Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Is the city of Irving practicing racist law enforcement?

Tonight hundreds of people gathered at Irving's City Hall to protest what they see as discriminatory policing. Irving participates in the Criminal Alien Program, a program to catch any illegal immigrants who've been picked up by the police. This is an automatic screen, so police don't have to specially request it when they take someone to jail. The protesters came together because they're afraid that Irving police are deliberately targeting Hispanic communities and gathering places.

Irving police have turned over at least 1,600 people to Immigration and Customs Enforcement since June 2006. In response, the Mexican Consul Enrique Hubbard Urrea last week warned immigrants from his country to avoid Irving. And community leader Carlos Quintanilla said he would begin organizing a boycott of Irving businesses if the city persisted.


To some protesters, the issue is that people are being deported. Unfortunately, they won't find much sympathy on that since most people are still of the opinion that illegal immigrants are criminals already (equating someone who crosses the border in search of a better life with someone who robs 7-11). However, I think we can all agree that discriminatory policing is illegal and un-American. Now what makes us think that this action against illegal aliens is in any way discriminatory against Hispanics?

From another DMN article:

Deportations in this city have skyrocketed in the last several months – from 262 in all of 2006 to 1,338 through mid-September.

"In this city, one has to be extra careful," he told Al Día . "And if possible, avoid going through there, because we suspect, and with good reason, that people are being detained simply because of their appearance."


Ok, if you can't figure out why that's suspicious, I'll lay it out straight: crime hasn't risen in Irving. So this is not the product of simply catching more criminals. The way this is enforced, immigration status will be examined only after the suspect is taken to jail. The police aren't picking anybody because they're illegal aliens. So why are they arresting more Hispanics? Has there been a sudden increase in crimes committed by Hispanics but offset by a decrease in crimes committed by whites and blacks? Somehow I doubt it.

Is the city of Irving practicing a racist policy by focusing on Hispanic residents in hopes to catch more illegal immigrants? The answer to this question is behind closed doors, but we'll keep asking.

19 comments:

adam said...

Good work.

Alexander Wolfe said...

I sure would like to see some figures on arrest rates in Irving.

Anonymous said...

A Sad Parallel…

I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue. Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table…everywhere. Then some of the birds turned mean: They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket. And others birds were boisterous and loud: They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio. Soon, the back yard was like it used to be…quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now lets see…our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be a automatic citizen. Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families: you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor: you child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English: Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to press “one” to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than “Old Glory” are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder.

Nat-Wu said...

That is truly a sad parallel, as in, it's not accurate at all. You know, this reminds me of how religious spam emails use long analogies to "prove" some point. Basically they use a false comparison to make their argument. In other words, it's a worthless way of making an argument. Your analogy has to be some situation that actually occurred where you can see some relevant comparison to the situation at hand, not a story about birds and birdfeeders. And if you're stupid enough to put unlimited seed on your back porch, you must want shit all over the place, so don't complain when you get it.

Regardless of whether you support or don't support illegal immigrants, as an American it is shameful to think that any police department, or any city, practices racial profiling on its citizens. That's illegal, and if your complaint is that immigrants are coming illegally, you should be able to see the irony in that.

As for your moronic arguments about what illegals cost us, you need to be as hard-working as an illegal and actually do some reading on the subject. You'll find answers that surprise you if you read real research on it instead of Heritage Foundation or Cato Institute propaganda.

Anonymous said...

Nat-Wu: Obviously you are a liberal\socialist\communist who believes in government responsibility NOT personal responsibility. When dealing with your kind I have learned that common sense and logic does not penetrate the liberal mindset until an issue becomes PERSONAL. Only then will the emotional (mostly anger)fog that permeates the liberal mindset clear out. That being the point I'll make yet another analogy that hopefully will generate a logical reaction from you and not the liberal kneejerk emotional one: Lets say you come home one day and find a family of ILLEGAL immigrants has broken into YOUR home. The family says "you left your door open so we decided to break in". Logically you react by stating "get out of MY home". The family says "you owe us, your home is now our home. Because we made the effort to break in we are now entitled to all the benefits this home will bring us. It is now YOUR responsibility to feed us, house us, provide medical care, social security, education and all the other benefits and entitlements that we demand. In addition, YOU must speak our language and if you don't give us all we demand then we will sue you for racism and march through your neighborhood telling everyone what a racist bigot you are! So Nat-Wu, I know that at this point your still in denial of the logic of this analogy, and will continue to be until one day, God willing, YOU will be put in a position like this analogy where logic and common sense will override the liberal\socialist fog mindset that permeates your brain. Also, you forgot one important item surrounding this issue: So many men and women DIED protecting the sovereignty of this country because they believed this country called America was worth the sacrifice. To simply give it away in the name of liberal socialism is to denigrate that sacrifice. Nat-Wu, all I have ever asked of a liberal socialist like yourself is to simply live what you say you believe in. So far I have found no true believers.

