Thank you Lou Dobbs

Hate spreads from television to real life

"Teenagers Charged with More Attacks on Latinos," New York Times, January 29, 2009

For Sophia on Thanksgiving

Dear Sophia

Today I opened up the blog and found a comment full of anger and hurt.  The signature said "Sophia."  Below is an excerpt of the comment.  I have taken out the offensive words and the statistics you provided.  I believe the statistics are wrong.  You quote a high rate of murders by undocumented immigrants.  According to well respected sociologist Ruben Rumbaut (considered one of the most credible experts on immigration in the U.S.); less than 2 out of 100,000 people incarcerated for murder are undocumented.  No this doesn't mean they get away with it.  Think about it... it is not logical for a person with little or no financial resources to have a good criminal lawyer.  People who are undocumented usually get public defenders who at times have been known to fall asleep during trials.

see dreamacttexas post:  The MYTH of Immigrant Criminality, November 17, 2008

Sophia's comment:

You want us to be up in arms about 1 ILLEGAL ALIEN being killed?  To... you, U.S. citizens' blood, means nothing (sic).  Stop you racist hate bating (sic)...Our blood is worth no less than theirs.   Where is the tears for my people (sic)?

My response to Sophia.  Yes, Marcello Lucero was only one person.  Many other people have been murdered in the United States, a few by undocumented immigrants, and many many by U.S. citizens.  What makes Lucero's death much more tragic is how it all happened.  The young men who attacked him live in a place where community leaders provoked U.S. citizens, telling them horrible things about immigrants.  The place is full of people like Lou Dobbs.  You add this to a few mis-guided angry young men and you have disaster on your hands.  

Think about it.  Why would a handful of teens want to go "beat up a Mexican?"  It means a number of things.

1.  They don't think Mexicans deserve to be treated like other people (remember they didn't say undocumented, they just used the term Mexican).

2.  Somewhere they learned that is it OK to physically harm other people.

3.  They must have felt there would be no consequences for their violent behavior.

4.  They must have felt they were doing something good for themselves.

5.  They were very very angry about something they felt had been done to them, either by the "Mexicans" or someone else.  There is a big reality about many people in the U.S. feeling they have been maligned or damaged by someone else.  The cause often falls on immigrants who are seen as taking too much of the shrinking pie.  There is real sadness, despondency, and rage - and that is getting worse by the day.  It is much easier to think that other poor people (i.e. undocumented immigrants) are stealing the pie that perhaps those that already have big pieces.  The gap between rich and poor in the U.S. is strikingly higher than it has ever been.  

The next question I have is, what could Mexicans have done to them to provoke such rage?

1.  Speak Spanish in public?  That seems to make people very angry.  It is so un-American to people who feel that everybody in the U.S. needs to be the same.

2.  Use American resources?  Get food stamps and other assistance?  (undocumented people cannot get food stamps)  Health care (yes, most places they can but why would you deny health care to someone needing it?  that seems like a crime in itself to me).  

3.  Make America look Mexican?  Well, there may be a little truth to that, but you can bet it won't influence the affluent neighborhoods.  The reality is that "the Mexican look" has taken over the working class neighborhoods.  But were those kids from the Long Island working class?

Last question for today. 

What makes a bully?

Lou Dobbs is a bully, so are Bill O'Reilly and Dick Cheney.  So were the boys from Long Island.  

I can look up some academic paper that analyzes bullies, but I'll leave that for the reader to ponder.

Happy Thanksgiving.

link to image

Enforcing a Law of Cruelty

They break the law so many say, they being undocumented immigrants. As Steve Levy said, we are just enforcing the law.

There have been so many times in history where the law looked the other way... why is it so important to follow the letter of the law when dealing with the most vulnerable of populations?

A few pieces of history to provoke some thought:

John F. Kennedy would have never been president if his father would have been jailed for being a liquor distributor during prohibition.

What would have happened to the Pilgrims if they would have gone home when the Native Americans told them, "This is my land, go back to where you came from!" If they returned home to England, they would have just been following "the law" of the Native's land.

