Illegal Immigration Controversy Bristol Tri-Cities

by Lewis Loflin

Immigration debate in Bristol and Tri-Cities But even here with depressed wages and high unemployment, illegal aliens are showing up and working for even less. Quoting the Bristol Herald Courier July 22, 2006, "When Mexicans marched through downtown Jonesborough (Tennessee) back in April, hundreds marched without incident..." But that's not what happened when Carl Two Feathers Whitaker, American Indian activist and spokesman for the Tennessee Volunteer Minutemen, was greeted with a near riot by Mexicans.

This was the scene I watched on local News Channel 5 as Mr. Whitaker tried to give an interview to a local reporter. A Mexican named Christine (Azul) Caravaggio accosted Mr. Whitaker over a Mexican flag he carried in his pocket. On camera she was raving, "he disrespected our flag." Mr. Whitaker is also an independent candidate for governor of Tennessee.

In March 2005, for instance, a 14-year-old boy suspected of being a Mexican national died in an industrial accident at a recycling plant in Hamblen County. This Caravaggio admitted on camera most of the Mexicans there had so social security numbers and were "undocumented." She claimed there's no such thing as illegal aliens. The rally was broken up by police.

What was amazing is the local press referred to these people as Mexicans; last April they kept using the deceptive term "immigrants." The vast majority of local citizens have no problem with legal immigrants, but 88% of local Bristol area residents oppose illegal aliens. Tennessee started this problem by handing out drivers licenses to illegal aliens, and local businesses in nearby Morristown flooded the area with Mexicans to replace local workers.

An estimated 3000-5000 Hispanics, mostly Mexican and over 85% illegal according Hamblen County Commissioner Tom Lowe, have flooded the Morristown area. A massive drug bust involving Hispanics and "tons" of meth, marijuana, etc. occurred in Morristown. This led to the prosecution of about 90 people. Morristown may have become an axis for imported illegal drugs replacing the "mom and pop" home meth labs. The county is being forced to raise property taxes by $1 million to pay for schools and jails for illegal aliens according to an AP report in 2005. Tennessee rescinded the illegal alien drivers license law in 2006.

Update: Bristol VA Electrolux plant layoffs, illegal aliens hired in Springfield TN

Printed Bristol Herald Courier August 4, 2006:

Kudos to the Herald Courier for reporting "Police break up a demonstration in Jonesborough" July 22. To quote, "When Mexicans marched through downtown Jonesborough back in April, hundreds marched without incident." But when American Indian activist Carl Two Feathers Whitaker, head of the Tennessee Minutemen tried to talk to a reporter on television, the Mexicans nearly rioted. I watched this right on Channel 5. Whitaker is also running as an independent for governor.

Their leader was raving about "he disrespected our (Mexican) flag" and went on how this would never be allowed in Mexico. Mexico would also never allow foreign invaders waving foreign flags on Mexican streets. Illegal aliens are arrested and deported in Mexico, but it's racism for Americans to do the same thing. If it had been whites attacking Mexicans, it would be front-page news for months. The fact is criminal employers in nearby Morristown have imported thousands of illegal aliens to replace local Tennessee workers. A peaceful demonstration against this was met with SWAT teams and police intimidation back in June.

We strand thousands of US solders in Iraq trying to keep savages that hate us and don't want us there from killing each other. At the same time, we put a few thousand National Guard on the Mexican border unarmed and digging latrines, while Mexican gangs and even the Mexican army is shooting at the undermanned border patrol. This goes on as thousands of Mexicans cross the border and are marching on American Streets demanding the rights of US citizens. What does our worthless president do? He orders customs to stop the importation of cheap prescription drugs from Canada!

Big business, the Left, and illegal aliens know what they want. This rampant lawlessness and this illegal alien invasion must end. Bring our troops home and defend our country.

Lewis Loflin
Bristol, VA

Health officials say treatment costs for illegals is too high

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS August 11, 2006 (extract)

Uuncompensated healthcare for illegal immigrants is steadily increasing in Tennessee. Between Jan. 1, 2005 and March 31, 2006, registration records show 504 "possible illegal immigrants" were seen for emergency care but not admitted to the hospital. "The total unreim-bursed cost of these visits to the medical center is approximately $858,000," said Perrizo, adding that "registration staff have no way of knowing or tools to determine if a patient is in the United States legally or illegally"

TennCare. the state's expanded Medicaid program that covers about 1.2 million state residents, does not provide entitlement benefits to illegal immigrants, said Darin Gordon, the agency's director. TennCare is required by federal law to reimburse hospitals for the emergency care they provide to illegal immigrants, if those individuals would have qualified for Medicaid had they been a U.S. citizen. Last month, TennCare was required to pay for 62 illegal immigrants' emergency care, mostly for mothers in active labor.

The total combined cost for those individuals was $1.7 million, which averages out to about $15 million a year. To quote state officials, "As a state Medicaid program we are in a difficult position...On one hand, we must comply with the federal requirement to pay for emergency care for illegal immigrants and on the other hand, we must live within the state's limited resources to address the health care needs of our own citizens."

