“Catch an Illegal Immigrant”
By Josh Richman
Thursday, March 1st, 2007 at 2:58 pm in Democratic Party, General, Immigration, Republican Party.
California Democratic Party Chairman Art Torres issued a statement yesterday calling on Republican National Committee chairman Mel Martinez and California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring to immediately condemn the actions of the College Republicans, who have been staging “Catch an Illegal Immigrant” events around the country.
“The refusal by national Republican leaders to condemn the disgraceful anti-immigrant behavior of the College Republicans is not only reprehensible, but also demonstrates the profound lack of understanding about the contributions of America’s immigrant population,” said Chairman Torres.
“In light of two highly-reputable studies released this week showing that immigrants clearly benefit U.S. residents by boosting wages and are being unfairly scapegoated, Californians and all Americans deserve a thoughtful discussion based on facts, rather than despicable, hateful stunts.
“I urge Senator Martinez and Chairman Nehring in the strongest possible terms to condemn the actions of the College Republicans and bring them to a stop.”
Campus conservatives have planned or staged these events for years; I’ve found mentions from January 2005 at the University of North Texas; April 2006 at Penn State; October 2006 at the University of Michigan; and most recently, a week ago at New York University, but none thus far in California. Then-GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman disavowed the events last September. Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh defended them yesterday.
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March 1st, 2007 at 8:29 pm
Those studies are hardly definitive. The wage study runs counter to many others and was a deliberate effort by the pro-mass immigration PPIC to produce a known outcome. The author of the study on wages in California produced a similar study on the US as a whole last year so of course the PPIC knew exactly what they were getting when the commissioned the study. And I don’t think you’ll find one other thing the author ever did for the PPIC. The PPIC’s head Mark Baldasarre is a man that pushes his agenda on immigration, something that is evident to those of us who have followed his polling.
The immigrant criminality study was not a release but rather a re-release by the “policy” arm of the an immigration lawyer advocacy group of a study that is on Migration Policy Institute web site and dated June 1 of last year. I’d read it before the article came out this week and it had a tone that seemed less than academic, which unfortunately isn’t that surprising for a college sociologist and sociology grad students. Social science is often agenda driven.
I have no idea what the College Republicans are doing but I imagine it’s like the affirmative action cookie sales they’ve held. Whatever you think of it, Torres does the usual removal of any distinction between legal and illegal when he calls it anti-immigrant. That’s a distinction most voters want to preserve.
October 12th, 2007 at 2:15 am
The reality is that California politicians want illegal immigration no matter what the citizens want.
Cheap labor for corporations, subsidized by the taxpayers through higher medical costs at hospitals, hospital district taxes, food stamps, and other transfer programs.
And never forget that additional congressional seat to be obtained without the trouble of having any more of those nasty demanding voters; illegal immigrants count in the census.