The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

Mexico’s President visited The White House & Congress in the aftermath of Arizona’s new authoritarian and racist immigration law.

President Calderón made headlines this week, more than anything for his address to a joint session of U.S. Congress where he asked for the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban and for the rejection of Arizona’s new authoritarian police law. Watch his full address by clicking here.

Full disclosure: for those that don’t know, Calderón is actually a social and fiscal conservative, whose Presidency is still tainted by allegations of election fraud, which prevented progressive presidential candidate Lopez Obrador (click here for Obrador’s website) from becoming President instead of Calderón. Current Mexican President Calderón is also a big supporter of Mexico’s oil privatization to open it up to even more agressive foreign controls, something that would please U.S.-based corporations very much. Having said that, you would think that conservatives would love Calderón. Instead, he has been lambasted by the U.S. right-wing media for urging Congress to pass immigration reform, God forbid!

I can’t tell you how many times the tired old argument surfaces with conservatives again and again: that Mexico’s own immigration laws are just as authoritarian as the United States’ and so that somehow justifies draconian immigration laws. First, I’ll repeat here what I have already stated on Project Economic Refugee’s site previously:

…two wrongs do not make a right. For the sake of argument: just because Mexico or any other country might have been guilty of having an inhumane immigration policy of its own in the past, it does not mean that it is okay for the U.S. to have an even more horrible one. The U.S. is supposed to be better, not worse, than other countries.

So what are the facts on Mexico’s own immigration laws? Via ThinkProgress:

In 2008, the Mexican Congress voted unanimously with 393 votes to decriminalize undocumented immigration to Mexico. Undocumented immigration is now a minor offense punishable by fines equivalent to about $475 to $2,400. However, just because Mexico reformed its laws doesn’t mean its law enforcement authorities got the memo. Amnesty International recently issued a report saying there is still “widespread abuse of migrants in Mexico,” largely because Article 67 of Mexico’s immigration law still requires law enforcement to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country — which is nearly identical to provisions in Arizona’s immigration law. The Interior Department is reportedly working to repeal Article 67 “so that no one can deny or restrict foreigners’ access to justice and human rights, whatever their migratory status.” However, rather than seeing it as a source of hypocrisy, the U.S. would be wise to examine Mexico’s experience with illegal immigration as an extreme, but poignant case study of the deputization of immigration law and what can happen when it turns immigrants into criminals.

I am clearly not here to defend Calderón nor Mexico’s politicians for their shortcomings to their own people but before you start believing the right-wing propaganda machine’s demonizing of the solutions he proposed during his address to Congress, maybe you should take a closer look at what he actually said (something that the corporate media tends to gloss over). Let’s review the transcrip from the Mexican President’s address to Congress to examine what he actually advocated for:

A stronger Mexico means a stronger United States … and a stronger United States means a stronger Mexico … Let us create more jobs for American workers and more jobs for Mexican workers; members of the Congress, I’m not a President who likes to see Mexicans leave our country searching for opportunities abroad; in migration our communities lose their best people, the hardest working, the most dynamic, the leaders of their communities, as migrants, as parents, [sometimes] will never see their children again.

…today, we are doing the best that we can do in order to reduce migration to create opportunities and to create jobs for Mexicans in our own country where their homes are and where their families are; as many jobs as we can, and Mexico will one day be a country in which our people will find the opportunities that today they look for outside of the country. Until then, Mexico is determined to assume its responsibility. For us, migration, is not just your problem, we see it as our problem as well. My government does not favor the breaking of the rules, I fully respect the right of any country to enact and enforce its own laws but what we need today is to fix our broken and inefficient system; we favor the establishment of laws that work and work well for us all, so the time has come for the United States and Mexico to work together in this issue, the time has come to reduce the causes of migration and to turn this phenonemon into a legal order and secure flow of workers and visitors. We want to provide the Mexican people with the opportunities they are looking for, that is our goal, that is our mission as government to transform Mexico into a land of opportunities to provide to our people with jobs and opportunities to live in peace and to be happy.