How many more people would have died in New Orleans after Katrina if those two guys wouldn't have taken someone's bus and loaded it with evacuees?


One more thing. We all have a role in the immigration drama. When you go to a restaurant that has undocumented cooks and busboys you are also a player in the story. You are benefiting from immigration. If you live a recently constructed house, you are also benefiting...

Lawyers benefit, government jobs are created, farms keep surviving...and most unfortunately Lou Dobbs has become even more famous while Congressmen and Senators use his inflammatory words as their canon when describing the immigration polemic.

from dreamactpost September 15, 2007 "Information if Everything" - Alex Koppleman, Salon.com: "Some members of Congress freely acknowledge that their information on the [Ramos and Compean] case comes from Dobbs"

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Editorial
A Catastrophic Silence
New York Times
Published: November 25, 2008

The killing of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on Long Island this month brought with it a cruel blessing. From a shocking crime — an assault by a gang of boys accused of making a hobby of hunting Latinos — came a chance for a stricken, divided community to bind old wounds and to bury anger.

Instead, the moment is collapsing into the same old shouting. Advocates for immigrants are condemning the Suffolk County executive, Steve Levy, as somehow complicit in the killing for his rigid devotion to immigration enforcement. Mr. Levy is lashing back and trying to distribute blame fairly. He wonders, for example, how a gang out of “A Clockwork Orange” could have run free for so long, firing BB’s and hateful slurs at random victims, jumping and punching them for sport.

Why, he asks, were their friends and acquaintances silent? It’s a fair question, but there is another silence Mr. Levy should focus on.

The silence that echoes most painfully is that of the Latino victims of these and other hidden crimes. Mr. Lucero’s death has set loose a flood of stories of abuse and harassment. A police precinct commander lost his job over his handling of two other attacks against Latino men that fatal day, an acknowledgment that in Suffolk, equal protection may not always apply to everyone.

Suffolk is not the only place with hate crimes or fearful immigrants. The same silence ruled in Postville, Iowa, where children worked brutal hours on a slaughterhouse killing floor. It hung over a factory in New Bedford, Mass., that systematically cheated workers of wages and the Louisiana shipyards where legal guest workers were held in modern-day indentured servitude.

The silence of undocumented immigrants is the catastrophic silence of people taught by legislative harassment and relentless stereotyping to live mute and afraid.

Mr. Levy sees no role for himself in this drama.

“Since when is enforcing the law seen as something negative and inflammatory?” he asked his critics this week. Here is an attempt to explain.

The fixation on uprooting and expelling immigrants is negative because it doesn’t work. It’s inflammatory because it tears communities and families apart.

When you turn the local police into la migra, as Mr. Levy once tried to do, you turn immigrants into the mute prey of criminals. When you relentlessly pick fights with advocates who criticize you, as Mr. Levy has, you are unable to stand with them when disaster strikes.

And when you tolerate the poisonous notion that “illegal” is a stain that can never be erased, with no path to atonement, then you turn the undocumented into a permanent class of presumed criminals who have no rights.

The undocumented do have rights. They have the right to be paid for their labor, to speak freely and to congregate in public places without fear.

Mr. Levy has an agile mind and a commitment to doing what he sees as right. There is a way for him to make Suffolk a better place. He can give the jobs of deportation and border control back to the federal government and concentrate on making things safer and more lawful in his community. He can stand up for the rights of the undocumented, like day laborers, to congregate safely and to be paid for their work, to prevent federal crimes like wage theft and to keep off-the-books businesses from eroding pay and conditions for all workers.

He can pursue common ground with his Latino constituents — even those who are angry at him but would jump at the chance to sit down and talk. He can listen to Marcelo Lucero’s brother, Joselo, who has been a voice for peace. He can lead his county into the calm silence of reconciliation instead of silence based on fear.

