CNN reports on the heated exchanges and simmering tensions:

On the surface, the type of heated exchanges that boiled over at a congressional hearing on Monday on immigration reform appeared to center on the two foreign-born suspects in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings.

Beneath the surface, however, simmered tensions over the depth, breadth and pacing of plans to overhaul U.S. immigration policy currently wending through the Senate.

“Last week, opponents of comprehensive immigration reform began to exploit the Boston Marathon bombing. … I urge restraint in that regard,” Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, said at the beginning of Monday’s hearing. “Refugees and asylum-seekers have enriched the fabric of this country from our founding.”

David Leopold, an immigration attorney and past president of the Washington-based American Immigration Lawyers Association says this with regard to cynics of immigration reform:

‘What I do see is the opponents of immigration reform who have no arguments about the morality and politics of (this immigration package) very cynically jumping on this horrible tragedy to derail this bill,’ said David Leopold, an immigration attorney and past president of the Washington-based American Immigration Lawyers Association”

I want to underscore that the 2013 Legal immigration reform bill is a major step forward in securing our Nation because only after everyone is registered and documented will we know who is in our Nation and where we can find them. We know that once we fix the broken immigration system, and once we document all immigrants — then they can feel safe to help law enforcement agencies to target criminal activity without the fear of deportation when they report suspicious activity to the law enforcement authorities. Therefore, bringing the immigrants out of the shadows will only strengthen our Nation’s security.

In late 2006, FAIR hired as its western field representative, a key organizing position, a man named Joseph Turner. Turner was likely attractive to FAIR because he wrote what turned out to be a sort of model anti-illegal immigrant ordinance for the city of San Bernardino, Calif.  Turner had created, and then led, a nativist group called Save Our State. The group was remarkable for its failure to disassociate itself from the neo-Nazi skinheads who often joined its rallies — something that virtually all other nativist groups, worried about bad publicity, worked hard to do. Save Our State’s electronic bulletin board, too, was remarkable for the racist vitriol that frequently appeared there.

It was in that forum that Turner made one of his more controversial remarks, amounting to a defense of white separatism.

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has been lying to the American People about “amnesty” as it relates to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013.  Most Americans understand that the immigration system has been broken for decades and it is disingenuous for them to call the legal immigration plan by the Gang of 8 as “amnesty.”

FAIR has been classified by the SPLC as a known hate group and they state:

At the center of the Tanton web is the nonprofit Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the most important organization fueling the backlash against immigration.Founded by Tanton in 1979, FAIR has long been marked by anti-Latino and anti-Catholic attitudes. It has mixed this bigotry with a fondness for eugenics, the idea of breeding better humans discredited by its Nazi associations. It has accepted $1.2 million from an infamous, racist eugenics foundation. It has employed officials in key positions who are also members of white supremacist groups. Recently, it has promoted racist conspiracy theories about Mexico’s secret designs on the American Southwest and an alternative theory alleging secret plans to merge the United States, Mexico and Canada. …  Tanton has for decades been at the heart of the white nationalist scene. He has corresponded with Holocaust deniers, former Klan lawyers and the leading white nationalist thinkers of the era. He introduced key FAIR leaders to the president of the Pioneer Fund, a white supremacist group set up to encourage “race betterment,” at a 1997 meeting at a private club. He wrote a major funder to encourage her to read the work of a radical anti-Semitic professor — to “give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life” — and suggested that the entire FAIR board discuss the professor’s theories on the Jews. He practically worshipped a principal architect of the Immigration Act of 1924 (instituting a national origin quota system and barring Asian immigration), a rabid anti-Semite whose pro-Nazi American Coalition of Patriotic Societies was indicted for sedition in 1942.

Since immigration is broken, it is imperative that we find reasonable legal solutions that garner  bipartisanship support from both Republicans and Democrats.

As a former bomb dog handler and veteran of the United States Air Force, I want to underscore that the 2013 Legal immigration reform bill is a major step forward in securing our Nation because only after everyone is registered and documented will we know who is in our Nation and where we can find them. We know that once we fix the broken immigration system, and once we document all immigrants — then they can feel safe to help law enforcement agencies to target criminal activity without the fear of deportation when they report suspicious activity to the law enforcement authorities. Therefore, bringing the immigrants out of the shadows will only strengthen our Nation’s security.

