Dana Milbank has an excellent list of the lies that are being told to stir up fear against illegal aliens: tall tales of beheadings, claims that border violence is increasing when it is actually decreasing, fantasy claims that Phoenix is the #2 kidnapping capital in the world, blaming illegal immigrants for most police killings, and whoppers about the majority of illegal immigrants being drug mules.
In fact, it is hard to find a reason being offered for the Arizona immigration crackdown that is not based on a lie. For example, in addition to blaming illegal immigrants for pretty much everything that ails Arizona, they also claim that the racist Arizona law is necessary because the feds are not doing anything about illegal immigration. But this is simply not true. The Obama administration’s crackdown on companies that hire illegal aliens is far more effective than the work-site roundups of illegal workers done by the Bush administration.
And most of these lies are coming from people who should know better. Governor Jan Brewer doesn’t even seem to care, repeating lies over and over again that have already been debunked. Even more disgusting is Senator John McCain, who has cravenly done a massive flip-flop on the issue and is now spreading even more falsehoods.
I’m nauseated that the mainstream media seems willing to go along with many of these lies. There are exceptions of course, including this brilliant piece from Jon Stewart:
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I keep thinking of my ancestors immigrating to this country in the early 1600s as “illegal immigrants”
I think that if I met someone opposed to illegal immigrants, I might ask, “how fascinating, and what tribe do you belong to?”
Sadly, it seems that facts and reality are becoming less relevant these days. Fear and ignorance seems to sell better.
Getting pretty ugly. And now the dems should be ashamed since the dem governors apparently oppose the fed lawsuit for purely political reasons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/us/politics/12governors.html
Was there this much concern about immigration and the outcry over the lack of effort when a black guy wasn’t president? Serious question.
Jonah, immigration has been a hot political item for as long as I can remember. Even (sainted) Reagan tried to immigration reform (including a form of amnesty) and failed. McCain used to be for amnesty, and has now flipped. I don’t think it is about Obama being black. It is more about the bad economy. When people are hurting economically, it is easier for fear-mongers to gin up hatred against immigrants. In spite of being stupid, ineffective, and racist, a majority of Americans say they support the Arizona immigration law. So what the governors are worried about is democrats taking on a very unpopular issue right now.
I’m not convinced it is entirely about the economy. I lived in CA when the most recent anti-immigrant wave started. We were fully in the dot-com bubble at that time. To me, it was all about ginning up race-based fear to keep the conservatives (of both parties) coming to the polls and not asking questions about the mismanagement of the state budget.
I once called our founding fathers immigrants and somehow incited a firestorm of epic proportions as my facebook status. Not quite sure how people still didn’t realize that they were just as much immigrants as people who cross over the border today, as well as the terrible amount of shame spewing forth from their mouths.
Some gems:
“Calling our founding fahters ‘immigrants’ is disgacefull to their name. That’s incredibly low of you to even TRY to be funny. These dirty mexicans come here for jobs and thats it. Our founding fathers came here to invent their own nation.”
and
“I’m not racist, but I don’t want some dirty Indian doctor putting his hands on my kid because of health reform (she’s 19 with a 2 year old by the by) when I could go to a clean white doctor with my own money.”
““I’m not racist, but […] dirty Indian doctor […]clean white doctor.””
yikes. cognitive dissonance much?
i think these people after immigrants is out of hate and racism period.just like the tea baggers,these people are mostly ignorant and uneducated and don’t know any about current issues.their only there out of hate and racism towards obama and hispanics.that is also what motivates that nazi jan brewer!!!!!!!!!!!