I - Obama and Immigration

Things have already changed. You see Obama during a press conference and you know we have entered another era. We will have a real President again. Maybe Noam Chomsky thinks its all a public relations ploy - and perhaps it is. But having Obama know how to act like a President makes us feel better- at the least.

Below is an article from the Washington Post - the writer, Edward Alden saying that the U.S. is remarkably closed-minded when it comes to immigration.  I would say its more like the U.S. decided to enter an archery contest blind-folded.  Can you imagine who you would injure if you shot arrows with your eyes covered?  

Closed-Minded on the Border

By Edward Alden

Washington Post
Sunday, November 23, 2008; B01

The day after the Nov. 4 presidential election, I was chatting with a young immigrant from Sudan as I waited to do a radio interview. He was gushing over the election results. "Can you imagine when he puts his hand on the Bible and says, 'I, Barack Hussein Obama'?" he said, putting the emphasis on the middle name. "It is amazing."

For many in America's immigrant communities, the election of the son of a Kenyan father and an American mother represents not so much a healing of America's racial wounds as a chance to bridge the divide that has opened between the United States and the rest of the world in the past eight years. Of the many mistakes we made in the reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, one of the most damaging was slamming the door on our friends in an ill-considered effort to keep our enemies out.

Instead of continuing to embrace the massive flow of talent, energy and initiative that the rest of the world has long offered the United States, we launched an expensive, futile experiment to see whether we could seal our borders against the ills of the world, from terrorists to drugs to illegal migrants. This effort has betrayed both our ideals and our interests. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a skilled hand at handling border issues who is widely believed to be Obama's choice for secretary of homeland security, has a rare opportunity to get immigration policy back on track -- to improve our security without sacrificing our openness...con't

III - Obama and Immigration

Closed-Minded at the Border

con't

The current system was built in the wake of 9/11, but it will have to be reformed in the shadow of the economic crisis. That will be a political challenge, but we have already driven away too many talented immigrants through short-sighted policies that see them more as a threat than as a windfall for the U.S. economy. Immigrant numbers will fall during the recession as job opportunities dwindle, but when the economy recovers, we will find ourselves competing to get them back.

Napolitano could start her overhaul by considering the case of Imad Daou. Like the president-elect's father, Daou came to the United States on a student visa. A Christian from Lebanon, he arrived here in 2003 to study computer science at Texas A&M International University in Laredo. He fell in love with and became engaged to a Mexican-American woman, and in November 2003, they crossed the Rio Grande to visit her family in Mexico and share the news. But when the couple tried to cross back into Texas, U.S. border officials discovered that Daou had failed to comply with a rule put in place by John Ashcroft's Justice Department after 9/11, requiring all young men from Muslim and Arab countries to re-register with the U.S. government 30 days after arriving in the United States. Daou was unaware of the requirement.

He was slapped in handcuffs and jailed in Laredo for more than two months before being deported to Lebanon. The couple was married in the jail before he left, and a year later, his wife was able to bring him to live with her in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, which has been turned into a free-fire zone by warring drug gangs. Now she crosses the border each day to go to her teaching job in Laredo. He cannot accompany her; his deportation carried an automatic five-year ban on reentering the United States, and he would still need a pardon from the U.S. government before he would be able to return.

Why is this software engineer, now working for a firm in Mexico, being kept out? Because of a regulation that no longer exists. A year after Daou was deported, the Department of Homeland Security abolished the re-registration requirement, saying it had been of no use in identifying terrorists. "They put the rules in place to catch bad people," Daou told me, "and the good people fall into the trap." He just heard from Washington last month: It will be at least another year before his pardon application will even be reviewed.

