To Elena, I’d suggest you go back to your history a bit more to discover the role many labor unions and related American-worker interests had in demanding limits to immigration in the 1920s. What labor wanted was a need to limit immigration in order to obtain bargaining leverage. How can any union successfully strike for lower wages without limits to the labor supply? Check out the ILGWU resolutions dating back as early as 1905.

Dan Stein

I think it is imperative, for all who discuss immigration, to understand its origins. I may not be an expert on unions, but I do understand the fear and anxiety that lives in all of us when we encounter people that are different from own small world experiences. The original, over-reaching 1924 Johnson-Reed act was in response to a changing face of America. What I found interesting was that “The 1924 Immigration Act also included a provision excluding from entry any alien who by virtue of race or nationality was ineligible for citizenship. Existing nationality laws dating from 1790 and 1870 excluded people of Asian lineage from naturalizing. As a result, the 1924 Act meant that even Asians not previously prevented from immigrating – the Japanese in particular – would no longer be admitted to the United States.” Now Really Mr. Stein, does this sound like unbiased labor union concerns, or just simply racism codified within the immigration legislation?

It is also extremely noteworthy that the KKK had great influence in working towards passage of the 1924 Johnson Reed Act. The eugenics movement was integral to the passage of the immigration act.

Local eugenics societies and groups sprang up around the United States after World War I, with names like the Race Betterment Foundation. The war had given many Americans a greater fear of foreigners, and immigration to the United States was still increasing. In 1923, organizers founded the American Eugenics Society, and it quickly grew to 29 chapters around the country. At fairs and exhibitions, eugenicists spread the word and hosted “fitter family” and “better baby” competitions to award blue ribbons to the finest human stock — not unlike the awards for prize bull and biggest pumpkin. Not only did eugenicists promote better breeding, they wanted to prevent poor breeding or the risk of it. That meant keeping people with undesireable traits in their heritage (including alcoholism, pauperism, or epilepsy) separate from others or, where law allowed, preventing them from reproducing.

These vocal groups advocated laws to attain their aims, and in 1924, the Immigration Act was passed by majorities in the U.S. House and Senate. It set up strict quotas limiting immigrants from countries believed by eugenicists to have “inferior” stock, particularly Southern Europe and Asia. President Coolidge, who signed the bill into law, had stated when he was vice president, “America should be kept American. . . . Biological laws show that Nordics deteriorate when mixed with other races.”

 

An “Un-American Bill”: A Congressman Denounces Immigration Quotas

At the turn of the 20th century, unprecedented levels of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe to the United States aroused public support for restrictive immigration laws. After World War I, which temporarily slowed immigration levels, anti-immigration sentiment rose again. Congress passed the Quota Act of 1921, limiting entrants from each nation to 3 percent of that nationality’s presence in the U.S. population as recorded by the 1910 census. As a result, immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe dropped to less than one-quarter of pre-World War I levels. Even more restrictive was the Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) that shaped American immigration policy until the 1960s. While it passed with only six dissenting votes, congressional debates over the Johnson-Reed Act revealed arguments on both sides of this question of American policy and national identity. For example, on April 8, 1924, Robert H. Clancy, a Republican congressman from Detroit with a large immigrant constituency, defended the “Americanism” of Jewish, Italian, and Polish immigrants and attacked the quota provisions of the bill as racially discriminatory and “un-American.”

——————————————————————————–

Since the foundations of the American commonwealth were laid in colonial times over 300 years ago, vigorous complaint and more or less bitter persecution have been aimed at newcomers to our shores. Also the congressional reports of about 1840 are full of abuse of English, Scotch, Welsh immigrants as paupers, criminals, and so forth.

Old citizens in Detroit of Irish and German descent have told me of the fierce tirades and propaganda directed against the great waves of Irish and Germans who came over from 1840 on for a few decades to escape civil, racial, and religious persecution in their native lands.

The “Know-Nothings,” lineal ancestors of the Ku-Klux Klan, bitterly denounced the Irish and Germans as mongrels, scum, foreigners, and a menace to our institutions, much as other great branches of the Caucasian race of glorious history and antecedents are berated to-day. All are riff-raff, unassimilables, “foreign devils,” swine not fit to associate with the great chosen people—a form of national pride and hallucination as old as the division of races and nations.

