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Americans do not add O and A to legitimize themselves; gringO y gringA todos.

Unsurprisingly, the presence of this large immigrant group is affecting the way Hispanics think of themselves. One aspect of the report that is bound to provoke controversy — and, in some quarters, resentment — is how few Hispanics identify themselves first and foremost as Americans. Only 8 percent of immigrants, 35 percent of second-generation Hispanics and 48 percent of third-generation Hispanics do, according to the Pew study. The question is, why?

www.dispatch.com/content/stories/editorials/2012/04/10/hispanics-in-u-s–more-diverse-study-shows.html

Census count finds decreasing white population in 15 states

www.washingtonpost.com/local/census-count-finds-decreasing-white-population-in-15-states/2011/09/29/gIQA2aDJ8K_story.html

Interactive: Mapping the census

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/nation/census/2010/

Nearly twenty years ago, Eugene McCarthy warned you. Quoting from Three Quarter Cadillac: “If one thinks of the classic definition of colonialism—the arrival of a large number of people who impose their cultural values and language on the preexisting society—it is hard not to define the current wave of immigration as a colonizing force on the United States. What distinguishes the United States from other colonized societies is that we have the power to prevent it, and choose not to use it. The backward societies of Asia and Africa were powerless to oppose the colonial hegemony exercised by the European powers in centuries past. We, on the other hand, have come to question whether the culture that built a society that has the world beating a path to our doors is even worth trying to preserve. In this social climate, immigration becomes an instrument of divisiveness, as it imposes new cultures and languages on American society.” 47

Eugene McCarthy, A Colony of the World: The United States Today, (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992), 101.

You weren’t paying attention.

Obama administration widens challenges to state immigration laws

Jerry Markon, Published: September 29

The Obama administration is escalating its crackdown on tough immigration laws, with lawyers reviewing four new state statutes to determine whether the federal government will take the extraordinary step of challenging the measures in court.

Justice Department lawyers have sued Arizona and Alabama, where a federal judge on Wednesday allowed key parts of that state’s immigration law to take effect but blocked other provisions. Federal lawyers are talking to Utah officials about a third possible lawsuit and are considering legal challenges in Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina, according to court documents and government officials.

The level of federal intervention is highly unusual, legal experts said, especially because civil rights groups already have sued most of those states. Typically, the government files briefs or seeks to intervene in other lawsuits filed against state statutes.

“I don’t recall any time in history that the Justice Department has so aggressively challenged state laws,” said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University Law School.

The legal skirmishing comes as immigration emerges as a defining issue in the presidential campaign and Hispanic voters play an increasingly influential role. Most Republican candidates are calling for a hard line on the nation’s estimated 12 million illegal immigrants — and criticizing Texas Gov. Rick Perry for some of his positions on the issue.

President Obama is staking out a position on the other side. He told a roundtable of Latino reporters Wednesday that Arizona’s immigration law created “a great danger that naturalized citizens, individuals with Latino surnames, potentially could be vulnerable to questioning. The laws could be potentially abused in ways that were not fair to Latino citizens.”

The Arizona law passed last year — requiring police to check immigration status if they stop someone while enforcing other laws — triggered a fierce national debate. A Justice Department lawsuit led federal courts to block that measure’s most contested provisions, but similar laws have been approved in recent months in Alabama, Utah, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina. At least 17 other states have considered such measures this year.

Although Wednesday’s ruling in Alabama was something of a setback, the Justice Department and civil rights groups have been on a winning streak. The American Civil Liberties Union and other groups have obtained rulings temporarily blocking all or key parts of immigration laws in Utah, Georgia and Indiana, with Republican- and Democrat-appointed judges blasting the measures as devoid of due-process protections or for targeting illegal immigrants.

Now, the administration is under pressure from some quarters to intervene in those states, as well as in South Carolina, where a new immigration law is set to take effect Jan. 1. Civil rights groups have been lobbying the executive branch, according to people familiar with the effort, and the ACLU is circulating an online petition calling for federal laws

Utah, by contrast, is urging the government to stay out of court. Mark Shurtleff, Utah’s Republican attorney general, has met with senior Justice officials, who he said are considering whether to join the civil rights lawsuit as a plaintiff.

