APA Groups Stand Up for Immigrant Youth
July 30, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO - A coalition of immigrant and community organizations flooded the steps of City Hall on July 29 in response to what they deemed to be a misleading series in the San Francisco Chronicle that has recently blaming crime on immigrant youth.
APA organizations like the Filipino Community Center, Asian Law Caucus and Chinese for Affirmative Action gathered in full force with banners and signs that read, “One City For All.” The were among the 100 clergy, youth and community advocates from 27 Bay Area organizations rallying for Mayor Gavin Newsom and elected city officials to support their cause.
Terrence Valen, Director of the Filipino Community Center, said crime in the city was symptomatic of systemic troubles. “The problem is not the immigrant community,” Valen said. “Many are forced into crime, so we need to augment youth and family enrichment programs in order to stop them from starting.”
Recent coverage by The San Francisco Chronicle condemned the city’s sanctuary ordinance, which bars San Francisco officials from cooperating with federal immigration officials, and linked it to immigrant crime.
Speakers at the rally, however, pointed to a current study by the Public Policy Institute of California showing that foreign-born adults in California have lower incarceration rates then their native counter parts.
Asian Law Caucus Staff Attorney Angela F. Chan called for “balanced media coverage” toward the city’s ordinance. “[The ordinance] far from causes crimes, it save lives,” Chan said.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced in July that the city would begin handing over illegal immigrants with drug convictions for deportation, after a controversy involving Honduran immigrants exposed the city’s policy of flying the youths back to their home countries at the city’s expense.
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8 Responses to “APA Groups Stand Up for Immigrant Youth”
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I am a recent American citizen. I am at a loss on the very notion that a perpetrator is considered a victim. As a mother, I always instill to my children that at a certain point in your life, you will need to accept ownership of your actions and its consequences.
To say that more programs or incentives are needed to divert them from a certain path cannot be the answer. I speak from personal history.
My mother was a middle child of 9 children. All the boys became alcoholics, the girls got married early. All except my mom. She was determine to make her life better, even if it meant living in a shanty, hundred of miles away from her family and walking on a dirt floor. She had no support system to encourage her, just her sheer determination to succeed.
That is what these children need to learn - discipline, focus, self-reliance and resourcefulness. That cannot be taught for it comes from within.
Rebecca:
Absolutely.
You, and your mother, are a pair of Aces.
On the other hand, the rest of us are mere jacks or even deuces, as in the deuce you say.
My belief is that EVERYone deserves to be cut just enough slack to permit them to regain their halance.
“Gang” members would seem to be such more often than not to be seeking “sanctuary” of another sort.
When “society” no longer promulgates the conditions that bring these gangs into existence, then, maybe, you or others might be justified in your identification of “perpetrators” and “victims.”
Frank Eng
P.S.: I say “legalize” ALL drugs, then control and patrol them. As with “Prohibition,” suppression doesn’t work, merely provides the ground for “criminals” and the scum of society, many of whom appear to have gained their own “class”ificztions.
Yes, and “good cop” with “bad cop” is the mirror image of good guys and bad ones.
Uh I think everyone supports LEGAL immigrants. ILLEGAL aliens are NOT immigrants they are criminals and need to be arrested, jailed and deported. Illegal aliens are murderers and drug dealers. And all of us especially those of us with LEGAL immigrants in our families are tired of following the law and then watching a bunch of drug dealing ganging illegal aliens kill our families for sport with the protection of Gavin Nesom and the PC crowd. Report illegal aliens to police and ICE demand action from our corrupt officials like Gavin Newsom.
Call ICE, call them NOW: To report any suspicious activity please call 1-866-347-2423
Frank it’s cool you live in la la land about the mirrors of good and evil, fair enough. However Frank reality is this: people have a right and demand police protection and public safety WE PAY THEM FOR THIS.
As for you bleeding heart farce about the gangbanger being a “victim” We aren’t talking abotu some starving poor person stealing a loaf of bread, we are talking about drug dealing illegal alien gangbangers with rap sheets a mile long. These predators are selling crack to children, robbbing pregnant women, assaulting citizens and shooting families to death on PUBLIC STREETS!!! This ins’t going to be tolerated, NO ONE ESPECIALLY AN ILLEGAL FOREIGN CRIMINAL has the right to commit these crimes on US Streets they need to pay the price and they will. Newscum’s career is over and the support for illegal alien criminals is fading faster than a snow ball in hell.
