AntiBVBL

Check out this ground-breaking resolution by the U.S. Conference of Mayors supporting comprehensive immigration reform “which promotes the reunification of families, provides legal status with a path to earned citizenship to the estimated 12 million undocumented workers and designs a plan for current and future immigrant workers.”

I feel the “Whereas” statements in this resolution are compelling as is, but they might also have included, “Whereas Prince William County, VA has made a huge mess of itself by politicizing the immigration issue for Virginia’s 2007 election.” For press coverage click here.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors
76th Annual Meeting
June 20-24, 2008
Miami

The Board will have both a 2:oopm & 7:30pm session today. The main item on the agenda is Chief Deane’s ‘Illegal Immigration Enforcement Update’. Interestingly BVBL has the ‘General Order’ to be presented today which has not been released to the public and is not subject to a Freedom of Information Act(FOIA) request. Which begs the question, who gave it to him? Looks as if either Corey or John or perhaps both Corey & John have not disavowed this unholy alliance.

Anyways, everything remains the same, no changes to the resolution -it’s exactly what we asked for.

Here’s the agenda for the meeting.

From the New York Times blogsite – The Caucus

McCain Says Immigration Reform Should Be Top Priority
By Michael Luo

SAN JOSE—In yet another sign of his pivoting toward the general election, Senator John McCain said at a roundtable with business leaders here today that comprehensive immigration reform should be a top priority for the next president.

Mr. McCain’s willingness to address the issue was striking given how the topic became something of a third-rail for Republican presidential candidates during the primary.

When Mr. McCain’s presidential bid stalled last summer, many blamed his advocacy for the immigration reform bill in the Senate, which included a pathway to citizenship for the illegal immigrants already here in the country.

The measure failed last spring after a firestorm of grassroots opposition. The issue became an important touchstone in the Republican primary, as the candidates scrambled to one-up each other in their tough talk on immigration as they sought to appeal to primary voters.

Mr. McCain largely stopped talking about the issue and repeatedly invoked a mantra that he had gotten the message from voters that the borders needed to be secured first, before any solution for the illegal immigrants already here is addressed.

Since he became the presumptive Republican nominee, Mr. McCain has given major speeches on a broad range of issues but has not given one on immigration.

He found a friendly audience, however, here today at a business roundtable held at a Silicon Valley technology firm that included Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Meg Whitman, the former chief executive officer of eBay who was a leading supporter of Mitt Romney’s but has since begun raising money for Mr. McCain, and a host of executives from Silicon Valley firms.

After several of the business leaders complained about the difficulty in obtaining temporary H1B visas for scientists and engineers, something the Senate immigration bill was supposed to address, Mr. McCain expressed regret the measure did not pass, calling it a personal “failure,” as well as one by the federal government.

“Senator Kennedy and I tried very hard to get immigration reform, a comprehensive plan, through the Congress of the United States,” he said. “It is a federal responsibility and because of our failure as a federal obligation, we’re seeing all these various conflicts and problems throughout our nation as different towns, cities, counties, whatever they are, implement different policies and different programs which makes things even worse and even more confusing.”

He added: “I believe we have to secure our borders, and I think most Americans agree with that, because it’s a matter of national security. But we must enact comprehensive immigration reform. We must make it a top agenda item if we don’t do it before, and we probably won’t, a little straight talk, as of January 2009.”

Mr. McCain asked others on the panels for suggestions about how to “better mobilize American public opinion” behind the notion of comprehensive immigration reform.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, a strong supporter of immigration reform, chimed in, saying the effort could not be accomplished “piecemeal” and called for lawmakers to summon the “courage to go forward.”
“I think all of us have to keep that pressure on Congress,” he said.

Later, Mr. McCain took up the topic again, saying the problem of what to do with illegal immigrants already here needs to be solved, saying “they are also God’s children, and we have to do it in a human and compassionate fashion,” which drew applause from his audience.

Great start to a wonderful weekend with the celebration of our 3rd ‘Support the PWC Economy Party.’ It was great to see everybody again. I wish everyone a safe and happy Memorial Day weekend. And, as we go about our activities this weekend let’s remember those who have served in our armed forces and especially those who have died in their service to our country.

