But, first, have you heard—have you heard about what happened in Texas? You haven‘t heard? Oh, my God, listen to this.
Last night's Rachel Maddow's show had a nice piece on the dire threat that immigration poses in the imagination of a certain part of polity. First, she talks about the events in Laredo, Texas (wasn't that area your home at some point, Dale?), or rather, the completely fabricated events. Then she gets into what politicians like McCain and Kyl are saying about crime and immigration--also completely fabricated, but we know that they are straight shooters, so what should we believe? Such a conundrum, should we believe the Republican Senators from AZ or believe statistics and a sheriff who lives there?
Here is the transcript, worth skimming for laugh if it weren't for the unhappy fact that the people spreading these lies are so animated by them that they will probably be voting in Nov. And the politicians spreading the lies will be voting on the Senate floor.
today.msnbc.msn.com
[NOTE: they print their transcripts in very print so that everyone can read them easily.
OK, so, here‘s Laredo, Texas. We have Laredo on a map? Yes.
As you can see, it‘s right down there in southern Texas. You know, where Laredo is? It‘s very close to Mexico. It‘s like right across from Mexico.
Do you want to know what happen in Laredo? Did you hear what happened in Laredo? Oh, my God, a Mexican drug gang called the Zetas. The Zetas rampaged over the border and took over two ranches in Laredo, Texas. American ranches are now being run, right now, by a Mexican drug gang.
So, presumably, like the cattle on the ranch are being herded by that Mexican drug gang. All of the rancher‘s stuff being used by the Mexican drug gang. Presumably all of the tractors are now being driven by the Mexican drug gang.
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Mexican gangs have breached the border. The invasion from Mexico has begun. Did you hear about it? Did you hear about it?
If you live in right-wingville in this country, then I‘m sure you have heard all about it. None of it is true. None of those things actually happened. But you‘d never know it in right-wingville. And it is a great story, right?
It was originally fed to a tiny blog by anti-immigration activist.
Then it spread like wild fire across conservative corners of the Internet. It was hailed as “an act of war against the sovereign borders of the United States.” It made its way to the blog of a conservative FOX News commentator named Michelle Malkin. It, of course, made it to the blog of the conservative activist who peddled the fake, “Shirley Sherrod is a racist” scandal. It was everywhere.
“Drug Cartel Gunmen Invade Texas, Ranches Seized.”
The only problem, of course, not true. Just ask around in Laredo.
The Webb County sheriff said, quote, “Our deputies went out there and talked to the ranch owners in the area and found nothing.”
An investigator for the Laredo Police Department where all this was supposedly going down said, quote, “Basically everyone was shrugging their shoulders. There was no proof or evidence that was found.”
How does a story like this go that far around wingnutville while plainly exculpatory, plainly contradictory evidence is out there—while the people who would actually know if it was true when asked say, it‘s not true? How does a story like this get so much traction?
It‘s because it‘s a good story—particularly if you‘re looking to gin up your political base on the issue of immigration. Particularly if what you need to rile up your base is a good “scare white people” story. There‘s a “good but fake” stories out there about scary nonwhite people doing scary things all reported by conservative news outlets in a way that‘s designed to gin up maximum fear.
But in immigration politics, the fake scary immigrant stories are legion.
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You might have also heard the one about Phoenix, Arizona, now being the number two kidnapping capital of the world. That‘s become a mainstream conservative talking point that‘s been trotted out over and over again by Republicans. But when PolitiFact, Texas checked that claimed out when it was made by the lieutenant governor of Texas back in June, they found it to be, and I quote, “false.”
