“Undesirables” for America
February 14th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
“I ask you, as a citizen of the United States of Hispanic origin, when is enough, enough?”
So wrote, Tyler Republican Rep. Leo Berman in a January 10 letter to Fernando Reyes, chairman of the board of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. The letter was flacking Berman’s House Bill 28, which would strip state benefits from U.S. citizen children born to undocumented immigrants.
In his missive, Berman details the evils of “illegal aliens.”
“They have brought with them Tuberculosis, Polio, Leprosy, Dengue Fever, Chagas Disease and Malaria. As of last August, the Texas Prison System is housing 12,500 illegal aliens. That many more are incarcerated in county and municipal jails. Finally, according to a detailed report produced by the Lone Star Foundation in Austin, Texans are spending $3.5 billion each year to support 1.5 million illegal aliens in Texas.”
Berman’s letter echoes the same anti-immigrant vitrol of a century ago — only the country of origin and the color of skin have changed.
Immigrants spread contagious diseases. In the late 19th century it was cholera. Give Berman props for expanding the list. In an interview, Berman cited a journal article that gives illegal immigrants all the credit for a number of scary diseases. The only problem is that many of them cannot be traced to immigrants or in the case of polio cannot be found in Texas at all.
Immigrants are taking over the country. A century ago, cartoons depicted Chinese and Irish feasting together on poor, unsuspecting Uncle Sam. Immigrants - Jews, Russian and Italians - were rats infesting the nation. Today, it’s the Hispanics who are infecting the U.S. with “unbounded levels of immigration” and surges of illegitimate children eating up welfare and social services. Berman writes, “Texans are spending $3.5 billion each year to support 1.5 million illegal aliens in Texas,” according to a Lone Star Foundation report. He fails to mention that undocumented immigrants contributed $17.7 billion to the gross state product in 2005, according to a Comptroller’s Special Report.
Immigrants refuse to assimilate. Then it was the Irish who stubbornly resisted the melting pot. Today it’s the Mexicans: Berman says, “[Illegal aliens] fly the Mexican flag, send their money to Mexico. Their allegiance is to Mexico. They do not want to assimilate.”
The targets change but the fears remain the same.
February 14th, 2007 at 11:13 pm
Illegals also fly saucers…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOtTcP4YTTs
April 6th, 2007 at 8:02 am
[…] how the market works. Add to that the same scare tactics used today have been around since the immigrants were European, and it seems even less likely that today’s most trumped-up immigration fears are rooted in […]
April 17th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
[…] bills’ supporters and authors employ emotional arguments to make their case – the kind of scapegoating of immigrants that has taken place for more than a century. The first witness – Sue Richardson of Texans for […]