But to-day it is the Italians, Spanish, Poles, Jews, Greeks, Russians, Balkanians, and so forth, who are the racial lepers. And it is eminently fitting and proper that so many Members of this House with names as Irish as Paddy’s pig, are taking the floor these days to attack once more as their kind has attacked for seven bloody centuries the fearful fallacy of chosen peoples and inferior peoples. The fearful fallacy is that one is made to rule and the other to be abominated. . . .

It must never be forgotten also that the Johnson bill, although it claims to favor the northern and western European peoples only, does so on a basis of comparison with the southern and western European peoples. The Johnson bill cuts down materially the number of immigrants allowed to come from northern and western Europe, the so-called Nordic peoples. . . .

Then I would be true to the principles for which my forefathers fought and true to the real spirit of the magnificent United States of to-day. I can not stultify myself by voting for the present bill and overwhelm my country with racial hatreds and racial lines and antagonisms drawn even tighter than they are to-day. [Applause.]

Source: Speech by Robert H. Clancy, April 8, 1924, Congressional Record, 68th Congress, 1st Session (Washington DC: Government Printing Office, 1924), vol. 65, 5929–5932.

Another thing to remember is that all this anti-immigrant ferver of the 1920’s was needed to distract voters from the Teapot Dome Scandal. For those who aren’t familiar, this was an instance where Big Oil worked in cahoots with the White House to defraud the American people of our natural resources, namely the oil reserves that belonged to the U.S. Navy, one of which was named after a teapot shaped mountain in Wyoming. By bribing Warren G. Harding during the Republican National Convention (this is where the term “smoked filled room” comes from), America’s two biggest oil barons, Doheny and Sinclaire, were granted leases to the Navy oil reserves. As the scandal was beginning to break, anti-immigrant legislation was being crafted.

119 Thoughts to “The History of Immigration Quotas, Steeped in Prejudice”

  1. DiversityGal

    I definitely stand corrected, Emma. Who out there knows something about the Republican Senate Victory PAC? I would like to learn more about them. Why are they technically listed as “Republican Party – Republican Senate Victory PAC?” Honestly, I would like someone who is knowledgeable about the ins and outs of PACs to talk about this…if not in this then in another thread sometime.

  2. tickle_me_ELVIS

    Leila,

    the bulk of the illegal immigrants are latinos, take them out the picture and you’ve got problem solved. dont see alot of irish or italian illegal immigrants hanging out at day laborer spots. I drove by the route-1 parkway “shelter” they had today. was pretty rediculous the church put it up for the criminals. they would scurry like cockroaches back to their little sanctuary site whenever a police officer came by. that made my laugh, but not as much as when I told the guys at 7-11 I was calling immigration on them, there didnt seem to be much of them hanging out at the shelter after that although they probably came back later.

  3. Emma

    Sorry, DG, kids got home before I finished my thought and hit the “send” key. It’s a splinter caucus that I believe was set up by Ken Cucinelli last year. I think it’s considered a “leadership PAC” that politicians can set up to help other candidates or causes.

  4. Moon-howler

    Emma said:

    DiversityGal,
    Actually, the $6,800 donation was from the Republican Senate Victory PAC.

    Explain to me please, Emma, how this possibly means that Republicans don’t support HSM? If I see the word ‘Republican’ I assume it means the party or a subset of the party.

  5. Emma

    Contributions from a PAC do not consititute endorsement from the entire party. PAC’s tend to represent very specific interests; they are not necessarily a subset of a political party.

  6. Moon-howler

    Emma, then I would leave the word Republican off the name, if I didn’t want anyone to think it had nothing to do with Republicans. Maybe I am just being nit picky.

    Maybe it was the Democrat Republicans 😉

    The entire business seems strange to me, but what do I know.

  7. Elena

    Save the Middle Class,
    Unlike Greg, I am not going to pretend like I am an economist by trade, I am just a simple middle school counselor. I have to wonder before I respond, exactly what part is Greg right about that I have “undeservedly” dismissed so unceremoniously?

    So, I am not going to debate the economics as if I were an expert. However, what I can debate is that the foundation of your arguments are no different than any other previous fear of a large influx of immigrants. Why is it the challenges to limit immigration always sound the same? Shouldn’t that make us question the very legitimacy of those arguments? It sure makes me wonder.

