The Purposeful Ignorance of Illegal Immigration Supporters

I just read the following in an ICIRR newsletter. I tried to find it in the Daily Southtown online, with no success. I'll keep digging, and provide a link if I can.

When we get to the fisking my comments, as always, are in red.


Meet Mehrdad Azemun.

He is a senior organizer with the aforementioned ICIRR.

He attended the same protest we did back on January 9th...the one at the Home Depot in Cicero to protest ILLEGAL immigration.

I wrote about it here.

Mehrdad wrote this about it:

On the question of immigration, we're a nation of two hearts
By Mehrdad Azemun, Daily Southtown Guest Columnist

On a recent Saturday morning I got up a little early and drove out to the Home Depot in Cicero. Unlike most other guys driving to Home Depot on a Saturday morning, I wasn't looking for power tools or a new kitchen sink -- I was trying to pledge allegiance to one of the two hearts of this country.

Let me explain. On that Saturday, anti-ILLEGAL immigrant groups around the country had called for protests against ILLEGAL immigrant workers. And there they were in Cicero: a dozen so-called ??? "Minutemen" with video cameras to tape and harass (The truth? We stood quietly on the sidewalk, displaying our message on signs to those driving by. We didn't interact with the counter-protesters or illegals at all. Hardly harassment.) mostly undocumented ILLEGAL immigrants who show up at the Home Depot looking for a day's ILLEGAL labor of carpentry or home repair to feed their families (WOW. Mehrdad actually refrained from playing the pity card until the end of the second paragraph!).

I joined the crowd of 100-plus immigrants (lumping those who are here legally and ILLEGALLY into one convenient, if highly inaccurate, group) and allied people of faith, celebrating the reality of our country's diversity (read: the reality of an ILLEGAL invasion 11 million -- but who's counting? -- strong). Over on the sidewalk, the Minutemen held signs reading "Stop the Invasion." Looking at those two groups of people in that parking lot, I was reminded again: We are a two-hearted nation.

Anyone who has either lived through or reflected on our nation's history can see our country's great paradoxes. This country -- this beautiful country with wretched tendencies nonetheless -- is a two-hearted one. One heart is the heart of compassion, of liberty and of true justice. This heart is what makes our country's heritage so great and admired around the world. I love this heart! Compassion -- helping people -- we do lots of that. Liberty -- I deeply appreciate the freedoms we enjoy in this country -- like being able to stand in front of Home Depot and protest. Justice -- we depend on our government to protect us by enforcing our laws.

The other heart is the heart of racism, fear and separatism. This second heart -- which has beaten throughout our history -- is beating at the center of the Minutemen and other anti-ILLEGAL immigrant movements. And unfortunately for our country's true moral, spiritual intellectual and economic growth, this racist heart is as real as the other one. I would like to know if Mehrdad has ever spoken to one -- ONE -- Minuteman. He's never talked to me. I'm not a racist. He's never talked to Jake. He's not a racist. Yet Mehrdad is only too willing to slander us and all the other Minutemen he's never met.

My family and I lived through these paradoxes and have felt both of these hearts beating. As a young Iranian immigrant living here in the late 1970s during the Iran Hostage Crisis, I went to grade school and learned about the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave -- yet outside the classroom saw a nation that acted like neither, as Americans (not all Americans) ganged up on Iranians and compared us to animals. I grew up believing in that first heart of compassion, and I have chosen to love this country as a true patriot, despite its paradoxes. Mehrdad and I can agree on this point. What he experienced is reprehensible. It is, unfortunately, a fact of human existence. Fortunately, however, we have laws against it in this country.

No matter how many times they may deny it (I will deny what is false until I've drawn my last breath, no matter how many times people like you lie), the Minutemen and other anti-ILLEGAL immigrants are evoking the darker heart as they play on our country's racism and fears about Those People (Let me clear this up for you. When I refer to ILLEGAL immigrants, I am referring to ILLEGAL immigrants. Those who have come here ILLEGALLY, stay here ILLEGALLY, and work here ILLEGALLY. There is no distinction of race, skin color, nation of origin. Just plain ILLEGAL.) -- racism that has been stoked through history about Those People, like African-Americans ("Colored Seating Section Here"), Muslims and South Asians ("Towel Heads Go Home") and even White people themselves ("No Irish Need Apply") (Even White people themselves? Your ignorance reaches insulting new depths, Mehrdad, when you imply that only White people are racists.).

So as we go about our everyday lives, and as our U.S. Senate prepares to debate immigration reform this year, we have a choice of which heart we lay our hand over as we say the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag. Where will your palm make contact with your heart? Will we lay our hand over the same heart as Martin Luther King and Jane Addams, or will we lay our hand over the heart of David Duke, the KKK and the Minutemen?

Am I personally offended by this lying, propagandistic drivel? OF COURSE I AM. You can't read the words of someone who, knowing nothing -- NOTHING -- about you, slanders you maliciously in the name of political agenda.

And that's the important thing to remember. Mehrdad Azemun works for an organization that defines their purpose (from the same newsletter as this article) thusly:

The continual goal of ICIRR is to win legalization for all in our communities.

They want our government to not only forgive the millions upon millions of people who have come here illegally, but to welcome them with open arms. And, left to their own devices, I don't doubt that many of those who represent us would do just that.

It's just not going to happen. Citizens across the country are stirring. They are taking notice of the toll that ILLEGAL immigration is taking on our country, they are rightfully outraged, and they are speaking up about it. There is a growing unwillingness to continue allowing those we elect to choose the interest of greedy businesses, ILLEGAL immigrants and foreign countries over Americans.

It has nothing to do with race. It has nothing to do with the "two hearts" that Mehrdad alleges.

It's about our democratic government's obligation to look out for us, the way they've failed miserably, and the fact that, if we want them to do what they swore to do when they took office, we're going to have to force them to do it.

If that's what it takes, I'm in.

Illegal Immigration
Border Security
Minutemen
Laguna Beach