First of a Series

By William Buchanan

The headline on the front page of The Washington Post’s Metro Section for April 15 read: Police Worry Immigrants’ Help in Cases Will Dry Up. The raw facts of the article are: Korean-born carpenter Hak Bong Kim was engaged by a Chevy Chase, Maryland couple to refinish their floors while they were traveling. Needing a helper, cheap, Kim picked up Carlos Bustamante-Mendieta at Annandale, Virginia’s impromptu day labor site. At the job site, Kim soon discovered Bustamante stealing jewelry and confronted him. Bustamante stabbed Kim seven times, spirited his body back to a wooded area in Fairfax County, doused it with gasoline, and set it afire.

The Post’s Story. The date and time of food purchases made at the Annandale 7-11, food found stored in the refrigerator at the work site, led police to videotapes of the purchases and pictures of Kim and the suspect. However, it was not until someone known only as “Sam” identified the suspect that arrest and conviction were possible. And this is the key to what the Post wants you to understand. Cops in the Fairfax and Montgomery Counties (and Washington, DC) do not enforce federal immigration law and therefore are more likely to have the trust and cooperation of members of the legal and illegal immigrant community – like “Sam.”
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Frank Morris, Sr., was born in Cairo, Illinois on July 21, 1939. He received his B.A. with high honors from Colgate University. From there, he earned an M.P.A. degree at Syracuse University and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT.

Frank Morris has worked for the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the State Department. In 1972, he became an associate professor of political science at Northwestern University. In 1983. Morris became the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation. In 1986, he was named associate dean of the Graduate School of Public Affairs at the University of Maryland, College Park. At retirement in 1996. He went on to become dean of graduate studies and research at Morgan State University.

Dr. Morris has received numerous awards over the years. He was proclaimed “Father of the Year,” by the Chicago Defender in 1975, has awards from 3 different local NAACP chapters, and was a recipient of the Superior Honor Award by the Department of State. He and his wife have four children.

View a video message from Dr. Morris concerning racism and mass immigration.

T. Willard Fair, President and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Miami was interviewed on National Public Radio (NPR) on May 22, 2007 regarding impending immigration legislation.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10329515

At the time, the U.S. Senate was still mired in a determined three-year-long effort to overwhelm the American labor market by adding tens of millions of foreign workers over the next 20 years.– (S. 1033, S. 2611. S. 1348, S. 1639).

NPR: What are your thoughts on just the broad debate about immigration?

Fair: Well, my position is very clear. And that is: that if we allow 12 million illegal immigrants to become citizens over night, Then, by that decision we consign black America to a permanent underclass.
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Black anger grows as illegal immigrants transform urban neighborhoods.

City Journal
Winter 2008.
Steven Malanga

Terry Anderson is angry. From his KRLA-AM radio perch in Los Angeles, the black talk-show host thunders, “I have gone on the streets and talked to people at random here in the black community, and they all ask me the same question: ‘Why are our politicians and leaders letting this happen?’ ” What’s got Anderson—motto: “If You Ain’t Mad, You Ain’t Payin’ Attention”—so worked up isn’t the Jena Six or nooses on Columbia University doorknobs; it’s the illegal immigrants who allegedly murdered three Newark college students last August. And when he excoriates politicians for “letting this happen,” he’s directing his fire at Congressional Black Caucus members who support open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens. “Massive illegal immigration has been devastating to my community,” Anderson, a former auto mechanic and longtime South Central Los Angeles resident, tells listeners. “Black Americans are hit the hardest.”
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No it’s not leggings, Jaws or the pod people. It’s the undocumented workers of Rhode Island Plaza. For a little over two weeks, ever since Defend DC’s December 15 demonstration [pictured below], they had been pushed down onto a narrow strip of District land.

Sometimes it appeared to be the DC police who exercised the controls and sometimes security people employed by Home Depot. As near as we can tell, however, Home Depot is a tenant, not an owner of the land.

The purpose of our December 15 demonstration:

We respectfully request that the owners of Rhode Island Plaza not allow day laborers to congregate on its property.

These undocumented workers are:

Disruptive. Some of the day laborers that gather at Rhode Island Plaza disrespect and endanger the neighborhood. They drink and urinate in public, harass women, and litter the area. Many neighborhood residents are afraid to shop at the Plaza.

Not Legally Present. National studies show that 80% or more of day laborers are not authorized to live or work in the United States.

Legal workers can go to the “one-stop” at 15^th and Monroe NE and get work. They would show a picture ID and Social Security Number. Their employers would pay into social security, worker’s comp, unemployment insurance like all legal employers do.

Only illegal workers would stand out all day in the blazing sun of summer and the freezing cold of winter on the off-chance of getting a job that might last two hours. The payoff is: they do eventually get many, if not all, of the entry-level jobs.

