Immigration + Quotes Hispanic y Latino News & Info (Noticias)

May 15, 2008

“It’s as if they had five kids, maybe 10 kids, die in their class because they’re not there anymore. That’s what it’s like…it’s like a natural disaster,” Walz said. – Postville principal still seeing impact of immigration raid

April 28, 2008

“Being in this country without proper documentation is not a crime,” New Jersey’s U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie told more than 60 residents and town officials. “The whole phrase of ‘illegal immigrant’ connotes that the person, by just being here, is committing a crime.”

February 4, 2008

“There’s been a tremendous impact in Oklahoma City,” said David Castillo, the executive director of the Greater Oklahoma City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “We’ve had several companies close shop and leave the state. Banks have called us and say they’re closing 30 accounts per week.” – Due to Oklahoma’s new law

January 10, 2008

Republican state Rep. Shane Jett, who opposed 1804, offers a more dire prediction. Without changes, the law “will be the single most destructive economic disaster since the Dust Bowl,” he says. – Oklahoma

November 26, 2007

“When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.” – Leviticus 19:33-34

November 19, 2007

‘To hear the debate on immigration in 2007 in which members of the United States Senate would use the words that I’ve fought all my 22 years of public service — `Those people’, I would never have believed it,” said Sen. Robert Menendez. ‘When they say those words it’s not about the undocumented [immigrants] alone. I understand very clearly what ‘those people’ means. ‘Those people’ is all of us.”

October 22, 2007

“Phoenix police arrested over 3,500 illegal immigrant last year alone and turned over 2,000 individuals who were illegal over to ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). That’s not a sanctuary city,” Mayor Phil Gordon said.

October 15, 2007

Oklahoma City Police Chief Bill Citty said that his department is “not going to enforce immigration laws,” saying it is the department’s opinion that “it’s a federal issue.”

“These raids are done mostly for symbolic purposes,” giving the appearance that government is cracking down on the hiring of illegal immigrants, said Juan Perea, a University of Florida law professor who specializes in immigration history. “Serious enforcement of the law would involve enforcing it against many employers all the time, and that doesn’t happen”

October 14, 2007

“The irony, of course, is the people who would send millions of Latinos back south are often the same people who decry the loss of spirituality in America. Does it occur to them that the immigrants from Latino cultures are giving the nation a transfusion of spirit and faith? Do they realize the cavalry may have arrived, and they are sending them back?”

October 11, 2007

“Think about [the additional] cost to your house if they (immigrants) weren’t here,” Professor Johnson said. “Are you willing to add an extra $100,000 to the price of your house?”

October 8, 2007

QUOTE: “If you took away Hispanic labor from agriculture and from dairying in Wisconsin, we’d be in crisis,” said Wisconsin Secretary of Agriculture Rod Nilestuen. “There’s no two ways about that.”

September 27, 2007

QUOTE: “When death becomes so common it could be that a lot of people kind of become numb, so the deaths aren’t a priority anymore. It’s not an excuse, but I could see how it could happen,” Nestor Rodriguez, a University of Houston professor said. – (regarding dead immigrants in border communities)

QUOTE: “We’re not just hurting people driving without driver’s licenses,” said Luis DeLaGarza, a political consultant who helped organize the rally. “We are hurting the economy in Irving. We need to have immigration reform.”

September 26, 2007

QUOTE: “I’m disappointed for thousands of young people whose lives are just in limbo,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. added. “They want to move on with their lives and do good things, and unfortunately we haven’t been able to pass the laws to make that happen.” – in reference to the Dream Act

QUOTE: “This is very tricky, because undocumented students are desperate for some kind of legalization,” said Jorge Mariscal, director of the University of California San Diego’s Chicano Studies program and a longtime critic of military recruiting within minority communities. “I’m completely conflicted.”

QUOTE: “In the Latino areas where candidates advocated a variant of ‘enforcement only,’” said Nadler, “support for Republicans dropped by more than 21 percentage points over a single cycle, and support for Democrats rose by an equivalent amount. But where Republican candidates supported comprehensive immigration reform – some combination of border control and guest-worker programs or earned legalization – the situation was quite different. There, Republicans lost roughly 4 percentage points, and Democrats gained 4 – a shift in line with national trends.”

September 25, 2007

QUOTE: “They no longer need to hide and pretend they are not here,” Gov. Eliot Spitzer said. “We will not become part of what is propagated on the federal level _ that if we don’t admit they are here, then we can somehow not provide services. That is bad policy.” regarding New York’s plan to provide driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants

September 23, 2007

QUOTE: ”In South Florida, you can’t assume to know the legal status of someone, so we need a term that covers all the bases,” Anders Gyllenhaal, the executive editor, told me, noting the dense mix of asylum cases, Cuban privileges, visas and violations.

September 12, 2007

QUOTE: “Despite all the discussion about immigration, most of the Hispanic growth in the United States, and certainly in the Chicago area, is coming from natural increase,” Johnson said. “So even if the borders were to be closed tomorrow, there’s so much momentum in the large number of young Hispanics in America now that the Hispanic population will continue to grow at a fairly rapid rate.”