“We believe our defense is much better if the Justice Department is not the one saying our law is superseded by federal law,” said Shurtleff, who added that Utah “worked very hard and carefully to make our law different from Arizona” so it is constitutiona

Conservatives have criticized the Obama administration for suing Arizona, and some legal observers said they detect political motives in the administration’s additional legal steps. The White House has been trying to rekindle excitement among Hispanic voters, many of whom have been disappointed over Obama’s immigration policies.

Justice officials have denied any political motives and said they are proceeding based on the facts and the law. Obama and Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. have been critical of the state measures, with the president also telling Wednesday’s roundtable, “We can’t have a patchwork of 50 states with 50 different immigration laws.”

Xochitl Hinojosa, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said lawyers are reviewing the Utah, Indiana, Georgia and South Carolina laws and the “legal principles” established in the Arizona case.

“Based on that review and applying those principles, the United States will decide whether and when to bring suit challenging particular state laws,” Hinojosa said.

Hovering over the debate is the possible involvement of the Supreme Court. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in April that the most contested parts of Arizona’s immigration law will remain blocked from taking effect, and the high court could decide to hear the case this term. That would mean a decision before the 2012 presidential election.

“My guess is that they will take it,” said Jonathan Benner, a Washington lawyer who has argued numerous cases involving federal-state conflicts. “This is the kind of case that is most interesting to the Supreme Court.”

The other state statutes include a range of provisions, such as authorizing police to question people’s immigration status in certain circumstances, limiting the ability of immigrants to use some forms of identification and criminalizing the harboring of illegal immigrants.

The Justice Department and civil rights groups are arguing that the laws will lead to harassment of immigrants or racial profiling and that they are “preempted” under federal law, which gives the U.S. government control of immigration enforcement.

“You’d have to be crazy to pass one of these laws, knowing you’re buying yourself an enormous lawsuit,” said Cecillia D. Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project. She called the Alabama statute, signed into law in June, “by far the most draconian and extreme.”

The Justice Department and a coalition of civil rights groups sued over the law, which requires public school officials to determine citizenship by seeking children’s birth certificates. Civil rights advocates say that will keep some children out of school because their parents will fear being deported.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Sharon Blackburn allowed that provision to take effect, along with other elements of the law, until she can issue a final ruling. But she temporarily blocked other provisions, including those making it a crime for illegal immigrants to solicit work or to transport or harbor illegal immigrants.

Alabama lawyers have backed the law’s constitutionality, and Gov. Robert Bentley (R) on Wednesday called it “the strongest immigration law in the country.” Other states also have defended their laws.

But some judges have been highly critical. In Indiana, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker in June blocked the two most contested parts of that state’s law. The provisions would authorize warrantless arrests of illegal immigrants in certain circumstances and make it a crime to accept an identification card used by many immigrants.

Barker, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan, called the law “seriously flawed” and said parts of the state’s defense were “entirely fanciful.”

Indiana officials are defending their law, and Greg Zoeller (R), the state’s attorney general, said the judge’s ruling “can be seen as an indictment of the federal government on their failure to enact and enforce immigration policy.”

dpakelle
What illegal needs America-hating support groups such as the ACLU or LaRaza when they have the Obama administration?
9/29/2011 12:57:41 PM EDT

ecrutle
What next; voter registration (in Spanish) at 7/11 convenience stores? Holder and Obama must go. This is getting beyond ridiculous.
9/29/2011 12:57:47 PM EDT

Paroxisia
If you haven’t noticed, all official communication regarding Metro, Work Place Laws, etc. is coming out in English and Spanish.
9/29/2011 12:59:05 PM EDT

scottmmanson1
Gotta make sure they stay in the country at least until november 2012 – obama will need avery vote (legal or not) he can get
9/29/2011 12:58:05 PM EDT

wheeljc
At what point in time will Team Obama start realizing that states are taking action BECAUSE TEAM OBAMA HAS FAILED? 
WOW! And he wants folks to reelect him!!!!
9/29/2011 12:58:35 PM EDT

teabag4ever
This is perhaps the only area where I agree with the Obama admistration. Cracking down on “illegal immigrants” is tatamount to class warfare. Removing illegals from the workforce benefits citizens at the lowest end of the earnings distribution at the expense of small business owners who hire these workers on a catcha-as-catch can baisis. Not only will this impede economic activity, it does so at the expense of the US tax payers.
9/29/2011 12:58:38 PM EDT

britlib
Can you Yanks increase the bile and hatred you have toward each other please.?

