Cross posted from Take Back Georgia
Happy Monday, everyone!
Have I told ya’ll how much I love Georgia? The fact that everyday Georgians’ are standing up for our State, our language, and helping to enforce our laws makes me very happy. I am proud to say that Georgia is truly fighting back against illegal immigration. Keep up the good work!!
Georgia library says it won’t buy fiction in Spanish anymore
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Giovanna Dell’Orto
Associated Press
Lawrenceville, Ga. – The library system in this suburban Atlanta county says it won’t buy any more thrillers, romance novels or other works of adult fiction in Spanish.
The decision has angered Hispanic leaders and thrust Gwinnett County, where one in six residents is Hispanic, into the nation’s immigration debate.
Last week, the library board in this fast-growing county of 700,000 people eliminated the $3,000 that had been set aside to buy Spanish-language fiction in the coming fiscal year. It offered no explanation, but the chairman said such book purchases would lead readers of other foreign languages to demand the same treatment.
However, one board member, Brett Taylor, said the move came after some residents objected to using taxpayer dollars to entertain readers who might be illegal immigrants.
“The argument was we didn’t need to cater to illegal aliens,” Taylor said. “I’m personally offended by that.”
The budget cut passed without discussion at a June 12 meeting, minutes after reporters and residents rushed out the room because the library director was fired for reasons the board has not disclosed.
The 13-branch library system spent $2,200 for adult fiction in Spanish since it started buying such books in January. It will continue to buy children’s books and adult nonfiction in Spanish, but not, say, the latest John Grisham thriller in Spanish, or a Marcela Serrano novel in its original language.
Hispanic advocates were outraged, and said such cutbacks are rare across the country.
“A library is more than a place for kids to read books; it’s often the center of the community,” Raul Gonzalez of the National Council of La Raza said. “A vast majority of the people who don’t speak English as their first language – guess what – they’re citizens of the U.S.”
Amid the national debate over illegal immigrants and whether English should be the official U.S. language, some critics elsewhere around the country also have been objecting to public libraries’ efforts to buy more bilingual materials.
Last fall, Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, wrote a public letter asking if the library in Denver was increasing its Spanish-language collection at the expense of English material.
But a Cleveland librarian called the backlash bigotry.
“We provide books to our patrons no matter what language they may read,” said Milos Markovic, who oversees the roughly 400,000 volumes in the foreign language department at the Main Library of Cleveland Public Library.
Markovic’s patrons range from immigrants to American-born students learning second languages to scholars studying great works in the original.
The Lorain Public Library System buys Spanish books today for the same reasons that it bought Slovenian and Hungarian ones 100 years ago, said Valerie Smith, public services coordinator.
Plain Dealer reporter Grant Segall contributed to this story.
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New law has [ILLEGAL] Latinos skittish about buying homes
06/23/2006
By Chris Megerian
Staff Intern
chris.megerian@gwinnettdailypost.com
NORCROSS – Fewer Latinos are buying homes in the Atlanta area because of Georgia’s new immigration law, one of the strictest in the country.
Some Latino Realtors in Gwinnett County, which has the highest concentration of Latino residents in the region, have felt the crunch as Hispanics grow increasingly nervous about their future in the state.
Felipe Bernal, a Realtor based in Norcross, said he’s seen a sharp decrease in the number of Latino homebuyers in Gwinnett, Cobb and Rockdale counties. Instead of closing deals on about seven homes a month, he’s only selling three or four.
He said more than five people pulled out of contracts after their loan was approved, sacrificing about $1,000 each in down payments.
“They told me, ‘I don’t care. My wife is not legal, my brother is not legal,'” Bernal said. “They’re afraid most of them are going to lose their jobs.”
The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, signed by Gov. Sonny Perdue in April and scheduled to go into effect in July 2007, requires verification of legal residency in order to receive many public services in Georgia.
It also aims to discourage employers from hiring illegal immigrants, preventing employers from receiving state income tax benefits if they hire undocumented workers and requiring them to verify their employees are legal residents if they are working on a state contract.
While the law does not directly affect homebuying by illegal immigrants, the confusion and uncertainty it has created among Latinos in Georgia has changed the way they look at long-term investments, such as buying a house.
Some Latino Realtors said people are more afraid of the new law than they should be, their fears spurred by word-of-mouth reports and media hype.
“They feel that people are just going to come and take away their homes,” said Alina Arguello, a Re/Max Realtor based in Marietta. “Once things calm down a bit and they get better details of what is going to happen, that will put them at ease.”
Arguello, whose customers are primarily Latino, said her business has dropped off significantly in recent months. Because calls from Latino homebuyers have plummeted from 10 to two a day, she’s resorted to cold-calling potential customers and handing out business cards in front of the local Wal-Mart to stoke interest.
“I have the inventory,” Arguello said. “But the inventory doesn’t do me any good if I don’t have the buyers for it.”