Nevertheless, Republican Senator John McCain repeated it a few weeks later on “Meet the Press.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN ®, ARIZONA: Why is it that Phoenix, Arizona, is the number two kidnapping capital of the world? Does that mean our border is safe? Of course not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Same claim, same results—and I quote, “false,” according to PolitiFact. Despite that, Republican Senator Jon Kyl, undaunted, is still going for it. This was in this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JON KYL ®, ARIZONA: Phoenix is a very large source of kidnapping. It‘s called the kidnapping capital of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: It‘s like it‘s too good of a talking point to stop using it even though it‘s not true. Jon Kyl also distinguished himself by going to great detail about how awful illegal immigration has made crime in his home state of Arizona—a state you would think he would take care to know some factual things about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
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HARRY SMITH, CBS NEWS: In some of these border towns that were thought to be susceptible to lawbreaking of illegal immigrants, the crime is actually down. Crime in Phoenix, for instance, is down significantly over the last couple of years.
KYL: Well, that‘s a—that‘s a gross generalization. Property crimes are up. Certain property crimes on certain parts of the citizenry are up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Property crimes are up, violent crimes are up—define up, Senator Kyl. Let‘s take property crimes first. There were about 231,000 property crimes in the state of Arizona last year, in 2009. That was down from the year before, which had about 262,000 property crimes—a number that was down from the year before that, which was down from the year before that. Property crimes there, down in Arizona right now.
Senator Kyl also mentioned violent crimes being up. Let‘s have a look at what he thinks about up in this context. In 2009, there were 26,000 violent crime offenses in Arizona, a number down from the year before, which was also down from the year before that, which happened to be down from the year before that.
So, down, down, down, down, down—also known in anti-immigrant white people politics as up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCAIN: The United States of America has an unsecured border between Arizona and Mexico which has led to violence, the worst I have ever seen, and numbers that stagger those who are unfamiliar with the issues.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Yes, they are staggering numbers—for the exact opposite reason of what you mean.
Whether or not you want to run on an anti-immigrant platform is up to you. It‘s a political decision. Everyone gets to choose their own political strategy.
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But as they say, you do not get to choose your own facts.
Republicans have decided that running against immigrants is once again a great electoral opportunity for them, at least in the primaries. But they have apparently decided that they need some very extreme “scare white people” stories this time around to justify this year‘s crop of anti-immigrant proposals that they want to run on.
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, for example—at one point in his career, he was thought of as a relatively policy-driven guy, a relative fact-based Republican. How far he‘s come—just last week, Senator Graham floated the idea of rescinding the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. That‘s the one that says if you‘re born here, you‘re a U.S. citizen. Put in to place after the Civil War so slaves could not be denied citizenship.
Lindsey Graham wants to do away with that and the idea of rescinding that has now gained support from Republican Senator Jon Kyl, as well as the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell.
If you think about it, you have to come up with pretty extreme stories about how awful immigration is in order to justify extreme stuff like repealing the 14th Amendment.
I mean, sure, repealing the 14th Amendment is a radical idea, but it‘s exactly what we need if the Zetas are driving tractors in Laredo.
Republicans bring up immigration cyclically—whenever they think it‘s going to be good for their electoral hopes. It actually never really turns out to be all that good for them, but they always think it‘s going to do. It‘s at least a good Republican primary issue, not a very good general election issue.
Illegal immigration always has to be refashioned into a crisis for every electoral cycle that Republicans want to use it.
But the overall fact about illegal immigration—and this is going to shock you if you‘ve been paying attention to some of the darker corners of the Internet—the overall fact about illegal immigration is that it‘s not actually getting worse. What you‘re looking at is a graph of Border Patrol apprehensions over the last 30 years.
Illegal immigration is by definition hard to measure, it‘s illegal and covert. But apprehensions are one of the best static measures that we‘ve got of the scale of the problem over time.
And as you can see here, the number of apprehensions made, say, back in 1978, all the way over there in the left side of the graph, is roughly identical to the number of apprehensions in 2008.
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I mean, look at the last 10 years, look at what‘s happened since 2000
since the year 2000. Apprehensions essentially have cratered.
Republicans have to make it seem like illegal immigration is getting worse.
Every election cycle, there‘s more and more and more of them.
But when you actually look at the best information we have got about illegal immigration, it‘s a relatively static measure that‘s been relatively the same for roughly my entire lifetime. The thing that it seems to most fluctuate with is whether or not there are jobs here for people to do.
