Immigrants Flocking to GOP Districts (at 2X the rate of Dem districts)

[truthpusher]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-immigration-politics,1,6559832.story

Immigrants Flocking to GOP Districts

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer
9:49 AM PDT, October 21, 2006

DALTON, Ga. -- It's a slice of Americana: children playing soccer on a sunny Saturday morning, their parents cheering them on. But at these soccer fields, the dominant language is Spanish, the food truck sells authentic Mexican and few of the adults are eligible to vote.

Along the sidelines, America Gruner lugs a plastic tub filled with blank voter registration forms. Gruner has worked for months to register Latinos, inspired by an immigration debate that has become shrill to many Hispanics. Most politicians in this Republican stronghold in north Georgia offer little sympathy.

(snip)

Republican congressional districts are becoming magnets for immigrants -- legal and illegal -- but GOP lawmakers are not exactly embracing their new constituents.

Of the 50 House districts nationwide with the fastest-growing immigrant communities, 45 are represented by Republicans. All but three of those lawmakers voted for a bill that would make illegal immigrants felons.

Overall, GOP districts added about 3 million immigrants from 2000 to 2005, nearly twice the number that settled in districts represented by Democrats, according to an Associated Press analysis of census data.

The numbers help explain why illegal immigration is such a big issue in rural Georgia, eastern Pennsylvania and in suburbs throughout the United States.

They also help explain why House Republicans passed five bills on border security in the weeks before Congress recessed for the Nov. 7 elections. Only one measure, calling for a border fence, has become law.

(snip)

link: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/wire/sns-ap-immigration-politics,1,6559832.story

[sarahlee]

1. And just wait until more of the find ways to become eligible to vote

Yep, the immigrants will help turn red to blue in many instances.



...choose from one of the options above and quietly await a visit from the Department of Homeland Security.

artwork by http://www.dailykos.com/user/uid:20454">wonkydonkey

[wholetruth00]

2. That's because the elitest Republicans employe them as paid slave labor.

[0rganism]

3. it was easier for the plantation owners when their slaves couldn't vote

Now that they have to regard the "help" as humans with certain inalienable rights, things become a bit more complicated -- especially if any of them are on the legitimate track to naturalization.

The "illegal immigrant" canard is a crock, even though it's a significant share of the article. If the republicans really wanted to stop illegal immigration, they could do it tomorrow: just stop hiring illegal immigrants for their farmhands and housecleaners. The entire reason the supply of illegal immigrant labor exists is the overwhelming demand for it.

Their addiction to cheap labor is a tough one to break, though. Oxycontin would seem easy by comparison.

[hedgehog]

4. The problem of illegal immigrants working farms doesn't stop

with the farmers. As long as food prices cut profit margins razor thin, no farmer is going to be able to pay a decent wage even if willing to do so. Right now a lot of farmers around Western and Central New York are losing their apple crop because they can't afford to hire legal laborers provided by the NYS Department of Labor but the illegal laborers are afraid to work in the area due to recent crack-downs by the Border Patrol. The entire system of agriculture in this country needs to be reformed to figure out a way to support the small farmers without subsidizing factory farms.

[Patchuli]

5. It's time to invest in farming again! Food is GOLD!

And the backbone of this wonderful country that I love so much despite the mud she's being dragged through for the past 6 horrible years!

[0rganism]

6. So, maybe it's time for food prices to rise to reflect reality

What you're saying has some merit, but the problem exists only because we permit our society to benefit from a huge disparity of wealth compared to neighboring nations. This situation is no healthier than the national epidemic of obesity it indirectly enables, and forces us to do things we dislike to preserve a situation that degrades us in the name of servicing an addiction to cheap food, cheap manufactured goods, and consequentially, cheap labor.

[cap]

9. no... agricultural price supports need to be doled out appropriately

we managed NOT to have this problem before agribusiness took over. The gov paid farmers to produce or not produce and helped regulate the market so that they could survive and pay their labor decently.

That was a FDR Democratic idea turned into something hideous by the Republicans

[skids]

7. Farmers need to seek better outlets...

Not that they deserve this burden, but selling to soulless conglomerates that proceed to siphon off profits to CEO salaries, transport food over long distances, and fail to trade the retail market in anything resembling a competent manner resulting in mass oversupply and further price depreciation which they then crank back to the framers at wholesale auction -- that's not a good business strategy.

That's where a large chunk of the money problems are, not just with labor costs.

They need more farmers markets and local auctions to colleges/restaurants/caterers etc to increase the amount of their yield that they can market at above-wholesale/sub-retail prices direct-to-kitchen.

[hedgehog]

8. They also need protection against the bad years.

Inevitably, some parts of the country will have a crop failure in any given year. Farmers need to be protected against those years.

[Raine]

10. They wanted them for the cheap labor

now it's biting them in the butt, soon these people will be citizens and able to vote and they won't swallow the repuke shit.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

11. They still want them for cheap labor

All their hoopla about deportation is BS. They know that, with or without a border fence, more illegal immigrants will come into the US per day than will leave.

230 years and we still can't give up slavery.

[HuffleClaw]

12. oh, i see. its gonna be the IMMIGRANTS fault when the GOP loses?

hmmmmm.