Even legal residents have reconsidered their future in the Atlanta area. Norcross Realtor Diego Castaneda said one potential homeowner held off on buying a home in Gwinnett because his business – wiring money to and from other countries – caters mainly to Latinos, and he was unsure if his customer base would be moving out of the area.
Gwinnett has enjoyed a booming housing market in recent years. The county has added 33,600 single-family units since 2000, more than twice as many as any other county in the region, according to the Atlanta Regional Commission.
“Gwinnett is the main source of our business,” said Alex Morfin, general manager of the real estate company EMTI Investments in Duluth, which serves mainly Latino customers.
Latinos have been purchasing more homes in the Atlanta area in the past few years – from 3,500 in 1999 to 8,500 in 2004, according to data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act.
Not all Realtors have taken a hit because of fear stemming from the new law. Carlos Hernandez, a Keller Williams Realtor based in Duluth, said only a few of his primarily Latino customers expressed nervousness over buying a house in the area.
Miguel Hawkins, assistant vice president at HomeBanc en Espanol in Atlanta, said two of his clients, a husband and wife, were unsure about investing in a home, but once they learned more about the new Georgia law they felt comfortable about going through with the sale.
Teresa Palacios Smith, vice president of business development and cultural initiatives at Prudential Georgia Realty, said despite discouragement over the new law, Gwinnett in particular remains very attractive because of low housing costs and its growing Latino population.
Isaias Gonsalez recently purchased a duplex in Norcross. He left his rented apartment in Los Angeles four months ago, drawn to Gwinnett by low costs and the growing economy.
Realtor Roberto Olortegui said some of the uncertainty in the Latino community stems from the turmoil over immigration legislation in the U.S. Congress.
“There is something in the air that makes the potential buyers just hold off,” he said.
The House of Representatives and the Senate have each passed separate bills, with one key difference between them – the Senate bill would allow illegal immigrants who have been in the country for at least five years to apply for citizenship.
It is unclear what impact federal legislation could have on the national housing market. Gary Acosta, founder of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, recently estimated that homebuying by illegal immigrants pumps $65 billion into the overall first-time homebuyer market, about 12 percent.
But homeownership has grown easier for illegal immigrants, with more lenders accepting individual tax identification numbers, which are assigned by the Internal Revenue Service to allow illegal immigrants to pay their taxes, instead of Social Security numbers. In addition, Latinos are projected to comprise 40 percent of first-time homebuyers in the U.S. by 2012.
As Congress ponders which direction it will take, potential Latino homeowners remain uncertain of their future in the country, Atlanta and Gwinnett.
“They don’t know what the future holds for them,” Smith said. “If they were ever nervous about buying, they are now.”
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Why are Americans so focused on enforcing the Mexican-American border, while the Canadian border remains just as open? Here’s one common sense explanation…
Canadian laws on illegal immigration
Mason Weaver
6/16/2006 7:09:20 PM
With news of the terrorist arrest in Canada the debate over border security is back in the news. Some are ridiculing the American attempt to secure its southern border by pointing to the problems on our northern border. After all, the terrorists were in Canada, not Mexico, and had ties to Americans in Georgia. Apparently there were training camps, purchasing of bomb-making materials and movements back and forth across our border. The detractors claim we are spending too much time and effort harassing the peaceful people of Mexico looking for work Americans will not do and should be focusing on the open border with Canada.
I am grateful that these 17 men were not the brightest bulbs in the box. Buying three tons of fertilizer, training on farmlands, leaving trails in the snow, then seeing the helicopters searching for them and still continuing to train made it pretty easy. A report from the citizens around the camp indicates they were not very comfortable in the Canadian wilderness. They were cold, clumsy and wet. They were loud, messy and amateurish. The police had warned the neighbors as far back as December and had already pinpointed their location.
I look at this incidence differently. Canada is a sovereign nation looking after the security of its citizens. They will follow leads and investigate any potential harm. They will even “spy” on Canadian citizens. They cooperate with America in securing the border and help us in the overall fight against terrorism. Mexico, however, cooperates by giving its citizens instructions on how to avoid our legal system, giving them ID cards and lobbying our government on their behalf. Mexico refuses to extradite its citizens who murder Americans and they post their army on the border to help their citizens cross.
Mexico will secure their own southern border and track foreigners within their border. It is a felony to be in Mexico without permission, even if you are willing to do work Mexicans will not do. You cannot hold political office, buy property or have much say about your education.
Canada seems to have this security thing down to a science. Let’s adopt the “Canadian Laws on Security Enforcement” (CLOSE) making it illegal to be in America “Illegally.” Let’s secure our borders and free law enforcement to investigate suspicious behavior.
I have had a lot of criticism of Canada in the past but I really appreciate their example of a sovereign nation. Canada rocks except for the medial plan.
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Here’s a cross-post from the CAII – Sears is supporting our Military, so let’s make sure we support them by shopping there!
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So much for English being the ‘National’ language of the U.S.; Retailers are tapping into the Spanish-speaking consumer market, and Georgia is a direct target.
