Study Finds Immigrants Commit Less California Crime
SAN FRANCISCO - Immigrants are far less likely than the average U.S.-born citizen to commit crime in California, the most populous state in the United States, according to a report issued late on Monday.
People born outside the United States make up about 35 percent of California’s adult population but account for about 17 percent of the adult prison population, the report by the Public Policy Institute of California showed.
According to the report’s authors the findings suggest that long-standing fears of immigration as a threat to public safety are unjustified. The report also noted that U.S.-born adult men are incarcerated at a rate more than 2 1/2 times greater than that of foreign-born men.
“Our research indicates that limiting immigration, requiring higher educational levels to obtain visas, or spending more money to increase penalties against criminal immigrants will have little impact on public safety,” said Kristin Butcher, co-author of the report and associate professor of economics at Wellesley College.
The study did not differentiate between documented immigrants and illegal immigrants.
The question of what to do about the millions of undocumented workers living in the United States has been one of the major issues in the U.S. presidential election. Mexico, which accounts for a high proportion of illegal immigrants in California, was deeply disappointed at the U.S. Congress’ failure to pass President George W. Bush’s overhaul of immigration laws last year.
When Butcher and her co-author, Anne Morrison Piehl, associate professor of economics at Rutgers University, considered all those committed to institutions including prison, jails, halfway houses and the like, they found an even greater disparity.
Among men 18 to 40, the population most likely to be in institutions because of criminal activity, the report found that in California, U.S.-born men were institutionalized 10 times more often than foreign-born men (4.2 percent vs. 0.42 percent).
Among other findings in the report, non-citizen men from Mexico 18 to 40 — a group disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally — are more than eight times less likely than U.S.-born men in the same age group to be in a correctional institution (0.48 percent vs. 4.2 percent).
“From a public safety standpoint, there would be little reason to further limit immigration, to favor entry by high-skilled immigrants, or to increase penalties against criminal immigrants,” the report said.
Reporting by Duncan Martell; Editing by Adam Tanner and Bill Trott
© 2008 Reuters
Work is work, and crime is crime.
If the reason for immigrants to come to this country is to take advantage of better job opportunities, why is it a surprise that they are less likely to be involved in crime? Is this news? I don’t get it.
I’ve lived in L.A. all my life and grew up in Echo Park with thousands of Latino immigrants. I’ve never met a more humble, hard-working, and family-oriented group of people.
I do not believe that most statistics and reports such as those above are very accurate. As anyone can tell most crime goes unreported, and most criminals get away.
If you add the ‘new immigrant’ to the formula, bringing their distrusting attitudes and beliefs about police with them, they are unlikely to report anything short of murder.
Immigrants also take time to learn the ropes involved in criminal activities and tend to take advantage of their own people, not venturing out into the mainstream until they get established.
As glad as I am to see these types of studies being started, the article is too limited to actually believe the conclusion drawn, as it seems to deal only with those processed through the criminal justice system.
I think most studies use parameters that skew outcomes. Certainly when I read scientific studies, I see flaws that should have been addressed for more accurate results.
It’s like adults looking at the relationships between children. There is a world of interactions hidden from adult view going on.
kathyodat
Honest, humble, hard-working, and family-oriented group of people. Nothing at all like Republicans. It’s no wonder that Bush et al. is putting up fences.
Every night on primetime cable, Lou Dobbs and other ultra-conservative, extremist pundits, decry the horrors of illegal immigration. Increased crime is always prominent in their long litany of evils.
That’s why the report cited above is significant.
The fact is, the detention centers were contracted for and being built long before Lou Dobbs became a household name.
In point of fact, they are up and running RIGHT NOW. They are quietly rounding up Hispanics, Arabs and Persians… legal or not… “preventively detaining and “clearing,”" prior to release, incarceration, deportation or God only knows.
No charges, no notification of family, no warrants, no civil liberties or legal representation… DISAPPEARED, by private contractors to the Department of Homeland Security (KGB).
Those protesting in Tacoma, Washington, outside one of these facilities get NO national media… and are just labelled “anarchists and anti-globalists,” if it makes the local news at all. If they are photographed and identified protesting, the government contacts their employers… encouraging them to fire them. They contact their landlords and encourage them to evict them. Krystalnacht for dissenters. So the protestors have taken to wearing Zapatista cowls over their heads… lending the image of “terrorism” to the few misleading reports that escape to the mainstream media.
The company contracting to run this archipelago is global, with a history of abuse, rape and child molestation. They got their start during the McCarthy era. They fled Belgium to evade prosecution and changed their name. They have the Guantanamo contract.
They have pledged to round up and incarcerate 10 Million people by 2010 inside the United States.
THE START BUTTON FOR THE POLICE STATE IS ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, AND IT HAS ALREADY BEEN PUSHED. This is not some greater later. Contrary to Corporate Media Reports and Politicians’ exhaustive diatribes, the DEBATE IS OVER. The public has been softened to accept. The xenophobia, scapegoating and rhetoric is ever escalating. Illegal immigrants, although “hardworking” are characterized in lurid stereotypes, reminiscent of Nazi, anti-Semitic propaganda. Protestors are already being characterized as “terrorists.” Spying on Americans to identify dissenters and control information flow is about to have the full force of law… but it’s been happening for years illegally.
I would encourage any thinking person, progressive or otherwise, to consider the long term ramifications of an ethnic purge on a scale unprecedented in History. The American soul is being sold.