Dear SPQR_US:
I hear you. I believe, but I may be wrong as I often am or prove to be, that I may even “understand” you.
Your anger, your angst, your cry for a degree of perceived “safety” of self and loved ones.
In these days and nights of growing disaffection and dysjuncture in human interrelationshi0s, from the individual and personal to the so-called “highest” levels of international shuck-and-jive, as in politics and war, your personal peeves here are both relevant and IRrelevant.
First, what or who is “illegal”?
Who and what justifies or authorizes this “legality”?
The man who steals a loaf of bread to survive one more day, or the parent who starves him- or herself to feed his or her child, the sick, those born so or made so by this sociery and its me-me-me credos, and I DO include in this latter category the bulk of gangbangers, including those in Chinatown, are, indeed, “victims” in this sense.
Those who physically abuse and kill SHOULD be apprehended and jailed, but history and society has proved over the millennia of “recorded” time that these jackals of the species are rarely, if ever, brought to the bar of “justice,” if such exists.
From your signoff identity, I would deem you an admirer of the “Roman” model of city and citizen, and a believer in the “system” and the apparatus thereof.
Well, I have news for you, even IF it seems to you that I reside in “la-la land,” yes, I’m fortunate there but it has little or nothing to do with what we are trying to come to grips with here.
And the news is: NO ONE can or WILL “protect” you.
Only you can make that effort, and I don’t mean going to the polls come November and “voting,” or, even “calling the cops.” They inevitably arrive too late, or, if you look grungy or “threatening” or, maybe, even non”white,” you might get shot in the bargain.
Gavin Newsom may be a lot of things. but he is not the reason for your angst. Nor are those who believe the opposite of your beliefs.
Each of us must decide for ousrelves, individually, how we perceive and choose to meet our challenges and our problems and our FEARS.
Paranoia is the projection of our fears OUT — onto others, whereas the fears are internal, and can only be effectively addressed THERE. Within ourselves.
Truly, la-la land.
Frank Eng
P.S.: I recommend you find a copy, the Public Library?, of Lee Mun Wah’s video, “The Color of Fear.” And, by the way, that eminently entertaining and provocatively suggestive, political as well as sexual, HBO creation, “Rome,” may provide insights, such as the “realaities” of living and surviving then. As now.
And the “laws” then, as today, are as “authentic” and justifiable as who’s got the mojo? For the time being, that is.
Methinks they doth protest too much. All 12 million illegal immigrants should be rounded up and deported ASAP. They’re nothing but a drag on our nation. And there is a very sizeable criminal element among them. Exhibit A is that Ramos savage who brutally murdered a man and his two sons. Were he not to have entered this country illegally, Mr. Bologna and his children would still be alive. The sanctuary city policy shields violent animals who prey upon this society. I fully support ICE’s deportation of thousands of illegal immigrants during the past year, and urge all American citizens and legal immigrants to fully cooperate with the agency in its effort to apprehend those who have violated our immigration laws. Viva ICE!
Frank Eng. Thank you for your comment.
It is easier to blame society for failures of an individual. It reminds me so much of a saying that I learn as a child. “When you point a finger at someone, remember, three of your fingers are pointing back at you.”
I can agree with you that we need to give people some ’slack’ only if we define how long that slack is. Too long a rope has no ‘pull’ and for others, the slack is always too short.
As for the issue of immigration. I am of the firm belief that we are a nation of laws, and though I sympathize that people come here for a better life, they must also stand in line. There must be order.
If it is such a big deal to the pro-illegal immigration advocates that the illegals be given the life opportunities, then I suggest that they take their marches and protest to the countries and demand that they take better care of their citizens.
Until every single US citizen and legal immigrant needs and issues are addressed we have no business address the needs and issues of other nations.
Illegals are now under the spotlight. Everything they do is being discussed. I think they are different (the majority) than past immigrants.
They are emboldened by professional advocacy groups, for one thing.
Immigrants in the past did not have an 800 number to call and a staff attorney just waiting to file a lawsuit on their behalf.
This is why Americans of all colors (and remember there are white-appearing individuals who are part Asian) must work hard at keeping the illegals at bay.
There are just too many of them and too few of us taxpayers. We cannot support them and many of us had smaller families so that our country would be better - not so that we could import more people.
What is the point of being disciplined if those we import - AREN’T?