Daou's story was only one of dozens of similar tales I have heard over the past several years. In all of them, measures aimed at catching or deterring terrorists instead trapped those who had, like so many waves of immigrants before them, followed their dreams and ambitions by coming to America. But they arrived in a different country...con't

II Obama and Immigration

Closed-Minded at the Border

con't

After the shock of 9/11, the United States confronted a deadly serious challenge: how to prevent future terrorists from coming here to carry out further attacks. Many intelligent and overdue initiatives were rolled out, and they have made the country safer. In place of the fragmented and partial terrorist "watch lists" used before the 2001 attacks, for instance, the government has created a single, integrated list available to all front-line border officials and overseas embassies. DHS now gathers advance information on all overseas passengers to help identify potential threats before flights land in the United States. And great strides have been made in improving the security of identification documents and matching them to an individual's fingerprints so that terrorists or criminals cannot use false papers to enter the country. These "smart border" measures have largely been implemented without undue disruption to legitimate visitors or immigrants to the United States.

But alongside such sensible initiatives, the Bush administration decided to use immigration laws in far more aggressive and ruthless ways. Few Americans are aware of the vast powers the government wields here. Border inspectors can comb the laptop computer files of anyone entering the country, citizen or non-citizen, merely on suspicion of wrongdoing; ordinary constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure do not apply. Non-Americans suspected of violating immigration rules can be jailed for months or even years while their cases grind through immigration courts or while they await deportation. The government has exercised these powers to their fullest since 9/11.

Such trampling of American ideals is matched only by the damage to our interests. Openness to immigrants and to foreign students, entrepreneurs and visitors has long been this country's secret weapon. The world's best and brightest come to the United States in large numbers to study or work temporarily, and many end up staying. Early in the campaign, Obama lamented the post-9/11 decline in visas for foreign students, which he said "used to be one of the single best public-diplomacy tools in our possession."

No country has matched our ability to attract and inspire the world's talent, and the U.S. economy has reaped the benefits. While economic downturns inevitably lead to accusations that foreigners are stealing American jobs, the reality is that we have long attracted immigrants who innovate, create jobs and boost our economy. Some 40 percent of all new start-up companies in Silicon Valley, for instance, are headed by immigrants, according to a 2006 study for the National Venture Capital Association. But it doesn't take too many stories of delays, abuses or mistreatment at the hands of U.S. border or immigration officials to discourage people from coming here, particularly those whose talents offer them plenty of other options...con't

IV - Obama and Immigration

Closed-minded on the Border

con't

Not surprisingly, foreign enrollment at U.S. universities fell after 9/11, ending more than four decades of virtually uninterrupted growth. That trend has begun to reverse in the past two years, in part because of hard work by some DHS officials to ease the student visa application process. But in the meantime, Europe, Australia, Canada and even Japan have aggressively and successfully recruited foreign students and seen sharp rises in enrollment.

Overseas visits have yet to return to pre-9/11 levels, despite the weak dollar that until recently had made the United States a bargain for tourists. In a survey conducted earlier this year by the Council on State Governments, investment-promotion officials in three out of four states said they had faced problems getting visas for potential foreign investors. And the difficulties that U.S. companies face in recruiting the best foreign workers have led some, including Microsoft, to move some operations abroad to remain competitive.

Although several of the most disruptive post-9/11 measures have been eased or removed, the world has grown much warier of the United States. We continue to make it inordinately difficult for people to come here by requiring personal interviews of all visa applicants, even those who have been here many times before. Others face overly long delays for security screening, and many become entangled in the morass of a complex immigration system in desperate need of reform. While some progress is being made on those problems, the bulk of the money (as Napolitano has seen up close in Arizona) is pouring into the construction of barriers on the southern border, the hiring of more Border Patrol agents and the creation of an elaborate system to track the entry and exit of every foreigner who comes to the United States.

Tom Ridge, the former secretary of homeland security, told me that after 9/11, "The world was kind of surprised that we pulled in the welcome mat so quickly." The 2008 election was largely about two issues: restoring America's economy at home and repairing its image abroad. Putting out the welcome mat again is vital to both.

ealden@cfr.org

Edward Alden is the author of "The Closing of the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11." He is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times.

I - Long Island group charged with hate crimes

What breeds hate?  Why would a group of kids decide to go looking for someone to hurt? Where do they hear that it is OK to beat someone? 

