Unless the courts prevent it, the contentious Arizona immigration law Senate Bill 1070, which gives police power to racially profile people of color, will go into effect Thursday, July 29. Both friends and foes of the law are girding for battle, and the war of words is escalating. Language from opponents of the law like the Border Action Network, which plans protests and acts of civil disobedience in Arizona and across the country, is measured: they promise "civic engagement campaigns all over the state encouraging people to register to vote and to vote by mail."
The language from SB1070 supporters, however, is more virulent: a press release from Jim Gilchrist's Minuteman Project states they are rushing a delegation of lawmakers to the border. "We will be accompanied by armed Minutemen. Our guests are appraised of the situation and have made additional safety arrangements as well. The day of picnics and ice cream at the border is over," says Gilchrist.
Anti-immigrant rhetoric is ramping up on the public airwaves as well. On July 10, Arizona Republican Sheriff Paul Babeu told listeners of the openly "pro-white" Political Cesspool radio show they should apply for his department's "posse" program. (It is worth noting that, according to research from Media Matters, Babeu has appeared at least 18 times to promote the controversial law on Fox News, while two Arizona border sheriffs who spoke out against the law have never been invited to appear.)
The Clear Channel radio station in Columbus, Ohio has been running the following contest:"610 WTVN would like to send you where Americans are proud and illegals are scared, sunny Phoenix, Arizona! You'll spend a weekend chasing aliens and spending cash in the desert, just make sure you've got your green card! Win round trip airfare to Phoenix, hotel accommodations, and a few pesos in spending cash." Rush Limbaugh, predictably prevaricating on 600 radio stations, has targeted Flagstaff's City Council for their opposition to the law, resulting in death threats to council members. The list of hate radio rhetoric goes on and on and on.
Perhaps that's why Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) at the recent Netroots Nation convention (aimed at the progressive blogosphere) in Las Vegas told me he is targeting the media as a significant factor in the escalating war over immigration reform. "You've got Dobbs, you've got Beck... Dobbs for six to seven years has consistently been demonizing every immigrant as a criminal." Talk radio falsehoods such as increased border crime and beheadings in the desert are typical. "When people think that is 'news,' it's a problem," Grijalva says. "We're closed out of that media. There is no equal time."
The issue of media consolidation was a theme at the convention. Sen. Al Franken, (D-MN), told the audience in his keynote, "Resisting this trend towards media consolidation, resisting attacks on net neutrality - we should throw ourselves behind these causes with the same energy and urgency that we showed in 2006 and 2008." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV), echoed those sentiments, deriding media consolidation and encouraging the bloggers to fight for net neutrality and "keep calling out the Right Wing on misinformation."
Tuscon Congressman Grijalva brought up Congress' rewrite of the Communications Act as a needed solution to the media misinformation problem. The 1996 rewrite of the Act deregulated radio ownership, changing the rule which capped radio ownership at 40 stations per person (corporate or otherwise,) and allowing companies like Clear Channel to buy unlimited numbers of radio stations. (Clear Channel snapped up 1200 stations at the time, and programmed most of them with "Conservative" Talk Radio.) The current rewrite, led by Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Rockefeller (D-WV) and Reps. Waxman (D-CA) and Boucher (D-VA), is mainly focusing on issues of net neutrality and broadband. "As we struggle with the Communications Act," say Grijalva, "it's all about new media. We need to take this opportunity to fix what's wrong with old media."
Posted in Anti-Immigrant by Casey Sanchez on April 9, 2009
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) the best-oiled anti-immigration hate group in the U.S., is known for manufacturing “astroturf” groups. These outfits purport to be grassroots organizations representing certain minorities but in fact are funded and directed by FAIR and have little support in the communities they claim to represent. The first ethnically based astroturf group was Choose Black America, which claimed to represent anti-immigration blacks. Next came the Latino version, dubbed You Don’t Speak For Me! The groups were clearly intended to deflect accusations of racism that have been leveled at much of the immigration restriction movement.
Now, FAIR is up to the same sleight of hand with Progressives for Immigration Reform (PFIR), essentially a FAIR front group that seeks to recruit progressives and environmentalists into the anti-immigration movement. (PFIR’s executive director is Leah Durant, who’s been a FAIR analyst and lawyer since 1995.) The Chicago-based Center for New Community, which first reported the launch of PFIR in the most recent edition of its E-newsletter, FAIR Exposed, called it “a gauntlet thrown down in front of the progressive community by the forces of bigotry.”
Choose Black America and You Don’t Speak For Me! have gained little traction in the mainstream media. But PFIR may enjoy more credibility, at least initially, since its board members are mostly high-powered environmentalists and Democratic activists, some of them drawn from the leadership ranks of the zero population growth movement.
One of them, Frank Morris, is the black former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, a left-leaning nonprofit group that promotes health care and education programs. In 2003, Morris ran for the board of the Sierra Club along with two other immigration-restriction advocates in a failed bid to take over the leadership of the national environmental group that was orchestrated by nativist activists. (The idea, which originated many years earlier with FAIR founder John Tanton, was to create a group opposed to immigration that appeared to come from the left — another bid to avoid the charge of racism.) In addition to his role with PFIR, Morris also currently serves on the board of the Center for Immigration Studies, a nativist think tank and offshoot of FAIR that produces reports blaming immigrants for a multitude of social problems.
Morris told Hatewatch that he was approached to join the PFIR board by Roy Beck, the executive director of NumbersUSA, which started life as a program of an organization run by FAIR founder Tanton. Morris declined to discuss the role of FAIR in forming PFIR, but he did dismiss the findings of an Intelligence Report exposé that showed that Tanton had for decades associated with white nationalists and their ideas. “I’m a 70-year old man with an M.I.T. PhD. I’m not going to be duped by some nativists or right-wingers or some crazy folks … who are against the interests of people in this country who I love,” said Morris. “I’ve been concerned for years about the plight of immigration on many of our low-wage American workers, many of whom, of course, are disproportionately African-American.”
Other PFIR board members include its president and chairman, William Ryerson, who is president of both the Population Institute and the Population Media Center, which produces pro-family planning soap operas for Third World countries; Jane De Lung, who for 20 years has been president of the Population Resource Center, a major pro-population control demographic analysis and public policy think tank; Kevin Lynn, who heads the Pasadena chapter of Democracy for America, a progressive political action committee; and Vernon M. Briggs Jr., emeritus professor of labor economics at Cornell University. Briggs also serves on the board of Center for Immigration Studies. Ryerson and De Lung did not respond to messages from Hatewatch.
This isn’t the first recent attempt by FAIR to bury its true agenda in the greenery of environmentalism. Last summer, another front group backed by FAIR — this one dubbed America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning — took out full-page ads in The New York Times, The Nation and numerous other liberal or left-leaning publications that warned of immigration worsening traffic congestion and destroying pristine lands.
