Our history demands we welcome Mexican immigrants; our free trade policies set them in motion
By BARBARA MINER
Posted: March 15, 2008
Two years ago, on March 24, 2006, Milwaukee's immigrant Latino community proudly marched across the 6th Street Viaduct proclaiming, "No human being is illegal." It was the largest demonstration in Milwaukee in recent memory, and the first of several protests that spring involving thousands in Milwaukee and millions nationwide that underscored the vital role of undocumented immigrants in United States society.
But then the politics of fear took over. Before long, raids on work sites and plans for bigger and better border fences were all the rage. Talk of immigration reform was replaced with sensationalist rhetoric, exemplified by Bill O'Reilly's claim on Fox News that reform was a left-wing plot "to break down the white, Christian, male power structure." CNN's Lou Dobbs, meanwhile, kept alive inaccurate claims linking immigrants to thousands of new cases of leprosy - evoking centuries-old images of the leper as the dreaded "other" that, if not banished, would destroy society.
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