“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart; that you CAN’T take part. You can’t even passively take part. You have to lay your bodies on the gears and on the levers. You have to indicate to the people that operate it, to the people that own it… that UNLESS WE ARE FREE, THE MACHINE WILL BE PREVENTED FROM WORKING AT ALL”
Well of course - the newly arrived risk deportation!
And though these may be reported crimes - rather than the actual number of crimes committed - why would the the crimes of the less organized/less connected immigrant population be any less reported?
You cut off the supply of guns and then find out how much more likely people are to report crimes.
cranky_chatter, thanks for your complete take.
Edward1793, your family emigrated here - maybe they should have been sent packing after they learned the criminal ropes. Swiftboating the immigrants does not become you.
Vadree, ditto
BeForKids, I am ashamed to see you joining the ‘keep’em out’ bandwagon.
it’s amazing how this topic divides us so angrily. You’d think it was an another example of how Bush ‘unites’ us.
Maybe the fences are to keep us in - not others out.
Think about it.
Remember these figures for the next time some xenophobe tells you how the crime rate soars when immigrants move into the neighborhood. Ask for their sources. The merely semi-ignorant will sometimes change their tune when they realize they are parroting back groundless gossip.
One more thing:
I went to the neighborhood I grew up in last year. Now it’s a “barrio.” The streets are remarkably clean. All the store buildings are occupied with thriving small businesses. The tax base has gotten so high, the school has been rebuilt… the streets have islands at the intersections, to slow traffic for children, planted with well kept flower beds… there is a Redwood tree, now 80 feet tall in one of those islands, that my mother planted.
I saw the children of an old friend there… all over six feet tall with dread-locks to their ass… cruising that barrio safely… owning the streets JUST like we did when WE were kids.
My sisters house that my parents bought for 12 thousand dollars just sold for 3/4’s of a MILLION.
Frankly, I like what they’ve done with the place.
Lest we forget, it was during the the reign, in both Chamber of Congress, of the Republican Greedy Southern Evangelical, “Dixiecrat” Majority, that, among all other self serving misdeeds,(illegal war, illegal wiretapping,disaster capitalism, favored status for the oil, pharma, energy,etc, etc.) that being here without proper documentation was “criminalized.” Although I’m not for Bush and McCain, the “Dixiecrat” faction of the GOP saw them granting some form of ‘amnesty’ as ’selling arms to them thar injuns’ at the time when their main ‘revival’ song was,in essence,”the only good injun is a dead one.”
Crime does soar when immigration rises in the USA….but it is the good citizens perpetrating crimes agsinst the immigrants that causes the rise.
This information has surfaced a little too late.
The Bush regime has already gotten all of the mileage needed from the immigrant scare they contrived:
1)it gave them a boogeyman to take the attention away from their failure to get Bin Laden,
2)allowed them to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on detention facilities that can now be used for their boogeyman du jour, and
3)is wasting even more billions of taxpayer dollars on border fences and detection systems that will enhance the bottom line of the miltary industrial complex far more than it will provide real security.
Immigrant hysteria can be chaulked up as one more mission accomplished with a high degree of success by the Bush regime.
Anti-immigration angst is a shill for racism.
curmudgeon99:
I’m not being a bigot when I said I don’t believe the article. I am for no fences and open immigration for all. But this report draws a conclusion from a study that is limited in scope. I simply beleive that this study needs follow up studies
Good point, Edward1793.
More followup is needed but that does not take away from the premise here. We could be supporting the study at the same time as seeking further info.
This is not news, but in order to counter the WTM (White Trash Media), the obvious must be re-stated again and again…
Bigot and xenophobe Lou Dobbs would have a cow if he read this article.
Immigrants have always been the best behaved, hardest working, and most maligned people in this country. The very same things that are being said about the Mexicans now were said about the Vietnamese in the seventies, the Chinese, the Irish, and newly freed blacks in the 1800’s, and the Germans in the 1700’s.
I would bet the Indians did not have a very high opinion of Europeans in the 1600’s, but they had some good reasons for being xenophobic.
Edward1793,
perhaps reading the actual study will help
Crime, Corrections, and California: What Does Immigration Have to Do with It?
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/cacounts/CC_208KBCC.pdf
…or the Japanese American and Canadian citizens taken hostage and robbed of their homes and farms by Executive Order 9066…
Could it be that Columbus and the Jamestown gang were undocumented (illegal) immigrants? Who issued their VISAs?
Here we go again…
“The study did not differentiate between documented immigrants and illegal immigrants.”
There are two classifications for immigrants. There are those that go through the immigration process (legal) and those that do not (illegal). The ones that do not go through the proper immigration process are committing a crime, hence the word “illegal”. So, this study is grossly flawed because if most of the immigrants in the study are “illegal” then most of the immigrants in the study have committed a crime and are criminals.
BUT (that’s a “BIG” but with a long pause for emphasis), the people that ran the study didn’t bother to differentiate between illegal and documented immigrants. This looks more like a infomercial type study than credible research.
Why is this even being presented here as a viable source of information?
