Check out this ground-breaking resolution by the U.S. Conference of Mayors supporting comprehensive immigration reform “which promotes the reunification of families, provides legal status with a path to earned citizenship to the estimated 12 million undocumented workers and designs a plan for current and future immigrant workers.”
I feel the “Whereas” statements in this resolution are compelling as is, but they might also have included, “Whereas Prince William County, VA has made a huge mess of itself by politicizing the immigration issue for Virginia’s 2007 election.” For press coverage click here.
The U.S. Conference of Mayors
76th Annual Meeting
June 20-24, 2008
Miami
|
CALLING FOR COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM WHICH PROMOTES THE REUNIFICATION OF FAMILIES, PROVIDES LEGAL STATUS WITH A PATH TO EARNED CITIZENSHIP, AND A PLAN FOR CURRENT AND FUTURE IMMIGRANT WORKERS WHEREAS, The U.S. Conference of Mayors recognizes the economic, social and cultural contributions immigrants bring to their communities; and WHEREAS, the responsibility of municipal leaders is to protect the wellbeing and safety of all the people residing in their cities; and WHEREAS, many local governments have passed resolutions, ordinances and policy directives reaffirming non-participation in the enforcement of civil immigration law by city officials and agencies to promote immigrant trust in its police and avert racial profiling and civil rights violations; and WHEREAS, The International Association of Chiefs of Police Guide to Immigration Issues concludes that local police leaders face a growing set of immigration related duties in the face of scarce and narrowing resources; and WHEREAS, raids and deportations are increasing in scope and number in recent weeks and months, separating families and spreading terror in our communities; and WHEREAS, The U.S. Conference of Mayors opposes the separation of families by the enforcement of our current immigration laws and supports the reunification of families that have been so separated, especially those “mixed status” families with U.S. citizen children of which there are an estimated four million children currently in this country; and WHEREAS, the national political debate on immigration reform has tended to polarize our communities; and WHEREAS, it is the duty of local governments to respect the rights of and provide equal services to all individuals regardless of national origin or immigration status, NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by The U.S. Conference of Mayors acting on behalf of its constituents to call on the President of the United States to issue an executive order to cease and desist in the execution of all raids and deportations that do not relate to our national security or to criminal activity until comprehensive immigration reform is completed and to suspend immediately all deportations of parents with U.S. citizen children; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the U.S. Conference of Mayors supports comprehensive immigration reform which promotes the reunification of families, provides legal status with a path to earned citizenship to the estimated 12 million undocumented workers and designs a plan for current and future immigrant workers. |
“separating families and spreading terror in our communities”
Uhhhmmm… yeah….
Next.
How come it doesn’t show who signed it/voted on it?
Wow you mean the elitists who run things want “comprehensive” reform rather than be held accountable for law enforcement or some type of results at improving their own cities? I’m shocked. This changes my whole world view.
Hi admin, I was reading the link you had about the press coverage and think that this statement in it is quite odd:
“[ICE] has stepped up its immigrant enforcement and often acts on anonymous tips from competitors of legitimate businesses. This practice hurts legitimate businesses, which might be provoked into leaving the country, taking with them valuable jobs.”
If you have a legit business and you constantly lose bids and work because another company uses illegal labor wouldn’t you tip off ICE? Also, if they are “anonymous tips” how do they know who made them? How do they know the tips came from a competitor? The only legitimate businesses leaving are the ones that don’t use illegal labor.
Hello- EXACTLY…..Its all propaganda..
Yeah, and Corey’s spin on the crime statistics is PURE PROPOGANDA.
Hello, I suppose if the “tip” from the competitor was designed only to hurt someone’s business and that business had only legal employees, that company might sue, use FOIA, and uncover who the anonymous tipster was.
Bring it on: Its possible..
People can use propaganda to make heaven seem like hell and vise versa…
Good point Censored, and I’m sure someone may have done it to intentionally hurt a competitors business but I think a majority of the tips are legit. This guys has no clue who placed the anonymous tip because they are anonymous. If it’s anonymous then how can they find out who made it, doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose? He spins it to sound as if a majority of the raids are due to businesses just trying to hurt their competitors and he has no way of knowing or proving that.
I’m sure as I saw somebody post recently that some high proportion of raids occur because the sleazeball who is filling housefuls of illegal workers into suburban homes does it in some agent or official’s neighborhood.