The great and former Republican Ronald Reagan gave amnesty, while  the 2013 bipartisanship Act does not.  The 2013 immigration plan is a legal vehicle and a means to reform what has been broken.  Furthermore, and more importantly … the only immigrants who are given privileged amnesty are the Cuban immigrants under the Cuban Adjustment Act where Cuban immigrants receive government benefits once their wet-foot reaches dry-land. Why hasn’t FAIR addressed the privileged Cuban amnesty if they are really against amnesty?  Mexican immigrants do not receive government benefits that Cuban immigrants receive.

It is clear that the immigration system is broken and this is why a bipartisanship effort is needed in order to fix the immigration system via a legal immigration plan.  It appears FAIR does not offer a reasonable policy solution to fixing what is broken because they really are xenophobes.

(Above)  FAIR falsely refers to the Gang of 8 LEGAL comprehensive immigration reform plan as “amnesty.”

Latina-led National Political Movement Welcomes Immigration Discussions / Slams Rep. Steve King

Lincoln, NE / Phoenix, AZ — Somos Independents (a national Latina-led political movement) believe that the introduction of a legal comprehensive bill that includes a pathway to citizenship is a big step forward. We must remember that the designated GOP Presidential candidate just last year was promising to veto the DREAM Act and encouraged self deportation. Thus, this is why we believe this bipartisan cooperation is a big step forward.

Shirl Mora James, a Civil Rights and Immigration Attorney who is also President of Somos Independents states:

This is a much needed step in the right direction for all our families who are aspiring Americans from across the world. We applaud the Gang of 8 U.S. Senators for their courage, foresight and their hard work which begins to address the much needed comprehensive immigration reform.

We look forward to reviewing the bill in its entirety as it relates to the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. We will be diligent in following all the immigration debates, proposed amendment changes and we will keep you updated as such.

It is our belief that our political leaders need to be prudent about this process. We are extremely dismayed and disappointed in the irresponsibility of Iowa Republican Representative Steve King’s xenophobic statements by attempting to use the Boston Marathon national tragedy to stop the forward progress in fixing the broken immigration system. For all King knows, this could be a home-grown domestic terrorist attack likened to the Oklahoma City Bombing or the Centennial Olympic Park Bombing.

The 2013 Legal immigration reform bill is a major step forward in securing our Nation because only after everyone is registered and documented will we know who is in our Nation and where we can find them. We know that once we fix the broken immigration system, and once we document all immigrants — then they can feel safe to help law enforcement agencies to target criminal activity without the fear of deportation when they report suspicious activity to the law enforcement authorities. Therefore, bringing the immigrants out of the shadows will only strengthen our Nation’s security.

###

SOMOS INDEPENDENTS (formerly known as the National Tequila Party Movement) is a woman-led political movement. It is our goal to communicatto women and Latina matriarchs across the nation with regard to the need in fixing the broken immigration system. We organize events, and college rallies that encourages a massive Latino Get Out The Vote and political participation. This movement is a non-partisan movement. We don’t care how people vote, we just want them to get on the early ballot system, become consistent primary and general election voters.

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:

Shirl Mora James is a Civil Rights and Immigration lawyer in the Midwest who has committed her life to protecting a woman’s right to choose in keeping their babies.   Shirl is also the President of a woman-led movement via SOMOS INDEPENDENTS (formerly the National Tequila Party Movement) who testified in the Nebraska legislature in support of women who want to keep their babes. She is not your ordinary internet arm  chair revolutionary — nay, she walks her talk not limited to hosting rallies in an effort to increase getting out the vote and conducting educational seminars with regard to the DREAM Act and DACA.  She is a mover and a shaker and you can hear her testimony here.

PRO LIFE Showdown as Republicans Attack “Brown” Women Who Choose Life

We are happy to announce Janssen’s efforts have failed. Life won today and evil plans by organizations like FAIR and the John Tanton network were destroyed.  Hallelujah.