I don’t know about you, but that didn’t sound as crazy to me as the right-wing propaganda machine is making it out to be.

To view more updates on this, please visit Project Economic Refugee.

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

On the race for California’s next governor, Project Economic Refugee previously exposed Steve Poizner for all his poisonous rhetorical attacks on immigrants, economic refugees, and by extension on Latinos and other minorities. Meanwhile, Meg Whitman, his opponent in the Republican June 8 primary, has been particularly slick on the way her campaign has handled the issue. She has proven that she certainly knows on which channels she should air her anti-immigrant messages and on which ones she should not: she has shown relative restraint on her T.V. ads but has let loose on the radio, unlike Steve Poizner who to his own political peril has gone all out with his blame-the-immigrants messages on T.V. where you unavoidely reach a more complex political spectrum.

A marketing expert, Meg Whitman has shown she has definitely done her P.R. homework by airing her own anti-immigrant rhetoric via a virtual focus on the radio. This would make strategic sense for her, since radio tends to be dominated by conservatives because of corporate monopolies favoring right-wing hate speech. Radio has definitely allowed her to be as sneaky and as anti-immigrant as she chooses to be, avoiding alineating Latino and other minorities that have strong connections to the immigrant experience should she go all out on immigrants on T.V. as well.

In fact, she has decided to go after immigrants on the radio in a blaze of glory, featuring none other but the infamous Pete Wilson, the former Governor of California, who after his unabashed support for that state’s Proposition 187 in the 90’s, became the hero of anti-immigrant rhetoric and bigots all over California. Meg Whitman first started slow, focusing on having Pete Wilson do a subtle endorsement of her policies without actually mentioning the topic of immigration. Take a listen to the ad here.

Here’s the transcript of the ad (via Meg Whitman’s own site):

ANNOUNCER: Former Governor of California Pete Wilson.

PETE WILSON: What has happened to California? Our taxes are too high, other states are stealing our jobs and government is California’s growth industry. This year we must elect a governor who has created thousands of jobs in the private sector, not government. A governor with a courage to make tough decisions and to say no to the spenders in the legislature.

Meg Whitman is the only candidate, Republican or Democrat, who is up to the challenge. Meg isn’t a politician. Her experience is making payrolls, not excuses. And she’s committed to rebuilding California by creating jobs, cutting spending and making our schools work. Some say California is ungovernable. Well, I know better. You bet California can be fixed with the right gutsy leader. And her name is Meg Whitman.

MEG WHITMAN: It’s time for A New California. Share your ideas and read my plan at TalkToMeg.com.

ANNOUNCER: Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010.

Then upon deciding not to be outdone by Poizner, she went all out with unleashing Pete Wilson, borrowing from his rhetoric and doing what conservatives do best: reducing the issue to their typical mantra of “they’re just illegals”; here’s the audio of that ad.

Here is a transcript (also via Meg Whitman’s own website):

Announcer: Meg Whitman on illegal immigration.

Meg Whitman: Don’t be fooled by misleading ads, my position on immigration is crystal clear. Illegal immigrants are just that, illegal. I am 100 percent against amnesty for illegal immigrants. Period. As Governor, I will crack down on so-called sanctuary cities like San Francisco who thumb their nose at our laws. Illegal immigrants should not expect benefits from the state of California. No driver’s license and no admission to state-funded institutions of higher education. And I’ll create an economic fence to crack down on employers who break the law by using illegal labor.

Pete Wilson: This is former Governor Pete Wilson. I know how important it is to stop illegal immigration and I know Meg Whitman. Meg will be tough as nails on illegal immigration. She’ll fight to secure our border and go after sanctuary cities. Please join me in supporting Meg Whitman for Governor.

Announcer: Paid for by Meg Whitman for Governor 2010. Meg2010.com.

Steve Poizner, once again being his awkward and short-sighted self, has chosen to be even more flamboyant for his hatred of immigrants by actually launching an ad that cheers Arizona’s new racist authoritarian police law; watch his new ad here.