It’s important to track these things though. When the lawsuits start flying against illegal employers who gained unfair advantage over competitors by hiring illegal workers, it’ll be of import to have a record of who was doing what. I would urge you to report any instances of illegal hiring or harboring illegals or picking up day laborers to http://www.wehirealiens.com .
Hello, I suppose phone calls could be traced and IPs followed back to the computer owner. Even German servers will hand over the info in certain cases. Proxies aren’t fool proof.
Both phone records (cells and land lines) as well as IP addresses will require search warrants in the case of a criminal investigation and court subpoenas in any civil action. The companies in those fields do not voluntarily give that information out to anyone.
Since calling in a tip is not a specific criminal action, it would fall under a civil remedy and the victim company would have to demonstrate enough evidence that a particular individual or company called in the tip. Which how do you prove that without the information you are trying to obtain? So the process is very difficult to prove.
Lucky Duck, how much of ICE’s records – if any – are subject to FOIA in cases such as these? If a perfectly legitimate company suddenly became subject to a couple searches, wouldn’t it be reasonable to FOIA the calls/emails that started the investigation (for a civil action)?
Wow; that really is ground breaking… I didn’t know the U.S. Conference of Mayors were capable of pulling such punches.
I don’t know what records that ICE would consider of a “confidental nature” that their attorneys can claim prevents their release.
Virtually all records of any Law Enforcement agency can be FOIA’d but that doesn’t mean you’ll get to see them as all requests are reviewed by that agency’s attorney’s for any “priviledge” that may prevent the release.
Remember, about a week ago in a different thread, three big city mayors (Los Angeles and Seattle were two of them) called on the federal government to stop all ICE raids of “legitimate” businesses who hired illegal aliens but treated them well?
Well, Mayor Greg Nickles of Seattle(one of the cities/Mayors mentioned above) is the Vice President of the US Conference of Mayors. I would expect no other opinion from the Conference of Mayors because the VP has already shown his hand a few weeks ago. There are long arms on both sides of this debate that remain in the background until you dig a little deeper.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
“And there was much rejoicing….”
PWC, take notice and revise if you don’t want to look like a bunch of idiots!!
Let’s see…..mayors of big cities….like Fenty the Clown? Gavin Newsome of SF?, Bloomberg? Michael Nutbag of Philadelphia? Can we say “using the Constitution as toilet paper?” That’s a group unworthy of even having an opinion about illegal immigration!
http://www.usmayors.org/about/overview.asp
Mission Satement, U.S. Conference of Mayors
The U.S. Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. There are 1,139 such cities in the country today. Each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor.
The primary roles of The U.S. Conference of Mayors are to –
–Promote the development of effective national urban/suburban policy;
–Strengthen federal-city relationships;
–Ensure that federal policy meets urban needs;
–Provide mayors with leadership and management tools; and
–Create a forum in which mayors can share ideas and information.
The Conference holds its Winter Meeting each January in Washington, D.C. (January 24-26, 2007) and an Annual Meeting each June in a different U.S. city (June 22-26, 2007 in Los Angeles). Additional meetings and events are held as directed by the Conference leadership.
Kwame Kilpatrick, Marion “Crackhead” Berry (those were the days!), Ray Nagin…..these types support illegal immigration??? NOOO.
Mando, Rick Bentley, and other anti-immigrant hate bunnies on this blog,
You guys will find any way of discrediting people with a different opinion. Even if it’s over a 1000 US mayors. The passage of this resolution is a sign. Especially combined with the fact either McCain or Obama will be President. You know that the future of this debate will entail comprehensive immigration reform. I’m afraid that Prince William County has gone the way of Riverside, NJ, a painful lesson for the rest of the country about what happens when shortsightedness, ambition, vigilantism and hatred take control of a government.
My congratulations to the U.S. Conference of Mayors. As I understand it there are a lot of towns and cities in the United States….
<strong?Anti-Immigrant Hate Bunnies hear this:
Your thoughtless and untenable position on immigration is fast becoming an anachronism.
Soon, the Anti-Immigrant Lobby will be reduced to little droppings of willing self-deception on community blogs.
For Slowpoke, Lucky, Just, and Rick, soon is looking a lot like now. And why do I taunt you so? Because every letter you type serves to discredit and further marginalize your position. Gospel Greg’s blog used to be the national laughing stock. Now that his blog is no more, we have our own little pet Hate Bunnies to continue the embarrassment on a blog where there are cogent arguments continuously exposing your confused and piteous adherence to 20th century hate paradigms. So keep on keeping on Hate Bunnies.