The language on PFIR’s website is sober by comparison: “It is the position of PFIR that immigration policy should consider and mitigate the effect of immigration on overall U.S. population and population growth, domestic water and energy supplies, open space and preservation of biodiversity,” it reads. The site expresses concern about greenhouse gasses and uses the term “undocumented” instead of “illegal.”
Behind all this stands FAIR, which has its own history of sensationalized fear-mongering about immigration. That kind of rhetoric was reflected most recently in a post by FAIR board member Donald A. Collins to VDARE.com, a racist website named after Virginia Dare, the first white child born in the English New World colonies. “The immigration invasion is more like a cancer than a whirlwind,” Collins wrote, “but equally deadly as it advances to its present level.”
After practically vanishing from the presidential campaign in its waning days, the immigration reform issue is again the topic du jour among anti-immigration fire-breathers.
Trying to regroup after their loss, some Republicans wasted no time and just one week after the inauguration of President Obama met in Washington to argue that pandering to pro-amnesty Latino voters is not the way to go forward.
Driving immigrants out and sealing the border are the best arguments to win future elections among the "more important" white voters, according to a report issued by the group American Cause and authored by Marcus Epstein.
These "more important" voters get, in large numbers, their world view from conservative talk radio and Internet publications, where hate-mongering thrives, unchecked and unchallenged.
To their ears, the words "immigrant" and "Latino" are usually followed or preceded by adjectives such as "criminal," "illegal," "drug smuggler" or even "potential terrorist," as well as accusations of refusing to learn English or assimilate.
Immigration reform advocates, particularly Latino activists, are falsely characterized as advocating "open borders" and "blanket amnesty."
Hate speech leads to hate crimes. No argument about that. Violence against Latinos has increased by 40% in the past four years — sometimes with deadly results, as evidenced by last year’s murder of Ecuadoran immigrant Marcelo Lucero on Long Island.
Based on this and other reports, the National Hispanic Media Coalition has filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission, asking it to examine the extent, nature and effects of hate speech, the role of the media and possible options to counterbalance its negative impact.
The economic hardship the country is experiencing can only lead to more instances of Latino-bashing when fewer and fewer jobs are at stake. Therefore, let’s hope the FCC takes this petition seriously and promptly.
Freedom of expression, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution, is the main reason many immigrants come to the U.S., and we cherish it as much as anyone.
Certainly, no one wants to inhibit anyone from expressing his opinion, regardless of how vile it may be, but a fair, safe, middle ground must be found.
Hate speech should have no place in a nation of immigrants that pays a lot of lip service to its racial and cultural diversity.
Neither should other kinds of speech that, though perhaps not be categorized as "hate speech," certainly qualify as "ignorant speech."
The aforementioned Mr. Epstein, writing in an anti-immigration blog and quoted in a recent New York Times editorial, said: "Diversity can be good in moderation — if what’s brought in is desirable. Most Americans don’t mind a little ethnic food, some Asian math whizzes or a few mariachi dancers — as long as these trends do not overwhelm the dominant culture."
We’ve heard this before: They love to eat the guacamole, but can’t stomach the people who actually invented it.
Mr. Epstein, assimilate this: There’s no one American "dominant" culture. There never has been. Throughout history, American culture has evolved, and will continue to evolve, with the ebb and flow of immigration from different parts of the world.
FARMINGDALE, N.Y. - Seven teenagers, already accused in the racially motivated stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant, were charged in a new indictment Wednesday with taking part in attacks on eight other Hispanics over 14 months.
The November killing of Marcelo Lucero has attracted international attention and prompted a U.S. Justice Department investigation of hate crime allegations on eastern Long Island.
At a community meeting in December, other victims came forward to tell their stories. Those details led to some of the charges filed Wednesday. Victims were knocked off bicycles; punched in laundromats; and attacked while walking down the street, prosecutors said.
The teens reportedly have told authorities that targeting Hispanics for abuse was a regular activity.
One of them, 17-year-old Anthony Hartford, told police, "I don't go out doing this very often, maybe once a week," according to Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.
The prosecutor said the attackers often uttered racial slurs like "beaners and wetbacks."
"All of the defendants participated in what we consider to be a violent and racially driven pastime," Spota said outside court. "Some of these victims were attacked by these individuals multiple times and on different dates."
Five of the Patchogue-Medford High School students pleaded not guilty Wednesday to assault, gang assault, attempted robbery and other crimes. The two others will be arraigned next week because their attorneys had scheduling conflicts.
All seven previously pleaded not guilty to hate crime and other charges related to the Nov. 8, 2008, killing of Lucero, a 37-year-old dry cleaning worker. The teen accused of plunging a knife into Lucero's chest on a Patchogue street is charged with murder as a hate crime.
Attorneys did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the latest charges, but have previously said their clients are innocent.
The incidents highlight the extraordinary tension that exists on Long Island between white residents and the booming Hispanic population. Immigrants say they are often harassed, but don't tell police because they fear they'll be deported. It is not clear what Lucero's immigration status was at the time he was killed.
Besides its probe of hate crimes, the Justice Department is reviewing whether to begin a formal investigation of how local police responded to bias incidents.
Animosity over the influx of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America has been simmering for nearly a decade.
Two local men are serving long prison terms for attempted murder after luring two Mexican laborers to a warehouse in 2000 with the promise of work, then beating them with shovels and landscaping tools. In 2003, a Mexican family's home in Farmingville _ about 15 miles from Patchogue _ was destroyed when teenagers tossed fireworks through a window on the Fourth of July.
More recently, advocates have claimed harsh anti-immigration rhetoric by Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and others created an inflammatory climate. Levy adamantly rejected those allegations and said his views on immigration policy were never intended to provide even tacit approval for attacks on Hispanics.
After a well-publicized change of heart, Robb Pearson, former anti-Latino immigration activist and blogger, is working to promote compassion and common humanity as a framework for the immigration issue and other issues.
Recently, Pearson sat down with 9500Liberty to discuss his conversion. Here' the interview in two parts:
FROM: ROBPEARSON.COM "Pursuing Oneness in our common humanity"
Transformation: One year after the ProAmerica Rally
The following essay was written by me on 14 July 2008 and describes how profound changes in my life impacted my views on certain political issues I had once been very active in advocating. The essay was published here on the website of the Daily Record, a newspaper which serves the county in northern New Jersey where I was once politically active.
Part 1: The seduction of intolerance - "We don't like "illegal" immigrants. Most "illegals" are Hispanic. Therefore, we don't like Hispanics."
Life sometimes does more than change. It completely transforms. And the transformation I have experienced in my life since organizing and running the ProAmerica Rally on Morristown last year has been tremendous, profound, and wonderful.
My own recent experience of sudden economic loss and resulting hardship humbled me in ways I could never have anticipated. In January of this year (2008), after nearly four months of rapid financial decline and having nearly lost almost everything due to circumstances out of my control, I had no other choice but to leave the home I'd had for years and take refuge with family in Pennsylvania. It was my only remaining means for recovery, having exhausted nearly all other means, including my entire savings.