But don‘t tell that to the professional hysteria-mongers who think the Zetas have taken over ranches in Texas. It is too good a story. It is to scary to white people to give up. Who cares if it‘s true?
Joining us is now Sheriff Antonio Estrada. He‘s the sheriff of Santa Cruz County, Arizona, which is right on the border with Mexico.
Sheriff Estrada, thank you so much for your time tonight.
SHERIFF ANTONIO ESTRADA, SANTA CRUZ COUNTY, ARIZONA: Rachel, thanks for the opportunity again.
MADDOW: The political rhetoric coming from the politicians right now on the issue of immigration might lead a person to believe that crime is cry rocketing in your part of the country, in the border counties. That crime is out of control in a way it never has been before.
What are you actually finding as sheriff of a border county in Arizona?
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ESTRADA: Well, you know, those claims are actually crazy. You think that we‘re dodging bullets every day down here. That‘s not the case.
Like you indicated before, you know, apprehensions are down. Drug seizures are down. We are seeing less violence, I think, here along the border.
The activity continues to be here, obviously. This is still a porous border here and a lot of activity through southern Arizona, in particular, the Tucson sector and Nogales and Santa Cruz County. That is going to continue. That‘s going to go on for years. There‘s nothing special about it.
But they‘re really exemplifying it. They‘re really enhancing it now and taking advantage of it. And I don‘t think that‘s right. I think they‘re scaring a lot of people.
MADDOW: In terms of scaring people, let me ask you specifically about Nogales, which is there in Santa Cruz County where you‘re sheriff in Arizona. Can you tell us about crime rates, say, in Nogales, compared to roughly a decade ago? If you listen to the politicians, again, things have just become exponentially worse in the last 10 years. Is that true?
ESTRADA: You know, we haven‘t experienced anything really drastic or different. You know, things are still the same here along the border. The activity continues to be the same. Crime seems to be the same.
We haven‘t seen an increase in anything. Yes, there has been more influx of illegals coming through maybe in the last 10 years, but it‘s been holding steady, I think, for a while now.
MADDOW: Does the politically charged rhetoric about violent crime exploding across the border—does the rhetoric which, as you‘re saying, some distance from the facts there? Does it make your job as sheriff easier or harder?
ESTRADA: You know, I‘m having problems. There‘s a train going by here. You know, if I understood you correctly—you know, you‘re—you‘re saying about, you know, beheadings and the desert. They‘re saying that, you know, illegal immigrants are all bringing drugs across the border.
You know, that‘s not right, that‘s not fair, and that‘s not true. I‘ve been here for four decades and I have not seen that the greater majority of the illegal immigrants that come through the border here are not bringing in drugs and we have not had any beheadings in Santa Cruz County.
We have, obviously, found skeletal remains—you will find a skull here and there because the animals probably can‘t deal with something that big. But, you know, we‘re not having that type of violence. We‘re not having that crime.
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What we are seeing and what has been happening obviously in some of these canyons and valleys of Santa Cruz County, you know, these same groups are vying for this territory. Obviously, they‘re ripping each other off. They‘re—there‘s violence out there. It‘s not the directed to the residents of Santa Cruz County.
We‘ve been kind of isolated against that and I think it has to do with these groups, these cartels wanting to have nothing to do with law enforcement on the Arizona side. They want to get their product. They want to get the merchants to Tucson and Phoenix. They don‘t want to attract any attention.
So, I think that‘s kind of like a safety net, not only for law enforcement for now, but for the residents of Santa Cruz County. I think they‘ve been really—the rhetoric has been really far out.
MADDOW: Santa Cruz County Sheriff Antonio Estrada, braving the streets of Santa Cruz County every day and braving a very loud freight train for us tonight—Sheriff Estrada, thank you very much for your time tonight. Nice to have you back on the show.
ESTRADA: Thank you, Rachel. Have a great day.
MADDOW: Thanks. |
