Kris Kobach is the legal arm of Arizona’s SB1070 and he is affiliated with the Heritage Foundation

I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

As a Mexican-American, I am glad the Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio is denouncing the Heritage Immigration Study.  We are glad to see this because Kris Kobach was the legal architect of Arizona’s SB1070, and also a non staff member at The Heritage Foundation.

Florida’s Sen Rubio stated:

“Their argument is based on a single premise, which I think is flawed,” Rubio told reporters. “That is these people are disproportionately poor because they have no education and they will be poor for the rest of their lives in the U.S. Quite frankly that’s not the immigration experience in the U.S. That’s certainly not my family’s experience in the U.S. The folks described in that report are my family. My mother and dad didn’t graduate high school and I would not say they were a burden on the United States…My parents were a lot better off 25 years after they emigrated here than they were when they first got here. And their children certainly have been. I still think we’re that country. And I still think we can be that country and even more in the future, so I guess I just have a lot more belief in the future of the country than some of the folks that helped prepare [the report].”

Rubio is from Florida showing leadership while we are seeing the Texas Cuban-American Senator Ted Cruz still missing in action

The tail has been wagging the dog, but it will be time for the dog to wag the tail. Cruz had better do better than to offer Mexicans and undocumented Latinos table scraps.

with regard to the Gang of 8 comprehensive immigration reform that will fix the clearly broken immigration system.  Did you know that Texas shares 64% of the southern border with Mexico yet there is no leadership from Cruz?

Why isn’t Cuban-American Ted Cruz showing CIR leadership in his own State that is home to millions and millions of Mexican-Americans?!

Almost half of the Texas population is of Mexican descent, yet the Cuban – American Senator Ted Cruz doesn’t seem to care to support the Gang of 8 legal immigration fix.

Sen. Ted Cruz who is the son of a Cuban immigrant has family in the United States that have migrated to our Country and have benefited from privileged Cuban amnesty via the Cuban Adjustment Act.

You will hear Cruz try to play your heart strings when he tells a (pretend sob story) on how his daddy came to the States with $100 bucks sown into his underwear.

According to FOX NEWS:

Cruz’s father Rafael is a pastor outside Dallas. He fought with Fidel Castro’s rebels in Cuba before Castro took power and eventually embraced communism, and the elder Cruz fled to the U.S. with nothing but $100 sowed into his underwear.

But according to the inflation calculator, $100.00 back then is equivalent to $826.21 today.  That is a whole helluva lot more money than the dying immigrant crossing the desert comes here with.  Many immigrants crossing the desert die of dehydration.

(Photo Credit: US Coast Guard) Cocaine recovered from a drug sub in the Caribbean.

Here’s a question for you: Why does the Gang of 8 immigration comprehensive bill isolate it’s so-called border security to just the southern border with Mexico?

Why is the Gang 0f 8 putting $3 billion additional dollars to watch the Mexican border but not the Canadian border, too?

Did you know we have undocumented Canadians in our Nation, too?

Why not put additional border security on the Canadian border and the Floridian border since drugs are trafficked through the Caribbean, too?

Indeed a $180 million drug submarine bust was made in the Carribean.

In fact just last month, 2 suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were busted in Canada before they could wreak havoc on the rails by blowing up a New York-to-Toronto passenger train.

New York Daily Headline News

Where are the so called pro National Security people (Cornyn, Cruz, Vitter and Grassley) at with regard to the entire border of our country?

As a proud woman veteran of our Armed Forces, I believe we should protect all of our borders that touch Canada, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean, too!

Why are we just focusing in on the “brown” border?  See the hypocrisy of our elected and public officials?

See below from America’s Voice with regard to anti-immigrant hardliners like Sens. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), John Cornyn (R-TX), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and David Vitter (R-LA).  These aforementioned Senators did not support the DREAM Act / Gang of 8 comprehensive immigration reform plan that affects millions of Mexican-Americans.

DREAM Act activist Cesar Vargas states:

Said Cesar Vargas, DREAMer and Director of DRM Action Coalition, “As DREAMers, we see a genuine effort by many Republicans to debate and finally resolve the issue of our outdated immigration system. But fringe voices like Senators Cruz, Sessions, Cornyn, Vitter, and Grassley have resorted to baseless attacks on immigrant and Latino families. Their main objective is to kill the bill. We are asking all Senators to not be naive and mark them for what they really are: obstructionist members of the ‘Gang of Hate.’”

I encourage you to read this and remember that we are better off now than we were a year ago when the GOP would only discuss self-deportation ideas. I received the Senate Summary information from David Leopold who is the immediate past President of AILA.