Part 2: "Racism is an issue with the anti-immigrant lobby...I finally got to see the human face of the issue I had been against...I came to the realization that this isn't about politics. This isn't even about immigration. It's about our common humanity."
Sudden and impacting life changes have an often unexpected transformational effect. My sojourn at my family's home, especially in the beginning, was sobering, and I spent much time reflecting on my situation, and began reevaluating my beliefs, my views, and my understanding of life and human coexistence.
(BRIEF BACKSTORY: It is worth mentioning that in 1999, after my brother George's death, I had undertaken a similar reevaluation of my beliefs, a several-years journey of intently studying and experiencing a vast number of religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions, and all for the sake of being thoroughly self-informed so as to undo my own unwitting ignorance.
My stance on the immigration issue today is let the immigrants -- these visiting neighbors -- stay. Give them sanctuary. Show them human hospitality. Do not denigrate their humanity, but uplift it. Do not degrade their human dignity, but magnify it. Do not react toward them with undue nationalistic passion, but respond to them with human compassion. Do not regard them with antipathy, but be humanly present with them by exercising empathy. Reject us-them nationalistic mentalities and labeling people with any politicized terminology, whether "illegal immigrant" or "undocumented worker", but instead recognize them for what they truly are: fellow human beings like us. Our neighbors.
My brother's death shook all my inner foundations, and I discovered myself facing a crisis of faith. In my youth I was an extremely devout Jehovah's Witness, possessing an unqualified sense of unshakable certainty regarding life. But having abandoned my Jehovah's Witness faith years prior (an elitist and exclusionary faith, by the way, which strongly discourages inquiring about other faiths, beliefs, or life philosophies), my sense of certainty was no longer so secure. So I started anew, unlearning many deep-rooted prejudicial preconceptions I'd acquired as a Jehovah's Witness, and committing myself to being open to learning and experiencing the broader variety of worldviews and beliefs that I had as yet never been exposed to. The journey was remarkable, enriching, and powerfully enlightening.)
The irony of this latest reevaluation I embarked on in January is the discovery that I once again had to unlearn some unhealthy beliefs and views, this time ones I had acquired over the last couple years (2005-2007) during the last leg of the journey I began in 1999. That last leg was spent within the seductive and cult-like tradition of politics and patriotism.
Politics and Patriotism
It would be a vast understatement to say that politics and patriotism bear startling resemblance to fanatical religion, and in alarming ways actually exceeds the extreme overzealousness which pervades religious fanaticism. I not only witnessed this personally on numerous occasions, but was intimately caught up in divisive political and patriotic fervor when I organized and ran the ProAmerica Rally on Morristown, which was held on July 28, 2007 to protest illegal immigration and advocate local and national law enforcement policies. By that time I had allowed myself to be overly influenced by toxic super-nationalism, which was underscored by exclusionary and bigoted political viewpoints using the logic of "rule of law" as a justifying facade.
Looking back one year later at the rally and my role in putting it all together, I see now that the rally was the crowning culmination of my dark journey through the fanatical "religion" of politics and patriotism. Organizing and running the rally moved me beyond being a mere silent "parishoner" (or spectator, if you will) in politics. I had become a preacher, an itinerant evangelist, gathering literally hundreds to a gathering which was nothing less than a liturgy of mass self-adulation, fiery and angry rhetoric, flag worship, "hymns" (patriotic music was played at certain intervals during the rally), proclaiming our righteous political superiority and dispensing harsh political judgments, surrounded by protective "angels" in the form of vast numbers of police and riot officers guarding us against the unholy terror of protesting political infidels, and ultimately doing what any fanatical and extremist religious gathering does best: assailing the weak and marginalized, and sacrificing their human dignity on the altar of fear.
Today I am in a new place in life. I have learned that we sometimes must lose everything in order to be truly liberated, truly free, and in many ways reborn so as to be authentically alive. Liberated from the distracting cacophony of the human chaos surrounding us. Free from the captivity of us-them mentalities which divide and do not unify. And authentically alive to what our purpose in life truly is: Oneness without division, in harmony.
My renewed stance on the immigration issue
It is noted that Benjamin Franklin once said that "having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects, which I once thought right but found to be otherwise." Bearing this in mind, I can relate how my own recent life changes have caused me to engage in fuller consideration on certain subjects and alter previously held views. Among the views I have changed significantly are my views on the immigration issue.
Having lost nearly everything and having had to migrate elsewhere for economic recovery, I was able to imagine what it must be like for so many people who come to America to escape extreme hardship and seek a better life for themselves, their children, and their families. I recognize, of course, that the circumstances of such people are likely far more dire and challenging than mine, especially given the advantage I had of having a family to readily give me sanctuary and healing in my time of severe need. Nonetheless, my situation was enough to inspire me to deep empathy for those who come to this country for nothing more than healing from painful life conditions in their own homelands and the powerlessness that often accompanies such conditions.
My stance on the immigration issue today is let the immigrants -- these visiting neighbors -- stay. Give them sanctuary. Show them human hospitality. Do not denigrate their humanity, but uplift it. Do not degrade their human dignity, but magnify it. Do not react toward them with undue nationalistic passion, but respond to them with human compassion. Do not regard them with antipathy, but be humanly present with them by exercising empathy. Reject us-them nationalistic mentalities and labeling people with any politicized terminology, whether "illegal immigrant" or "undocumented worker", but instead recognize them for what they truly are: fellow human beings like us. Our neighbors.
To me this issue, among many other human issues, is no longer about politics or nationalism or the artificial fear-based notion of "sovereignty". It is an issue of our common humanity, and the Oneness that transcends social and political boundaries. And in that regard, it is my position that any artificial law penned by man which stands in opposition to natural law -- especially that natural law which indicates undivided Oneness in harmony as mankind's natural social condition and which demonstrates mercy and compassion as a paramount responsibility to our fellow human beings -- is deserving not only of total rejection but also of being absolutely and utterly opposed.
Oneness
The Oneness I actively advocate -- and which I have begun actively advocating in my new home region near Reading, PA -- is a Oneness which seeks to break down walls and barriers to human compassion, human mercy, and human unity; a Oneness which opposes nationalism and divisive politics and patriotism, and the artificial policies which create greater economic and social separateness and us-them-ness; a Oneness which sees no borders or divisions, but instead pledges sole allegiance to the universally harmonzing and unifying plan of Nature, or "God" if you will; a Oneness which recognizes all human needs as holy, and which vigorously seeks healing in human relationships and equity in all human interrelations and coexistence.
It is up to all of us to make it happen. We need to pursue the great challenge of allowing ourselves to be transformed so that we can genuinely and authentically move forward together, especially when we are at the greatest odds with those whom we might consider our enemies. It starts with humility, then walks the path of human honesty, and finally ends up with unity and Oneness. It's not hard to do. We just need to be committed to taking that most challenging first step.
"I used a restroom in a public building that had ethnic slurs and violent hate speech carved into the wall, including threats to murder Latina/o people. ..."
