Florida immigrant crackdown aims to outdo Arizona lawsState attorney general

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Guardian

Florida immigrant crackdown aims to outdo Arizona lawsState attorney general
Bill McCollum promises harshest anti-illegal immigration legislation yet
Ed Pilkington guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 August 2010 20.44 BST

Florida's attorney general today promised to introduce laws emulating – and exceeding – the draconian clampdown on undocumented immigrants recently attempted by Arizona.

The proposed legislation would put the sunshine state at the forefront of the anti-immigrant moves rapidly sweeping across the US.

Architects of the plans boast they will be the harshest anti-illegal immigration laws yet, a claim that could have an incendiary effect in Florida given the state's high proportion of Latinos.

Bill McCollum, Florida's attorney general, is the main proponent of the clampdown. He said the legislation would "provide new enforcement tools for protecting our citizens and will help our state fight the on-going problems created by illegal immigration. Florida will not be a sanctuary state for illegal aliens."


Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/11/florida-arizona-illlegal-immigration-laws

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Maybe McCollum would like to explain to the world why it is the U.S. through the benevolence of the Cuban Adjustment Act offers a complete array of inducements to immigrate to Cuban citizens, REGARDLESS of their background, if they simply take the initiative to get themselves to dry land in the U.S. (without being intercepted at sea, first) where they will automatically be "legal," not to be chased down and deported, but offered social security, medical treatment, food stamps, Section 8 housing at the expense of U.S. taxpayers, financial assistance for education, instant work visas, and full legalization after one year.

Florida is where the full thrust of these illegal immigrants from Cuba arrive, while illegal immigrants from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Bahamas, etc. are ALL returned to their countries the moment they are discovered.

Bill McCollum is just the man to explain to the world why it is Florida is seducing, and claiming illegal immigrants from Cuba yet throwing out everyone else.

[lib2DaBone]

1. Good Point. Let's see if McCollum will go up against the Cuban Lobby in Miami..

We owe this all to Rick "The Cockroach" Scott, who in his bid to go further to the right than McCollum, fired the first volley.

Scott says, "My opponent Bill McCollum is too Liberal". "If elected, I will bring Arizona's immigration Law to Florida and I will drug test welfare recepients".

Wing-nuttery is a sickness.. and these guys are proud of it.

[seattleblue]

3. He doesn't need to go against the Cuban lobby.

Because of provisions in U.S. immigration law they are all here legally.

[Downwinder]

8. You have to "prove" that you are legal to any officer that chooses to ask.

Patrolman, Game Warden, security guard at a Gov. building, etc.

[seattleblue]

10. That can apply to anybody not just Cubans.

The point is all the Cubans are legal so there is no issue of "illegal" Cubans as opposed to "illegal" Haitians or Mexicans to name a couple. Cubans have nothing to fear from someone asking them a question about legality.

[Downwinder]

11. Superficially how do you tell the difference between a Cuban and a Mexican?

[seattleblue]

12. Ask a Cuban or Mexican.

I guarantee anyone in those groups can tell each other apart. Also when your job is to interact with different groups you quickly learn differences and you are trained on what you don't know from the job. Sorry you don't know that. The point is that a Cuban has no fear of immigration authorities at whatever level since they are all legal. A legal Mexican may have that fear because he/she may not be able to immediately prove that status.

[Downwinder]

13. Should all law enforcement be Cuban or Mexican so they

can tell the difference?

[seattleblue]

17. Border patrol at the Mexican border is heavily Hispanic in my experience.

But proper training can make give people of all nationalities a lot of information. Don't really know what your main point is.

[Downwinder]

18. I am contending that Cubans will get hassled whether or not they are legal.

That the average officer cannot distinguish at a glance between Cubans and other Latin Americans.

[seattleblue]

19. I have been through the Miami airport a few times

and as a European heritage white person I was an extreme minority as far as employees are concerned. I have a feeling Cubans are not going to he hassled too much in the Miami area.

[Lance_Boyle]

22. The Miami Cuban mafia could use a good bit of hassling.

Those people are not Americans - they are anti-Castro lunatics who aren't brave enough to do it from home. And the special treatment they are given once they reach dry foot status is a legal abomination.

[Judi Lynn]

15. The outrageous imbecilic unfairness of this provision for Cubans is grotesque.

There is NO excuse for it, and it's sheer mockery to people from other countries who are facing unbearable hardship, and immenent threats to their lives.

_{George W. Bush} sent his Coast Guard and Navy to surround Haiti during his covert overthrow of Aristide by US-outfitted and trained (in neighboring D.R., from whose border they entered Haiti to start their bloodbath of Haitians) paramilitaries so the Haitians who desperately tried to flee from the death squads by boat to ANYWHERE were immediately seized and fed right back into that meat grinder.