No, I checked this is Common Dreams - I thought I was redirected to a FOX news site for a moment there…
Just heard on NPR local news that Immigration Agents rounded up “criminal elements and fugitives” in the Binghamton and Syracuse areas. Apparently, they were in those categories for ignoring a judge’s order to deport. It is a simple re-classification to criminalize, (demonize),and deport. A friend of mine hired several immigrants (didn’t say if documented, but part of the migrant force) from Mexico to work on the farm he managed. Compensation was (I think) $8/hour, housing, garden plot, milk and beef resulted in the hardest-working, most honest group he had had experience with. He swore he could have left $1,000 cash in their house and it would not have been taken.
When are we as a people going to accept the fact that the Hispanic (don’t really like that description) community aren’t the demons they are portrayed for divisive, political, paranoic ends. Welcome them, legalize them so they can pay taxes, etc., drive vehicles with insurance, participate in community events, and strengthen the US. From my perspective, their staunchest detractors have done more to weaken the fiber of the nation than the immigrants are accused of.
I can’t argue against deportation for serious crimes, but would be suspicious of “enhanced” charges to this end. History has a way of repeating itself.
wdmax3
Here we go again…
Next you will tell us that Witches Float…
You misunderstand me curmudgeon. I don’t think people should be rounded up and deported; I don’t think we should have a fence; I don’t think legal or illegal immigrants are any more criminal than native born Americans. i consider them less likely considering their reasons for coming here - to find work and send money home to their families, thanks to our ruinous trade agreements.
I was simply commenting that many studies are not well designed. Are you refuting my statement? If so, please elucidate.
kathyodat
To digress a little…..I taught in Hiroshima, Japan for two years and boy are the Japanese xenophobic. It is alarming to listen to an otherwise polite, docile man or woman lecture me about the dangers of foreigners, failing to take into account that I am an American. I could write ten pages about how racism is pervasive in Japan–and likely in all homogenous societies–but I’ll get back to the point. While the crime rate in Japan is a fraction of the crime rate in America (murders being approx. 10x lower), crime from foreigners is lower than crimes committed by Japanese, with crime from the hated Koreans being the lowest on the list (per capita). Crimes by Westerners are usually limited to public nudity or public intoxication.
Two British woman in Japan were murdered by Japanese psychopaths (in separate incidences). Later, my Japanese landlord said (after evicting me for an unrelated incident committed by a Japanese person when I wasn’t even home) that residents are afraid of the foreigners in the building because foreigners are involved in murders–as if the two British women asked to be strangled/beaten/killed.
In summary, all societies will find a scapegoat to blame for their problems. This is the the media’s — or Republicans–way of distracting us from the real problems in America: fiscal responsibility, the economy, war, poverty, education, medical research….you get the idea.
Edward1793
Sorry, he is exactly correct.
aside from that when anyone makes a sweeping generalization like ” I’ve never met a more humble, hard-working, and family-oriented group of people.” hold onto your pocketbook!
Being Latino is no better or worse rthan being white, black or yellow. I would like to suggest that anyone that opposes immigration is too stupid to discuss anything with. It keeps our country vibrant.
Illegal immigration on the other hand is just that. There are somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 illegal alien Irish here. They are part of the 20 million illegal aliens here. So, being white and Irish allow me to forestall the obligatory slurs of racism and “hate speech” and suggest we run them out first. Because any illegal alien is unwelcome in our country.
Immigrants are always welcome.
The only mexican I really can’t stand is Vincente Fox for what he, and others like him, have done to the people of Mexico.
The illegals who come here, imho, come here due to the choice of utter poverty for life in mexico or take a chance in the US at the cost of never seeing their friends or relatives back in Mexico again.
It is economic manipulation on a huge scale by globalists who then pit the prejudice’s of the people against each other while they profit from it all.
Folks, we are a nation of laws! It is AGAINST THE LAW to sneak across our border and take up residence. The good ole U.S. of A has the most generous immigration policy of any country in the world. We INVITE millions of immigrants to come into our country every year. No other country on the planet is as generous as we are. But our country can only absorb a given number of people each year without adversely changing the fabric of our society. Our schools, hospitals, fire departments, and all other social services can only sufficiently serve a given number of people in any given year. These services are currently being stretched almost to the breaking point. Part of the problem, I believe, is a major difference in cultural psychology. Most Anglos believe in birth control. Families are just as important to Anglos as they are to Hispanics but differences in cultures means the two groups see family planning in very different ways. I really believe many Anglos would be far less resentful of Hispanics if three changes were made.
1. Automatic citizenship to every child born on US soil. I personally know of several cases where the primary goal of the pregnant woman was to get into the U.S. by any means possible so her child would be born in America, have automatic American citizenship and be entitled to all of the free social services available to all American citizens.
2. Often when Hispanics are invited to enter (given a green card) they bring their extended family - aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, great aunts and uncles, etc. In other words, if the “family” was limited to a mother, father, and one, two or three children, far less stress would be put on the social fabric of our towns, cities, states, and nation.
3. When you come to our country, come with the attitude of becoming an AMERICAN! We are a melting pot and we WELCOME ALL immigrants - as long as they follow our laws. Come to blend in. Learn English so you can participate in our society. You can continue to practice any customs you choose within your own home but outside your home be an American! Honor our flag. Remember the protesters last Fall who marched in the streets of LA carrying Mexican flags and upside down American flags? This behavior certainly did NOT help Anglos feel good. This behavior was extremely UNAmerican. To sum it all up, we have had a European Anglo culture for three hundred years (give or take a few) and we do not want it to change now. Anyone who wants to join our country needs to accept us the way we are. Do not ask us to change. If a person wants to live in Germany, they need to learn German, follow German laws, and display behavior acceptable in German society. The same thing can be said about someone wanting to live in China or any other country in the world.