Oftentimes a resentment grows when they hear people around them complain over and over again about a particular group.  Like Lou Dobbs.  The venom he speaks is projected deliberately to make people angry.  The more angry, the more attached they are to Dobbs program...  He is emphatic to their rage.  His insults towards immigrants are well regarded.  Did the guys from Long Island watch Lou Dobbs?

A word of concern for the media.  Think about the long term effects of the things you publish or broadcast.  If you are one of those journalists or editors - do you ever wonder if one of the Long Island 6 watched Lou Dobbs?
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November 21, 2008

New York Times
6 Long Island Teens Charged With Hate Crimes
By CARA BUCKLEY

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — Every now and then, perhaps once a week, seven young friends got together in their hamlet of Medford, on eastern Long Island, to hunt down, and hurt, Hispanic men. They made a sport of it, calling their victims “beaners,” a reference to the staple Hispanic dish of rice and beans, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Nov. 8 was a particularly long and violent day, the prosecutors said. Two of the teenagers set out in their car at dawn and one of them fired a BB gun at a Hispanic man in his driveway, striking him several times. That evening, the group, now seven strong, drank beer in a park and searched for more victims. They found and beat a Hispanic man in neighboring Patchogue, but he was able to escape.

Then, shortly before midnight, prosecutors said, they caught sight of Marcelo Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant walking with a friend near the train station in Patchogue. The teenagers surrounded, taunted and beat Mr. Lucero, who tried to fight back. One of the youths fatally stabbed Mr. Lucero, 37, a worker at a dry cleaning store and 16-year resident of the United States who regularly sent money to his ailing mother in Ecuador.

Six of the seven teenagers, now defendants charged with multiple counts of gang assault and hate crimes, were arraigned Thursday in Suffolk County Criminal Court.

“To them, it was a sport,” Thomas J. Spota, Suffolk County’s district attorney, said in a news conference after the defendants were arraigned. “We know for sure that there are more victims out there.”

Moments earlier, one by one, the youths were led before a courtroom packed with their parents and high school friends, as well as Mr. Lucero’s relatives, many of whom wept as the prosecution detailed the chilling sequence of events.

A grand jury indictment, also unsealed on Thursday, laid out additional charges that the defendants now face for what prosecutors described as earlier crimes against Hispanics.

A seventh defendant, Jeffrey Conroy, 17, a star high school athlete, was charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter as a hate crime in Mr. Lucero’s death. He is scheduled to be arraigned on Monday.

The judge set bail for five of the youths at $250,000 cash or $500,000 bond, and bail was denied to a sixth defendant, Christopher Overton, 16, who has a felony conviction for a 2007 burglary in which an East Patchogue man was killed.

All seven defendants have pleaded not guilty in the attack on Mr. Lucero.

In the courtroom, at a news conference and in the indictment itself, the prosecutors detailed the following chronology of events that preceded Mr. Lucero’s death.

Mr. Spota said three defendants, Anthony Hartford, Kevin Shea and Jose Pacheco, all 17, went out driving five days before Mr. Lucero was killed with the intent of, in their words, “beaner hopping.”

They found a Hispanic man that day whom Mr. Pacheco admitted to punching and knocking out cold, Mr. Spota said. That victim has not stepped forward. Mr. Pacheco later told the police, “I don’t go out and do this very often, maybe once a week,” Mr. Spota said.

About 5 a.m. on Nov. 8, Nicholas Hausch and Jordan Dasch, both 17, fired a BB gun at Marlon Garcia, hitting him several times. In the evening, the seven friends got together and, after failing to find potential victims in Medford, set off for Patchogue, where they saw Hector Sierra walking downtown. They caught up to him and punched him before he ran away.

Shortly before midnight, the teens saw Mr. Lucero and his friend, Angel Loja. They got out of their car and taunted the men with racist slurs. Mr. Loja fled, but the group surrounded Mr. Lucero and punched him in the face. Trying to defend himself, Mr. Lucero removed his belt and swung it, striking Mr. Conroy in the head. Enraged, Mr. Conroy rushed at Mr. Lucero and plunged a knife into his chest. The youths fled, but were soon caught by the police.