Not Legal To Hire. Hiring unauthorized workers, knowing they are unauthorized, is a violation of federal law (8 U.S.C. 1324a). Employers are required to obtain and maintain a completed DHS Form I-9 from all those they hire and to inspect their documents. But every day, day after day, and in broad daylight for all to see, unauthorized workers are being hired by employers who are not allowed to hire them.

Taking Jobs Needed by Unemployed Legal Residents. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, black unemployment in Washington, DC in calendar 2006 was 10.0 percent. Thousands of ex-offenders are returning to the city from prison. We want these jobs for our unemployed and the ex-offenders.

DC IS THE NATION’S CAPITAL. We should be first in defending the rule of law.

AMERICA IS A FIRST WORLD NATION. Day labor is a Third World institution – a brutal and exploitative competition for work.

We respectfully request that the owners of Rhode Island Plaza not allow day laborers to congregate on its property.

Letter to the Editor, Washington Times, December 21, 2007

Thank you for your excellent article on Saturday’s DefendDC demonstration (”Protesters want day laborers out of NE plaza,” Metropolitan, Sunday). Our goal was to get the owners of the Rhode Island Avenue shopping plaza to stop allowing illegal workers to congregate on their property. My only regret is that none of the many Ward 5 residents who demonstrated was quoted.

According to David Thurston, director of the D.C. Alliance for Immigrant Justice, “These workers are looking for dignity and employment. It’s for the benefit of the entire community.” But dignity is not something you gain by breaking the law.

Ward 5 residents are livid over public drinking and urination, harassment of women and property invasions by these illegal workers.

Black Washingtonians, including returning ex-offenders who have unemployment rates exceeding 10 percent, may also have a problem believing illegal job-seekers are a benefit.

Mr. Thurston thinks DefendDC ought to change its name to DivideDC. He’s on to something there. It is definitely our goal to divide the District to separate the legal workers from the illegal workers, something D.C. police are currently forbidden to do.

Illegal employment of undocumented workers is the magnet that generates illegal immigration. The Rhode Island plaza has become the entry point for this crime in the District.

Anyone who comes across our border without inspection is guilty of a misdemeanor and can be fined and imprisoned for up to six months.

A second offense is a felony. There are also criminal penalties for document fraud. Employers who knowingly hire illegal workers are subject to fines and any employer who picks up a worker at the Rhode Island plaza knows he is employing someone the law forbids him to hire.

WILLIAM BUCHANAN
DefendDC
Washington

The Washington Times
By Josiah Ryan
December 16, 2007

Demonstrators who opposed a day-laborer center in the District gathered yesterday outside a Northeast shopping plaza to ask authorities to disperse the mostly Hispanic day laborers who continue to gather there to look for work.

About two dozen protesters affiliated with the groups DefendDC and Help Save Maryland assembled outside the Home Depot on Rhode Island Avenue in Northeast. They were met by about 15 counterdemonstrators who showed up to support the workers.

Members of the protest group held signs and complained of crimes regularly committed by laborers, as many as 200 of whom congregate daily at the site to link up with contractors for jobs. Residents say some of the workers loiter, drink alcohol and urinate in public.

The protesters also complained that day-laborer sites draw illegal aliens.

William Buchanan, a member of DefendDC, blamed Mayor Adrian M. Fenty for the problem in the District, where police are prohibited from inquiring about immigration status.

“The police cannot do anything here because he is building a haven for illegal immigrants. He should reverse that policy,” Mr. Buchanan said.

David Thurston, the director of the D.C. Alliance for Immigrant Justice, said the workers only want to work hard and contribute to the community.

“The fact they are illegal workers isn’t my concern,” he said. “Those guys ought to be called DivideDC instead of DefendDC,” he said, referring to the main group of protesters. “These workers here in D.C. are looking for dignity and a place to seek employment. It’s for the benefit of the entire community.”

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Phoenix to alter ’sanctuary’ status

The Washington Times
By Jerry Seper
December 10, 2007

A panel of former federal, state and local law-enforcement officials has been named by Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon to devise a way to enable Phoenix police officers to question and detain illegal aliens and notify federal immigration officials that they did so.

The panel’s creation comes in the wake of an announcement last week by Mr. Gordon that he has changed his mind concerning the city’s status as a “sanctuary city,” a policy that prevents officers from enforcing immigration laws.

Mr. Gordon told reporters during a press conference he could no longer support the city’s 15-year-old sanctuary policy, saying that although “it was right for local law enforcement and our community” when written, circumstances are now different.

“It was written in another time — and it was based on the premise that the federal government would fulfill all its responsibilities regarding enforcement,” he said. “Obviously, that has changed.”