If there’s rules then I’d like to see them changed so that the next time a citizen makes a racist comment they get called out. In my opinion, Bob’s talk was uncomfortable and made me cringe a couple times, but in comparison to some of the other things that I’ve heard from people standing at that podium, I’m not quite sure it rises to the standard of a public reprimand. As far as I know, this is the third instance of this happening since October.

1. The Hispanic lady that tells the board to kiss her a$$ to which John wants her deleted from future broadcasts.
2. Maureen Caddigan says ‘Can someone stop that woman from coming here?’ in response to Donna Widawski’s.
3. And now Bob Wills

Again, none of these incidents bother me more than these incidents which stand out in my mind.

1. The woman who said she doesn’t like it when a Hispanic can own homes and she can’t.[I mean what is that about? Let's do an exercise, re-read the previous sentence and substitute Black for Hispanic. Obviously offensive. Do people not get it?
2. Mattes' statement - It is scary, and she wouldn't be surprised, if these guys [daylaborers] came across the road & jumped a car and hijacked it.[Okay, worse case scenario, you have a group of men(Hispanic) loitering, looking for work, most likely in a state of mixed immigration status.]
3. Another lady who said she felt uncomfortable when the daylaborers nodded their heads at her.[Reminds me of Obama's grandmother admitting she felt uncomfortable with Black men.]

Still trying to follow the logic in yesterday’s rantings on BVBL:

The promotion of efforts by Mexicans Without Borders to protest Prince William County’s policies within the historic district of Manassas City by 9500Liberty, and their new appreciation for Jeff Winder and “The People United” as reasonable voices in the immigration debate leaves this film propaganda project without any credibility whatsoever. They have embraced the radical open borders crowd, allied themselves with the local arm of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, and now characterize the leftist rantings of Jeff Winder as “prohpetic words”. I guess if one could consider Karl Marx’s rantings as prophesy, this would fit pretty well, but not too many Virginians think there’s a lot of value in the Communist Manifesto.

Can anyone help me understand this? 9500Liberty has a video of Jeff Winder speaking at Citizens’ Time and that means they have ‘embraced the radical open borders crowd’? What about this video with Robert Duecaster aka Advocator aka ResolutionMan have they not too embraced the other extreme?

By Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press.

According to the Wasington Post, the drop in ESOL students isn’t truly saving the schools the $6 million that Corey repeatedly suggests. If we remove the $2 million of additional state funding then the ’savings’ start to look more like $4 million. At this point we start to reach numbers that according to Corey himself are insignificant in an $850+ million dollar budget. Of course, if the trend continues it could have an affect on school construction etc… This year’s double digit losses in real estate assessments combined with a staggering forecloser rate and an over abundance of homes on the market that now appear to be selling at dirt cheap prices leads me to believe next year’s assessments will again suffer debilitating losses. How does this translate into next year’s budget since schools are mainly funded through real estate assessment taxes, only time will tell.

State education aid is distributed to school systems according to poverty and enrollment data and provides nearly half of Prince William’s annual school funding. When students leave a school system, so does state funding. David S. Cline, director of financial services for Prince William schools, estimated that the reduction in state funding this school year because of the ESOL student exodus totaled $2 million. But the school system was unable to reduce spending accordingly because students left from many schools. Officials could not reduce teaching staff, for example, or send back textbooks.

The Washington Post has a front page story about a legal immigrant who was picked up by Immigration Customs Enforcement officials for a decade old conviction of buying stolen jewelry. She now sits in a detention facility thousands of miles from her family and is not receiving medical treatment for a cancer that she fears has returned. This seems to be yet another example of an immigration system gone awry, begging for some sanitiy.

According to the InsideNova, as of late April, O’Meara’s Old Town Manassas Restaurant closed their doors after 5 years in business. Equally as shocking to learn was the radio duo of Don & Mike has ceased to exist. From what I’ve read Mike Source aka Don Geronimo has taken an early retirement. Some of you might be aware that Don’s wife was killed in an automobile accident a few years back and apparently has decided it too painful to continue with the show. Mike O’Meara apparently has decided to continue his radio show which can still be heard at 106.7 from 3-7pm.