And Alanna and Elena, thank you for this blog! This is just the right combination of well-reasoned arguments, news updates, and idiotic anti-immigrant rhetoric to help shift public opinion toward the inevitable: comprehensive immigration reform!
Right on NotGospelGreg! I was had the exact same reaction to the two-sentence reactions of our pet Hate Bunnies above. But let’s agree not to obliterate their arguments quite so severely. We don’t want them to go back to Gospel Greg’s blog. Otherwise we’ll have no one to point to as examples of why our country needs to move away from past struggles with immigration and assimilation … into the 21st century, for instance.
It’s bad enough to remind them of John McCain’s heroic slaying of the Anti-Immigrant Lobby during the GOP primary. But don’t remind them about Obama, at least not too often. I’m sure it’s terribly demoralizing for them to realize that no matter who is sworn in as President, we’re going to see comprehensive immigration reform in 2009, and Hate Bunnies will be obsolete.
That’s right, OBSOLETE, because the Republican party is going to reform. No more targets for Hate Bunnies. Next year, it will be time to form a different party. My advice: go with Hate Bunnies!
Hate Bunnies, huh? Hey, did anyone ever see the movie “Night of the Lepus”? It was a cheesy 70s film about giant killer rabbits. They’d do a close up of a little bunny rabbit with Lion-roaring sound-overs. It was great!
Lucky Duck is not a hate bunny. I sure hope HE wasn’t the lucky being referred to in your post, WHWN.
Thank you Moon-howler, WHWN, you are wrong about me. I have always stated that immigration reform has to take place to move forward. BUT, it has to be a compromise between both sides…you cannot see 12 million deported but there has to be an EARNED pathway in which not all 12 million will make it, and those individuals will have to go.
What I pointed out above was that there are behind the scenes players on BOTH sides. Just like F.A.I.R. is behind a lot of the ANTI movement, there are many of the same players behind the pro side. I merely pointed out that nobody should be surprised at the stance of the Conference of Mayors because the same person who advocated letting “legitimate” employers hire illegal aliens a week ago is the Vice President of the Mayor’s Conference.
If you feel I am against Comprehensive Immigration Reform, I ask you to show my words from different threads demonstrating that. WHWN, you are completely wrong.
I alsways thought Lucky was a smart guy….lawyer or cop or something. He has that “both sides/no emotion/logic” thing going : )
Okay, I apologize Lucky Duck. You can’t be a smart guy and be a Hate Bunny!
I believe Lucky Duck just looks at this very pragmatically, not necessarily a bad thing. The reality is, not everyone will be able to stay, but the “devil is in the details”. Who will create the criteria towards earned legalization? That will be a the tough job. There will be compromise, we will not have open borders, but we will also stop the madness of forcing attrition by nastiness and hate. It is not elitest for wanting comprehensive immigration reform, it is just simply the most reasonable and humane solution. It is fiscally and socially responsible to do so. I think we also have to remember, that if this turns out as I hope, via Obama or McCain, it will be important to mend these “fences” with our neighbors, no one wins or loses, we just have to figure out how to “get along” with one another better.
Hopefully more leaders will find the courage to step forward like this and do whats right, before a civil war breaks out.
No Justice. No Peace.
Not to suggest commiting sacrilege, but there really wasn’t a lot wrong with the proposed bill last summer. I hardly think that a $5000 fine is amnesty. That’s a nice chunk of change.
Those who are productive members of our society would be the people who would get to stay and become permanent residents or citizens if they met the criteria. Those who commit crimes would have to go.
I am not sure that any wall or border can ever be made impermeable. I think back to the famous Berlin Wall. I know several families who escaped. They were shot at by Soviet soldiers and had dogs hunting them. If people could escape East Germany, they can certainly enter our country with a lot less commotion.
To do nothing implies that entering the country illegally is simply OK. Any immigration reform must look at our economic needs first. It has to include hope. I grow so weary of hearing the rhetoric about going back and coming here the right way rather than cutting in line.
There is no line and the right way often takes 10-20 years with our outdated immigration system in play today. If you want a better life for your kids you had better start making plans and filling out paperwork at age 5 so you can immigrate during your reproductive years, the way our immigration system works now.
Thank you WHWN, you guys stay up too late for me.
Elena, Abraham Lincoln was a pragmatic person and he knew the “devil was in the details” too. I like the job he did.