These are some of my thoughts as to why I believe ILlegal immigration has become such sore topic in the last few years.
My humble apologies BeforKids.
I evidently misread your original comments.
Thank you for expanding your thoughts, tho’
They really make sense.
What racist propaganda, Ginger.
Everyone who decries poor Latinos (not just those from Mexico, either) should remember how the US literally stole the Southwest 1/4-1/3 of the United States from Mexico.
Also, the effects of NAFTA have demolished most of the small farms. Many jobs went to Mexico from US at start of NAFTA, then were yanked and sent to Asia. removing that source of income.
etc….
We need to be more understanding of how our greedy corporate fascist globalists have paid for US policies that decimated parts of Mexican economy.
Let’s try to be more understanding than buy wholeheartedly into the fearful diatribes. Sharing could turn out to be helpful to all. You never know until you try.
Ginger,
As for assimilation, it may or may not be a good idea, but it takes time, sometimes generations, to learn a new culture. It is really a good idea for all immigrants to learn English. Life is so much easier when you can understand what is going on, but again, language learning takes time. A child can learn conversational English in about 6 months, but it takes much, much longer for adults who may not have time because of their work to take English classes. I plead for patience for newcomers. Most of them mean well and are trying. How about volunteering your time to teach English to newcomers? You might learn something.
Ginger,
What is your Native Heritage?
Most Euro transplant 2nd or 3rd gens, have similar White privileged narrow worldview versions of our LAWS, our CONSTITUTION, and our HISTORY.
I am Native American and I take exception to those who believe that FORCED assimilation is a good thing. Especially since they usually don’t have a clue as to what really happened in our fledgling history with Mexico, the borders, and Natives. These same people still believe that Columbus discovered America.Let me give you a clue but first do a little reading and find for me where in history Forced assimilation has EVER been a good thing?
1) Half of this country WAS Mexico. The border was moved, but the people stayed.
2)Those same people (my cousins) have been persecuted by repatriation for decades. What that means is, they have to attain citizenship for THEIR original country to be illegally repatriated back to Mexico 50 years later, and so on, and so on, every 50 years or so. Google repatriation and see for yourself. These are not just undocumented human beings, they are the original peoples of this land stripped of their homes, over and over again. (Iraqis will suffer from this fate in the future just as Palestinians are now too)
3) I get sick and tired of racist jerks demanding that everyone speak English, because it is easier for them…Americans are the stupidest humans on the planet, and cannot wrap their brains around the fact that the first European language spoken here was Spanish, it is YOU who cannot adapt. Every other country speaks many languages fluently which is a sign of intelligence. Americans can’t even get English right, they butcher it worse than everyone. Ask those from England and they will shamefully say that Americans speak American, not English.
Your European forefathers murdered 600 million of my people because you wanted my land, my resources, and all under the guise of “assimilation” we were somehow unworthy of what belonged to us because YOU didn’t like our language, our religion, and our customs. YOU felt we weren’t “AMERICAN”. So you have been crappy stewards of what you have stolen from me and my Mexican cousins. Our air is killing and genetically poisoning our children, chemicals that will continue poisoning for generations due to epigenetics. Our waters have dead zones where all aquatic life have died. Our soil is a chemical soup that may never be salvaged. Our climate will end up killing most life. Animals and plants that my people consider family are lost forever due to extinction. And YOU call US illegal…My people have been fighting terrorism for 400 years. Who are the true Americans?
vgoodness,
You speak truth.
“Illegal immigration on the other hand is just that. There are somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 illegal alien Irish here.”
LOL What a crock. The Irish stopped coming here quite awhile ago. Ireland is doing great, thank you very much.
Demonizing immigrants is the latest attempt by the wealthy to divide those beneath them economically lest too many of them connect the dots and demand accountabiity from the wealthy who are at war with them.
It’s what Southern planters did to African-Americans after the Civil War, what Northern industrialists did to the Irish, Southern and Eastern European immigrants whose brand of Christianity (Roman Catholic and Orthodox) did not agree with their own. It’s what virtually all European immigrants were encouraged to do against Native Americans from the time they arrived from the old country.
We got wars needing to be stopped, a banking system on the verge of collapse, and an economy which virtually everybody believes is heading for serious recession and eventual depression, and the powers that be need a scapegoat. since they have already exhausted flag burners, gays wanting to marry, and women seeking abortion or birth control, voila! we are now told “it’s their (immigrants)fault let’s git em’”.
Shame on anybody buying such baloney! Go after Wall Street, not Main Street or even Washington DC.
Poet,
Thank you, you are correct in directing our attention to the real criminals, while the yahoos are facing south at our borders with their shotguns and toothless smiles, ready to kill those dirty leprosy carrying drug smuggling criminal Mexicans (courtesy of the lying racist Lou Dobbs), The Rothschild’s, Vanderbilt’s, and Rockefeller’s are quietly sneaking up behind with blades in their teeth to skin them. They are sheep because they find comfort in that. They want to hate, and the government subservients play on this. That is why there are so many newly built concentration camps. If any of you think that only undocumented immigrants are housed their, you are sadly mistaken. Those who are dumped in these camps receive NO habeas corpus, no rights, no phone calls, no attorneys. You do not pass go! THAT is what is being done behind our backs. These 1%’ers are populationists and everyone is worthless to them. THAT is why this racist crap needs to stop. Become educated, learn the facts, stop feeding into the destructive psychosis. This article is important because those who seek to destroy us want us to believe the alternative, that Mexicans are committing all the crime, that there isn’t a legal system disparity between minorities and Whites, that they are all in prisons because they are bad, not the system. We ARE in a police state, and we need to stick up for each other, all of us. THEY want everything for them, and none for us, as they watch us kill each other over nothing.
