Immigration in the U.S. Versus Migration in the U.K.By: Emmanuel "M3KY" Lopez

*It certainly has been a very long time since I have written one of many in-depth political blogs for my few readers. Approximately 8-9 months while all the in between has been poetry, articles not written by me, and hip-hop. Thought I would revive the old horse (is that even a saying or did I make/mix it up?).*

This all started Sunday Morning when I opened up our weekly Newspaper a local, Latino, Bilingual Newspaper ironically name "El Conquistador.” Irony being that the Conquistadores fucked over the indigenous people of Latin America over, raped our land, and killed our people. On the cover it showed ICE officers taking Mexican Immigrants in a raid which have been occurring all over the United States and over the picture it says “the raids continue” in Spanish. Workplaces are constantly being raided by ICE officials with everyone being rounded up, searched, identified, and those with valid S.S cards (Social Security) released while those without them are apprehended. Inside they had an article which was titled “Economic Crisis Blamed on Immigrants.” Could that really be the case or is it another scapegoat to make people believe it is the real reason for the economic crisis? Sadly enough Americans are so idiotic that they would believe a statement like that just like a Republican wont put blame on him/herself for 8 years of incompetent leadership OR competent enough to make themselves rich.

It is very difficult in a country much like our own to avoid having a statement like that lead to arguments about racism because in fact much of this derives from racism against Latinos. Yes this is Latino in general because just about all Latinos are discriminated against because of this, ever since the government decided to become “strict” on immigration you must carry all your information around with you to prove you are “one of their own.” Years ago you could take proof of address and your birth certificate to the DMV in order to get a State ID. Now you have to take both of those items and your social security card in so you can receive it and the same goes for work permits required to get a job if underage. So what exactly does that have to do with Latinos in general? Well just like here in America every Asian is called Chinese because you wont bother to differentiate them by language, dialect, or culture. The same goes for Latinos because the average American thinks every other Puerto Rican along with Central to South American are Mexicans. Either way becoming “strict” in this way is just a cheap excuse to make people think they are finding a solution to something they have considered a problem.

So do you really believe that racism doesn’t play a factor here? Many say that racism is not an issue in America anymore, fuck all that we have progressed so much that it really isn’t. See the thing is when people in America are taught or learn about racism it is a black and white picture, literally. They see it in a way that confines them to think only what we have already gone through because come on they don’t want to see the civil right’s era reborn, that was a time where the “little guy” posed a huge threat to the power-bloc in America. The civil right’s involved White America versus Black America which has a long standing history of 2 centuries in the US alone. The other color people are not seeing is the brown yet they think they shouldn’t because they are not American in the first place. Here is a story that depicts how this anti-immigrant sentiment really is leading up to actions committed against blacks before and during the civil right’s era.

“ Los Angeles, Alta California - July 22, 2008 - (ACN) In a heinous hate crime reminiscent of the dragging death of one and the savage beating of five elderly Mexican agricultural workers by eight Whites youths in north San Diego County,California on July of 2000, six White juveniles viciously beat and killed a Mexican father of three children in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania while yelling racial slurs at the victim.

The horrific beating of 25-year-old Luis Eduardo Ramirez Zavala of Guanajuato,Mexico occurred on July 12 and he died in intensive care two days later. What makes this case particularly disturbing is that even though there is ample evidence and witnesses that point to the criminals, to this date there have been no arrests in the case. Five of the six killers are allegedly members of the town's much revered Shenandoah Valley High School football team called "The Blue Devils."

Shenandoah Police Chief Matthew Nestor said that there have been problems in the community ever since the Mexicans starting arriving in town. Our teenagers have sprayed racially tinged graffiti and yelled racial slurs at the newcomers, he said. The 2000 US census enumerated Whites as 97.40% of the population while Latinos comprised 2.76%. Six years later in 2006, Latinos grew to 10% of the town's population.

Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Guanajuato, Mexico about six years ago to look for work in the Pennsylvania coal region. In Shenandoah, Ramirez found steady employment and fathered two children with his common-law-wife Crystal Dillman who stated that he had to endured racial harassment by the town's White residents. Crystal Dillman also said that Ramirez was a loving father to her 3-year-old daughter from another marriage who thought of him as her father. Crystal Dillman, is 24-years-old and grew up in Shenandoah. She says that her husband was often called derogatory names, including "dirty Mexican,'' and told to return to Mexico. "People in this town are very racist toward Latinos. They think right away if you're Mexican, you're illegal, and you're no good,'' said Crystal Dillman.

There are many witnesses that saw the vicious hate crime. Among these is retired Philadelphia police officer Eileen Burke. Eileen Burke lives on the street where the assault took place. She testifies that she heard a youth scream at one of Ramirez's friends after the beating to tell her Mexican friends to get out of Shenandoah, "or you're going to be laying next to him.''

Retired police officer Eileen Burke is referring to Ramirez' friends Arielle Garcia and her husband who attempted to rescue the victim. Arielle Garcia says that she and her husband saw 2 or 3 of the assailants repeatedly kicking Ramirez in the head. Ramirez' friends said, "that's when he started shaking and foaming out of the mouth.'' The Garcias said they heard the racist youths call Ramirez "stupid Mexican", "fucking wetback" and other ethnic slurs. ”

This occurred on July 12th and it took approximately 2 to 3 weeks before the perpetrators were brought to justice. Two were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation while the older of the three got charged with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Now the media has been downplaying this and it took close to two months before I saw it in local news sources and instead of calling it a hate crime or putting anything that points toward racism, they use the word “epithet” which means insulting. You know what really is insulting? Calling Immigrants ALIENS as if to say they are not human, not like us, or don’t belong. I find that very degrading and it has to stop even more degrading than a white man calling a black person nigger or a Latino spick. Shenandoah is just the tip of the iceberg as this is something happening all across America minus the killing. Many of you probably don’t remember the argument between Geraldo Rivera and Sir Racism himself Bill O’Reilly about how in Pennsylvania as well an illegal immigrant was charged with a DWI twice and the third time he hit and killed somebody. This story was blown up to make immigrants look bad and seem like horrible people when drunk driving is a very common thing here in the US, specially here in my city of Milwaukee nicknamed Brew City because it is the home of Miller Brewing Company and the home of the Brewers. The nickname and having a high rate of drunk drivers is not a coincidence.

So, has America really outgrown its’ old ways and become a new? I highly doubt that. What is worse is that by killing Luis Ramirez the three white teens made themselves look bad because he was married to a white woman and had children with her meaning he was NOT an illegal immigrant. There are reports that claim the teenagers were drunk at the time of the beating. It all comes out when you are boozed-up, that being your true feelings towards someone or something because people open up easily when drunk. Hmm makes me wonder if the CIA was being stupid when they used LSD to interrogate people when they could have been nice and given them a beer. When the economic crisis gets worse many people will try and find comfort in drinking and that certainly isn’t a good sign for they will let the truth come out and if they do feel immigrants are responsible…. I’m glad I look more like a Jew than Latino. JOKING!

Anyways, here are some of the crappy arguments brought up by the side that thinks Immigrants are responsible or just Palin and old, I mean plain old anti-immigrant people. They take jobs away from “hard-working” Americans but yet they are not hard-working enough to make their own meals or even exercise so they drive 2 blocks to get a cheeseburger without leaving their car, order some to eat on the drive back and some to eat at home. They take the jobs for cheap pay but yet they still manage to feed a family on close to minimum wage because they only care for the necessities while Americans want everything they see on TV, have an economy based on consumerism, and have 5 times the amount of their yearly income in credit cards. Just about the only thing on a Venn Diagram with these people is that it is something illegal yet it wasn’t illegal in the 1850’s when they were brought in to build railroads and it wasn’t illegal in 1942 under the Bracero Program or even illegal in the 80’s under President Ronald Reagan (The Devil) who granted them amnesty.