According to 1011 Now:

Lawmakers have halted an attempt to repeal state-funded prenatal care for the unborn children of illegal immigrants in Nebraska.

The Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee voted 6-0 to kill the measure, with one lawmaker abstaining. Janssen says he was disappointed with the vote.

Here is Shirl Mora James testimony regarding prenatal care … one more time for the gipper!

Photo taken by DeeDee Blase in Phoenix while watching Obama’s re-election speech.

The best line in his speech last night was when he said:

“We are and forever will be the United States of America.”

It was my first time voting for a Democratic President – ever.

Indeed it has been a crazy election year, and I am glad to retire from hard core grassroots activism now.

I was surprised to learn that it was the Republican Presidential Candidate via Mitt Romney who profited  approximately $50 million in the abortion industry via Stericycle despite their pro life platform.  How did the Republican Party support a man who made $50 million dollars regarding abortions?  Did the GOP change that much?  Indeed they did; in fact, the RNC included an anti-immigrant official platform one week before their 2012 Convention in Florida.  The John Tanton Network and FAIR thoroughly hijacked them. Republicans are now being viewed more and more each day as the modern-day Dixiecrats of old (reminiscent of the pre Civil Rights era).

What must the Democratic Party do in order to prevent Latinos from registering as independent voters?

Indeed we did listen to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s victory speech on television last night where he told the whole world that “he is merely enforcing the law” and if “people” have a problem with the law then the law should be changed.  This should be a clear signal to all how Arpaio and his minions are hungry to place more blame on the Democratic Party and this is precisely why the Democratic Party must act swiftly.

We all know that Latino and immigration activists sent the Democratic Party a signal earlier this year by threatening not voting for Democratic candidates if they did not see fixes to immigration reform.

We then saw the Deferred Action take place.

Indeed the deferred action is a temporary fix, but it beats the self-deportation policies the Republicans were supporting.  That said, the Democratic Party must act fast and not insult the intelligence of Latino voters anymore.  We are glad to learn that the Nevada Senator Harry Reid has vowed to work on legal immigration reform.

She lost her daughter when she left them to a “Christian” couple to take care of when she had to leave for a bit. When she returned to take them back, they refused and she filed a lawsuit. She lost.

The Democratic Party has less than two years (well before the 2014 midterm election cycle) to fix the broken immigration system while offering a legal immigration comprehensive plan.  If and when the Democratic Party finds itself becoming threatened by restrictionist, isolationist and protectionist Republicans in the House of Representatives … the Democratic Party must outwit them and micro-target 2014 House seats where an increase and heavy Latino voting population exists.

The Democratic Party must take proactive moves and outmaneuver the isolationists or risk alienating Mexican-Americans (the fast growing ethnic group within the Latino population).

The responsibility does not rest on the Democratic Party either because we will be watching so-called Latino leaders and immigration activists accountable, too, to see if they hold Democratic Party leadership and their feet to the fire.  Will Latino and immigration activists look the other way and continue to be sheeple?  Or will they be more assertive with regard to the immigration issue?

Time will tell.

In any event, the Democratic Party must make moves to the legal immigration regard or else deal with Ruben Navarrette’s continued finger pointing.

Mexican-Americans are tired of the immigration issue being used as a political football, and now that Latinos and women essentially helped vote in  President Obama … and in light of key Democratic U.S. Senate seats being won – there are no excuses with regard to taking care of Homeland issues.  Indeed Americans are tired of spending millions of dollars on war and abroad – it is time to fix things here at home that will only benefit the American economy and our aging population.

A healthy and legal immigration solution will secure our borders, create a safer North American Continent and promote a stronger relationship with our contiguous neighbors.  Enforcement-only initiatives promote a situation that emulates the failed days of Prohibition, which serves only to encourage the underground labor market.  Our government needs the additional tax revenues that new immigrants generate in order to sustain the burgeoning entitlement programs baby boomers require as they continue to retire.  By developing a reasonable legal immigration plan, we create a system where immigrants share American tax burdens as they continue to contribute millions of dollars into our tax coffers.  New immigrants sharing our tax burdens will help discourage our government from increasing taxes, because under the current system these entitlement programs will drain all federal revenues within 15 years.