You’re coming across as a namby-pamby bunch of whiners…..

Let’s see some anger.

I want my money’s worth!
9/29/2011 1:03:19 PM ED

postmoderator
This comment has been deleted by a moderator for violating the site’s discussion policy.
9/29/2011 1:04:19 PM EDT

SparkySparky
And the states are left holding the bag to pay for education and health care for illegal immigrants. Maryland has to shell out something close to $1.8 billion per year to support illegal aliens.
9/29/2011 1:16:00 PM EDT

ArmyColdWarVet
Being able to count illegal residents in the Census allows California to have disproportionate representation in the Electoral College-maybe the law needs to be changed that the distribution of Congressmembers be based only on the total of registered voters.
9/29/2011 2:42:03 PM EDT

Airborne82
Georgia is putting taxpayers on the hook for tens of millions to pay for detention beds, while killing it’s own cotten and fruit picking farming industries. It will be a financial windfall for Cheney’s and other for profit detention companies.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/29/world/asia/getti…
9/29/2011 1:18:35 PM EDT

ArmyColdWarVet
Saying that not being able to violate the law and use illegal labor will kill agricultural industry is like saying that not being able to dump toxic waste in a river will kill our chemical and steel industries.
9/29/2011 2:35:30 PM EDT

BetsyRossAMERICAN
1 in 12 babies born in the US today is the product of illegal immigration.

$113 BILLION wasted on illegals in 2009 (last available data).

16% of the population from So of the border yet 30% Federal incarceration rate.

71% of illegal households collect welfare.

END ANCHOR STATUS DEPORT
9/29/2011 1:19:38 PM ED

oldgirl3
Actually BetsyRoss: It’s one in NINE, per a Pew Hispanic Study done in 2009. The cost to the American taxpayer is a staggering 30 billion dollars a year.
9/29/2011 7:15:18 PM EDT

Paroxisia
In this country, we have a new reality where schools are strached by children of illigal immigrants (most of whom are religious yet have children before marriage), our welfare is stretched supporting their single mothers, our police/prisons are burdened by numbers of them incarcarated, commiting crime and gang violence that they have imported here. People who want to get a job cannot because the employers are afraid to hhire Americans and pay them under the table, but not illigals because they have no rights and hence cannot say anything. And I would probably be more understanding if they were running here because they are persecuted in their county or there is a genocide, but it is mere economic opportunity that they are coming here for and if you look at Mexico’s Current Account, the remitances from US is a big chunk oof it and mexican Government actually encouraged people to cross the border.
9/29/2011 1:19:52 PM EDT

ferrylas

NO!!!!……..Britlib

The benefits of illegal immigrants pales in comparison to the cost to US taxpayers in Health care, welfare, schooling of the kids,out of proportion numbers engaged in criminal activities that necessitate jail time for some of these illegals.

For these reasons alone…Obama’s pandering for votes should make him a 1 term President as he ignores US Immigration laws.
9/29/2011 1:37:08 PM EDT

yankeefan1925
Remember when right wingers, such as Pat Buchanan, criticized Janet Reno for upholding our immigration laws in the Elian Gonzales case?
Didn’t they accuse her of bullying?
Clifford Spencer
9/30/2011 6:12:36 PM EDT

RedStater3
WTF are you talking about? Elian Gonzalez was a custody case, not an immigration issue.
9/30/2011 9:43:51 PM EDT

ekakuku
Why would this lawless Administration ever want border security or enforcement of laws pertaining to 
ILLEGALS? Illegals can vote, sometimes 3 or 4 times. All good and well for Obama.
9/30/2011 6:11:11 PM EDT

bb67chev
END ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION IN MARYLAND. STOP FUNDING CASA OF MARYLAND. NO IN-STATE COLLEGE TUITION FOR ILLEGAL ALIEN STUDENTS.
JOIN WWW.HELPSAVEMARYLAND.COM
9/30/2011 4:58:07 PM EDT

Gooddogs
Perhaps the only thing good that is coming out of our economic situation is that people are relearning what a shovel and yard tools are, since that is expense to outsource, even to illegal labor. And, magic side benefit, it is real exercise.
9/30/2011 4:53:56 PM EDT

www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-administration-widens-challenges-to-state-immigration-laws/2011/09/28/gIQA8HgR7K_story.html

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