Source: Wikipedia; “ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program ”“ The program was initially prompted by a demand for manual labor during World War II, and

begun with the U.S. government bringing in a few hundred experienced Mexican agricultural laborers to harvest sugar beets in the Stockton, California area. The program soon spread to cover most of the United States and provided workers for the agriculture labor market. As an important corollary, the railroad bracero program was independently negotiated to supply U.S. railroads initially with unskilled workers for track maintenance but eventually to cover other unskilled and skilled labor. By 1945, the quota for the agricultural program was more than 50,000 braceros to be employed in U.S. agriculture at any one time, and for the railroad program 75,000. The railroad program ended promptly with the conclusion of World War II, in 1945, but the agricultural program under various forms survived until 1964, when the two governments ended it as a response to harsh criticisms and reports of human rights abuses. ”

This story is not a new one and although those are more relevant to today because it involved Mexicans, we can not forget that over 12 million European Immigrants came into the US through Ellis Island in New York. Today, over 100 million Americans can trace their ancestry to the immigrants who first arrived in America through the island before dispersing to points all over the country which is a third of the population. These people went through the very same thing Immigrants go through today but many people do not even know this and like they say “those who don’t know their history are deemed to repeat the past” so that explains the repetition. Many people in during the Great Depression actually put blame on immigrants as the cause of it all when it reality it was two moronic Republicans by the names Reed Smoot and Willis C. Hawley. Those were all white people but the same thing also occurred in the US to what we consider yellow people, I thought only The Simpsons were yellow? Throughout the 1800’s to mid-1900’s thousands upon thousands of Chinese and Asian people were allowed into America mainly the west coast to also build railroads and mine for gold during the gold

rush. During World War II after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor Japanese people were being persecuted and being detained in concentration camps all over California. The worst part was that we were at war with Germany and Italy but they weren’t being hauled into concentration camps. Now that we are at war with Iraq there are numerous tales of Muslim people all across America and being detained for no reason in concentration camps as well and in Texas to save money re-deporting people they are housing Mexicans in concentration camps as well being built by Halliburton and run by FEMA, yet not relevant to the War In Iraq.

How foolish of America, they round up illegal immigrants at the border like cattle, detain them, process them, and fly them a few miles south of the border. Why is that foolish? The majority of these people have travelled 10 times the amount of miles the were dropped off at, some even crossing Mexico all the way from Central America just to get here. What makes you think they wont try again? Putting them in prison wont work because our prisons are already overcrowded and we will have to pay for their incarceration. George Bush had even contracted people to build a “high-tech invisible wall” that would detect when people cross it and paid millions for it. The result? A complete failure. Then there are those in the Constitution Party (actual Political Party) that want to end the war so they can place the troops at the border and “shoot us up some Mexicans.” You have many politicians on the right-wing that talk about wasteful spending that the Democrats do but wouldn’t you think all that is wasteful spending and isn’t that money that could have been used for our infrastructure?

Tuesday night I found a special online about Immigration online called Panorama: Immigration, How We Lost Count which is a BBC (British Broadcasting Company) Program. I thought it would be interesting to know how exactly Immigration affects Britain and how they are dealing with it. Surprisingly there was racism but after spending a few hours of reading forums and blogs online it is people that even hate themselves, Romanian Gypsies. I will provide a link to watch this video so everyone can take a look, it is only 28 minutes long but very informative.

BBC Panorama: Immigration; How We Lost Count“ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5012592041971395448&hl=en ”

The Immigration process in Britain is so much different than ours, they seem to actually allow just anyone in as long as they register but that poses a problem. These people can not be registered and accounted for because they have to show proof of address which is impossible if you share a home with many other adults, split the bills so they wont be in your name, or even don’t have a place to go. The reason they need to register is so that the government can actually know how much money a certain area needs to receive in order to prosper and the school system is an example of that. A school will take any child and put them in a classroom no matter who they are as long as they are residing in that certain area. After the students are enrolled the number is submitted to the government and they receive the proper financing to provide for these children. The problem is just that, the inability to count the number of people moving in that are migrant workers or refugees.

