In a response to anti-immigrant sentiment and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos, a Hispanic rights group launched an effort Thursday to debunk myths espoused by media talk shows and political campaigns.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund unveiled the “Truth in Immigration” campaign to rebut legal and factual inaccuracies about immigrants, particularly Latinos, in the United States.
“Right now the airwaves are dominated by a few that speak very negatively and falsely about immigrants and immigration,” said John Trasviña, MALDEF president and general counsel.
Trasviña said the Web site — www.truthinimmigration.org, which will be updated several times a week — will provide scholarly studies and reasoned rebuttal.
“There are facts, and law, on our side in terms of these issues,” he said.
The impetus for the campaign was a report released March 10 by the Southern Poverty Law Center that found a correlation between recent anti-immigrant rhetoric and an increase in hate crimes against Latinos.
That report, “The Year in Hate,” said there were 888 hate crimes against Latinos in 2007, up from 844 in 2006 and 602 in 2005. It cited a separate FBI study showing a 35 percent increase in such crimes against Latinos from 2003 to 2006.
The Federation for American Immigration Reform, identified in the report as a hate group, accused the civil rights organization of playing with hate crime numbers to serve its political purposes.
“The SPLC manipulates the data to reach deceitful conclusions, tosses the term ‘hate group’ at highly respected organizations like FAIR, and then mixes the two in an attempt to stop our national debate over immigration reform,” FAIR President Dan Stein said after the report’s release.
MALDEF, meanwhile, said the upcoming debate in Congress on border enforcement measures, as well as political campaigns this fall, could fuel anti-immigrant rhetoric and an increase in bigotry and violence against the Latino community.
“This comes at a time when we have legislation coming up in the House and the Senate that would take us backward on immigration, rather than forward,” Trasviña said.
House Republicans are pressuring Democratic leaders for a vote on a bipartisan bill called the Secure America through Verification and Enforcement Act. The measure calls for an e-verification system for employers to check on the immigration status of workers, and would provide more Border Patrol agents to crack down on illegal immigration on the Southwest border.
Loading ...
Readers Reponses