Who supports illegal alien amnesty, open borders? White, big business Republicans. White leftist/liberal Democrats, the Chamber of Commerce, racist Latino groups, the Catholic Church. The majority are legitimate humanitarians.

Who are the big losers? Black Americans, legal immigrants, and the working poor of all races, in this area mostly whites, and local taxpayers.

Who opposes illegal alien amnesty and wants our laws enforced, and foreign flags off our streets? The vast majority of all Americans, including almost 90% of the people in Tri-Cities. The vast majority are not racists.

What do local business leaders say?

"Seniors create low-wage service jobs. They tend to withdraw from working, and they generally don't create new wealth. A retirement community strategy has long-term negative economic consequences unless there is a diverse economic base of other employees around it. Otherwise, that's an accident waiting to happen. One solution is with the rising number of Hispanics in the country...A significant component of your economic future in Sullivan County is recruiting Hispanics, making sure they get highly educated and integrated into the community. ... They can fill all of the various job categories you have..."

Statement by "Futurist" Ed Barlow at the Bristol Regional Medical Center March 2004, Kingsport Times-News. He further suggests that white collar jobs should be replaced by Asians under the H1-B visa system. But the fact is nearly all Hispanics (meaning Mexicans and Central Americans) are illiterate even in Spanish. Worse, statistics show their children are chronic under-achievers with dropout rates of over 50%. And who do you think pays for that education? Or the welfare costs?

Fact: If you are the typical working person in Bristol (or Tri-Cities) in any major industry such as manufacturing, most will be fired, laid-off, or forced into early retirement in the next five years. You will join the already extensive ranks of the working poor. The present working poor along with you will be competing with or replaced by an illegal alien. Then we can be the unemployed poor.

Fact: They will lie to you and say better education will fix the problem. You will waste your time, run up a lot of debt at a local college, then find most local employers will not hire you. They don't want your skills or education and will not pay you for them. They prefer a foreign worker on an H1-B visa or illegal alien. They will claim we don't have an educated or skilled workforce, that they had to do it. You will join the thousands of other college graduates and leave this area.

"I was in no way casting dispersions on the level of education at ETSU. When I said that "we have ETSU students flipping burgers," I was pointing out that we do not have the level of jobs in this area to sustain the number of graduates from our local colleges. Therefore, they are forced to either leave the area or take what jobs are available to them, which in most cases are in the service area."

Sullivan County Commissioner Jack Sitgreaves wrote this in an e-mail to the Times-News April 28, 2004. This completely contradicts the claims of local business that we don't have skilled, educated workers. East Tennessee State University is one of the many fine colleges in this area whose graduates often can't find a job. In reality, local employers don't care about your education, experience, etc. and they will not pay you for it. They only care you work cheap and show up for work.

If you stay here, retirees will continue to move in and bring in the big money. You will pay higher taxes and higher utility bills, rent, etc along with being unemployed or underemployed because retirement communities and tourism are an economic disaster for the working poor. They create jobs for illegal aliens willing to work for nothing while driving up the costs of everything.

Most job creation here is/will be in services, that will guarantee most people will be working poor. Because many of the jobs pay far below what it takes to live, they will import illegal immigrants willing to live ten people to a barn, they will be sending most of their money home.

Sooner or later they will bring their families, they will be poor and illiterate, most will be on welfare and food stamps. You will watch your taxes climb, wages fall, and crime explode. Here is where the suckers that moved here to retire thinking how cheap it was to live will watch their taxes explode and be a possible crime victim. After all, one goes where the money is, even the local tax collector or burglar.

The hardest part of all is the local business leaders, the move-in retirees, the Liberals and Conservatives alike don't give a damn. The average working person in Bristol is a Dixie cup, disposable after being drained. Your low standard of living benefits them, plain and simple. You will be kept that way, plain and simple.

I hope this upsets you. For weeks in the local press we have had angry rhetoric on the evils of Mexicans, etc. flying flags in our streets. Most of those people are criminals committing identity theft, document fraud, and tax fraud. Our laws are a wreck, and the simple fact is they have no right to be here. Those that employ them are criminals. Mexico sends illegal aliens to prison and deports them for what they are doing here. I wouldn't dare fly an American flag on a Mexican street.

It's time to prosecute illegal aliens and target their employers. The laws are on the books, nobody will enforce them. Doesn't matter what laws congress passes, they won't enforce them. It's up to us to use every legal and peaceful tactic at our disposal. I want the business community, the tourists and those thinking of moving here to feel uncomfortable. This will force them to confront the reality many of us that live and work here go through.

Here are some quotes below from our leaders.

Ron Flanary, executive director of the Lenowisco Planning District Commission says, "It takes so much revenue to support local government and at the top of the list is public education, which is about 80 percent of the budget...If you don't grow your tax base, which is business investment primarily, it makes it tough on everybody else, like the residents...Although residential growth would be good, it is not the way to grow your tax base. They typically don't pay enough in taxes to offset the cost to support county services. More recruitment in manufacturing/technology and service/commercial-based industry has to be done." April 8, 2000 Kingsport Times-News.

