You Know How Immigrants Suck Our Resources Dry?

Well it is a load of steaming, heaping BS and the product of xenophobic bastards everywhere that spread their ignorant hate of others. If you don't believe me, just look at the studies out there that show otherwise. Here in New York, all immigrants make up 21 percent of New York's population and over 22 percent of the gross domestic product. A labor think tank examined the effects of immigrants on our state and it shows just how important they are, if you didn't know already. Chances are, more than one in five of you are one of those that help contribute to the economy.

From The Daily News:

Immigrants, who make up 21% of the Empire State's population, added $229 billion to the economy last year alone and accounted for 22.4% of New York's gross domestic product, Fiscal Policy Institute researchers found.

(snip)

The report found that immigrants in the city are moving into various realms of commerce and employment, and now make up 21% of all chief executive officers, half of accountants, and one-third of office clerks, receptionists and building cleaners.

The study also found that city neighborhoods with high concentrations of immigrants have seen rapid growth over the past decades in new business startups.

Will these facts and figures put an end to the crap the right wing spews over immigrants on a daily basis? Probably not, but at least clear thinking Americans can look at what is really going on, and not on Fox News. The Albany Project highlights much more from the report here.

Southampton Bans First Amendment

Suffolk County is officially within the boundaries of the United States, but one of its exclusive towns wants to distance itself from our founding fathers and the First Amendment that they drafted to the Constitution. Free speech is a cherished protection afforded to people in our country but Southampton begs to differ when protesters do not look and sound as the people and the messages that are similar to them.

From 1010 WINS:

Officials in this swanky village on eastern Long Island, apparently fed up with anti-day laborer protesters gathering in front of the mayor's house, have passed a local law making it illegal to demonstrate at a private home or on any residential street.

The move follows nearly two months of protests in front of Mayor Mark Epley's home after he suggested allowing day laborers to gather in a village-owned park near a convenience store. The day laborers, many of whom are suspected of being in the country illegally, stand near the site every morning waiting for contractors, landscapers and construction workers to hire them at hourly wages for the day.

(snip)

An attorney for the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Donna Lieberman, said she was concerned about the blanket nature of the ban. She said the First Amendment protects all speech, whatever the message.

"It's very dangerous,'' she said, "when government tries to promulgate rules to silence an entity whose message is unpopular or for the convenience ... of any individual.''

The new law carries a fine and possible jail time for the "crime" of protesting. If Mayor Epley and the city council out there think they are going to get away with this, they have another thing coming. This attempt at eroding our Constitution has no place in Suffolk County, New York or anywhere in the United States of America. We are better than this type of abrogation of our nation's laws.

Debating Immigration

Current TV nails it when bringing up the hotly contested issue of immigration. Lest all those minutemen forget who immigrated here first, they better watch this:

Port Chester Shuns Justice Dept

The New York suburb of Port Chester is making news and not in a good light these days. The town is a mixed town of affluent residents in the north and immigrants in the south. Despite a burgeoning hispanic population, the town's board has no representation from the south side. The Justice Dept told them to re-write their election laws after a resident filed a complaint, but the town government is refusing to acknowledge the federal involvement into the matter.

From Reuters:

Although they make up 46 percent of Port Chester's population, no Hispanic has been elected to the board governing the town of 28,000 people. The Justice Department sued Port Chester in December, after a complaint by Cesar Ruiz, a Hispanic who made an unsuccessful bid to be a trustee in 2001.

Unlike the turbulent 1950s and 1960s, there are no water cannons or dogs unleashed on protesters, no federal troops. The judge who halted the March 20 election called his action an "extraordinary remedy" that "should not be routinely granted."

(snip)

U.S. District Judge Stephen Robinson then suspended the March 20 election for two trustee spots, pending a trial on the merits of the Justice Department's recommendation.

Robinson found the government was likely to win at trial, but the board still declined to settle.

"We've never had a problem with our elections or anything else. Now all of a sudden we have the federal government coming here, dictating to us they want us to have districts," said Port Chester Mayor Gerald Logan.

"There's such greater issues that the federal government could be working on, like what we are doing with our borders," he said, a reference the influx of immigrants -- many of them Spanish speakers from Latin America -- into the United States.

The defiance of the town's government is extraordinary. Instead of worrying about fair representation in the town, the fear of immigrants (btw we are a nation of immigrants) has led to ethnocentric policies that hurt nearly half of the town's residents. If the judge in the case went to extreme of halting the election, you know that Port Chester is in need of some serious help. The issue at hand may not be as serious as the turbulent times of the 1950s and 60s, but the matter is still important and must be remedied. If the current trustees continue to defy the federal government, they will find themselves in a heap of trouble.