Shouting About Immigration

The Wrong Kind of Fireworks

By Richard Martin, 7-03-07

	Wear this and your ass is on the line

Tomorrow, as orchestras play Sousa tunes, the smell of burning charcoal curls into the air, and people across the West lay out blankets to watch fireworks displays, Basalt Police Chief Keith Ikeda will be on high alert for inter-racial strife. Last week’s drive-by shooting at a Basalt 7-Eleven, apparently by a pair of Latino men angered by a store clerk who likes to wear a baseball cap with “U.S. Border Patrol” on it, has the area on edge – even as immigration reform appears dead in congress for another year.

Security video in the 7-Eleven captured two Hispanic men entering the store June 26 and asking the cashier, Bruno Kirchenwitz, “Hey, where’s your cap?” An opponent of illegal immigration, Kirchenwitz says he wears the cap almost every day to promote his views on the subject. He was off-work by the time the shooters returned at around 11 p.m., and no one was injured.

“The main thing I am concerned about,” said Tom Ziemann of Catholic Charities, at a clear-the-air meeting at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Basalt on Monday, “is there might be a potential for problems” between Hispanics and local Anglos over the holiday.

So this is where we’ve arrived at in this country: the celebration of the birth of the world’s first democracy is now an occasion for violent altercations between anti-immigrationists and the people they would throw out.

For a sample of this argument – “debate” is far too civilized a word – have a look at the comments on my post about federal immigration raids last week. With 32 comments and counting, the level of discourse could hardly get any lower.

“Every law enforcement stop should check for identification,” writes Jim Horn. “No ID no English call ICE to come and pick them up to further process them.” Uhh, Mr. Horn, that’s a pretty fair description of the kind of society the Pilgrims came here to escape.

With equal acuity, “BL” writes, “The Amnesty bill with our open Borders would have turned this Nation into a Spanish speaking Third World Cesspool of Crime, Corruption, Drugs, Poverty, Misery and Cruelly! [sic]”

Writing from the other side of the fence, but with little more compassion or understanding, Jay Kanta calls the anti-immigration comments “a conservative, racist circle jerk...”

Whatever side you’re on, this issue—which by any sensible measure is not among the top half-dozen challenges facing America—has gotten way, way out of hand. And those foolish enough to think our elected representatives in Washington would do something about it must be blind not to be disillusioned now. Reasoned voices like Eric Peterson, who has an excellent feature on the economics of immigration in the latest issue of Colorado Biz magazine, are now totally drowned out by the shouters.

“The historical reality is that Mexican immigrants, documented and undocumented, have participated in — and catalyzed — Colorado’s economy since, well, Colorado changed hands from Mexico to the United States in 1848,” Peterson points out. “In the time since, the golden rule has always been net migration equals net economic growth, and it remains true today.”

Quoting a half dozen small business owners, Peterson makes the inarguable point that, though Colorado has more seasonal workers on H-2B visas than any other state, its labor market is “stretched so thin it’s arguably hampering economic growth.”

But we are now long past the point of rational, economically realistic solutions. My question: How long will it be before someone gets shot and killed for wearing a Border Patrol t-shirt? Or for waving a Mexican flag on the Fourth of July?

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.