    From a professor at Stanford Business School:

    “As a labor economist, Business School Professor Robert Flanagan stays tuned to debates about whether globalization harms workers—their wages, working conditions, and rights. In a new book, Globalization and Labor Conditions (Oxford University Press), he reports evidence that the three major mechanisms of globalization—international trade, migration, and capital flows—benefit workers in general, especially the poorest workers in the poorest countries. While these trends also cause some short-term pain for the least skilled workers in rich countries, Flanagan argues that policies to promote opportunities for low-skilled workers are far better than current efforts to limit immigration. Given the recent controversies surrounding immigration in the United States and Europe, Stanford Business asked Flanagan to summarize the evidence that immigration is important to improving global working conditions and standards of living.”

    http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/bmag/sbsm0611/feature_immigration.html

    Sometimes, you just have to follow your instincts on some issues, and my instincts tell me that this “new” (o.k. maybe not so new because we’ve heard these same arguments for over a century) threat of immigrants isn’t really a threat like many would want us to believe. I don’t advocate an open border, although, what is an open border? Was Ellis Island and “open border”? Or was it simply a coherent process to keep track of who was entering our country?

    I found this very interesting op-ed by Fareed Zakaria, he expresses my sentiments also!

    To Become an American

    By Fareed Zakaria
    Tuesday, April 4, 2006; Page A23

    “Seven years ago, when I was visiting Germany, I met with an official who explained to me that the country had a foolproof solution to its economic woes. Watching the U.S. economy soar during the 1990s, the Germans had decided that they, too, needed to go the high-technology route. But how? In the late ’90s, the answer seemed obvious: Indians. After all, Indian entrepreneurs accounted for one of every three Silicon Valley start-ups. So the German government decided that it would lure Indians to Germany just as America does: by offering green cards. Officials created something called the German Green Card and announced that they would issue 20,000 in the first year. Naturally, they expected that tens of thousands more Indians would soon be begging to come, and perhaps the quotas would have to be increased. But the program was a flop. A year later barely half of the 20,000 cards had been issued. After a few extensions, the program was abolished.

    I told the German official at the time that I was sure the initiative would fail. It’s not that I had any particular expertise in immigration policy, but I understood something about green cards, because I had one (the American version) myself.

    The German Green Card was misnamed, I argued, because it never, under any circumstances, translated into German citizenship. The U.S. green card, by contrast, is an almost automatic path to becoming American (after five years and a clean record).

    The official dismissed my objection, saying that there was no way Germany was going to offer these people citizenship. “We need young tech workers,” he said. “That’s what this program is all about.” So Germany was asking bright young professionals to leave their country, culture and families; move thousands of miles away; learn a new language; and work in a strange land — but without any prospect of ever being part of their new home. Germany was sending a signal, one that was accurately received in India and other countries, and also by Germany’s own immigrant community.

    Many Americans have become enamored of the European approach to immigration — perhaps without realizing it. Guest workers, penalties, sanctions and deportation are all a part of Europe’s mode of dealing with immigrants. The results of this approach have been on display recently in France, where rioting migrant youths again burned cars last week. Across Europe one sees disaffected, alienated immigrants, ripe for radicalism. The immigrant communities deserve their fair share of blame for this, but there’s a cycle at work. European societies exclude the immigrants, who become alienated and reject their societies.

    One puzzle about post-Sept. 11 America is that it has not had a subsequent terror attack — not even a small backpack bomb in a movie theater — while there have been dozens in Europe. My own explanation is that American immigrant communities, even Arab and Muslim ones, are not very radicalized. (Even if such an attack does take place, the fact that 4 1/2 years have gone by without one provides some proof of this contention.) Compared with every other country in the world, America does immigration superbly. Do we really want to junk that for the French approach?

    The United States has a real problem with flows of illegal immigrants, largely from Mexico (70 percent of illegal immigrants are from that one country). But let us understand the forces at work here. “The income gap between the United States and Mexico is the largest between any two contiguous countries in the world,” writes Stanford historian David Kennedy. That huge disparity is producing massive demand in the United States and massive supply from Mexico and Central America. Whenever governments try to come between these two forces — think of drugs — simply increasing enforcement does not work. Tighter border control is an excellent idea, but to work, it will have to be coupled with some recognition of the laws of supply and demand — that is, it will have to include expansion of the legal immigrant pool.

    Beyond the purely economic issue, however, there is the much deeper one that defines America — to itself, to its immigrants and to the world. How do we want to treat those who are already in this country, working and living with us? How do we want to treat those who come in on visas or guest permits? These people must have some hope, some reasonable path to becoming Americans. Otherwise we are sending a signal that there are groups of people who are somehow unfit to be Americans, that these newcomers are not really welcome and that what we want are workers, not potential citizens. And we will end up with immigrants who have similarly cold feelings about America.”

