Support illegal immigration, get voted out.

mike · #1 05-03-2006, 02:26 AM

The Mayor and most of the town council got voted out of the city of Herdon for supporting a Day Labor Center for illegals. From the Washington Post.

Quote:

Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration.

Residents replaced the incumbents with a group of challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers residing in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located.

The day-labor center thrust the western Fairfax County town into the national spotlight as the issue of illegal immigration became emotional. Even though fewer than 3,000 people voted yesterday, advocates on both sides of the issue looked at the election as a test case of public sentiment. Outside groups such as the Minutemen Project, which favors sharp curbs on illegal immigration, intervened in the town debate. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, is suing the town over establishment of the center.

Steve J. DeBenedittis, 38, a health club operator and political newcomer, defeated Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly with 52 percent of the vote. Council members Carol A. Bruce and Steven D. Mitchell, who voted for the center, were turned out of office. Jorge Rochac, a Salvadoran businessman who supported the center and was seeking to become the town's first Hispanic council member, was also defeated. About one in four town residents is Hispanic.

The incumbents were replaced by William B. Tirrell, Charlie D. Waddell, Connie Haines Hutchinson and David A. Kirby, all opponents of the day-labor center, which is designed to help immigrants find work each day.
Two incumbents were reelected. Dennis D. Husch was one of two council members to vote against the center when it was approved by the panel in August. He received more votes than any of the eight other council candidates. J. Harlon Reece was the lone supporter of the center who was reelected. He received the fewest number of votes among the winners.

Twenty-six percent of the town's 10,203 registered voters came to the polls, according to Fairfax County figures, up from 20 percent when O'Reilly was elected two years ago.

DeBenedittis, the son of a popular former high school art teacher in Herndon, said his victory was the product of intense door-to-door campaigning and deep discontent over how the labor center issue was handled by the mayor and council in the town of 23,000 residents.
"They didn't like the way the debate went down, and there was the feeling that they were not heard," he said.

chucksnee · #2 05-03-2006, 03:51 AM

I get tired of hearing about this.

It is a disgrace to the people who have come to the United States and have become natural citizens LEGALY. In now way should those who have entered the United States ILLEAGLY have the same anything as anyone else.

Mr. Joe · #3 05-03-2006, 04:56 AM

Lots of knee-jerk reaction will settle down, and we will get down to the real business, I think. We, the people, have let our representatives look the other way for a long time. There has been a reluctance to do anything against our farm owners, factory owners and restauranteurs who have benefited for years from the cheap labor of illegals. The government has made a show of arresting a few and busing them back to Mexico every day for years. Just a show. Now we have thousands who have children here,(citizens by birth, according to our constitution, and deserving of welfare, medical care, etc.) We have to find a way out. Hard to say what that will be.

To top it off, Mexico's Congress just voted to make recreational drug possession legal! It includes Cocaine, etc. in amounts sufficient for individual use. If President Vincente Fox signs it, 50% of our U.S. citizens may just move south! Me? I think I'll stay in Korea.
Have you got a better solution?

sejongeb · #4 05-03-2006, 09:38 AM

There was a woman on CSPAN 2 days ago who basically was against the propsed 'pass'. Her mantra was bsically 10.6 million of them, 251 million of us and 537 in Congress-where our voice was her concern. She was polite and appeared to have done her homework.

For years we knew this was a problem and never seriously did anyhting about it

. Charles Bronson and jack Nicholson starred in movies about the Border Patrol. I'd guest-a-mate that at least every two months there's been some report about the rounding up illegal immigrants. A friend of mine showed me an article about some meat packing plant in the Midwest had 150 taken into custody 15 years ago. The part that was left out until Monday was that INS called 2 weeks prior and said they'd be coming around. Now with 10+ million we have a problem that needs addressing?? Politicians are something else. Even if we were to send all 10+ million home and double the border guard in two years the budget would be cut and the problem would arise again. Or they'd spend twice the amount of $$ and come in through Canada. There alot to be discussed by our elected officials and many department heads and policy makers have alot to answer for in respect to how one can obtain a SSN when not a citizen.

I haven't heard much discussion on seriously dealing with those businesses who blatantly ignore procedures. A $5000-$100,000 fine is nothing when your profits are in in the 7 to 8 figures annually. It just means that they'll pawn more cost for dental and health coverage onto their employees. Myself, mixed opinions about the issue. But one thing that I strongly feel should happen (but will never come about) fining and removing from office any politician who allowed this to get out of hand. If retired, take away their pension and leave them on social security and medicare.

Unfortunately we alowed our politician to get away with ignoring most problems until its gets out of hand. Any fortification can be breeched. So a wall along the border is out of the question and a waste of tax payer money. One thing that's amy also be a problem in the future are the numerberof African who are student visas for years. I've met 6 who have ben in the US on a student visa at minmum have 4 bachelors and 1 masters degree. They didn't want to go back to their country because of civil unrest but did want to apply for citizenship either and two felt that we 'owed' it to them. That's more offense to me than our southern neighbors coming up here illegally. I'm not saying that I support illegal immigration either, I am offended be the prolonged student visa route to beat the system.

joeninpo · #5 05-03-2006, 12:02 PM

Living in San Antonio, we've heard all sides of the debate. There are those that want everyone to come and go as they please, those that came here legally and are not happy about the illegals, and every possible other perspective you can think of. The only thing that really got me was the whole "Day without and immigrant" thing. Supposedly they wanted to show everyone in the cities how much of a presence they had and there was even talk here in SA about how they were going to cripple the economy. The stupid part is that even though I had a hard time finding a local restaurant open, I still went out to eat for lunch. All they did was hurt themselves by taking money out of their pockets. The bottom line for me is that KFC was yummy and all those businesses that were stupid enough to shut down have lost my business for good. Does that make sense to anyone?

Todd · #6 05-08-2006, 02:59 PM

Im With ya...I refuse to be a patron to any "Mexican" services..I know it wont matter to them but its my piece of mind...

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