Californian for fifty years and Mexican people have carazon de alma, heart and soul, like most shallow white people would not even recognize.
The only things wrong with Mexican people are they are humble, often quiet compared to yanquis, kind, gentle, giving, honest and hardworking.
Naturally white guys fear and loathe them for these strange and ‘alien’ characteristics which they know instictively will make them look bad.
Thanks,vgoodness, for speaking the truth so eloquently, about not only our brothers and sisters from Mexico, but also about how so many are so easily deluded by the corporatists…
I agree with a lot of the points in these comments. However what about all of the illegal aliens in our prisons? Is it right that we support them after they’ve committed crimes here? Is it right that we pay for the children their women have here? Because our government has done horrible things in the past does this mean we need to open our border to all indigent peoples? Or would it be better to assist their countries in economic development? What I don’t like is assuming someone is “conservative” or “reactionary” if they oppose illegal immigration. Even worse is the knee jerk “racist” declaration. That is often really lazy thinking.
Vgoodness–I find it very interesting that you praise your “Mexican cousins” and claim that “Your European forefathers murdered 600 million of my people because you wanted my land, my resources…” while lauding the “first language spoken here”, Spanish. Your so-called cousins are the genetic mixed offspring of the Conquistadors who were even more brutal than the Dutch or English in North America. Read Las Casas to see what the Spaniards did in what’s now Latin America. I certainly don’t condone the horrifying genocide anywhere. But let’s be fully real about what happened where and what Language was the first spoken here. How about Chippewa and Algonquin and Mayan and Aztec tongues?
vgoodness, You are so right on, thank you for righting the record for some of us. I have prominently displayed on my car the sticker that shows 4 Native Guys with carbines raised and wearing late 1800’s clothing, that says; Homeland Security, Fighting Terrorism Since 1492″ I live within spitting distance of our Northern border and the town is crawling with “cops” of one kind or another, and “Black Helos” all the time flying low and loud. They have yet to catch or stop even one “terist” that anyone knows of. Most of the assholes couldn’t catch a cold.
RE: - The merely semi-ignorant will sometimes change their tune when they realize they are parroting back groundless gossip.
Who starts the gossip in the first place? From whom is our attention being diverted from?
RE: - Crime does soar when immigration rises in the USA….but it is the good citizens perpetrating crimes agsinst the immigrants that causes the rise.
You mean that the rate of hate crime goes up? Liked your comments about right winged religion and terrorism on the other thread, never got around to telling you.
Note that Corporatism is also a religion.
RE: - Bigot and xenophobe Lou Dobbs would have a cow if he read this article.
Lou Dobbs and his well protected freedom of speech …
I think that Ezra wanted to be a test case and plans to take it all the way to the supreme court. Would Lou Dobbs?
Former publisher to sue Muslim leader who filed human rights complaint
The former publisher of the Western Standard said he is going to sue a Calgary Muslim leader who filed a human rights complaint against him for publishing controversial Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
Ezra Levant’s threat of legal action comes after Syed Soharwardy, president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, said he withdrew the complaint he launched against Levant in 2006 with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/02/13/levant-cartoons.html
Liberal MP lauded by white supremacists
A Liberal MP is being hailed as a poster boy for free speech on a white supremacist website.
Victoria MP Keith Martin was praised Friday on stormfront.org, a website that proudly displays the logo “White pride world wide” and links to radio addresses by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Martin earned the dubious distinction after giving notice that he plans to introduce a private member’s motion calling on the government to repeal Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/02/01/martin-speech.html
I said the first “EUROPEAN” language was Spanish….The Spaniards also treated my people poorly. Mexicans are not genetic mixed offspring of the Spaniards, There is a classism system in Mexico somewhat different than ours. Those who have European decent, as you say the Spanish mixed, then there are the indgenistas, or first peoples, aboriginals. Our corrupt government keep corrupt European descendants in power in Mexico, so that the indigenous are kept dirt poor. They, just like myself, lost lands, resources, families, and everything. To become servants, or forced into service type positions. What you see there will soon be what is left of our poor and middle class if we don’t stop our filthy leaders. By the way the Spaniards were not the only country to come to South America. Africa did before everyone, read up on the Omlekas.
Yes, VG you did say “European”. You’re right, I just was making another point.
I admit I’m “mixed” up about this issue. I feel sympathy and I understand why they come but I do see local towns and cities being transformed, and not always in a good way. There are crowds and noise issues and of course the “work thing” which in some places really does make a dent in local economies, for the worse. I don’t know. Where does it end, the floods of people? At what point can someone who’s certainly not “racist” say “okay, this is out of control.” Will they be ostracized by their lib friends? Branded something?
Maybe we should all learn Spanish. It’s not such a bad idea. I don’t have the answers and I don’t think the answers are so easy.