  8. Race and ethnicity come up, Mr. Dobbs, because there are no other grounds upon which to object to the continued growth of our economy, the continued prosperity of our citizens, the continued growth of the middle class, and the continued place of the United States as a world leader.

    Your view of economics was crafted by people who have an agenda you may not yourself embrace. Perhaps you were not aware of this when you first encountered and accepted this view. I suggest you take a second look, because if you have no prejudice toward a white majority, there is NO REASON for you to want our economy to contract and our economic future to be injured.

  9. Also, Help Save Middle Class, the title of this thread is “History of Immigration Quotas Steeped in Prejudice.” This rather implies that the conversation will involve both immigration quotas and prejudice. Throughout American history, “economic” arguments such as yours were used to stir up anti-immigrant sentiment and political support for anti-immigrant measures. As Elena has convincingly argued, and as history has indisputably proven, the substance of the “economic” arguments have not varried, while the target has changed many times. It is not at all surprising, but a little disappointing that your response to this astute observation is to essentially repeat the same “economic” argument from 2 centuries ago with a few added words and phrases for modern times.

    Each time the argument was made that our economy will stop growing if we don’t keep the (German/Irish/Chinese/Italian/Hispanic) people out of our country … two things happened. (1) Our economy continued to grow despite the dire predictions, proving the anti-immigrant alarmists wrong, and (2) Although certain ethnic groups were excluded by law, other groups found their way here and made similar contributions, proving the anti-immigrant alarmists wrong.

  10. Leila

    Elvis, Apparently your comment was held, so I only just now saw it. Most Latino illegal immigrants are not day laborers. Most have regular employment concentrated in a handful of sectors. I also don’t recall anywhere where I denied that most illegal immigrants in the United States are Latinos. My references to Irish, Italians, etc. were to the Ellis Island generation. However there are plenty of illegal immigrants in this country who are not Latino. They are from East Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, pretty much everywhere. Plus 45 percent of illegal immigrants entered the United States legally, just as the Chinese man in the horrific Times story did.

  11. Leila

    Correction: I should have said Ellis Island generation or before.

  12. Leila

    If an estimated 78 percent of illegal immigrants are Latinos (including 56 percent Mexican) that leaves 22 percent who are not. Depending on what conservative or inflated figure you choose for the number of illegal immigrants in the US, 22 percent (mostly from Asia) amounts to a very large number of people. I have no doubt there are many in illegal status in this area who are not Latino. In fact I know there are. But obviously they are not the visible group.

  13. You know Leila, it’s odd. Hispanics are no more or less visible than Asians to the naked eye. It’s just a matter of what sort of rhetoric filled up the heads of the people who own those eyes. The fact that we even have to discuss which ethnic group “looks” more “illegal” is a sad tribute to the sucessful onslaught of the Anti-Immigrant Lobby on our airwaves and our elected officials. It was a caculated ploy to target only one minority, Hispanics, in the hopes of turning other minorities against them. They even created front groups supposedly comprised of minorities (they all have websites but none have actual members) to try to build a multi-ethnic Anti-Immigrant Lobby coalition. So much for that.

    Anyway, who made this estimate? I’d heard the number was closer to 50/50 … with about half of the undocumented people being Hispanic.

    There are quite a lot of Canadian people in America who are undocumented. Can you imagine if the Help Save Manassas group formed out of disgust with the way their new neighbors pronounce the word “about” ????

  14. Leila

    The estimate is from Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan research center which seems to be a widely cited source organization on such numbers. PHC is one of several components of the Pew Charitable Trusts, which includes the Pew Research Center.

    http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/61.pdf

    Even FAIR uses Pew numbers on various matters including estimated percentages of illegal immigrants in different states.

    I was surprised at the 78%. I was expecting 60 something. I should have said “visible” in the sense of singled out. Canadians aside, it doesn’t surprise me at all that the next largest single group are East Asians.

  15. Leila

    Oops, I should have said Asia in general, not East Asia. Obviously the numbers are for the country at large. And the proportion of Mexicans specifically doesn’t apply in our area.