You can see this summary here:  revised-outline-of-immigration-bill-4-15-2

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro is a representative that understand the immigration hardships. Texas has the longest border length with Mexico (64%) and he understands the problems and solutions to fix this broken immigration system. His statement includes: ““As a Texan who has witnessed the hardships our broken immigration system presents for immigrants and their families, my friends and neighbors, it is very important to me that we finally resolve this long-debated issue. We need to overhaul our current immigration system by working on a comprehensive solution that includes an earned path to citizenship and a continuation of our border enforcement. President Obama has made immigration reform a top priority for his administration, and I thank him for his leadership. I am also encouraged to see a group of bipartisan Senators making progress by finding common ground on this issue. As we move forward, it is essential that any legislation includes objective measures for border enforcement that seriously examine the state of our current immigration system and make processing of those already in the system efficient, so that American citizenship for those in the back of the line is not just an illusion. We cannot keep moving the goal posts on meaningful reform. I am hopeful and look forward to a bipartisan solution to this important American issue.”

Shirl Mora James with both (R) Sen. Chuck Hagel and U.S. Senate (D) candidate Bob Kerrey.

Just in via Shirl Mora James, a Civil Rights and Immigration Lawyer and President of SOMOS INDEPENDENTS (woman-led movement in support of legal immigration reform).

The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Press Conference has been cancelled by the Gang of 8 in light of the Boston bombing incident.

This information has been confirmed.  According to David Nakamura of the WAPOST:

You might like the comparison Lou made in that if Cubans benefited by the Cuban Readjustment Act of 1966, and if Puerto Ricans were granted amnesty as early as 1917 . . . Why can’t Mexicans be viewed as refugee of the carnage in Mexico and get granted similar relief?  He also states that many of the nationals who served in the military, but were subsequently deported due to the 1996 INA law which made any conviction a deportable offense, that we are disrespecting our own veterans.

In case you missed it “live” … IN THE FIRST HALF: Lou and Bobby express their anger at the impending Gang-of-Eight plan for immigration as being too little and unreasonable. In “Arpaio Watch” one Undocumented worker goes free due to Arpaio’s incompetence.

It looks like the Texas Senator (Cuban-American) Ted Cruz is the poster boy for Numbers USA.  According to the SPLC, Roy Beck, was head of the immigration-restriction group NumbersUSA.

SPLC states:

Beck leads an organization that has reached the heights of mainstream legitimacy, a position that helped NumbersUSA achieve dramatic policy successes, most especially in June 2007, when his followers flooded the Senate with more than a million faxes. (The onslaught helped doom comprehensive immigration reform that had bipartisan support and had been expected by many observers to pass.) He has long insisted that NumbersUSA has no “vision of a homogenous white America,” and his website decries all manner of “immigrant bashing” and racism.

But John Tanton has come to be an embarrassment. His longstanding connections to white nationalist ideologues, his flirtation with anti-Semitism, and his many racist statements about Latinos have become well known — and are a huge liability for Beck and his restrictionist program. Pressed, Beck claims he is not ashamed of his mentor. But Tanton’s name is nowhere on his website. John Tanton, it seems, is undermining Roy Beck’s respectability.

“It is amazing that Beck has attained the mainstream status he has, considering where he comes from,” concludes Henry Fernandez, a senior fellow at the progressive Center for American Progress, a think tank based in Washington, D.C. “His extremely close and decades-long relationship with Tanton should give pause to anyone who deals with NumbersUSA.”

NumbersUSA uploaded the below photo of Ted Cruz on their facebook page approximately 10 hours ago:

NumbersUSA

Does this mean Cruz is against privileged amnesty Cuban immigrants receive via the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966?

Is the Tea Party politician Cruz against Cuban immigrants receiving government benefit$ once their wet foot touches dry land since Tea Party people claim to be in support of doing away with tax payer funded government entitlement$?

What about the Cuban immigrant dry foot that touches dry land?  Is this why we are seeing a spike with regard to Cuban immigrants coming through Mexico?

That said, let it be understood the Texas Senator is on the record for ending his speeches with a story about how his father fled Cuban oppression.  According to the Dallas News, “his father departed for the U.S. in 1957, more than a year before Fidel Castro came to power.”

Cruz stated:

“My dad fled Cuba. He was imprisoned and tortured as a teenager, and came to Austin penniless, seeking freedom. The reason I’m running is simple. He fled oppression once. And you have my word that I’ll fight every day to protect freedom here, so that none of us have to flee oppression a second time.”

Penniless?