OPINION
January 23, 2009 Martin Luther King Jr., Day has come and gone.
Even as Gaza bleeds, police kill unarmed people of color in U.S. cities, and our communities are torn apart by immigration raids, many believe King's dream has been realized.
On the morning of Jan. 19, I used a restroom in a public building that had ethnic slurs and violent hate speech carved into the wall, including threats to murder Latina/o people.
We are far from realizing any part of King's vision, including creating a world free of racism and white supremacy.
The message etched in the restroom was a glaring reminder of the mentality of some who live in our communities. While it's terrible that individuals hold such hateful perspectives, it's really disgusting that this view is reinforced by wider social and political norms.
The United States maintains policies that embody the racist worldview communicated in the hate speech in that bathroom stall.
Whether it's "free" trade policies directed at the global south or the more overt imperialism of invasion and occupation of Arabic people, the U.S. government maintains the oppression of other people and cultures around the world - and here at home. We have to look no further than the nearest ICE raid or prison to realize this intimately affects our local communities.
We should honor King by remembering the full scope of his vision - a dream that challenges racism, patriarchy, militarism, capitalism and other forms of domination - and by realizing that the struggle is far from over.
By Jonathan Saltzman and Brian Ballou, Globe Staff
SPRINGFIELD -- Three Springfield men, including one who allegedly complained that blacks and Puerto Ricans would have more rights than whites under President Barack Obama, set an arson fire that destroyed the construction site of a mostly black church just hours after Obama's landmark victory, authorities said today.
(Photo by Dennis Leger/ Springfield Fire Department) Springfield firefighters battled the blaze at the building site of the Macedonia Church of God in November.
The men, Benjamin Haskell, Michael F. Jacques Jr., and Thomas Gleason Jr., all of whom are white, poured gasoline on the exterior and interior of the construction site of the Macedonia Church of God in Christ in the early morning of Nov. 5 and later boasted about it, according to prosecutors.
Four days after the fire, which many in Springfield's black community had immediately feared was related to the election of America's black president, Haskell and Jacques drove by burnt rubble with an unidentified associate and laughed, according to the affidavit of an FBI agent.
``We did it,'' Haskell allegedly told to the associate, who later became a cooperating witness. When the associate asked why they set the blaze, Haskell replied, ``Because it was a black church.''
Jacques asked the associate whom he had voted for, the affidavit said. When he replied that he voted for Obama, Jacques uttered a profanity-laced racial epithet and predicted that Obama would be assassinated.
Haskell later admitted to authorities that he helped set the fire and said Jacques had been angry the day before Election Day that the country was going to have an African-American president and that blacks and Puerto Ricans would have more rights than whites, according to the affidavit.
Haskell, 22, Jacques, 24, and Gleason, 21, were arrested early today and charged with a violation of Section 241, a civil rights conspiracy statute, said a spokeswoman for US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan. The charge makes it illegal for two or more individuals to agree to ``injure, threaten, or intimidate'' anyone from exercising their civil rights.
Each faces up to 10 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release. They appeared briefly in US District Court in Springfield before US Magistrate Judge Kenneth P. Neiman this afternoon.
``I've been hopeful from day one that whoever perpetrated this hideous act of arson ... would be apprehended,'' said Bishop Bryant Robinson Jr., pastor of Macedonia Church of God in Christ, which was building a new church.
The blaze started at 3:10 a.m. and caused an estimated $2 million in damage. Investigators said at the time that the timing, just hours after Obama broke the highest racial barrier in politics, raised suspicions that it was a hate crime.
The fire touched off a raw fear that has lurked just below the surface in many black communities, that Obama's breakthrough success would trigger a backlash against blacks.
``If, in fact, it's a racially motivated crime, then that would be an additional tragedy to the loss because that's really not something you want to have in a community,'' said Bradford R. Martin Jr., a lawyer who represents the church and praised the work of investigators.
``As African-Americans, the Macedonia Church would have a heightened feeling and sensitivity to that,'' added Martin, who is white. ``Until we hear more about what was actually going on with these individuals, it will be hard to say what their motivation was.''
The state fire marshal, Stephen Coan, said authorities from a host of federal and state agencies investigated the crime, including the State Police, FBI, Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Hampden County District Attorney's Office, as well as the marshal's office. Sullivan's office led the investigation.
Bill Blatch, a retired state police lieutenant and president of Black Men of Greater Springfield, was pleased that arrests had been made.
``Being an ex-trooper, I had confidence that the investigators would do the best job they could to try to bring this thing to a quick end,�� he said. ``And I think that faith has been rewarded.��
He said he was heartened to see blacks and whites in Springfield pull together in the wake of the fire.
``As President-elect Obama states, we can do this thing, but we can only do this thing together,�� he said.
On November 19th of last year, a 19 year old Latino male was was knocked unconscious and then repeatedly stomped and kicked in the head by individuals who allegedly have ties to a white supremacist gang. The unidentified young man has permanent brain damage and is now in a long term care facility. In other words, his life will never be the same. The attack, which was clearly attempted murder, happened in Hemet, California, an area that has had a growing white white supremacist activity.
Crystal Lee McCann, 22, Derek Shane O'Brien, 22 and Darrin Peter Thibault, 24, were arrested between Dec. 19 and Thursday in connection with the Nov. 14 beating of a 19-year-old Latino whose name has not been released.
Thibault, arrested Dec. 19, has been arraigned on charges of attempted murder, membership in a criminal gang and assault with a deadly weapon other than a firearm, with gang, serious felony and great bodily injury allegations, according to court records.
McCann, arrested Dec. 26, has pleaded not guilty to attempting to dissuade a witness and gang allegations. She is to be arraigned Tuesday.
O'Brien was arrested Thursday on suspicion of attempted murder, violation of probation and membership in a criminal street gang. He is also to be arraigned Tuesday.
The first person arrested, Justin Tyme Hayes, 21, has been charged with attempted murder and participating in a criminal street gang, with serious felony, great bodily injury and gang activity allegations. He has pleaded not guilty.
There is so much talk about fighting gangs and so much of that effort on the law enforcement side is focused in neighborhood of color, harassing young people for merely existing.
From California, to Oakland, to Suffolk County Long Island, to Gaza, it seems that living in the wrong skin, with the wrong tongue, with the wrong flag is enough to make you a target and deemed worthless.
The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating allegations of hate crimes on eastern Long Island and is considering a request to open a probe into how police and other authorities responded to reports Hispanics were targeted for attacks.
The Monday announcement by a Department of Justice spokesman follows the Nov. 8, 2008, stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant in Patchogue.
Prosecutors say Marcelo Lucero, 37, was targeted by a marauding gang of teenagers because of his race.
One teen has been charged with murder as a hate crime, and six others are facing assault and other charges; all have pleaded not guilty.
Since Lucero's death, several Hispanics have claimed that they were afraid to report crimes to police because of questions about their immigration statuses or that when they did report attacks nothing was done.