    Here’s a graph from the report:

    “Most unauthorized migrants come from Mexico. There were 6.2 million
    unauthorized migrants from Mexico in 2005, or 56% of the total, according to the
    CPS-based estimates (Figure 4). The Mexican-born population in the United States,
    including both legal and unauthorized migrants, has grown by about 500,000 people a
    year for the past decade. Of the Mexican migrants in the U.S. less than 10 years, the Pew
    Hispanic Center estimates that approximately 80 to 85% are unauthorized.
    About 2.5 million unauthorized migrants had come from the rest of Latin America
    in 2005, with most of those from Central America. Taken together, unauthorized
    migrants from Mexico and Latin America represented 78% of the unauthorized
    population in 2005. There were about 1.5 million unauthorized migrants from the Asian
    continent in 2005, representing about 13% of the total. Europe and Canada accounted for
    600,000, or 6%, and Africa and other countries for about 400,000, or 3%.”

  16. Rick Bentley

    “Where does your information come from that HSM is not backed by the GOP? ”

    It’s just not. There’s a very skewed view on this board at times about HSM. It is an issue-oriented group. Greg’s leadership has been invaluable but the group is not the same thing as his blog, and the HSM agenda is non-partisan. The group’s formation pre-dates the wave of interest in it circa the 2006 election by some candidates.

  17. Alanna

    Rick,
    I am going to have to strongly disagree with you on this one. At this point, we know the PWC Republican Party made a large donation to Help Save Manassas in October of 2007.

  18. Kudos to Elena for having the guts to take on Dan Stein. He creeps me out.

  19. tickle_me_ELVIS, 15. August 2008, 20:11 Comment—

    Why are we allowing Elvis to compare immigrants to cockroaches and target Hispanics? Sounds like HSM/BVBL to me.

  20. Robb Pearson

    Poster “Dan Stein”‘s appeal to history is interesting at best, and it is clear he seems to feel there is some modern-day repeat to that history: that the massive presence and influx of immigrants (documented or otherwise) represents a danger to the American worker. But while unions in the 1920’s may have demanded limits to immigration, the reality today where unions are concerned is quite different. Take two examples: the AFL-CIO and Teamsters.

    The AFL-CIO, which is the nation’s largest union federation representing over 10.5 million workers, doesn’t seek limits to immigration but actually advocates a pathway to legalization for the over 12-million undocumented immigrants (often referred to as “illegal immigrants”) already in the country (see AFL-CIO statement here).

    The Teamsters, which is one of the largest (1.4 million members) and most well-known unions in the country, also supports legalization for the over 12-million undocumented immigrants already in the country (see the Teamsters statement here).

    When considering all this we have to constantly recall what the central issue is about when it comes to the national discussion on immigration: the presence of “illegal aliens” already in the country.

    With this in mind, we must admit that each organization likely has its own agenda based upon their ultimate committment to the bottom line. Yet all in all, when it’s boiled down, both the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters support a form of amnesty. And again, it is critical to remember that the discussion last year and this year isn’t merely about immigration in general, it’s specifically about the presence of “illegal immigrants” already here.

    So where poster “Dan Stein”‘s appeal to history is concerned, it’s hardly a repeat of the 1920’s. And unless his purpose in making his remarks was other than for casual academic reflection, those remarks have little to no relevance to the contemporary issues at hand. I’m certain the AFL-CIO and the Teamsters would agree.

  21. Rick Bentley

    “At this point, we know the PWC Republican Party made a large donation to Help Save Manassas in October of 2007.”

    Where’s the proof? And where’s the money? HSM goes hand-to-mouth with practically no expenditures.

    I think one or two candidates donated, including at least one Democrat running for sherrif. I don’t know why the Republican party would contribute anything – HSM is non-partisan.

  22. You know, it’s been so easy for so many to dismantle “Dan Stein’s” argument, I’m beginning to doubt that it really was Dan Stein. The Anti-Immigrant Lobby pays him a great deal of money to confuse and mislead the public through various media outlets. He fooled Lou Dobbs, formerly a respectable journalist, into devoting his variety show to Anti-Immigrant Lobby talking points. And he fooled Bill O’Riely and Glenn Beck, who, while never considered journalists, do have at least some interest in maintianing a shred credibility outside their Freedom Fry Voter audience. If this really was Dan Stein, shouldn’t he have been able to fool SOMEONE on this blog (besides Elvis of course)????

  23. Elena

    KG,
    Elvis just shows how his views have racial prejudices.

    Robb,
    Incredibly informative post regarding Unions and their position on immigration and “amnesty”.

  24. Robb Pearson

    On 14. August 2008, 23:33, Elena stated:

    [W]e are all human beings on this earth, no matter what our citizenship status.

    Amen, Elena.

    National politics, being what it is in America today, is about advocating self-interest, not mutual human concern. Which is amazingly ironic when considering that America is vastly responsible for what is now known as “globalization”.

    Although “globalization” (and let’s be real here), where American policy has for decades been concerned, was never about globalizing the world for the sake of establishing world economic unity and equity, but was about exploiting global resources and services for the sake of growing Americas own national economic prosperity, and at the expense of many nations and peoples. This isn’t an opinion. History, even in the present, clearly bears this out.

    But back to Elena’s remark about our common humanity . . . this alone is the central issue. Not politics. Not even national policy. Common humanity. I can only hope that those who acknowledge it are moved to advance it, and doing so requires something many are frightened of doing: sacrificing. In particular, sacrificing our own “prosperity”, or even our sense of it, for the sake of Oneness.

    And that’s what scares anyone who has a near-religious committment to a nationalism which glorifies personal prosperity and wealth: the notion of relinquishing even some of that prosperity for the sake of another. Alas, the love of money (and the love of self).

  25. Emma

    I’m trying to understand where this thread is going, then. Are you all saying that there should be no controls on immigration whatsoever, given a past history of prejudice in racial quotas?

  26. Moon-howler

    Rick,

    Obviously a blog isn’t an organization. However, the lines of distinction between hsm and bvbl are quite blurred. Many contributors are members and many also share the same believes. The owner of the blog and the president of HSM are the same.

    To try to draw a line of distinction between the 2 is very disingenuous. It doesn’t fly here. In fact, I bet if I went over there and started speaking disparagingly of HSM, I would be censored immediately. I bet my words would disappear just as fast as the words of diversity gal or Lafayette did. Both have recently posted of being censored. They didn’t even call anyone a cockroach. They just disagreed.

    How can you honestly say otherwise?

  27. Emma, I can’t speak for others but my hope and expectation is that federal immigration policy be overhauled so that our mounting labor needs can be met by documented immigrants.

    This would not require “open borders.” But it would require a paradigm shift for many Americans who have gotten caught up in the hateful rhetoric of Lou Dobbs/Dan Stein.

    Think about those folks who came to Citizens Time to say no amount of taxation is too high as long as it is used to “crack down” on people they don’t like. Those same people will have to accept a democratic process that results in huge amounts of money to establish a bureaucracy efficient enough to supply our growing economy with documented and background-checked workers, even if our economy grows at an excellerated rate while the baby boom generation retires. That is a lot of new immigrants.

    People who in 2007 wanted to spend millions to get rid of immigrants would have to abide by spending money to process, welcome, and assimilate them in 2009.

    My hope is that America in 2009 will benefit from the leadership of people like Robb Pearson, and the people of Prince William County, who are and will be suffering the consequences of wasting millions of dollars to undermine our economy and create the impression we are a backward, hateful, and intolerant county.

    We will have a President and a Congress that understand the absolute neccessity of comprehensive immigration reform. With our help they will be able to communicate it. Unlike the Anti-Immigrant Lobby, our next President (McCain or Obama) will be looking to facilitate a national consensus, (rather than ambushing local governments in a scheme to pass legislation before best practices studies could be conducted and before citizens could give input).

  28. Bring it On

    Rick,
    Where’s the money? Great question, but you are asking the wrong people about how it was spent. Mr. Letiecq was quoted in a newspaper about running up credit card debt to fund HSM maybe to the tune of $14,000? Also, how has he funded his existence over the past year?

  29. Moon-howler

    Rick,

    Non-partisan my butt! Was Paul Nichols that token Democrat? Only reason is because of the blood feud with Faisal Gill.

    Now those are just weasel words. I sure wouldn’t throw down the gauntlet on this one, were I you. I can say I am non partisan all I want. However, when people start gathering evidence, I just might end up looking like I speak with forked tongue.

  30. Alanna

    Jim Fotis ran for sheriff and is a member of Help Save Manassas but I don’t think he’s a dem.

  31. Rick Bentley

    None of you yet got the trivia question right about the Democratic sherrif candidate that I know of publicly making a small donation to HSM. Get it right and you could win a “What Part of Illegal Don’t You Understand” T-shirt.

    The thought that Greg is living off the HSM takings is ludicrous. HSM does not make any particular pitch for money, just for membership and some level of activism. In fact I don’t think I’m speaking out of order in telling you there are no dues. I have a good idea as a member how much the organization takes in and where it goes. It’s not my place to lay that out in front of a hostile crowd but I’ll just say that if Greg was in this for money – like the Minutemen guy may well be – he would take a much different approach to things.