Honestly, with 4 children – one being a teenager, I rarely get a chance to control the radio dial. We mostly end up listening to the ipod and the sirius satellite radio anyways and only occassionally end up using the regular radio. It’s sad to see an established radio show fold-up and also disappointing that a city restaurant has shutdown.

I keep checking all the major networks, certain that the headlines will soon read – Clinton Concedes. However, no matter how many times I reload the page, that headline will simply not appear. In fact, what does jump out at me is that she loaned her campaign somewhere around $6.5 million last month. Yikes! She won’t say ‘Uncle’ no matter how tightly her arm gets twisted but it’s about time that someone calls the match. From all the mark-ups of possible scenarios it now appears impossible that she will catch-up to Obama, so it seems reasonable that she would resign herself to that fact and bow out gracefully. Can someone talk some sense into her, please?

Herndon holds elections today and all eyes are on the race for Mayor. Harlon Reece looks to be a consensus builder and hopefully if elected will be able to turn around Herndon’s reputation.

When our forclosure rate was number one in the state, there was no place to go, BUT up.  It is important that forclosed homes are purchased, as each vacant home will cost the taxpayers $30,000.  We can all hope that with the better press regarding the modification to the “probable cause” portion of the immigration resolution,  that times will begin to turn around.  There are still tough economic times ahead for the nation as a whole with the housing crisis, but we can hope that the incredibly cheap housing in PW, not exactly what I want to be known for, will at least soften the double forclosure rate we experienced.   I have this horrible feeling though, that we were more than happy to have all these immigrants here to help build the community and now we can offer cheap housing because so many felt the need to leave their dreams behind, not wanting to live in a community enveloped in fear and hate.  Now, before some people start yellin’ about how the resolution wasn’t to blame for this mess, I agree, we would be, like the rest of the nation, suffering through the housing crisis, but PW was hit especially hard and we do know first hand stories of people leaving, legal immigrants, not wanting to reside in PW County because of the anti-Hispanic climate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/03/AR2008050301095.html

I (Elena) used this information in a letter to the editor I wrote after the appearance of the KKK in Manassas. Why, we should be asking ourselves, is it possible for the KKK and Neo-Nazi groups to build membership by using illegal immigration as their marketing tool ? You can see from this blog, that there are plenty of reasonable people with legitimate concerns, so how are these groups exploiting citizens concerns? How did their extremist rhetoric become mainstream and how do we address this very troubling development?

New York, NY, February 6, 2007 … The Ku Klux Klan, which just a few years ago seemed static or even moribund compared to other white supremacist movements such as neo-Nazis, experienced “a surprising and troubling resurgence” during the past year due to the successful exploitation of hot-button issues including immigration, gay marriage and urban crime, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).

The League, which monitors the activities of racist hate groups and reports its findings to law enforcement and policymakers, has documented a noticeable spike in activity by Klan chapters across the country. The KKK believes that the U.S. is “drowning” in a tide of non-white immigration, controlled and orchestrated by Jews, and is vigorously trying to bring this message to Americans concerned or fearful about immigration.

“If any one single issue or trend can be credited with re-energizing the Klan, it is the debate over immigration in America,” said Deborah M. Lauter, ADL Civil Rights Director. “Klan groups have witnessed a surprising and troubling resurgence by exploiting fears of an immigration explosion, and the debate over immigration has, in turn, helped to fuel an increase in Klan activity, with new groups sprouting in parts of the country that have not seen much activity.”

http://www.adl.org/Civil_Rights/immigration.asp

What’s happened today?

• Filmmakers Annabel Park & Eric Byler debut on Wolf Blitzer and have CNN article.
• The County has now posted the newly modified resolution.
• BVBL continues the pursuit on Chief Deane complete with an online smack-down that has now spilled over to Virginia Virtucon.  This tactic previously backfired and reminds me of the saying –  ’insanity is doing the same thing over and over with the expectation of a different result.’ 
• Thousands gather in cities around the Country.  Hopefully we’ll have some pictures of the event in D.C.