Mr. Conroy was the only one charged with murder, Mr. Spota said, because the other six defendants were initially unaware that he had stabbed Mr. Lucero...continued

II - Long Island group charged with hate crimes

Con't

November 21, 2008

New York Times
6 Long Island Teens Charged With Hate Crimes
By CARA BUCKLEY

Lawyers for the six defendants arraigned on Thursday argued that their clients were being unfairly charged with crimes committed by others in the group. They also said that the defendants were not racist and pointed to the young men’s friends, black, white and Hispanic, filling the courtroom seats.

Chris Kirby, the lawyer for Mr. Pacheco, said in court that his client was of Hispanic descent and therefore incapable of a racist attack. “The idea that he, of Hispanic heritage, would beat up another Hispanic is patently absurd,” Mr. Kirby said.

Mr. Lucero’s killing has brought to the fore a fierce debate about race relations in Patchogue, a comfortable village of 11,700. Latinos make up a quarter of the population, according to the 2000 census. With the numbers of Latinos in the county growing and the economy weakening , some residents say there is a deepening resentment toward illegal immigrants, particularly day laborers.

County officials have insisted the attack was not connected to any simmering racial tensions in Patchogue or Medford. County Executive Steve Levy, long a proponent of crackdowns on illegal immigrants, called the defendants “white supremacists.” Michael Mostow, the superintendent of Patchogue-Medford School District, said there was no racial strife at the high school the teenagers attended and described the attack as “an aberration.”

The killing of Mr. Lucero yielded an outpouring of outrage and grief that rippled beyond the tightly knit Hispanic community here. His body was flown this week to his hometown, the mountain city of Gualaceo, Ecuador, and mourners by the hundreds met his coffin, Newsday reported

At a news conference after the arraignments, Hispanic leaders and members of Mr. Lucero’s family said they were pleased with the upgraded charges. At first, the defendants were accused of fewer crimes, and Mr. Conroy faced a charge of manslaughter, but not murder.

Cesar Perales, president and general counsel of the advocacy group Latino Justice P.R.L.D.E.F. said the new charges were important in restoring Hispanics’ faith in the county’s justice system.

Fernando Mateo, a spokesman for the Lucero family, said that while he was pleased that “justice would be served,” he did not believe recent reports that hate crimes had plummeted in the county in the last few years. “Hunting season is over for this group now,” Mr. Mateo said, as Mr. Lucero’s brother, Joselo, stood silently by his side. “It was a hobby to them, I know it started out as a game, but it turned into a murder.”

Who said "words never hurt me?"

Marcello Lucero (photo, Barcelo for News)

Acc. to the New York Times, Steve Levy, Long Island administrator had "extremist talking points, going so far as to raise the alarm, utterly false, that illegal immigrants’ “anchor babies” were forcing Southampton Hospital to close its maternity ward."  He probably isn't feeling that bad now that his words provoked enough hatred to get a man killed.  I'm sure he thinks he had nothing to do with it.

see related dreamacttexas post "Fatal results to a political ploy," November 11, 2008, and New York Daily News, "Lynch Mob kin may pay..," November 12, 2008

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November 14, 2008

New York Times
Editorial
The High Cost of Harsh Words

Words have consequences. Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, is learning that the hard way during a horrible week. Seven teenagers were arrested and charged in the fatal stabbing last Saturday of Marcello Lucero, an Ecuadorean immigrant, on a street in the Long Island village of Patchogue.

The apparent lynching caused shock and anger across the country. Politicians, religious leaders and villagers gathered Wednesday in Patchogue to console the victim’s relatives and to condemn racial hatred. Mr. Lucero’s brother, Joselo, spoke movingly in English and Spanish of how strangers’ words of support had made him feel like part of a larger family.

Mr. Levy was not there. He later called Joselo Lucero, who asked him to please stay away from public remembrances.