Alexander Wolfe said...

As to anonymous1's "bird feeder" analogy:

You make one serious mistake. The "bird food" isn't all the freebies that our government gives out, but the jobs that are available to illegal immigrants. They come not for benefits, but for jobs. If we made no benefits available to them, as many would like to, they would STILL COME for those jobs because it's the money that they want. So, two courses of action are avaiable: get rid of the jobs and make it impossible to get in the country or...make it legal for them to come in and work those jobs. The first won't happen because the companies that need that labor won't LET it happen because they need the workers. The second can't happen because nativists don't want our country "overrun" with hispanics, despite the fact that they get here and behave themselves, pay taxes and try to learn the language. So, here we are anonymous.

As for anonymous2's comment...well, I'll let Nat-Wu address that.

Nat-Wu said...

To Coward (because that's what people who won't sign a name to their comments are), I am indeed a liberal. And you are an idiot. You must take some pride in it too. The issue is not whether either one of us likes or dislikes illegal immigrants, it's whether we are a nation of laws or not. Racial profiling is illegal, period. That should matter to you, especially since your kind always say that you're not against immigrants, you're against people who break the law. But then, I'm virtually certain you're a nativisit in reality, so that's really just an excuse.

And you're a master of the extremely bad analogy. You need to quit using analogies that don't make any sense. What you're talking about is not what Mexicans are doing, it's what white people did to the Indians! Given the virtual certainty that you're the descendant of people that nobody invited over here, you don't have much room to talk. And since you can't intelligently, you really shouldn't!

Anonymous said...

It's true. If only we could make Nat-Wu and other liberal socialists actually LIVE what they say they believe in. That would be true justice. Like anonymous, all I have ever asked of a liberal like Nat-Wu is to take PERSONAL responsibility for their beliefs. Like all liberals Nat-Wu has taken the emotional stance not the logical one. He has called anonymous a moron and an idiot while anonymous has never once personally offended Nat-Wu. Oh Nat-Wu what I would give to see your reaction if an ILLEGAL family actually did break into YOUR home demanding entitlements. As Clint Eastwood said that would "make my day".

Anonymous said...

Hey anonymous great analogy. And Nat-Wu, did you ever consider living in China? It's a true socialist state with all the benefits and beliefs that you hold so dear. Oh wait I forgot you can't go there, China enforces its immigration laws.

Alexander Wolfe said...

Hey anonymous, agree with anonymous and Larry:

We do take personal responsiblity for our beliefs. That's why we're perfectly willing to allow guest workers into our country, grant them limited benefits, and use our tax money to pay for those benefits. We'd also like to take advantage of the taxes they'll pay, and the contributions they make to our economy.

What WE wish is that nativists and anti-immigration would take personal responsibility for their own opposition to immigration and move back to the countries their ancestors arrived from to demonstrate their commitment to their beliefs. Clearly, our Native American ancestors were remiss in not declaring European immigration a "crime", so we could easily brand you as descendents of criminals and trespassers and end the debate in satisfaction.

Nat-Wu said...

Well, whether or not it was defined as a crime, it would be today. And even if the murder and rape of Indians wasn't a "crime" per se, it was still murder and rape, two things generally acknowledged as wrong. Moralists like our friends anonymous, anonymous, anonymous, and Larry should be able to agree with that. Therefore, they are the descendants of murderers, trespassers, rapists and exploiters.

As to the other point, you can see how none of them are making an "emotional" argument by statements such as "It's a true socialist state with all the benefits and beliefs that you hold so dear." And, " If only we could make Nat-Wu and other liberal socialists actually LIVE what they say they believe in."

Of course, you guys still haven't begun to touch the central point, which is that whether you like illegal immigrants or not, racial profiling of our city's inhabitants is wrong because it's not being practiced merely against illegal immigrants, it's being practiced against US citizens. And of course you can't argue with that because you know it's wrong, thus you seek to turn this argument into something else.

Notice how all of these commenters assumed I support illegal immigrants being in our country? I'm not talking about how it's wrong to deport illegals. They're in jail because they're criminals in the first place! Not even the immigrant community has any sympathy for them! But what the citizens of Irving don't want or deserve is to be targeted for policing and arrested for minor infractions that, if they were white, they'd be given a ticket for, just so that they can be processed in jail to see if they're illegal or not. And not one of you morons has addressed that issue.

Yes, you are all morons because you aren't even arguing the point, which means you've conceded it and are reacting because of your emotions, which in most cases are xenophobia and self-righteousness. Not one of you has so much respect for the law that you will come down against racial profiling on the side of the Hispanic community because you lump in Hispanics with immigrants and immigrants with illegals. Because of your own biases against people of other races.

What I see is Americans being victimized because because of their race and skin color. Now, for all of you who believe in "love it or leave it" and "There's no color but American", tell me how you reconcile that with discriminatory profiling. I'll wait.

adam said...

