“Is Racism Fueling the Immigration Debate?”

"Do your duty. Make more babies... half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, the Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably the ones Hispanics call gabachos, white people, are having fewer," said John Gibson of Fox News implored viewers. The Article “Is Racism Fueling the Immigration Debate?” that was published on Wednesday, may 17 2006 shows us, the reader, how a lot of the anti-immigration movement is jingoistic at best and racist at worst. The article states some of those involved in the debate have their position based on fear and perhaps racism because of what's happening demographically in the country. Many in the anti-immigration movement use the defense of stopping terrorism, but Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millennium Bomber, was caught at the Canadian border with a trunk full of explosive precursor material and a plot to bomb Los Angeles Airport. As for the notion that terrorists are mixing with undocumented border crossers to infiltrate the country from the south, all 19 of the 9/11 plotters entered the U.S. legally. Another defense is that it's just their time to go through theses types of hardship, like German, Irish, Italian, Jewish and Asian immigrants faced the same criticism throughout the country's history.

My opinion of the Article “Is Racism Fueling the Immigration Debate?” is that sad that it’s sad that in the United States some people in the media have the fear of white people being over run by darker-skinned people. By poisoning the public discourse with disinformation, right-wing talkers improve their ratings while leaving us far from fixing a broken system. And that if these immigrates were there would be no debate on immigration.



Article written by: Massimo Calabresi
The New York Times
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
Article on page A10 of the New York edition.