I thought his dad had money sowed into his underwear?  According to the inflation calculator, $100.00 back then is equivalent to $826.21 today.  That is a whole helluva lot more money than the dying immigrant crossing the desert comes here with.  Many immigrants crossing the desert die of dehydration.

According to FOX NEWS:

Cruz’s father Rafael is a pastor outside Dallas. He fought with Fidel Castro’s rebels in Cuba before Castro took power and eventually embraced communism, and the elder Cruz fled to the U.S. with nothing but $100 sowed into his underwear.

If Cruz believes in the idea of fleeing oppression and the corrupt Fidel Castro — doesn’t he know that Mexico’s corrupt score is worse than Cuba’s according to the Global Coalition Against Corruption?

I know a bunch of immigrants who came here  without a single dime to their name, and they come here to avoid the oppressive drug cartels.   They come here not seeking government entitlements and are not afraid of working in the hot agricultural fields  for a hard earned day’s pay.  Most immigrants do not receive a year’s worth of government entitlement$ the Cuban immigrants receive.

According to the Dallas News:

Date:  Friday, April 5, 2013

Time:  7:00 pm

Location:The Lot -  1005 North Second Street, Phoenix, AZ.

The Tequila Party CD and our concert is a political expression via art and music to push for fixing the broken immigration system.  Artists contributing to this cause believe in a humane and legal immigration plan.  We support the DREAM Act and more importantly, we believe in Mexican-American / Chicano / Latin empowerment. We know that leadership must arise from the ethnic community (via the Mexican-Americans) who have been most hurt and most affected.  It is a fact that the majority of those who are being deported are of Mexican descent.  Mexican-Americans are a rising population muscle and they account for almost 70% of the Latino population pie.  It is time to stand firm against  what politicians in Arizona refer to as “Operation Wetback.”  It is time to support and defend those who are afraid to defend themselves.

That said, we are also selling t-shirts that depict bully Sheriff Joe Arpaio as the devil or el diablo in revolutionary red (see below image).  The t-shirt design was created by the fine artist El Moises — an artist of Arizona.   The State of Arizona may try to bring our spirits down — but it is through adversity that makes us work harder and with fervor.  Politicians may try to eliminate Chicano or Ethnic Studies and our history, but that history will be sought out and live in our hearts forever.

All t-shirt and CD artwork by El Moises Not For Reproduction-Copyright www. artedemoises.com

C/S

Arizona photographer, Sam Gomez, holds up photograph of man climbing Mexican border wall.

Tuesday evening, Friday 12, 2013,  Mexican-Americans will be listening to Cuban-American Sen. Marco Rubio’s State of the Union response on immigration.

Here are the things we will be listening for:

1.  Whether or not Rubio retracts his support for Arizona’s SB 1070 law that has harmed thousands of families and our economy in Arizona.

2.  Whether or not Rubio defers strong leadership to Border State elected officials in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. Will Rubio mention Latin Elected Officials in Texas since Texas has the largest border length, and since Texas knows the ins and outs of border problems and solutions?

3.  Why didn’t Rubio support the DREAM Act in December 2010 when we needed him the most?  Is it because Florida turned ‘blue‘ during the 2012 Presidential election cycle?  Rubio has to support immigration if he does not want to be a one-term Senator.  [This could also explain why we witnessed 'yellow' bellies regarding the Texas GOP leaders Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen John Cornyn (with regard to Super 8 on CIR) because Texas is still 'red' in Presidential cycles.]

I don’t think Rubio  wants to go down in history as being a one-term Senator….and he has to fix the immigration damage he caused since 2010 when he did NOT support the DREAM Act.   If Rubio really cares about the solutions to the border problems….the speech will not be just about himself…he will divert attention to the Border state leaders in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Califas. Keep in mind that ‘Hispanic’ Texas Senator Ted Cruz was not part of the Immigration (Super Eight) leadership even though Texas is the state with the LARGEST border length in the country.

In the meantime, I want to share an op-ed by David Leopold who is the immediate past President of AILA.

Rubio’s State of the Union Response: An Historic Opportunity to Lead

“….But Rubio has an opportunity to do much more than mend fences for the Republicans. He has an historic chance to show he is not a merely a politician tasked by party elders to reach out to a disgruntled constituency, but a statesman. He can embody the bipartisan leadership in Congress that our nation needs: senators and representatives who are willing to put politics aside and partner with President Obama in an effort to fix the dysfunctional mess of an immigration system that plagues America, tearing families apart and stifling the economy. He can be the courageous leader the GOP needs, one with the guts to wrench his party out of the dark corner of the anti-immigrant fringe and into an enlightened national conversation on immigration reform. ….