On the contrary, if China enforces its immigration laws, won't it be the perfect place for you Larry? Besides, it's not really that communist with its massive trade with the United States...

Nat-Wu said...

Good point, Adam. Larry also forgets to mention that any such states that have such incredibly tight border restrictions are almost invariably authoritarian states, exactly the kind of place he'd like America to be. But he doesn't want to live in China's "communist" authoritarian state where they don't pretend citizens can participate in government, he wants to live in an American "democratic" authoritarian state where we pretend to pick our rulers by a free and fair election (like we did with Bush).

Frankly, if our porous borders make us in any way different from China, that can only be a good thing.

Anonymous said...

Incredible liberal insanity being printed here. Only in America. Nat wu you truly do deserve to live what you state you believe in just like anonymous said earlier. That would be the ultimate justice to say the least. Liberals live in a world of delusional, anti-common sense wishful thinking. You are living proof of the liberal mantra "give until it hurts". Problem is you have overdosed on Novocaine.

adam said...

I think that, given everything we'd ever posted about, the high level of attacks from conservatives on this post really illustrates the level of nativist paranoia Nat-Wu has been talking about.

Anonymous said...

Nat Wu stated: "Frankly, if our porous borders make us in any way different from China, that can only be a good thing."

First you want a liberal\socialist\communist society like China, the leader of communism in the world. Then you want porous borders without any sovereignty for America. You can't have it both ways. So from what I can understand from your illogical rambling is you want a liberally socialist communist society like China but open borders with no sovereignty that can absorb anyone that wants to live off government "entitlements". A true welfare state but with no autonomy. A huge hippie commune.

Nat Wu, you are insane.

Nat-Wu said...

I sure would be if anything you ascribed to me were true. Boy, you are an idiot. And how about you quit pretending to be different people? It's not very dignified. I've checked the IP log and the one thing you can't do is change your IP address every time, so you might as well quit pretending.

Anyway, it's annoying that you can't address the actual issue here, which is the possibility of illegal activities on the part of the Irving city government. If you can't restrict your comments to that situation, you really don't need to be wasting our blog space with your irrelevant comments.

I'm giving you one last chance (for all your pseudonyms, ok, so don't try using two or three names like you have been) to explain why you've commented here in the first place. From checking your IP address, you haven't gone back and read a bunch of our posts on immigration, so you don't even know how I feel about. So why are you attacking me personally? I simply said that the city should obey the law like anybody else, if indeed it is violating the law.

Again, one last chance to make a point on this actual subject. What this story is about, since you can't seem to grasp it on your own, is not how the city is treating illegals, but how it's treating US citizens and legal aliens. If you have some point to make to the effect of "Well it doesn't matter because our war on immigration must be prosecuted at all costs", say that. I don't mind, as long as it's on topic. Whatever, as long as it's about this post. This is not your forum to make personal attacks or talk about how you hate immigrants.

Nat-Wu said...

Now it's a commong thing for acolytes of he Bill O'Reilly school of debate to put words in your mouth and then yell at you for what he says you said. It's a weak type of argument, but even so it's effective. Republicans have learned that if you control the debate, you decide who wins.

Nobody with integrity would try to argue that way, which is why you can be virtually certain of seeing that kind of style from a conservative asshole who comes on other people's blogs not to talk about the issues, but to make personal attacks, like our friend "greg" has.

Now, I hate to be long-winded, but here's an example, just so you don't think I'm making false accusations:

(greg)"First you want a liberal\socialist\communist society like China"

Now who said that's what I want? Oh, right, you did!
(anonymous)"Nat-Wu: Obviously you are a liberal\socialist\communist "

And yet the only thing I said on the matter was: "Frankly, if our porous borders make us in any way different from China, that can only be a good thing"

Merely repeating what your opponent says and then arguing against isn't logically fallacious. Putting words in their mouths that they never said is called a "Straw Man".

Furthermore, according to "greg" I, "want a liberally socialist communist society like China but open borders with no sovereignty that can absorb anyone that wants to live off government "entitlements". A true welfare state but with no autonomy. A huge hippie commune. "

And yet nowhere have I said anything of the sort. So what's the point of his arguing against something I didn't say? Well, as when Rush Limbaugh can't hold his own with facts, it's easier to discredit someone when you lie about them. Now I'm flattered that you're so enamored with me you keep coming back for more, but really, that's enough.

Anonymous said...

"That is truly a sad parallel, as in, it's not accurate at all. You know, this reminds me of how religious spam emails use long analogies to "prove" some point. Basically they use a false comparison to make their argument. In other words, it's a worthless way of making an argument. Your analogy has to be some situation that actually occurred where you can see some relevant comparison to the situation at hand, not a story about birds and birdfeeders. And if you're stupid enough to put unlimited seed on your back porch, you must want shit all over the place, so don't complain when you get it."

Someone needs to get off their high horse.