    “However, the lines of distinction between hsm and bvbl are quite blurred.”

    He keeps them fairly distinct as I see it. He gives HSM members very clear status on what’s going on with HSM. His blog and his personal opinions and positions are a seperate matter. HSM is more narrowly focused than his blog.

    Some of you don’t like that he attacks some people as vociferously as he does on his blog. Me, I generally enjoy it. I feel that my neighbors and I have been beseiged by a corrupt local government and that they need to be called on their s***. I wouldn’t go after each of Greg’s targets as hard as he does, but some I would go after much harder.

    All in all he’s more moderate, even-tempered, and full of honest positive engagement than many of the rest of us who have a grudge about our neighborhoods turning into ghettos for the sake of a quick buck.

    If the people around here didn’t want a Disney theme park 10-15 years ago, why would they accept turning the whole area into a Mexican theme park run by construction firms, full of flophouse exhibits and overcrowded by a factor of 80%, with the tax base eroding faster than water on a hot day? I’m surprised that there isn’t more anger and physical violence – Greg’s leadership probably helped to prevent some measure of that.

  32. Censored bybvbl

    Louis Dominguez

    Rick, HSM and BVBL are tied together whether you like it or not – too many common themes, too many of the same members. I’ll see if I can find an article by a sympathetic blogger that ties them in a lover’s knot.

    You can’t pin all the blame for your neighborhood’s problems on the BOCS or county agencies although I’d agree that neighborhood services was too slow on the uptake in dealing with issues initially. You’ll have to blame fast mortgage money for many of the problems. Just as it made it easy for your former neighbors to bail out to Gainesville, it made it easy for lower income people to qualify for our county’s most affordable housing. I’m not sure that those neighborhoods will be that much better when investors start renting their houses out to poor renters.

  33. Didn’t realize Mr. Bentley was an HSM member. Interesting. Puts the “Mexican theme park run by construction firms, full of flophouse exhibits and overcrowded…” in context. And they wonder why some of us believe they are racist. Gee. Not too surprising, is it? Any particular reason why Mexicans are the target and not “illegals” as HSM claims? The veil is easy to see through. It’s about racism, not illegal immigration after all, isn’t it?

  34. “Some of you don’t like that he attacks some people as vociferously as he does on his blog. Me, I generally enjoy it. I feel that my neighbors and I have been beseiged by a corrupt local government”

    I’m not “corrupt government.” Neither are other citizens he and his blog buds attack ruthlessly.

  35. Alanna

    I thought Dominguez ran as an Independent not a Democrat.

  36. Censored bybvbl

    Alanna, I think he ran as an Independent too. I don’t remember the Democrat – if one ran.

  37. “Also, how has he funded his existence over the past year?”

    Perhaps, WHWN, the same way we do whenever my husband’s job on a government contract expires…it’s called savings, investments, retirement fund, and military pension. You see, he’s in IT as well. The fact is, outsourcing has severely impacted the technology field, making it more and more difficult for our own citizens to find jobs…particularly with the cheaper, imported labor which is also now beginning to impact the white collar work force.

    This is all going to get far worse before it gets better, and everyone in the full breadth of the middle class can expect to be impacted eventually. Good luck!

  38. Emma

    WhyHereWhyNow, 16. August 2008, 14:05
    Those same people will have to accept a democratic process that results in huge amounts of money to establish a bureaucracy efficient enough to supply our growing economy with documented and background-checked workers, even if our economy grows at an excellerated rate while the baby boom generation retires. That is a lot of new immigrants.

    WHWN, I support the idea of a guest worker program, but not entirely at taxpayer expense. Why should it be my responsibility to fund a ready and cheap labor force to help corporate bottom lines? It is this very exploitation of cheap labor that has helped to put us into the situation we are in today, with over 12 million undocumented persons, many of whom are burdening our social services. It’s not the government’s job, for example, to make sure construction companies make maximum profits.

    If companies are unwilling to pay livable wages to American citizens, then those companies should be the ones to bear the costs (background checks, etc.) of bringing in cheaper overseas labor, not the taxpayers. Government could provide the infrastructure for clearing immigrants and ensuring fairness (blind lottery, perhaps), but companies who need the labor would bear most of the costs.

