you work, pay taxes & die. (& hopefully live a joyous life in between!) I would like to work as a cook, but my job has been taken away by an illegal immigrant who doesn't pay taxes & yes sends his money right out of the country.
Post a Comment