You think $5000 is a discincentive? They pay three times that to sneak over here. Come on. Let’s get real. Let’s not buy the bs our elitist Congressmen try to sell us. $5000 is amnesty.
Ok, RB, if each and every latino pays $15k to sneak here, why do they sneak? You act like they are rolling in dough and just want to sneak up here to plague your butt.
“but there really wasn’t a lot wrong with the proposed bill last summer.”
I agree MH. I didn’t think old Bushie did a bad job.
BTW if they let the immigrants pay the fee by withholding money from their paychecks like they do when people are behind on their taxes, then it wouldn’t break the immigrants’ bank accounts.
They did a poll recently where they asked people if they favored “amnesty” or “requiring all undocumented immigrants to become legal residents or citizens.” Responders overwhelmingly chose the latter.
We’re dealing with semantics here. If we sound like we’re being harsh, taking retributive action, some of the Hate Bunnies will feel better about the inevitable reforms coming to our immigrations system, including a path to citizenship that both McCain and Obama are celebrating. I’m sure McCain is in the USA for the 4th of July, but guess where he was on the 3rd of July. Mexico! Eat your heart out Hate Bunnies!
those poor hardworking hispanic’s at work yet again!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25534250/
That’s an excellent point, KGotthardt. These problems can be solved if problem solvers get involved instead of anti-immigrant hate groups (and those who unknowingly take their marching orders from them). Happy Birthday America!
found this interesting post on the immigration watchdog blog, wow!
USMCwife says:
April 21st, 2008 at 10:53 am
Oh, and BTW, IMHO
Elena is a complete flake.
So take anything she says with a grain of salt.
The part of the county she lives in isn’t even impacted by the illegal invasion.
I don’t see her moving to Westgate or Manassas Park.
She is your typical hypocritical drive-by limosine liberal.
Elena, you are free to speak your mind but the majority of us don’t agree with you.
I can’t come to speak before the BOCS because my husband is currently stationed in CA, but I can write and call and email and send $$$$. I refuse to see our dream home and retirement community be trashed.
Not only that, I refuse to go to the McCoart center and run the guantlet of the anti-white, anti-American hispanic haters. I would probably get arrested because I would SOOOOOO be in their faces.
Even Maureen Caddigan admitted she got over 1,000 emails and unlimited calls in support of the resolution.
I think we should bus all the ESOL students to Elena’s nice rural schools so she can enjoy the “diversity” firsthand.
interesting, I’m starting to get the picture the blog owners dont even live in the immigrant affected areas. haymarket is pretty nice area, dont think too many illegals (or immigrants period) live out there. I’m starting to get the picture that the blog owners are stay at home mothers who are looking for some sort of cause to be involved in just for something to do. so I would say get a job, a real one, one that makes money and requires them to be away from home 8 hours a day. Get around the community and see what really happens around town (one ride-along with a cop doesnt do it)
I’m big on research and while looking online at various blogs (even the democratic slanted ones) I’m seeing some disturbing things about this blog. at least greg’s blog is firmly on the right, I can understand that…at least he’s taking a stand.
but this blog changes depending on who the blog owners respond too. they proposed a “centrist” view at the beginning but now are firmly on the left and are doing everything short of proclaiming they support amnesty. That’s nice, you can all relax in haymarket while the rest deal with problems you created.
Oh Elvis, what is your point? Lets see, USMCwife doesn’t like Elena? hmmmm…news flash. Let’s examine why: first guess: jealousy? Perhaps Elena is more attactive than she is, has smarter children, a nicer bigger house, any number of things.
I agree with Elena on a number of things and I don’t live in Haymarket. In fact, some people might just say I live in the thick of things. I also suggest that this MC wifey stay over with Greggie since she is so comfortable there. Perhaps he can find a job for her.
This sounds like a rant of frustration since hubby is in CA.
Oooh. USMC Wife sounds like she’s been bitten by the green-eyed monster. Perhaps she should take her own advice and find a job so that she too can live in Haymarket. (claws now retracted…)
I find the posters on this blog to express a variety of opinions unlike Greg’s where opposing opinions drop off into limbo-land.
Oh Elvis, after reading that note I have lost all respect for Elena. I won’t come back to this website. I will go back to BVBL because I respect Greg’s consistency……..
Elvis, nobody is forcing me to come here. I like this blog and I think Elena is doing a great job here.
Do you think the same thing that USMCwife thinks? I want to hear your opinion.