NRA, Please, again and yet again, again, again… ISLAMO-FASCIST? It is an oxymoron, a made up new speak hate term. al-Islam is not a violent, Shari’ah, Taliban, Wahhabi man-made version. Islam means total submission to Allah, I don’t think there is a damn thing subservient nor submissive in any shape or form when referencing Fascism.
Thanks for your gracious response, curmudgeon
kathyodat
Amazing how people who don’t want to believe something won’t. It’s because this issue is not to be taken at face value. It’s really about people who just want to bray their opines as loudly as they can muster, just to be center stage. Look at Lou Dobbs sometime. What you see is a kind of kitsch arrogant self-righteousness (oh look at me, I’ve made it off the farm in Idaho, and I have jingle bells on my toes). Just another ugly American, ugly because he is filled with a smug, shallow disdain for anyone he can be a star about. That, b4kids, is simply evil.
This headline, “Study Finds Immigrants Commit Less California Crime”, reminds me of something Thom Hartmann described in his latest book, Cracking the Code. He said that the unconscious mind has a very week filter and one of the things it cannot filter are negatives. So, for example, when Richard Nixon tells the nation, “I am not a crook,” everyone sees him as a crook. Similarly in this headline, Immigrants commit LESS crime, Less is filtered out by our unconscious. I wonder if the writer did this on purpose? Probably not, but who knows……
Now that the republican party no longer has a platform on which to campaign……………!
NRA Freedom, Ezra Levant lives for these kinds of things - he is a troll.
RE: - Our corrupt government keep corrupt European descendants in power in Mexico, so that the indigenous are kept dirt poor. They, just like myself, lost lands, resources, families, and everything.
So the puppets were ethnically different from the people they ruled? Surprise surprise. Actually, I didn’t know it was the case in Mexico, but it seemed to have been a factor in Rwanda and that is the present US strategy in Iraq right now - taking one distinct group and letting them slaughter another distinct group which is less friendly to American interests.
RE: - Can’t some “progressive” go down there and teach those Mexicans to elect good men?
I hope you are being sarcastic. Americans have influenced too many elections not their own. Then again … so did the Germans … it was German money that got Mulroney elected - though I don’t know how much German money was involved in the elections of Reagan and Thatcher.
RE: - Just another ugly American, ugly because he is filled with a smug, shallow disdain for anyone he can be a star about.
You don’t have to convince me that Lou Dobbs is slime - but couldn’t you do so without displaying his worst qualities!
RE: - Immigrants commit LESS crime, Less is filtered out by our unconscious.
The person isn’t arguing that Immigrants commit no crime at all. What is being argued is that other groups in the area commit more crime (out of all the crime they know about). We don’t know which other groups Immigrants are being compared to or how the term “Immigrants” is being operationalized. I tend to hear the term “Immigrant” and interpret it as “landed Imigrant” - a person that is there legally but who is not quite a citizen.
Someone mentioned it earlier, but there is a reason why Landlords dislike bully magnets. Harbouring a bully magnet means that your building will be defaced and your windows broken.
Racists are bullies, but they are not bullied - the places they rent are not defaced nor are their landlord’s windows broken. Thus, the committers of Hate Crimes are deamed better tennants than those who tend to be the target of Hate Crimes.
wdmax3 February 26th, 2008 5:23 pm,
read the study. they didnt “differentiate” because they couldnt due to the limitations of the data. the article misrepresented what they said. they said they would have liked to and thought it would be “interesting.”
the article makes it out as if they intended not to differentiate, or at least that is how a lot of people - not just here - seem to be taking it.
There is something in this debate over illegal immigration that seems to bring out the worst in folks on both sides of the issue. Gross generalizations steeped in racism abound from each camp, and those trying hard to find a middle ground are assailed from both sides.
My grandchild will be the twelveth generation of my family born in this country. Our earliest ancestor on my father’s side arrived here from Scotland in 1633. Similarly, my mother’s family arrived in French Canada around the same time, her earliest ancestor originating from Rouen, France. I’ve studied both sides of my family thoroughly. None of them were born into aristocracy, nor did any of them ever achieve great wealth or fame. They were, by and large, “humble, honest and hard working” folk, as measured by the times in which they lived.
Some of the posters here have framed their argument in a historical context. But the blanket generalizations made about “whites” and “Europeans” are just as racist and historically misleading as those made by the other side about illegal immigrants. Regardless of our cultural heritage, ALL human beings share a unique propensity for mistreating other human beings. Every human community, for any number of reasons, has made war in some fashion on another human community. The concepts of fighting, killing, enslaving and/or driving competing human communities into extinction did not begin nor will it end with the Europeans. While it is right to look with distain upon the injustices ALL of our ancestors, whatever their origins, have inflicted upon other human beings, it is wrong to collectively condemn an entire race, entire culture, or the descendants of that culture based solely upon the actions of their ancestors.
The problem of illegal immigration is a complex one. Poverty and human need, national and international economics, sovereignty and security, cultural and racial biases, integration and nationalism all contribute to this complexity. To take only one variable into account and ignore the impact of all the others is akin to being unable to “see the forest for all the trees.” It’s illogical to believe that we could, or should, round up all illegal immigrants and deport them. It is equally illogical to believe that we could, or should, be able to sustain (economically, socially, etc.) an unlimited influx of immigrants. It is unreasonable to extrapolate that because some illegal immigrants commit crimes after coming here that all illegal immigrants are a threat to our society. It is equally unreasonable to conclude that because some Americans express concern over the impact illegal immigrants are having on their neighborhoods, communities, employment and social services that those concerns are merely an expression of racism. While all of these assumptions may apply to some illegal immigrants and to some Americans, they do not apply to the majority of either group.