The city they are reporting on is named Slough and according to officials records the cities population is declining because people who were once documented as living there are moving out while undocumented migrant workers are moving to the city in large numbers. Once this happens the government reduces the cities funding so when problems arise they are left no choice but the cut spending in certain areas in order to provide for much needed things such as police, a team of police officers specifically created to handle with the Romanian Gypsies. Approximately ten years ago Sun which is a Newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch was claiming that Britain’s social problems were

caused by the refugees also called asylum seekers (gypsies and migrant workers). After this was constantly being fed to the public residents started believing it and many asylum seekers were being abused and harassed. Right-Winger Tony Blair was soon elected as Prime Minister which I don’t think is much of a coincidence seeing as this all was started by Sun Newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch who happens to also own FOX News (first to say Bush won Florida getting him elected). For those who don’t know who Tony Blair is, he was Bush’s right hand man in the War in Iraq, the only reason the United Kingdom joined us in the war.

Source: “ http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/dec1998/uk-d18.shtml ”

So what is the difference between Immigration in the US and Immigration in the UK? Well first of all it doesn’t seem like Britain doesn’t care for providing for there people only thing is that their system of documenting is a piece of shit and they don’t want to so shit about it. America doesn’t want Mexicans here, only when it is convenient and right now it isn’t so they are being used as scapegoats for our economic and social problems. Could this be an attempt to get John McCain elected? Probably but I don’t give a shit. Secondly Britain at least tries to take care of THEIR OWN PEOPLE while America doesn’t want to do shit for their people, only thing in mind is getting more affluent and remain dominant on the world stage. A country is neither great nor beautiful if it is powerful yet its people are brainless and its society is disgraceful.

Before I finish let me ramble on for a bit about immigration and America. When an immigrant comes to America, scratch that, ILLEGAL Immigrant comes to America they have nothing so they are automatically considered low-income. Usually low-income people are those considered to be sucking on America’s tit through welfare, not doing anything for themselves, and just wasting tax-payer dollars. [Blog on Welfare Coming Soon to a Computer near you]. These people do not even go on welfare because they CAN’T! The only way they can is if they get papers/documents illegally from someone else usually white people, identity thieves, and Cubans in Miami (who also marry the women and fuck them over, not enough time to add). If and when they get these papers the first thing they do is get a job and bust their ass to find one. They will work and work to make a better life for themselves usually saving up money to send to their struggling families in Mexico or even saving it to buy a brand new home or land in Mexico. If they don’t they will buy a home here in the US. Taxes are accumulated through these papers and if the owner of the papers had children, child support is taken out as well, YET they never collect a penny in a tax return. When poor they face every circumstance any other poor American family faces and so will their children. They work so hard, don’t know English, and really don’t know much about American society other than what they have seen in movies so it becomes hard to raise their children. Not an exact stat or actual percentage but if I was to put a number on it I would say maybe one in four will fall into gangs just like any other American teenager. The rest actually do want to make a better life for themselves but they can’t because there is no way of going to college legally or without compromising themselves. One of the reasons they say jobs are shipped over-seas is because there are not enough skilled workers here but there are they just aren’t given the chance to become skilled and would certainly take up the wonderful opportunity that many others seem to be taking for granted seeing as only a third of students in America graduate high school.

Immigration is certainly an issue that needs reform and the only way we can achieve anything is by making some noise, let the world hear you want to see things change even if you aren’t an immigrant or even Mexican. Revive the Civil Rights movement on a grander scale, the time is now to do something about it. The world will never change if we keep on sitting on our ass (like me haha) and letting these actions continue. The United States of America owes the world so much and it is time to pay them back

starting from the bottom up immigration, racism, psychological enslavement, healthcare, the environment, etc. Stop being such a little bitch and get off your computer (I will once AGAIN after I counter-balance my insomnia), if you believe in something so much let someone know what it is you believe on not just the people you know on MySpace, how about your neighbor, your co-workers, your children, your family, the random person on the bus stop, classmate, whoever just do something for Pete’s sake whoever that is. Well hope you enjoyed reading what I have to say I went a little far with this one, have to make up for lost time. This will certainly be revised and added to my book after more research and inquiry.

M3KY

GUERRILLA REPUBLIK MILWAUKEE

SCIENTIA EST POTENTIA – KNOWLEDGE IS POWER