Suffolk County police said after the Department of Justice announcement from Washington, D.C., that their hate crime statistics were "essentially the same" as those of neighboring counties and New York City.
"We welcome the DOJ looking into these incidents, many of which had not been reported until recently," police spokesman Tim Motz said. "Any further evidence that can be garnered to convict suspected wrongdoers would be welcomed."
Note to the curious: When your police spokeperson says his department welcomes an investigation into what that department has been doing (or not doing) rest assured he's lying through his Crest Stripped whitened teeth. No local law enforcement agency ever welcomes a federal investigation. And considering the history in Suffolk county I can understand why they are now in major damage control mode:
Animosity over the influx of thousands of immigrants from Central and South America has been simmering for nearly a decade on Long Island.
In 2001, two Mexican laborers were nearly killed by two men who lured them to a warehouse in Shirley with the promise of work and then beat them with shovels and other landscaping tools.
Two years later, a Mexican family's home in Farmingville was destroyed by teenagers who tossed fireworks through a window on the Fourth of July. [...]
At a community meeting in early December, several other Hispanics came forward to report they had been targeted for similar attacks.
Cesar Perales, president and general counsel of LatinoJustice, an advocacy group that requested Department of Justice intervention in Suffolk County, called Monday's announcement a good "first step."
"I can't overemphasize the importance of this," he said in a telephone interview. "This is akin to the Justice Department going into Mississippi in the civil rights era to investigate murders by the Ku Klux Klan."
He said Hispanic crime victims who have been afraid to go to authorities have instead turned to his organization.
With Bush in office, however, most police departments haven't had to worry that the DOJ would go looking around for failure to defend tyhe civil rights of minoritiy populations, since Bush officials at the DOJ have been too busy insuring that US Attorneys file phony criminal indictments against popular Democratic politicians and liberal voting activists, eroding the integrity of the Civil Rights division and helping ICE conduct mass raids against suspected "illegal aliens."
I guess with a new sheriff in DC all ready to take charge, some of the cases that had been back burnered for the last eight years suddenly are getting green lighted once again. Funny how that works, isn't it?
National Geographic's Inside: American Nazis Premieres Sunday, January 11 at 9p et/pt.
'American Nazis' goes inside the growing trend of hate in America. Neo-Nazi groups in the U.S. are made up of many factions, but they share a common ideology that includes veneration of Hitler, hatred of Jews, and white supremacy. We go inside three extreme groups - Aryan Nations, White Revolution, and the Nationalist Socialist Movement - to discover how they exploit anti-immigration sentiment for their own agenda, and how their violent rhetoric has led to hate crimes against Jews and Latinos.
April 19th. It's a date that's never really held any great significance for me. In fact, as our video crew gathered on the national mall that spring morning our first thought was to try and get some b-roll of tourists hanging out in the warm weather, walking their dogs and playing Frisbee in front of the Washington Monument. It was just like any other pleasant day in the nation's capital. But, as the police buses began arriving on the mall, and the officers took up their positions lining the streets in SWAT gear, the idyllic scene started taking on a menacing tone. April 19th, is the day before Hitler's birthday. Our camera crew was there that morning because we were doing a story exploring the causes of the rise in membership among neo-Nazi organizations. The police were there because a group of American Nazis were coming to town to celebrate the birth of their Fuhrer. They planned to use the occasion to protest immigration and what they called the "browning of America." Their message was a simple one. They believe America should be a nation for whites only. On this day, they planned to march from the Washington Monument to the steps of the U.S. Capital to shout their message of hate to the world.
"He looked me in the eye and said 'Somebody has to stand up to these thugs and tell them that their hate is not welcome here... no matter what the consequences.' "
In the end over a 1000 police showed up to protect just over two dozen Nazis freedom of speech. It is America after all, and everyone, even Nazis, are free to say what they want. But, the police were on hand to make certain the Nazis' violent rhetoric didn't spark violent action. Nazi marches had incited violence before.
We were one of the first television crews to arrive on the mall to cover the march. We had gotten some shots in the morning of the preparations, and took a break for lunch while we waited for the Nazis to arrive. (Even when you're covering Nazis, you've got make sure you feed the crew.) We actually had a second crew tagging along with the Nazis as we had been covering the National Socialist Movement for several weeks before the event and we knew they were still about an hour away. We sat down on the grass near the monument to eat when we began to hear drumming and chanting, and group of about sixty young people came rushing towards us. All of them bright clothes, some had their faces painted and others hid their faces with bandanas. They were banging sticks on paint buckets with Swastikas with a slash through the symbol. These young people were from several anti-racist organizations from around the country. They had organized on the internet, and come together in Washington, D.C. to protest the Nazi march.
The anti-racists marched past us and straight up to the base of the monument. They were immediately confronted by three Nazi sympathizers who walked straight through the group to antagonize them. It worked. The two groups clashed and the police rushed in to restore order. Our cameras were in the middle as the chaos erupted, and by the time the pepper spray cleared, the police had moved the Nazi sympathizers out, and arrested several anti-racists. The confrontation erupted so quickly, and the consequences for the anti racists seemed so high that I wanted to ask them why they would risk getting busted in the head and going to jail just to protest a handful of Nazis. We talked with one of the protestors as he watched the police handcuff one of his friends. The man told me, that he had to show up. "This is America man, and this is our backyard" he said. " We can't just let these ignorant people who don't understand change just come in here and spew this hate" he continued. He looked me in the eye. "Somebody has to stand up to these thugs and tell them that their hate is not welcome here... no matter what the consequences" he said.
The arrests did not deter the anti-racists. By the time the Nazis showed up on the mall, the Anti-racist protestors outnumbered them more than 3 to 1. They followed the Nazis along the march route trying to drown out the Nazi hate speech with chants of their own. In the end, when the Nazis arrived on the steps of the capital to deliver the speech they waited months to deliver -- a speech extolling white supremacy, intolerance and hate -- none of the crowd who gathered could hear them. The Anti-racists drowned out their speech with another Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech" blared from a bullhorn.
After their march the Nazis declared victory in their war of ideas. They claimed they gained new members through their bold stand and even opened a few new chapters, but in a few short weeks I think the real winner will be evident. On that very location where the Nazis declared that America should be for whites only, the first African American in U.S. history will be sworn in as President of the United States. It seems Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream continues to drown out the Nazis hate.
In a post a few months ago on his blog Cat Dirt Sez, San Diego defense attorney/music promoter Scott Pactor wrote: “If a hypothetical journalist asked me this question: ‘If you were looking to start a new blog, what subject matter would you pick and why?’ My answer would be ‘Illegal Immigration.’”
To illustrate his point, Pactor directed readers to a story on SignOnSanDiego.com, the website of the San Diego Union-Tribune, about a Fallbrook Catholic church that had become a hangout for North County day laborers—and a target for anti-illegal-immigrant activist group The Minutemen. At 11:30 a.m., when Pactor’s post went up, the SignonSanDiego.com story had attracted 81 comments, which ultimately grew to 203—or, at least 203 published comments. In reading through the comments, it’s obvious that some inappropriate remarks had been pulled by the website’s monitors but were up long enough to prompt a response from other readers. According to SignOnSanDiego.com’s policy, comments that include “threats, ethnic slurs, foul language or thinly disguised foul language” will be axed.
Chris Jennewein, SignOnSanDiego’s vice president for Internet operations, said the website attracts roughly 1,500 reader comments a day. And whether or not you agree with those comments, “it’s a great way to find out what the community is really thinking,” he said. “Sometimes there are abusive comments—at least until we delete them—but I think that’s the price we have to pay in order to have free expression.”
But some people think the sort of free expression one finds in reader forums is not only unproductive—it’s also stirring up aggression.
“Anti-immigrant [sentiment] has been the dominant thing for the last few years across the country—the single most repeated theme is opposition to immigration, and some of it very virulent.... I think it’s quite shocking to find out what relatively normal people really think,” said Mark Potok, who monitors hate groups and anti-immigrant “nativist” groups—as they’re called—for the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Enrique Morones, who heads the immigrant-rights group Border Angels, said anti-immigrant sentiment has “never been as bad as it is right now.” Morones can handle the hostile e-mails and phone calls he gets regularly—some of which he shared with CityBeat—but recently his elderly parents became a target (he asked that the details not be disclosed).
Lori Saldaña, a state Assemblymember whose district includes much of the city of San Diego, has been meeting with clergy members and other human-rights organizers at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Bankers Hill to talk about how to counter locally the increasingly harsh rhetoric sparked by national debates over immigration reform—the kind of comments she reads on websites or hears on local radio shows, especially.
“It is literally dangerous for our community to have these people’s comments and hate speech broadcast on Roger Hedgecock [KOGO], on Rick Roberts [KFMB], on the Union-Tribune, on the North County Times websites, and it’s created a more dangerous community for all of us,” she said. “We can’t just privately talk about how terrible it is.” What set Saldaña off are the comments—the majority of them anonymous—that followed an online Union-Tribune story about a woman who had died in the October Harris fire while trying to get across the border.
“The moderator stepped in and said, ‘We’re going to shut down this discussion board—we’re talking about a human being who died and left four children’—and then it got worse. Then those people started attacking the moderator. “And this is what happens with hate speech,” Saldaña added. “People who step in and try to say, ‘Let’s be reasonable here’ or ‘Let’s at least be civil,’ then they get attacked: ‘Don’t tell me what to say.’ So it’s just gotten to the point where we need a response. It’s like somebody telling a joke in a room, a sexist or racist joke.”
Americans hold fast to their right to free speech—and, compared to other democratized first-world countries, we have wide latitude in that arena. In England, for example, it’s a crime use “threatening, abusive or insulting words” or display “any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting, within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress.”
In the U.S., we’re limited by the constitutional doctrine of “fighting words.” You can say what you want about a person or group of people until those words incite action. As Deputy District Attorney Oscar Garcia—who heads the DA’s hate-crimes unit—explained:
“Say, for example, someone is protesting out in front of a public building and saying death to a particular group, but then they see someone of that group and direct the persons participating in the protest to go get that person, go hit him, go kill him—then that definitely would cross the line of directed action against an individual or a group.”
On Monday afternoon, a story about a drug-smuggling tunnel found in Tecate prompted this comment from someone named “DrDan”: “Border Patrol should have booby trapped it to kill some of those illegals. It should be legal to shoot illegals.”
Within minutes, another commenter agreed: “The tunnel should be converted into a septic tank so we cn [sic] send the #&^% back to where it came form [sic] and belongs. You’re right Dr. Dan.”
Again, there’s nothing illegal about publicly stating that members of a group of people should be shot. For it to be a crime, the potential for action must accompany the words.
“You can make a statement in the open public that we should shoot everyone who comes across the border, because you have the right to say that even though we don’t agree with it,” said San Diego Police Department Capt. Boyd Long. “Now, if you stood at the border and you said, ‘I’m going to shoot everyone who comes across the border’ and you had a gun in your hand, you just committed a crime because you have the inherent ability to commit that crime.” Two weeks ago, the FBI released its annual look at hate crimes in the U.S., a report that was preceded by the California Attorney General’s annual hate-crime report, released in July. Both reports showed an increase in hate crimes motivated by a person’s ethnicity or national origin—the category that includes Latinos. In California, reported hate crimes in the ethnicity/nationality category went from an average of 187 a year between 2001 and 2005 to 218 reported incidents in 2006. Deputy DA Garcia said the numbers could be higher.
“I think that most experts will agree that these are underreported statistics,” he said. And, if the victim is in the country illegally, there’s a greater likelihood that the person won’t contact law enforcement to report a crime. African-Americans remain the most-targeted group when it comes to hate crimes (and, for that matter, hate speech—CBS News, for instance, made a decision earlier this year to stop allowing readers to comment on online stories about Barack Obama due to the “volume and persistence” of racial slurs), but, as Saldaña pointed out, as election season approaches, immigration will be the issue that rallies voters in the same way same-sex marriage ballot initiatives got people to the polls in 2004. A report released earlier this year by the Anti-Defamation League looked at the “mainstreaming” of the type of anti-immigrant rhetoric and propaganda that had previously been the domain of hardcore anti-immigrant, pro-white organizations. The ADL found that as the issue gets more attention, the conversation gets politically messier.
“Everyone has a right to free speech,” Saldaña said, “but... this is an organized campaign of hate—in the same way that at other times in our country’s history there have been organized campaigns of hate with the intent of vilifying, dehumanizing, accusing people of committing crimes, molesting children.”
While hate-crime perpetrators remain, for the most part, members of extremist groups, Garcia said he’s seen people who have no criminal record and no affiliation with any group commit what are defined as hate crimes.
“They may feel, Hey, there’s talk about immigrants being responsible for all the healthcare costs and they’re draining our economy—and the more people start saying it, they see it on the talk shows, then they may start feeling they have a license and some support to go out and commit violence, that the community really doesn’t care what happens to these victims… that they’re not real people, that they’re lesser than humans.”
Another American Citizen Latino was racially profiled as an illegal immigrant and beat over the head with a baseball bat! This time the victim was an 8 year Marine Corps Veteran - American! As you read the article, consider this: 1. Why did the perpetrators automatically assume this man was an illegal immigrant? (with their comment "Get out of our country") 2. Why did the perpetrators think it was ok to attack who they thought was an illegal immigrant with a baseball bat? 3. Why did they have a baseball bat in their car in December, in Massachusetts, at 2:40 am? Hate crime investigated in Revere REVERE - Revere police say the two men who allegedly beat a Hispanic man with a baseball bat while taunting him with racial slurs Saturday at a Wendy's restaurant drive-thru could be charged with a hate crime."If you have language of that nature coupled with an assault and battery, it can be defined as a hate crime," Police Capt. Michael Murphy said. "Whether or not the motivation of this assault was based on race is something we'd have to discuss with the district attorney."The 33-year-old victim, a Revere resident, told police the incident started at about 2:40 a.m. after he and his wife placed an order at the drive-thru on Squire Road. The man and his wife began to drive away when they realized an error was made in their order, police said. The man walked back to the drive-thru window, as the restaurant building was closed to customers, to try to fix the problem, police said. As he was at the window, two men inside one of the waiting cars began yelling at the man and began using racial slurs. "The victim reported that the men shouted at him to get out of the country and used racial epithets offensive to the Hispanic culture," Murphy said. In defense, the victim informed the suspects that not only is he a U.S. Citizen, but is an eight-year Marine Corps veteran, police said.The argument escalated before the suspects allegedly got out of their vehicle and began beating the man with a baseball bat. He suffered injuries to his head, back and arms but declined medical attention.The suspects fled the scene in a silver or gray Dodge Neon, police said. Detectives are examining surveillance video to gather more information.
Reality television featuring law enforcement officers on the beat is nothing new. A show featuring a lawman who makes jailed inmates wear pink underwear and uses actors to trick suspects, however, is a new twist.
Maricopa County, Arizona, Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- whose showy brand of justice has raised charges of discrimination and civil-rights abuses while making him a hero among fans of his tough-on-crime attitudes -- will star in "Smile: You're Under Arrest."
The show, which premiers this weekend on Fox Reality Channel, features Arpaio and other officers using elaborate ploys crafted by comedy writers and carried out by professional actors to arrest suspects with outstanding warrants. Read full article » In one, a suspect is invited to a fake fashion shoot and told he's going to become a supermodel, according to Fox Reality's Web site. In another, a suspect is tricked into what he thinks is a job as a movie extra and, after a staged argument between the film's "director" and another actor, gets promoted to the starring role.
"It's kind of fun to show how stupid they are and, as I say, the looks on their face," Arpaio, 76, said of the suspects wanted for DUIs, drug charges, missed court dates and other offenses.
But Arpaio's critics aren't amused.
They say they fear the show will give the controversial sheriff positive publicity, ignoring what they call a darker side to his 16-year tenure as top lawman in the county that includes Phoenix.
"It's going to celebrate a sheriff that's frankly scaring this community, a sheriff that has seen violent crime increase significantly in his county, a sheriff that is racially profiling the Latino community, and I doubt that the show is going to reflect that," said Paco Fabian, spokesman for the immigrant-rights group America's Voice.
In a statement on the group's Web site, Fabian calls Arpaio a "modern day Bull Connor," comparing him to the public safety commissioner in 1960s Birmingham, Alabama, whose use of attack dogs and firehoses on civil rights demonstrators made him a symbol of racial intolerance.
Dubbed "America's Toughest Sheriff," Arpaio makes many of his county's 10,000 or so inmates live in tents. He reinstituted chain gangs -- including crews for women and juveniles -- banned smoking, coffee and movies in his jails and, most recently, moved to require all inmates with money in their jail accounts to pay for their own meals.
And then, of course, there's the pink underwear.
"They were stealing the white underwear, smuggling the underwear out of the jail," Arpaio told CNN. "So you know what? Give them pink. The other reason is they hate pink. Why would you give the 10,000 inmates the color they like?"
Earlier this year, the mayor of Phoenix wrote a letter to the U.S. attorney general's office, asking the FBI and the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate Arpaio's aggressive illegal immigration crackdowns. Mayor Phil Brown wrote that Arpaio's sweeps show "a pattern and practice of conduct that includes discriminatory harassment, improper stops, searches and arrests."
The letter came after Arpaio, who had already been the target of hundreds of lawsuits, launched a series of what he calls crime-suppression patrols in largely Latino neighborhoods. Critics say the patrols use racial profiling to unfairly target Hispanic drivers and pedestrians, while Arpaio says they have resulted in the deportation of hundreds of illegal immigrants, including some with criminal records.
"We are the only ones cracking down on the state's human smuggling law," Arpaio said.
Fabian said America's Voice is considering putting pressure on companies that advertise during Arpaio's show. Either way, the series offers another moment in the spotlight for a lawman who has never shied away from it.
"I'm not going to brag," Arpaio said, "but there isn't anybody in the world who doesn't know who this sheriff is." OF COURSE WE DO JOE, YOU ARE A MOST RACIST, XENOPHOBIC MAN AND A DISGRACE TO DECENT LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WHOSE JOBS YOU MAKE MORE DIFFICULT BY ADDING TO THE MISTRUST THE PUBLIC ALREADY HAS FOR THEM THANKS TO "PEOPLE" LIKE YOU.
In Houston, Marvin Nathan and Martin Cominsky, both of the Anti-Defamation Committee, wrote in response to a Houston Chronicle series about how law enforcement can fail to deport undocumented immigrants who commit crimes. What struck Nathan and Cominsky was that "anti-immigrant bigots seized on parts of (the) series to insult, stereotype and even advocate violence against immigrants and others they perceived as immigrants, especially Hispanics."
The online comments they drew attention to called for denying due process, insisted immigrants pose a public-safety threat, accuse our country of leaning toward the Third World and someone simply advocating "just shoot them on the spot."
So what have undocumented immigrants done to outrage and anger those people so much that they can't see straight? And why equate "Hispanic" to "illegal immigrant?" What incites them that they want to deny due process, as if illegal immigrants are just like those fellows at Guantanamo?
One thing is clear. They hate peaceable people. Nathan and Cominsky cite reports and studies proving immigrants of every type commit less crime. They bring up a Harvard professor who quantifies it to be 45 percent less.
So the nuts don't like people who commit less crime. What else?
Well, the evidence is they are losers. Look at the results of the 2006 mid-term elections. Among the most vehement anti-immigrant ranters in Congress who wanted to turn all 12 million unauthorized immigrants into felonious criminals, at least nine lost their House seats. In 2008, 14 out of 16 hard-line, anti-immigration Republicans went down.
But as the mainstream of that movement goes away, the more fanatic believers they incite are showing up.
The Nov. 8 murder of Marcelo Lucero, 37, an Ecuadorean immigrant, in Suffolk County, N.Y., reached a new low in hate crimes and hate speech. Seven teenagers are charged with the gang assault. The one with the swastika tattoo on his leg stands accused of sticking a knife in Lucero's chest as the gang hollered racial epithets.
Prosecutors say the group attacked another Hispanic man a half-hour before that murderous assault. The seven admitted to beating Hispanics for fun as a regular pastime.
In Brooklyn, another Ecuadorean, 31-year-old Jose Sucuzhany, who was walking home arm in arm with his brother Romel because they had been drinking, was attacked with a baseball bat and bottles by four assailants in an SUV. The attackers are reported to have used bottles and an aluminum baseball bat and shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs during the attack.
Sucuzhany was declared brain-dead Dec. 9. He stopped breathing five days later. A waiter for seven years, he earned his real estate license three years ago and launched his own agency, Open Realty International. So much for the American dream.
These are among the most recent and most grizzly atrocities. While we may not know all the reasons why, we know enough. The attackers are message-carriers for others, not unlike the suicide bombers who carry messages for terrorists elsewhere in the world, except these "American patriots" are just homicidal, not suicidal. They didn't anticipate getting caught. Their deranged notions tie "illegal immigrants" and "Hispanics" with vigilante ideas about a problem that doesn't exist.
There you have it, a pretext to terrorize.
Treat the rants you listen to with caution. They are not about a broken government but about excuses to break it.
Jose de la Isla writes for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail: joseisla3@yahoo.com.
CUENCA, Ecuador (AP) — The body of an Ecuadorean immigrant beaten to death in New York arrived home for burial late Friday, following the third high-profile killing of a Latino immigrant in the U.S. this year.
Clutching candles, friends and family lined the roadway as the coffin of Jose Sucuzhanay, a 31-year-old real estate broker, wound its way from the airport to a funeral home in this highlands city near his rural hometown.
"Welcome ... no one will hurt you here," read a placard friends carried on the walk. "Enough already. No more migrant deaths."
Sucuzhanay was attacked by a group of men who kicked and beat him with an aluminum baseball bat, shouting anti-Latino and anti-gay slurs as he walked arm in arm with his brother near his Brooklyn home on Dec. 7.
New York City police are still searching for three suspects, and the NYPD's Hate Crime Task Force is investigating the incident.
"We're not only here to show our support, but to express our pain, our repudiation of these acts of xenophobia, these actions that have embarrassed us as human beings and that we all must fight," Ecuadorean Migration Minister Lorena Escudero said earlier Friday as she joined Sucuzhanay's mother to receive the body in the capital, Quito.
U.S. lawmakers and Hispanic groups have denounced Sucuzhanay's death, saying recent slayings of Latino immigrants lend new urgency to calls to pass a new hate crimes law and give local officials resources to investigate.
Sucuzhanay's killing follows the deaths of Luis Ramirez, 25, a Mexican immigrant who was beaten to death July 14 in eastern Pennsylvania; and Marcelo Lucero, 37, an Ecuadorean immigrant who was fatally stabbed Nov. 8 by a group of teenagers on Long Island, New York.
Prosecutors said seven teenagers charged in Lucero's assault had set out to attack a Hispanic person, while three teenagers linked to Ramirez's death also face charges of ethnic intimidation.
There were 830 Hispanic victims of hate crimes last year in the United States, up from 819 in 2006 and 595 in 2003, according to FBI statistics.
Sucuzhanay's funeral will be held Saturday in Cuenca, the capital of Ecuador's Azuay province, from which thousands of immigrants have left for the U.S. and Spain.
Lucero, also from the region, was buried outside Cuenca earlier this year.
On Friday, the streets were crowded with Sucuzhanay's friends and family, including his two children, Brian, 10, and Johanna, 4, who were raised by their paternal grandfather after their parents went to the U.S. in search of work.
"We only know that they attacked him. Why would they do that? We don't know," one of Sucuzhanay's uncles, Jose Reiban, told The Associated Press.
In Houston, Marvin Nathan and Martin Cominsky, both of the Anti-Defamation Committee, wrote in response to a Houston Chronicle series about how law enforcement can fail to deport criminal undocumented immigrants who commit illegal acts. It's conventionally understood that anyone committing a crime should be properly arraigned, prosecuted, tried, if guilty punished and if unauthorized be deported.
But what struck Nathan and Cominsky was that "anti-immigrant bigots seized on parts of her (the reporter's) series to insult, stereotype and even advocate violence against immigrants and others they perceived as immigrants, especially Hispanics."
The blog entries they drew attention to called for denying due process, insisted immigrants pose a public-safety threat, accuse our country of leaning toward the "third world," and someone simply advocating "just shoot them on the spot."
So what have undocumented immigrants done to outrage and anger those people so much that they can't see straight? And why equate "Hispanic" to "illegal immigrant?" What incites them that they want to deny due process, as if suspicious people are just like those fellows at Guantanamo?
One thing is clear. They hate peaceable people. Nathan and Cominsky cite reports and studies proving immigrants of every type commit less crime. They bring up a Harvard professor who quantifies it to be 45 percent less.
So the nuts don't like people who commit less crime. What else?
Well, the evidence is they are losers. Look at the results of the 2006 mid-term elections. Among the most vehement anti-immigrant ranters in Congress who wanted to turn all 12 million unauthorized immigrants into felonious criminals, at least nine lost their House seats. These were members of the hateful 104-member House Immigration Reform Caucus. In 2008, 14 out of 16 hard-line, anti-immigration Republicans went down.
But as the mainstream of that movement goes away, the more fanatic believers they incite are showing up.
The Nov. 8 murder of Marcelo Lucero, 37, an Ecuadorean immigrant, in Suffolk County, N.Y., reached a new low in hate crimes and hate speech. Seven teenagers are charged with the gang assault. The one with the swastika tattoo on his leg stands accused of sticking a knife in Lucero's chest as the gang hollered racial epithets.
Prosecutors say the group attacked another Hispanic man a half-hour before that murderous assault. The seven admitted to beating Hispanics for fun as a regular pastime.
In Brooklyn, another Ecuadorean, 31-year-old Jose Sucuzhany, who was walking home arm-in-arm with his brother Romel because they had been drinking, were attacked with a baseball bat and bottles by four assailants in an SUV. The attackers are reported to have used bottles and an aluminum baseball bat and shouted anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs during the attack.
Sucuzhany was declared brain-dead Dec. 9. He stopped breathing five days later. A waiter for seven years, he earned his real estate license three years ago and launched his own agency, Open Realty International. So much for the American dream.
These are among the most recent and most grizzly atrocities.
While we may not know all the reasons why, we know enough. The attackers are message-carriers for others, not unlike the suicide bombers who carry messages for terrorists elsewhere in the world, except these "American patriots" are just homicidal, not suicidal. They didn't anticipate getting caught. Their deranged notions tie "illegal immigrants" and "Hispanics" with vigilante ideas about a problem that doesn't exist.
There you have it, a pretext to terrorize.
Treat the rants you listen to with caution. They are not about a broken government but about excuses to break it.
(Jose de la Isla, author of "The Rise of Hispanic Political Power," writes weekly commentaries for Hispanic Link News Service. Email: joseisla3(at)yahoo.com. For more stories visit scrippsnews.com)
My stance on the immigration issue today is let the immigrants -- these visiting neighbors -- stay. Give them sanctuary. Show them human hospitality. Do not denigrate their humanity, but uplift it. Do not degrade their human dignity, but magnify it. Do not react toward them with undue nationalistic passion, but respond to them with human compassion. Do not regard them with antipathy, but be humanly present with them by exercising empathy. Reject us-them nationalistic mentalities and labeling people with any politicized terminology, whether "illegal immigrant" or "undocumented worker", but instead recognize them for what they truly are: fellow human beings like us. Our neighbors.