Haitians have been seeking refuge in Cuba, where there is a sizeable population with their own radio station, even.

Cubans are not "legal" in the eyes of honest, DECENT people, if people seeking employment after the U.S.-subsidized foods which have been poured into Mexico, selling at prices far below the cost in Mexico of raising them and bringing them to market themselves can offer are themselves illegal. MILLIONS of Mexican landowners on property in their families for generations have been forced into bankruptcy, and they, and other agricultural workers have been left without resources of any kinds, having worked in agriculture their entire lives.

If the U.S. is going to prosecute the people who have been driven out of their homes, and country by U.S. taxpayer-subsidized crops like corn, and beans which have been grown by Mexicans for THOUSANDS of years, something is deeply evil which needs to be corrected.

Just as the U.S. embargo on Cuba has been a form of economic warfare on Cuba designed to make life so difficult the citizens would turn against the government and overthrow it, so has the NAFTA results been deadly in Mexico, as well.

The idea of embargo as economic war goes all the way back to 1897 when the U.S. Secretary of War John C. Breckenridge wrote, on Christmas Eve,

"We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army."

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/bmemo.htm

If Mexicans are not legal, neither are Cubans. Period. Anything other is political manipulation.

[seattleblue]

21. It is political manipulation

Florida is a swing state and has a large amount of electoral votes. That's why both Republicans and Democrats keep the embargo going because they don't want to piss off the Cubans.

[onethatcares]

2. we gotta drug test these guys running for office

scott, greene, mccollum, meeke, every freaking one of them. rubio, sink, the entire lot. I don't think I ever heard this much crazyness. Everyone wants to cut taxes, close the borders, create jobs, cut taxes, fire teachers, cut taxes, make disney world larger, cut taxes, but not a one of THEM HAS EVEN STATED WHAT METHODS THEY WOULD USE OR HOW THEY WOULD PAY FOR ALL OF THIS SHIT.

We have become the ballbag of the United but Divided States of America, a freaking laughing stock for the late night crew again.

aaaaaaaargh.

[ScarletFyre]

4. Cubans vote Republican in high numbers

So they are welcomed with open arms.

[EC]

5. I guess they get so used to be beaten down

that Repubicans remind them of home...

[Judi Lynn]

7. The original hardliner "exiles" were the rabid, racist right-wing in Cuba, the ones who ran Cuba

in such a filthy way Cuba had TWO revolutions trying to get the brutal, greedy bastards out of their government.

[ngant17]

6. older Cuban-Americans are Repug

and they are dying off. The newer generations are not as loyal to Repugs, and there is some tendencies to go Democrat in Florida.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. Good riddance, McCollum.

You just signed your political death warrant.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

14. Florida doesn't like being out-right-winged by other states at all, huh?

Texas executing more people was bad enough. They gotta win this one, dammit!

[Judi Lynn]

16. That's it, for sure. They also are hell on gay citizens.

You may find this article interesting:

Angels with Ice Picks
In one Little Havana church, there's no room for Love
Comments (0) By Jim DeFede Thursday, Sep 21 2000

Every Sunday for the past ten years, Art Buonamia and his wife, Marisa, drove from their home in Kendall to attend Mass at the Shrine of Saint Philomena Church in Little Havana. “They still do the Mass in Latin,” explains Buonamia, an Italian from New York who moved to Miami 34 years ago. “We grew up with the Latin Mass. It's a beautiful language.” Saint Philomena isn't a very large church. Fewer than 100 people attend Sunday services, Buonamia says, but its members are close.

All that changed, however, with Elian Gonzalez.

Following Easter Sunday Mass this past April, several members of the congregation, as well as a few outsiders, made speeches from the altar denouncing the federal government, which a day earlier had raided the boy's Little Havana home to reunite him with his father. Buonamia believed Elian's place was with his father, but he also understood it was an emotional issue and people would disagree. So he kept his views to himself.

But Buonamia could not accept having the church's altar seized to make political speeches against the United States. “The priest was hiding in the sanctuary at the time,” he recalls. “I asked him later why he would allow them to take over the altar like that. I said they shouldn't be allowed to do that. And he said, “There isn't anything I can do about it.' Which is true. He is afraid of them.”

The speakers were exhorting church members to march over to Elian's house to demonstrate. “If people didn't see you jumping up and down against the United States government, then it was perceived that you were against them personally,” he says. On his way out of the church that day, he told the priest, Father Timothy Hopkins, he wasn't coming back.

More:
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/2000-09-21/news/angels-with-ice-picks/

[JCMach1]

20. He doesn't like be out right-winged by Rick Scott who was hammering him in an add

where he said he would not support Arizona's law being put in-place in FL.