For the past several years, Phoenix has been included among several “sanctuary cities” in the U.S., meaning it did not enforce federal immigration laws, arguing that doing so was the business of the Department of Homeland Security.

Known as Police Operations Order 1.4, the policy said officers were not allowed to stop people to determine their immigration status, arrest people when the only violation was an infraction of federal immigration law or notify Homeland Security that an illegal alien witnessed or was the victim of a crime, surfaced during a family disturbance, received a traffic ticket or sought medical attention.

“The problem with illegal immigration is, on many levels, the most urgent domestic issue facing our nation,” Mr. Gordon said. “It has divided our city and our nation. Phoenix has become ground zero in this debate.

“The problem is enormous and complex. It is a national problem that Washington won’t even get around to discussing for at least another year and a half,” he said. “But we can’t afford to wait.”

Mr. Gordon said the debate over immigration has escalated to a “perilous point,” adding that rhetoric was replacing reason.

“There is too much hate. It’s ugly; it’s dangerous — and good people continue to suffer,” he said.

The Phoenix Police Department argues its officers are not trained in immigration enforcement, and members of the Phoenix City Council said they should not have to divert funds from fighting crime to rounding up illegals.

Last week, Mr. Gordon appointed former U.S. Attorneys Paul Charlton and Jose Rivera, former state Attorney General Grant Woods and former Maricopa County Attorney Rick Romley to consult with Phoenix police officials and draft a new policy by Dec. 31.

“I have told them to start with a blank piece of paper — and to draft a new operations order that will allow individual officers to notify[U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] when any law has been violated by a person they have reason to believe is in the United States illegally,” he said.

Mr. Gordon told reporters that although he did not intend to turn the city’s officers into immigration enforcers, the new policy should give them the authority to inquire about a person’s immigration status while investigating other criminal activity. He also said the policy should protect the constitutional rights of those questioned and prohibit racial and ethnic profiling.

Marion Barry, Washington’s “Mayor for Life” has had his ups and downs. But he takes a back seat to no one in defending the poor. And that is to his credit. Unfortunately, he mistakes effect for cause. He does not see the role massive illegal immigration plays in Washington’s poverty.

He revealed his reverse logic in an MSNBC interview with Tucker Carlson, aired on Wednesday, November 19.

CARLSON: Why so rarely do you hear Democratic politicians, especially black politicians on the Democratic side, mention immigration which it seems to me hurts low-income Americans. Washington, when I came to Washington in ‘85, almost no illegal aliens in the city . . . now very many . . . taking all the low-income jobs. It’s got to hurt people in your part of town. I never hear anybody mention it. Why it that?

BARRY: This is a representative form of government. You sort of reflect your constituencies.

CARLSON: Your constituency’s not mad about that?

BARRY: Not really. I support immigration reform. We have a historic relationship with Hispanics, Latinos in Washington, DC and around the country. But that’s not our number one issue. Our number one issue is poverty – economics, housing, education, and health . . . and the way of life we are living. Also I read something just last week, that the disparity between African American workers and white workers is increasing . . . and 54% of sons and daughters of middle class black people are doing worse than their parents were doing. There’s something wrong with this.

DC Mayor Adrian Fenty has taken on the woes of the city with gusto. If he can straighten out our schools, put meters in cabs, and make our streets safe, we will applaud him. According to a report in the Washington Times, however, there’s one policy he won’t change: “the Sanctuary City.” Responding to a question from Washington Times reporter Gary Emerling about whether applicants for city services would be asked to prove legal presence, the mayor replied: “It is our job to provide services, not to ask questions about legal status.”

Fenty has written off our best chance to solve the mess at Rhode Island Avenue – the DC police will continue their policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Illegal alien rapists, murderers, public drunks, and urinators may serve their time (or abscond), but they are safe from the bullies at Homeland Security.

Timesmnist, Deborah Simmons, points out that the services Fenty so cavalierly gives away are paid for by hard-working Americans and that it is his job to ask questions of the people who get them — like: Are a legal resident in the United States?.

Sanctuary City might have been reasonable (but never right) when it was adopted in 1983. It appeared then that the federal government simply didn’t care about illegal immigration. But following powerful reform legislation in 1986 and 1996, these policies should have been revisited.

Following the attacks on New York and Washington on 9/11, however, and the estimate that DC is “Ground Zero” for the next attack, maintaining such a policy in the nation’s capital threatens the government and the economy of the whole nation.

Moreover, illegal immigration appears to be having a profound effect on DC and we hope the mayor will soon reconsider.

DefendDC has unearthed the following Washington, DC statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Judge for yourself.

¹  DC residents only – does not include workers who come in from Maryland or Virginia and does not include some of the resident illegal workers – even Census doesn’t know how many.

²  Percent of the labor force that is employed or unemployed but actively seeking employment.