…and where is the Democratic Party candidate, Jerry Brown on all this, you might ask? You might expect he’d be recording both of Meg Whitman’s radio ads and Steve Poizner’s T.V. ones and use them against either one of them in the general election in Spanish and Asian language T.V. channels. Well, don’t hold your breath: Jerry Brown has chosen to hide behind a slogan of “centrist” and boring rhetoric. Via an interview he gave with the San Francisco Chronicle:

The following originally appeared on Project Economic Refugee.

She’s claimed that she is against and offended by sexism (she did this specially during her tiff with David Letterman) but yet she remained utterly and suspiciously silent as the right-wing ravaged Sonia Sotomayor with sexist and racist attacks during her confirmation process as a Supreme Court Justice (click here to read the back story on that) at a time when even other Republicans were speaking out against such utter racism. People wondered “why?” Why remain silent when it would be a good political opportunity for her to speak out? She could’ve easily capitalized on Newt Gingrinch’s stumble on some racist comments against Sotomayor and on the Spanish language itself (wished I were making this stuff up but it really happened) that he had made around that same time; she could’ve grabbed the opportunity to reach out to the Latino vote and upstaged one of her main Republican rivals (that is, if her intentions were still to eventually run for President) … but she didn’t. People again wondered “why?”

She falsely accused President Obama of pal’ing around with terrorists during the election, when in fact she herself has been pal’ing around with racist extremists in the Tea Party crowd by attending their rallies and catering to their hatred. In fact, she has been notorious for also remaining silent when Tea Party people attend her rallies and shout racist epithets at Obama calling him the “N” word and worse (I got alerted to this back in 2009 via a comment someone left here).

Now, her recent comments on Fox News justifying Arizona’s new immigration police law have revealed a sliver of what her attitudes are towards immigrants and especially towards Latinos and other minorities. Watch the video here.

Via Media Matters:

Palin: “There is no ability or opportunity in there for the racial profiling.” Appearing on the April 27 edition of Hannity, Fox News contributor Sarah Palin stated that “[t]here is no ability or opportunity in there for the racial profiling. And shame on the lame stream media again for turning this into something that it is not.” Palin added, “I think it’s shameful, too, that the Obama administration has allowed, too, this to become more of a racial issue by perpetuating this myth that racial profiling is a part of this law.”

Is there a pattern emerging here? Is there a racial undertone that Sarah Palin is starting to reveal in her actions? Why is Sarah Palin supporting a law that was written by white supremacists and then accusing others of racism? I’m not using hyperbole here, it was actually written by people that are well-known to have ties to actual Nazis. Furthermore, she claims to be against so-called “big government”, which Arizona’s new immigration law clearly is: BIG government forcing honest, hard-working police officers to act as a kind of Nazi German Gestapo under the threat of being sued should they not act like it.

For God’s sakes, even people that previously railed against so-called “big government” and even threatened to secede from the union at Tea Party rallies like Texa’s Governor Rick Perry have now come out against what Arizona has done. Via Governor Perry’s website:

“Recently, there has been much debate over immigration policy in Washington and what has been implemented in Arizona. I fully recognize and support a state’s right and obligation to protect its citizens, but I have concerns with portions of the law passed in Arizona and believe it would not be the right direction for Texas.

“For example, some aspects of the law turn law enforcement officers into immigration officials by requiring them to determine immigration status during any lawful contact with a suspected alien, taking them away from their existing law enforcement duties, which are critical to keeping citizens safe. Our focus must continue to be on the criminal elements involved with conducting criminal acts against Texans and their property. I will continue to work with the legislative leadership to develop strategies that are appropriate for Texas.

A dangerous pattern is emerging on Sarah Palin: support for big government authoritarian laws written by Nazis, and absolute silence in the face of racist and sexist hate. As a major public figure in the national scene, she bears responsibility, whether she likes it not, on all this, because after all, sometimes silence is tacit approval or in her case, a resounding endorsement. 

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