Impact of huge Hispanic consumer clout lost in immigration row
Saturday, Jun 17, 2006
By Wesley Brown
The growing consumer clout of the Hispanic community and its positive effect on the U.S. economy have largely been lost in the acrimonious debate over immigration policy that sadly has defined most Latinos living in the U.S.
Yet, an increasing number of American companies aren’t letting that quarrel prevent them from seeking growth opportunities by aligning with the Hispanic community.
Recently, a spate of multibillion-dollar ad campaigns and business deals have been unveiled by Fortune 500 companies and other corporate titans courting this huge market, including the fast-growing immigrant population along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Last week, Cingular Wireless answered the call of the Hispanic market by converting more than 420 stores in key urban areas nationwide to cater specifically to Latino consumers as part of its growth strategy.
More specifically, the wireless giant has targeted 40 cities primarily in California, Texas, Illinois New York and Florida, but also in emerging Hispanic markets such as Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia and Oregon. The nation’s largest wireless carrier plans to hire bilingual staff at those stores and convert signs and other marketing material into both English and Spanish.
Cingular also plans to reach out to Hispanics with ad campaigns in Spanish and sponsorships of top Latino celebrities. The wireless carrier said the recent moves reflect its unwavering commitment to the community.
“Our approach to the Hispanic market is driven by the deep understanding and experience of our leadership team,” said Ralph de la Vega, Cingular’s chief operating officer. “The Hispanic market is one of the fastest growing in the U.S. and is extremely attractive to wireless providers.”
Bentonville-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is also tailoring its marketing messages to this growing population.
Wal-Mart Vice Chairman John Menzer told investors Tuesday at a retail conference for analysts that the world’s largest retailer has divided its stores into to five customer segments: suburban/affluent, urban multicultural, Hispanic, baby boomer and rural.
Stores that cater to a large Hispanic customer group will offer expanded financial services and incorporate more bilingual signage, Menzer said.
Wal-Mart also touts itself as America’s top employer of Hispanic Americans, citing the 150,000 Hispanic associates among its 1.3 million workers in the U.S.
In Texas, that state’s fourth-largest bank was sold last week for $2.16 billion in cash to Madrid-based Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria. By year’s end, Rio Grande-based Texas State Bank will become a wholly owned subsidiary of BBVA and will be the European company’s largest bank in Texas.
After last year’s $850 million acquisition of Laredo National Bank, BBVA will have assets of $12.5 billion and 166 branches in Texas. Analysts say BBVA’s Texas two-step will add its big bootmarks in the Lone Star State to its already wide footprint in Mexico.
“Step by step, we are firmly moving forward into the US Hispanic market, continuing our value enhancing strategy,” BBVA Chairman Francisco Gonzalez said after the Laredo deal, citing more than 5 million Hispanic consumers along the Texas-Mexico border.
Like BBVA, many U.S. companies are now realizing every area of the U.S. economy is being lifted by the Hispanic population – and not the estimated 12 million illegal aliens who have taken on almost mythological status though largely toiling in low-wage jobs.
In fact, an increasing number of Hispanics are settling nicely into the American middle and upper classes, wielding considerable consumer clout with billions of dollars in disposable income.
And the numbers from such varied sources as the U.S. Census Bureau, the Selig Center for Economic Growth, AHAA and the Pew Hispanic Center don’t lie. Here are just a few:
– Hispanic purchasing power was estimated at $700 billion in 2005 and is expected to hit the $928 billion mark by 2007 and $1.2 trillion by 2010, representing 9.2 percent of all U.S. buying power.
– Hispanic families already outspend non-Hispanic families in several retail sectors, including food, apparel, health and beauty, baby products, digital cameras, long-distance phone service and pre-paid wireless.
– Between 1990 and 2005, the share of buying power controlled by Hispanic consumers rose in every state.
Staggering statistics like those are hard to ignore, no matter which side of the sometimes ugly immigration debate you support.
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Senator Chambliss says that he is ‘pleased’ with Operation Return To Sender:
June 14
CHAMBLISS PLEASED WITH DHS BORDER SECURITY EFFORTS TO APREHEND CRIMINAL ALIENS
Chambliss applauded U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents and officers that apprehended approximately 2,179 criminal aliens, illegal alien gang members, fugitive aliens, and other immigration status violators as part of “Operation Return to Sender,” a nationwide interior immigration enforcement operation that began on May 26 and concluded this week.
“I am pleased to see these aggressive enforcement efforts being carried out,” said Chambliss. “Border Security doesn’t end at the border — interior enforcement is a key piece that can be enhanced as a result of serious immigration reform. This is a strong signal to those who might come here in violation of our law and to those here who have committed crimes that there will be consequences.”
(Although most of them will be back in the U.S. within the year-ACT)
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Everyone that believes illegal immigrants to the jobs that Americans won’t do MUST read this post from CommonSenseAmerica.
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**This was a production of The Coalition Against Illegal Immigration (CAII). If you would like to participate, please go to the above link to learn more. Afterwards, email the coalition and let me know at what level you would like to participate.**
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