Mr. Levy’s past harsh words and actions against undocumented workers have now left him cornered with a tragically limited ability to lead the county in confronting a brutal act that surely pains him as much as anyone.

Local lawmakers often complain about immigration, but Mr. Levy went much farther than most. He founded a national organization to lobby for crackdowns. He went on “Lou Dobbs.” He tried to deputize county police to make immigration arrests and to rid the county work force of employees without papers. He sought to drive day laborers from local streets, yet rigidly opposed efforts to create hiring sites. Even as tensions simmered in places like Farmingville, a hot spot for anti-immigrant resentment, Mr. Levy would not budge.

He parroted extremist talking points, going so far as to raise the alarm, utterly false, that illegal immigrants’ “anchor babies” were forcing Southampton Hospital to close its maternity ward. He denounces racist hatred, yet his words have made him a hero in pockets of Long Island where veins of racism run deep.

All that came back to haunt Mr. Levy this week, when an evil act underscored the need to draw together. Immigrant advocates assailed him for having poisoned the atmosphere. Some called for his resignation. With tactless self-pity, Mr. Levy complained to Newsday that the killing would have been a one-day story anywhere but his home turf. He laments that people overlook his recent, far more measured tone on the issue. He insists that people have a distorted picture of him. Mr. Levy needs to realize that distortions cut both ways.

Fatal Results to a Political Ploy

"The atmosphere began to darken when Republican politicians decided a few years ago to exploit immigration as a wedge issue." NYT

The GOP used immigration baiting thinking it would help win elections. Now there is no doubt. They were wrong. Unfortunately... inciting hatred had its ramifications. Marcello Lucero suffered the consequences when seven teenage boys went "looking for Latinos to beat up."
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November 11, 2008
Editorial
A Death in Patchogue
New York Times

Marcello Lucero was killed late Saturday night near the commuter railroad station in Patchogue, N.Y., a middle-class village in central Long Island. He was beaten and stabbed. The friend who crouched beside him in a parking lot as he lay dying, soaked in blood, said Mr. Lucero, who was 37, had come to the United States 16 years ago from Ecuador.

The police arrested seven teenage boys, who they said had driven into the village from out of town looking for Latinos to beat up. The police said the mob cornered Mr. Lucero and another man, who escaped and later identified the suspects to the police. A prosecutor at the arraignment on Monday quoted the young men as having said: “Let’s go find some Mexicans.” They have pleaded not guilty.

The county executive, Steve Levy, quickly issued a news release denouncing this latest apparent hate crime in Suffolk County. That should be the first and least of the actions he and other leaders take.

A possible lynching in a New York suburb should be more than enough to force this country to acknowledge the bitter chill that has overcome Latinos in these days of rage against illegal immigration.

The atmosphere began to darken when Republican politicians decided a few years ago to exploit immigration as a wedge issue. They drafted harsh legislation to criminalize the undocumented. They cheered as vigilantes streamed to the border to confront the concocted crisis of Spanish-speaking workers sneaking in to steal jobs and spread diseases. Cable personalities and radio talk-show hosts latched on to the issue. Years of effort in Congress to assemble a responsible overhaul of the immigration system failed repeatedly. Its opponents wanted only to demonize and punish the Latino workers on which the country had come to depend.

A campaign of raids and deportations, led by federal agents with help from state and local posses, has become so pervasive that nearly 1 in 10 Latinos, including citizens and legal immigrants, have told of being stopped and asked about their immigration status, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Now that the economy is in free fall, the possibility of scapegoating is deepening Hispanic anxiety.

It is not yet clear how closely connected Mr. Lucero’s murder is to this broad wave of xenophobia. But there is both a message and opportunity here for officials like Mr. Levy, an immigration hard-liner whose relations with his rapidly growing Latino immigrant constituency have been strained by past crises and confrontations.

Deadly violence represents the worst fear that immigrants deal with every day, but it is not the only one. It must be every leader’s task to move beyond easy outrage and take on the difficult job of understanding and defending a community so vulnerable to sudden outbreaks of hostility and terror.