"The BLS payroll jobs data contradict the hype from business organizations, such as the US Chamber of Commerce...Large corporations, which have individually dismissed thousands of their US employees and replaced them with foreigners, claim that jobs outsourcing allows them to save money that can be used to hire more Americans...The lie is repeated everywhere...however, no sign of these jobs can be found in the payroll jobs data. But there is abundant evidence of the lost American jobs...It is not only the Bush regime that bases its policies on lies. Not content with outsourcing Americans' jobs, corporations want to fill the remaining jobs in America with foreigners on work visas.

Business organizations lie about a shortage of engineers, scientists and even nurses. Business organizations have successfully used pubic relations firms and bought-and-paid-for "economic studies" to convince policy makers that American business cannot function without H-1B visas that permit the importation of indentured employees from abroad who are paid less than the going US salaries. The so-called shortage is, in fact, a replacement of American employees with foreign employees, with the soon-to-be-discharged American employee first required to train his replacement..."

Statement by former assistant treasury secretary Paul Craig Roberts, March 3, 2006. This was the real aims of Ed Barlow and local business leaders that brought him here. See Data Shows America's Job Growth Benefits Immigrants, Outsourcers

"There are excellent reasons to be concerned about the vast number of illegal immigrants in our society, but their taking jobs from Americans is not one of them...What would our unemployment rate be if we had no illegal workers here? One percent? And wouldn't our inflation rate be higher without millions of people working at such low wages helping to keep consumer prices low?" From: Why the low jobless rate challenges left and right by Dennis Prager, Jewish World Review April 11, 2006 In other words, state-planned poverty, under-employment and wage suppression is good for inflation control. Dennis as a typical Republican conservative that ignores the other costs in jails, welfare, etc.

JOHNSON CITY, TN - The man charged with first degree murder in the stabbing death of a Johnson City man will appear in court this morning. Poncho Juan Delgado turned himself in Saturday. Investigators issued warrants for Delgado after firemen found 41-year-old Robert Curtis inside a home on East Fairview Avenue Thursday night. Police say Curtis had multiple stab wounds to his head and upper torso. Delgado remains in jail this morning without bond. May 30, 2006 News Channel 11.

Attacking the press

Newspaper lacks courage Sunday, June 11, 2006

I applaud Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., and George Allen, R-Va., who had the courage and conviction to stand up for their country and vote against amnesty for the illegal immigrants here. They showed more courage than the Bristol Herald Courier has regarding this issue. I have mailed several letters to the newspaper on this issue. Certain parts of my letters were omitted when they were published. I thought perhaps my letters were too long. then I noticed letters supporting illegal immigrants were just as long or longer than mine.

After reading editorials in the newspaper supporting amnesty for the illegal immigrants and criticizing those who do not support amnesty, I can only conclude parts of my letters were intentionally left out. There is no room for censorship in a democracy. A newspaper which cannot equally present both sides of an issue does not deserve the right to continue to publish the news.

I am not against legal immigrants. I am against people sneaking into this country, demanding amnesty, marching in the streets waving foreign flags, boycotting American business' and goods, while at the same time taking advantage of anything free they can help themselves to. I again call on the American people to hold a demonstration on June 14 to protest any legislation giving amnesty and future citizenship to people who do not deserve it.

Eddie R. Bristol, Tenn.

My response

Re: Newspaper lacks courage (June 11) I must disagree. I agree with Mr. Ratliff's view on illegal immigration, but the Herald Courier editorials often takes views unpopular in this community and has a legitimate view on this issue. Most opponents of illegal immigration aren't racists as some want to believe, but racists are using the issue. Many pro-amnesty advocates are legitimate humanitarians, but there's also a Marxist, anti-American element exploiting that issue. Business is the main culprit, but so is the American public.

This area is proof of that.

Most industry here cares nothing about the community or their workforce. They want the cheap labor and corporate welfare. They're abusive and expletive and literally use blackmail to get concessions from local governments desperate for jobs. That includes suppressing wages. Snack Alliance did this very thing when they located here and dumped 400 workers in another state. They'll do the same thing again. Business across the region is hiring illegal immigrants.

Most move-in retirees care nothing about those that have to work here. Some stupid hiking trail for their recreation and amusement does nothing for a struggling family living on $8 an hour. They drive up the cost on everything, then scream when their tax assessments go up 50 percent in four years.

We have a substantial poverty and under-employment problem here, as proven by empty food banks and near bankruptcy of Tenncare. Many blame the working poor for using food stamps, but wouldn't hear of paying an extra 10 cents for a head to lettuce to allow these people to support their families. In addition, many poor people cause some of their own problems. Others are just plain lazy.

Stop blaming the Mexicans. The public and business alike need to get some integrity and stop expecting the government to fix everything. Enforce the laws or repeal them.