Luna the Moon Child

By DeeDee Garica Blase

I watched her pen a letter of heart break.
She wrote as fast as she could before our destination of roses and final rest.

Baby girl, don’t cry.
How can I wipe your tears dry?
Your momma’s gonna be all right.
Continue the good fight.

It’s our spirit that grows strong
We’ll meet him again someday, just believe and know you belong.

He is right here with us
He never abandoned
His love was the ultimate sacrifice
And it came with a price

Baby girl, please don’t cry
Please just try in this life
I know it’s hard
But we have no choice to play our card

Baby girl, please don’t cry
I wish there was something I could do to wipe your tears dry.

Luna is the moon child
He’s with us every night…
And our combined love is gonna make everything all right.

Don’t you know?
Your tears gave me strength to take a thousand more arrows.

Baby girl, everything’s gonna be all right
Just believe and have the faith that he’s with us tonight
Because the clouds have already passed,
and only stars will illuminate our paths.

Nina is Joaquin Luna’s sister. Joaquin Luna was a DREAMer who took his life the day after Thanksgiving 2011 because he felt he had no hope. This photo was taken when we were on our way to protest the GOP and the corrupt Sheriff Joe Arpaio. We made a stop to visit the Joaquin Luna family in south Texas.

[sarcasm] Congratulations, GOP:  You are now a tool for pro abortion activist John Tanton who is known for his anti-semitism.  You are officially hypocrites. [/sarcasm]

The Republican Party has officially endorsed its backing for Arizona-style state immigration laws, adding into its platform language that such laws should be “encouraged, not attacked” and calling for the federal government to drop its lawsuits against the laws.

That language and other provisions were widely approved by the party after being introduced by the co-author of the Arizona law, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R).  FULL STORY.

Mormons like Russell Pearce, J.T. Ready and Mitt Romney give the Mormon church a bad name.  Mormons in the State of Arizona need to identify FAIR, Kris Kobach, John Tanton, and anti-immigrant groups as evil and vile right now!  This is a racist game costing lives including another toddler!  Isn’t it enough when we had to hear about the minutemen killing Brisenia Flores who was in fetal position begging for her life?

I believe the prophet of the Mormon Church should disseminate communications quickly and aggressively on how dangerous racism is via the hate laws being implemented against immigrants and Latinos — and who is behind them.  Why should the Mormon church step in again?  Come on, Thomas Monson … I’m talking to you, and I know you have the power to do this.  These hate laws are costing lives of my people and I take issue with Mitt Romney who was “proud to receive the endorsement and support” of Kris Kobach — a well known bigot.  Mitt is a Mormon, and he needs to be told how the Mormon missionaries are out in Latin America converting Latinos to Mormonism.  We are all supposed to be brothers and sisters under the sun.  Mitt Romney needs to be told that Kris Kobach is an evil and hateful bigot, and he needs to disassociate himself and reject Kobach’s endorsement right now.  We need to see Mormon leadership again because there are more lives at stake here and it will only get worse unless  the good people who claim to be religious step in.  Commit to memory how Mormons felt about the self deportation and extermination order of Missouri and how Mitt Romney stated he was in support of self-deportation laws.  The John Tanton network and Kris Kobach has been at the helm behind many of these hate laws.   This is an emergency.  Minutemen have already killed innocent people in the state of Arizona, and we are tired of hearing about killings against my people due to these hate and anti-immigrant laws.

We are watching this case closely.

From the Arizona Central:

A border militia leader on Wednesday shot and killed four people at a Gilbert home, including a toddler, before committing suicide, sources said.

Sources identified the shooter as Jason “J.T.” Ready, a reputed neo-Nazi who made headlines when he launched a militia movement to patrol the Arizona desert to hunt for illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/2012/05/02/20120502gilbert-shooting-multiple-victims-abrk.html#ixzz1tkz6kFpX

From Stephen Lemons with the Phoenix New Times: