Tulsa is on the leading edge of the immigration “war”
Posted on July 9, 2007
Below is an extensive excerpt from an even more extensive article
Tulsa is on the leading edge of local and state efforts to crack down on illegal immigration following passage by the Oklahoma Legislature of what is arguably the toughest anti-illegal immigration measure in the nation. The Tulsa City Council also embraced the get-tough approach by adopting a resolution calling on police officers to check the immigration status of “all suspected illegal aliens.†Those actions have sparked a fierce political battle, spread fear among Hispanics — both legal residents and those in the country illegally — and triggered an angry public face-off between demonstrators on either side of the great divide.
Among the longtime residents shaken by the changes engulfing his city is Gary Rutledge, an MSNBC.com reader who said the demographic shift took his family and friends by surprise. “It’s happened so quickly and our neighborhoods have changed so rapidly,†said Rutledge, a political science professor at nearby Rogers State University. In East Tulsa, just across the main thoroughfare from his comfortable brick home, the broad avenues are now peppered with signs in Spanish and malls catering to Latino shoppers — offering everything from soccer wear and piñatas to check cashing services and Latin pop music. “That whole part of the city has become a miniature Juarez or Tijuana or whatever you want to call it,†said Rutledge.
Like many longtime residents, Rutledge is quick to say that he is not opposed to immigration by legal means. But he says he objects to being unwillingly taken over by another culture as the result of unchecked illegal immigration. “I’m very concerned that this last wave (of immigrants) has no interest in becoming Americanized,†he said.
It was Rutledge’s story of a car crash involving an apparent illegal immigrant that led MSNBC.com to Tulsa. But when we arrived we encountered a bigger pileup: the chaotic fallout of a federal framework that neither prevents illegal immigrants from entering the U.S. to work nor provides a way for them to gain legal status. That Catch -22 has forced local jurisdictions like Tulsa to seek their own solutions to the explosive and complex issue. “Increasingly, because there’s no consistent federal law, states and cities are cobbling together immigration laws on their own,†says Sheryl Lovelady, assistant to Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor. In Tulsa, Lovelady said, such laws “have caused a lot of confusion, inconsistency and fear, mainly in the Hispanic community.â€
For Rutledge, a car accident personalized the issue. He and his wife were waiting in their pickup at a traffic light one evening when they were hit from behind by a vehicle traveling about 30 miles an hour. They were not badly hurt, only stunned. More shocking, though, was what they heard from the police officer who responded to the accident: The other driver, a young Hispanic man, did not speak English, did not have a driver’s license or insurance. The officer suspected the man was an illegal immigrant, Rutledge said, but he did not check his immigration status because such inquiries weren’t allowed in misdemeanor cases. Before taking the other driver to jail, Rutledge said, the officer told him he should just go home and forget about it. “He said, ‘We do a lot of this kind of thing and we can tell you that there’s not much to be done about it,’†Rutledge recalled.
It’s not clear what happened to the suspect after that. Tulsa police were not able to locate an accident report on the incident. But officers said that the maximum penalty the man could have faced for driving without a license, a misdemeanor, would be 30 days in jail. Driving without insurance is only a ticketable offense.
Rutledge said he was floored by the experience. Not only would his own insurance company have to absorb the cost for repairing his truck, but the other driver was soon going to be back on the streets. “It was … a feeling of helplessness,†he said. “There’s no recourse, there’s nothing to do.†Rutledge began comparing notes with friends and family and found that many had a similar story with a similar outcome. That got him thinking about the bigger picture.
“I think that when someone comes in this country illegally, it starts a tradition or culture,†he said. “You come in illegally; everything you do from that point on is illegal. And so it’s almost impossible to get a driver’s license or insurance so you just start breaking one law after another. I think it’s seductive. I think after a while … you don’t pay too much attention to rule of law that this country was established on.â€
More here
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
» Filed Under ACLU
Trackback URL
Comments
3 Responses to “Tulsa is on the leading edge of the immigration “war””
-
Affiliations
The Giants
-
Donate
Steal Me
Our Store
Click the design to visit our store and help Stop the ACLU!
More blogs about the ACLU
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cairholyland6507.htm
Case Closed - Government Documents Reveal : CAIR IS Hamas
Council On American Islamic Relations [CAIR] Named As Unindicted Co-Conspirator In Holy Land Foundation Case
June 5, 2007 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org -
In a disclosure that will have significant impact on the way the public perceives radical American Islamist organizations who feign moderation, the Council on American Islamic Relations [CAIR] has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator [source List of Unindicted Co-conspirators and/or Joint Venturers] in the government’s upcoming prosecution of those associated with the Holy Land Foundation.
Court documents name the Council on American Islamic Relations, CAIR as being among “individuals/entities who are and/or were members of the US Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.”
In a precedent setting revelation, the government’s trial brief sets forth in great detail incontestable evidence linking CAIR to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to documents seized from co-conspirator Ismail Elbarrasse, there is a straight line of associations going from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and terminating with the Islamic Association for Palestine, CAIR’s immediate antecedent.
“The Muslim Brotherhood directed its Palestinian Committees throughout the world, including the United States, to carry out the mandate of assisting Sheik Yassin’s newly-formed Hamas. In accordance with that mandate, the Palestinian Committee in the United States, which included the defendants Elashi, Baker and El-Mezain, created a number of organizations charged with varying missions calculated to comprehensively address Hamas’ needs.”
“These organizations included the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) (”think tank”), the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP) (propaganda and information) and the Occupied Land Fund (OLF) (money), later to become the defendant HLF. The defendant Shukri Abu Baker was in charge of the HLF and, along with the defendants El-Mezain and Elashi, set out to establish what would become the highest grossing Islamic charity in the United States. “
“…The IAP, which involved the defendant Ghassan Elashi as an original incorporator and bank account signatory, was designed as a propaganda facility, responsible for Intifada festivals (involving the defendant HLF), pro-Hamas publications, and the general rallying of support within the American Palestinian community. The IAP was the first organization to publish an English version of the Hamas charter, which, as previously explained, vows to replace Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza with an Islamic state.”
“Further, during their existence, unindicted co-conspirator and Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars into the three organizations (UASR, IAP, OLF/HLF) during a time when he was an unemployed graduate student.” [source Trial Brief, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al pg 10-11]
The IAP was involved in a criminal conspiracy to support Hamas.
“The United States-based Muslim Brotherhood and its sub-group the Palestinian Committee); organizations established by the Palestinian Committee, such as the defendant Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), as well as other organizations. “
“See Superceding Indictment, pp. 6-7. Each of the above organizations, as well as its members, representatives and supporters were participants in the same joint venture or conspiracy — the conspiracy to support Hamas.” [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 32]
As noted in our December 5, 2006 piece Ghassan Elashi’s Sentencing Proves CAIR’s Terror Ties Ghassan Elashi is the pivotal figure in this chain of association. He was the founder of Texas Chapter of CAIR and the individual who was responsible for incorporating the IAP, he was also present at the Philadelphia Hamas funding meeting detailed later on in this piece. Elashi was recently sentenced in the InfoCom terror funding case and is a key defendant in U.S. v Holy Land Foundation case.
Elashi worked to aid the Muslim Brotherhood through its agent the Palestinian Committee in creating the IAP. Those associated with Elashi also worked to create other Islamist organizations [United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) and the Occupied Land Fund (OLF) later to become the Holy Land Foundation] with the intent of building support for the terrorist group Hamas and its primary goal, the destruction of the State of Israel.
“For Hamas, the Oslo Accords were a threat to its survival and in direct confrontation with its most valued tenet - the destruction of the State of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state in all of what is today Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip.” [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 12]
As noted by terror expert Matthew Epstein, CAIR’s future senior leadership participated in a pivotal meeting to fund Hamas that was held in Philadelphia.
“CAIR actively raised money for [Holy Land Foundation] HLF via their mailing list. In 2001, HLF’s assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, which found the organization to be a Hamas conduit. The Texas chapter of CAIR and HLF share a common founder in Ghassan Elashi. As stated above, Elashi himself was present at the 1993 Philadelphia meeting that planned Hamas fundraising in the United States. This meeting shows that future leadership of CAIR participated in meetings with senior Hamas leaders and discussed Hamas fundraising in the United States.”
This meeting was deemed so critical in understanding Hamas’ American operation that the FBI obtained a warrant through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance [FISA] Court, to monitor it.
“The FBI learned of the Philadelphia meeting through the Ashqar investigation and, as a result, the FBI obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to monitor the meeting,” [source Government Trial Brief 5.27.07, U.S. v Holy Land Foundation, et al, pg 13]
Mr. Epstein quotes from a page, since removed from the CAIR website in which CAIR’s current Executive Director Nihad Awad describes his work at the IAP with his associate Omar Ahmad, now CAIR’s Chairman of the Board.
“After the Gulf War was over, I was offered a job with the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) as their public relations director…In this effort I worked closely with IAP president Omar Ahmad…Omar suggested to me that we leave the IAP and concentrate on combating anti-Muslim discrimination…In June 1994, we used a modest donation as a starting budget to open the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Washington, D.C.”
IAP events incited anti-American hate and barely concealed threats of violence. Below, Mr. Epstein quotes a Hamas supporter at a post Gulf War IAP conference.
“Dear brothers and sisters, we used to cross swords with America and with imperialism in a sportive way, by means of culture clash, by critique and writing in newspapers and journals and in debates. But the confrontation has reached a point of no return. All veils have fallen. All barriers have broken down. And today, America is right here at your doorstep, in everybody’s house…The marines, dear brothers, are stealing the doors of your houses, and the doors of your mosques, in obstinate and open provocation. They are at our doors. Their plan is to penetrate the flesh of our girls. And our honor, and our values, in order to turn our society into a pervert nation.” [source September 10, 2003 Senate Testimony of Mr. Matthew Epstein, Assistant Director, the Investigative Project]
Understanding the pivotal role of CAIR within the constellation of American Islamist groups is key to unlocking how radical Muslims seek to impose their will. For the most part American institutions have accepted at face value, these self-promoting foreign funded supporters of terrorism who claim moderation while working clandestinely to promote the butchers at Hamas.
Christian and Jewish religious groups, local and federal law enforcement officials and politicians at every level have conducted fraudulent “faith sharing” and/or “Muslim sensitivity” public relations exercises with groups like CAIR because they lack the moral courage necessary to adequately vet them.
Such excuses will no longer pass muster, the court documents and evidentiary materials that have been amassed for use in the Holy Land Foundation case now prove beyond all doubt that CAIR is Hamas.
The evidence developed by Federal law enforcement places CAIR within a top down hierarchical arrangement of terror supporters:
Muslim Brotherhood ==> Hamas ==> Palestinian Committee ==> the Islamic Association of Palestine ==> CAIR.
From this point onward it is indefensible for individuals and organizations to associate with CAIR.
This organization constitutes a clear and present danger to national security. A full-scale Federal law enforcement investigation is long overdue with the intent of adding it to the lists mandated by Executive Order 12947 [Terrorists Who Threaten To Disrupt the Middle East Peace Process] and Executive Order 13224 [Comprehensive List of Terrorists and Groups] alongside its ideological parent, Hamas.
©1999-2007 PipeLineNews.org LLC, all rights reserved.
http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=cairholyland6507.htm
What do the above two comments have to do with this article? So many accounts of things getting out of hand. There is no interest whatsoever in becoming American. As a nation, we must draw the line. People will be turned away, but in general, America must become more discriminating as to who is allowed to become a citizen. The Statue of Liberty spoke for it’s time, but like many things, it’s time has come and passed.
I concur. We are in the process of inheriting the problems of Mexico. Many illegals are gettig substantial support from pro illegal immigration organizations. This support if unchecked may end up with many civil cases being brought down upon us. These organizations should be nailed as participating in an ongoing criminal enterprise.