It is true that the vast majority of illegal immigrants are honest, hard-working folk who are responding to circumstances beyond their control, trying their best to provide a decent life for themselves and their loved ones. It is also true that the vast majority of Americans are honest, hard-working folk who are responding to circumstances beyond their control, trying their best to provide a decent life for themselves and their loved ones. Whatever our differences, we all have that in common. Perhaps if we try to hold onto our commonality, we can look for solutions without resorting to the kind of baser human instincts that only serve to divide us further.
I agree that immigrants are not a crime problem, but what I don’t like about the article is the unstated reality that most black Americans who have been charged with criminal offences and incarcerated received this without having committed any real crimes. Drugs are NOT a criminal matter, except when it’s the govt that is covertly using the drug war for major drug trafficking profits, and when a person convicted on drug offences is convicted not because of the drug part, but due to the person having committed acts of violence against others.
If that was all corrected, then the article would be reporting very different statistics that would make immigrants basically no more and no less criminal than “Americans”; well, besides for the “Americans” controlling and corrupting the U.S. govt, and all of their criminally supportive voters, anyway.
Nicely said, grumpyoldlady,
As I said before - be gracious to all our guests. As the last post points out, we’re all trying to cope with situations out of our control - both native-born and immigrants, legality notwithstanding.
We should(but we won;t) act like human beings who value the humanity of all those around us.
Be compassionate to anyone who is having trouble coping.
Let’s share our bounty there really is enough here for all of us.
The problem is that 1% of the population controls at least 50% of it and refuses to let go. They are enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of us. That is the problem.
These are the people who are preaching division to distract those of us suffering from the real culprits of our woes - the greedy oligarchy who is controlling our lives through control of the workplace which has purchased the government and is using it to keep ALL of us in our places.
Just look who has been paying taxes, who benefits from a war economy, who demands the government use taxpayer moneys they did not contribute to be used for guns and not such items as healthcare, education, infrastructure repair, etc……
We are all being flummoxed into hating others we should be allying ourselves with to demand our fair share of the riches of this country we have labored long and hard for.
Take Care - we really do need each other.
IMHO -
Innocent but poor men being encouraged to plead guilty and get out of prison rather than stay in prison and have a reluctant lawyer half asterixly plead their case.
RE: - Similarly, my mother’s family arrived in French Canada around the same time, her earliest ancestor originating from Rouen, France.
Was she one of the orphan girls referred to as the Filles de Roi or did she come to Canada with her family?
So, are we as a nation becoming xenophobic? Granted the illegality of the act of such immigration is moot, yet when it is the policies of our own government that causes such a wave of folks to cross our borders as our corporations have dried up their livelihoods there a certain sympathy should be seen.
Those who demonise these people simply do not know them nor care to take the time to do so, a real pity and a choice that leads to very real ignorance, of opinion and of policy.
When such a study as the one noted , by a rather reputable source as well, is summarily dismissed as faulty and out of hand as well, it is the reasoning that leads one to such conclusion that appears faulty to me. People who are so very quick to denigrate and demonise will never help this nation arrive at fair and equitable solutions, to this or any other problem.
Remember Ezra Levant - who figures that hate crime laws are too strict? This is a letter to Levant from the guy he locked horns with - seem that he doesn’t like being called anti-semitic:
Imam offers to meet with Ezra Levant
Muslim cleric withdraws his Human Rights Commission complaint, and asks Western Standard publisher to discuss rhetoric, policies.
by Syed Soharwardy
Recognize my name? Lately Ezra Levant of the Western Standard has been doing his best to demonize me in interviews and blogs.
Mr Levant probably had never heard of me until I filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission against his decision to re-print the Danish cartoons that sparked a wave of violent and destructive protests across Europe and the Muslim world in 2005.
The re-printing of the cartoons wasn’t about free speech. The originals are readily available on the internet for any who wish to see them. The reprinting is rather about forcing people who are deeply unhappy about the cartoons, and who would not seek them out, to be faced with them again. This is hurtful to many in the Muslim community, and can create ill-will between Muslims and non-Muslims. (Interestingly, other Canadian newspapers and magazines came to the same conclusion.)
I therefore filed a complaint with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission. I worried that pointless re-publication of the Danish cartoons could alienate the young people of my community, when in fact I would prefer to see them move into the mainstream of Canadian society.
Having no previous experience with any Human Rights Commission (HRC), I was unaware of the ongoing debate about whether such commissions should have narrower or broader mandates, or of the doubts many Canadians have about whether such Commissions are the right venue in which to argue questions about hate speech.
Subsequent discussions with several Muslim leaders, and more particularly with some of my Christian and Jewish friends, have led me to conclude that my complaint was beyond what I now believe an HRC’s mandate should be. I now am of the view that this matter should have been handled in the court of public opinion.
Consequently, I intend to withdraw my complaint with the Alberta HRC against Levant’s decision to publish the offensive and hateful drawings. I believe his decision was irresponsible and was intended to cause strife, but I now appreciate that it may not fall outside the limits of free speech.
Perhaps our elected leaders should indeed legislate a narrower role for HRCs. But the campaign by Levant and others to have them abolished is going too far. HRCs play an important role in protecting the most vulnerable in our society, by countering discrimination in important areas such as housing, employment, and government services.
It is clearly unfair to blame commission employees for the lack of clarity in their mandate. Levant’s characterization of them as “thugs” and “fascists” is unjust and unhelpful.
Furthermore, Levant has falsely characterized me as a Saudi-trained “misogynist radical” who wants Canada “ruled by Sharia law”, and as an “anti-Semetic jihadi”.
And he’s given to racist undertones, describing me in a blog as one of those “foreign-born, dark-skinned Muslims who speaks with an accent”. So let’s set the record straight.
When I left Pakistan long ago, several western countries offered to accept me and my wife as immigrants. We chose Canada as the best place in the world to live, work and raise a family… irrespective of skin color. We still believe that. We are proud Canadians, and share Canadian values, as do our two accomplished teenagers. I hold two US and Canadian Masters degrees in engineering. My work has included university teaching and management of major IT projects.
Outside of work, I volunteer my time trying to develop greater understanding and better relationships between Muslims and people of other faiths, particularly Christians and Jews. I enjoy excellent relationships with numerous Jewish leaders; in my mosque in Calgary we have studied Jewish festivals, and invite Jewish experts to speak to us. So if you are looking for anti-Semitism, you wont find it in my mosque.
The history of anti-Semitism in Alberta is non-trivial, and it wasn’t from newcomers like me, who abhor it. It is distasteful and dishonest for Levant to refer to me as an “anti-Semitic jihadi.” That extremist rhetoric is incredibly divisive and polarizing in our pluralistic Canadian society.
So I’m obviously pretty mainstream and heavily into interfaith dialogue. That leads me to an offer to Ezra Levant.
Dear Mr Levant: We clearly disagree about the cartoons. But I’m willing to sit down with you and discuss it. Similarly, if you really believe that your bizarre statements about me are true, let’s examine your evidence. Stop hiding behind American talk show hosts and sniping at me with falsehoods and weird innuendos.
And if you really believe the central issue is that HRCs have over-broad mandates, then that is an issue on which we may now be able to converge. However, if you just want to achieve further notoriety through untruthful character attacks on Muslims or grandstanding on American television, then I guess you won’t be interested in something boring, like constructive dialogue.
Prof Soharwardy is the founder of Muslims Against Terrorism. Soharwardy is also the head of the first ever Dar-ul-Aloom (Institute of Islamic scholarship) in Calgary, Alberta, Canada where he teaches Islamic studies. Prof Soharwardy lectures in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Mississauga, Brampton, Richmond Hill, Markham, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver on monthly basis.
http://www.straightgoods.ca/ViewMediaFile8.cfm?REF=7
Vaudree,
“Was she one of the orphan girls referred to as the Filles de Roi or did she come to Canada with her family?”
It was my great-grandparents that immigrated from New Brunswick to Michigan, around 1840. All four of mom’s French-Canadian lines (Meilleur/Goupil/Daoust/Godin) go back to the colonization of Quebec by the French in the early 1600’s, and I know that at least two of the women who married into the family were among the “Filles de Roi.” Our Godin ancestor, Pierre Gaudin dit Chatillon, came to Canada as part of “Le Grande Recrue” in 1653.
If anyone is interested, all my research can be found at my family tree website: www.kdvkfamilytree.50megs.com
My half German half French-Canadian cousin has all the family tree stuff for my French side. Seems that we have at least one ancestor who had the same “royal” connections you did. Many of the surnames look familiar - though it could be just because I grew up in Saint Boniface. I don’t think I have any Acadian ancestry, but you seem to.
Before Japanese-Canadian internment, before the Ukrainian-Canadian internment - the was the expulsion of the Acadians. Though Queen Elizabeth did not go so far as to offer a formal apology, she did publicly acknowledge that her ancestors should not have done it - “Tequilla” Sheila Copps was behind this arm twisting.
Noticed the name “Gaboury” in your records. As you probably already know, Marie-Anne Gaboury married Jean-Baptiste Lagimodiere in 1806 and followed him west. Her eldest daughter, Reine, was the first white child born in the West and Reine’s youngest sister, Julie Lagimodiere was Louis Riel’s mother.
Would you by chance be related to Yvon Godin, the MP for the riding (voting district) of Acadie–Bathurst in New Brunswick?
My mother’s side Irish-Welsh, one of her relatives got land in Manitoba in exchange for fighting against Louis Riel in one of the Riel rebellions. Was this the same kind of deal offered your ancestor(s) during the Grande Recrue?
Back to my cousin, after his grandmother in Germany died, he managed to get a Lives Lived about her in the Globe and Mail. Seems that my cousin’s grandmother fell in love with a city boy and their mothers would not let them marry - so they figured that if they were to become pregnant that the parents would back down and let them marry - it did not work. There was conscription in Germany at the time of WWII so you know what my cousin’s biological grandfather was doing. What his grandmother was doing, while raising my cousin’s father on her own on the farm she inherited from her mother was hiding people from the Nazi’s. She later married one of the men she was hiding from the Nazi’s.
Once when my cousin’s grandmother was walking through the woods she came across these Black American soldiers - they did not harm her but seemed to have scared her with their cat calls. Though she was afraid of blacks from then on, she realised that her fear of blacks was wrong and one of her presents to her grand daughter was a black baby doll.