  39. Dominguez did run as an Independent.

  40. Emma, I’ve often thought if we had international temp agencies it would be easier to administer a guest worker program and keep tabs on who is working where and for how much. The agencies are corporations like Manpower so we wouldn’t be footing any bill. Besides that, agencies usually offer health insurance.

  41. Red Dawn

    KG,
    Like the idea!!!!!! That is thinking outside the box BUT then I just recently heard about black water and if not them/or something of the like, what would be the difference between outsourcing?

  42. Rick Bentley

    My bad, he did run as an Independent. Though the Democratic party endorsed him.

  43. Lafayette

    Rick,
    I have to agree Greg living off of the donations from HSM is ludicrous. The donations they receive are not huge. However, that one from PAC is substantial. I would like to know what was really done with that $6.800. You seem to be pretty in the know of HSM. Could you possibly explain this to us. I attended ALL meetings up until April of this year. I never once heard a recount or explantion of this money. It’s true organizations and candidates have no control over who contributes to them. Do you think any of these folks turn down free money? I doubt it.

    I noticed your comments about Disney. I would’ve taken Disney any day over the quick develoment of the residential market in that area. Disney would’ve generated some good tax revenue for the county and state. Not, to mention the fact it would not have overcrowded all the new schools that have been built out that way as soon as they opened their doors. I did find it disgusting that they did not pay their real estate taxes on the land they’d acquired for this venture.
    Chris

  44. Outsourcing means we give our work to other countries. International employment agencies, as I see it, should be based in this country. People outside the country can apply and if they get accepted, then they can come and work. Let the companies deal with the work visas. It will cut costs.

    Employment agencies will only hire people if there is indeed work. Anyone can apply to work through an agency. And the pay is generally compatible between agencies. So there really is no, “You’re taking my job!” about this idea.

  45. Rick Bentley

    “I attended ALL meetings up until April of this year. I never once heard a recount or explantion of this money. ”

    I’ve been to maybe half the meetings through the years and he usually gives a run-down on how much money came in, and what expenditures went out, and what the remaining balance is. It should be noted also that there is a Treasurer, and that the offices are elected.

  46. Chris

    Rick,
    Through the years? They’ve only been meeting since April of 2007. Yes, I am very aware there’s a treasurer. I asked you because you are one of the few that belong to HSM and admit. I do have another question for you. If you are a proud member of HSM, then why don’t you use your real name? I recall last summer you commenting that you were a member of HSM and that Rick Bentley was not your real name.

    I can’t help but notice you say he gives a run down. Well, since there’s a Treasurer why isn’t she giving the report? What’s the point in having elected officers for an organization if the Pres. is going to do all the reporting? I hope you can respond better to this than then my prior question. You don’t live that far from me based on what you’ve said about your neighborhood, and it’s improved some over the last year, but there’s still a ways to go.

    Are you a real man? Or a collective of lost souls using the name?

  47. That’s unfair Chris, and unlike you. Plenty of people post under pseudonyms on the blogs, even ones that sound like it might be their name. Whoever Rick might be, he has that right as well. You have, yourself, posted under pseudonyms at times, and never with your last name…and I don’t see a problem with that either.

    You’ve grown very angry in the time that you started posting here, at AntiBVBL…now why is that? I see no difference in people attacking other people for their opinions either here or at BVBL, other than the relative positions on the issue. There’s enough “angry people” on both sides…I never thought that you’d become one.

  48. Chris

    AWC,
    I am not angry at Rick. I only asked a question of him. I’ve been asked many questions and I answer them. I’ve never denied that I use pseudonyms. I’ve signed many posts on bvbl as Chris Pannell when I was there.
    I find in unfair that you would say I was angry. I’m not a bit angrier acting than the majority. I’m not disrespectful. I am curious as to why he would not use his name. I am all for someone wanting to protect their true identity. I was not asking for his real name. It was simply a question.
    I really don’t feel I was unfair to Rick. I am very curious about a large donation from a Republican driven PAC. I am only trying to understand where he’s coming from on this matter.

  49. Chris

    AWC,
    Come on do you really think I’m an ANGRY person, honestly? I think you know better than to say that of me.

  50. “Are you a real man? Or a collective of lost souls using the name?”

    That, Chris, is largely what led me to make that comment. It really didn’t sound like the Chris that I know, so I was concerned. There are many ways to ask questions, and being confrontational is one of them. I guess that I’ve noticed you becoming far more confrontational of late, and I felt that it was out of character for you. I apologize if I’m wrong.

Comments are closed.