Feel-Good Hispanic Story Ignores Feds' Failures

It is the government's fault.

Failure to enforce immigration laws directly impacts students in public schools, no matter where those schools are. The Charleston County School District is one of the last to feel the fiscal brunt of an influx of non-English-speaking students whose parents came illegally across our borders. [See Sunday's P & C for a story that puts the best face on this latest anchor weighing down its schools, Embracing Diversity.]

A few statistics reveal the outlines of the problem:

• "The number of Hispanic students in Charleston County nearly has doubled in the past five years";
• "In [the last] eight years . . ., the number of ESOL teachers has nearly tripled";
• "The district's Hispanic population growth has necessitated the hiring of a bilingual parent advocate and a bilingual administrator";
• "Hispanic students make up nearly half of the roughly 750 students at Midland Park Elementary School in North Charleston, up from just 20 percent five years ago";
• "[Midland Park] employs a translator, three full-time and 2 part-time ESOL teachers as well as bilingual teachers, psychologists and speech pathologists to work with its Spanish-speaking students and parents."

Schools are not allowed to ask the immigration status of parents or their children. Try getting a number out of district staff for how much these children have added in costs to CCSD? Won't happen.

Probably most of these children are American citizens by virtue of being born in the United States. Most native-born Americans do not realize that other countries do not have similar rules. Do you think you could claim citizenship for your child if he or she were born in Mexico or Guatemala? Even School Board Chairman Toya Hampton-Green seems to believe she could have claimed German citizenship by being born in Germany! Not unless one of her parents were German.

This influx of Spanish speakers adds to public schools' many problems. Is there any doubt in your mind that dollars that could have gone to raising achievement for the children of legal Americans now is spent coping with non-English-speaking students and illegal parents? We are paying through the nose for Mexico's and Guatemala's failures. Do we feel sorry for these struggling people? Yes. Should we be forced to support them? No.

Our local developments spring directly from our federal government's failures, but you won't see the federal government making up the difference.

You will.

Children of Illegal Die at Construction Site

The award for "most newsless story ever to hit the front page" of the P & C goes to--drum roll, please-- 2 Boys Drown in Summerville [in Sunday's edition]. Our judges decided that, even if the reporter neglected to get some facts, the editors guaranteed that any gathered ended in the circular file prior to its publication. Why would a news source do that?

A horrible and preventable accident occurred. Two unsupervised preschoolers drowned late on a hot summer afternoon as a construction crew toiled on a new house.

Ask yourself:

• Why are the ages of the two boys unknown? "thought to be ages 4 and 5"
  
• Which worker brought them to the job site? "deputies think they were with someone working on the house"
• Why don't the deputies know?
  
• Why was their absence noticed? "Someone in the crew noticed the children were missing around 7 p.m."
• How many of the crew knew the boys were on the job site?
• How long had they been there, and was this the first time?
• Who was in charge of the work crew?
  
• Why did someone think the boys were in the water? "Deputies arrived and found a man standing in the water, probing the bottom with a long, narrow board."
• Who was the man in the water?
• Did anyone besides the deputies or EMS accompany the children to the hospital?
• How do deputies plan to find the children's parents? Or have they?
  

Have you figured out why the paper ran such a fact-less story? Why the parent(s) remain unidentified? Why the children's ages are unknown? Why only names of deputies appear?

The headline on this posting is the only logical explanation. The P & C attempts to avoid mentioning the involvement of illegals in ANY situation, apparently with the idea that readers won't notice.

Still think illegals should be ignored?

**UPDATE**
Our fearless editors at the P & C have managed to print the names and ages of the children as of Monday's edition. They have added that both parents were at the job site. The State yesterday confirmed that the mother was from Mexico and did not speak English. [Boys Who Died in Water Pit Identified ]

Do you have any remaining doubts that the P & C is ignoring the ramifications of these being the children of illegals?

Riley's Golden Goose, or Running a City with Illegals

How many P & C readers got indigestion over Saturday morning's headline, Company's Goose Cooked After Bird Killing? Plenty, I'll bet. While our state legislators pass an immigration bill at a speed somewhere between dead slow and stop, let's look around.

Once your friendly neighborhood teenager had a nice income in the spring mowing lawns. Now those nicely manicured lawns are worked by illegal aliens employed by temporary services.

Once the City of Charleston employed workers to care for its parks. No longer. Now it employs illegal aliens procured by temp agencies. And they certainly cost less than any legal workers who might, after all, complain about their rights under the law. Sweet, isn't it? That allows Mayor Riley and his friends to state that they had "NO IDEA that gambling was going on in this establishment," to paraphrase Casablanca. Right.

Doesn't it make you wonder what other parts of city government are employing illegals? How about other cities? Other city contractors? Staffing 2000 isn't the only temp agency to use illegals and claim that they're all legal. The agency is only one step up from using slave labor.

Those poor workers probably thought they'd enjoy a nice roast goose. Does it make you angry to think that Charleston has knowingly exploited the evil situation this country now faces? Knowingly because South Carolina has one of the lowest percentages of legal Mexicans (and other Latin Americans) in the country, and Staffing 2000 has provided its so-called legals for nine years? What did they do, round up every poor but legal Mexican in the entire state?

To use the excuse that the City just noticed that Staffing 2000 is not on the list of state-approved contractors is just plain nonsense. We all know what's going on here.

"News" Story Should Be Labeled "Opinion"!

Sure, it's news that the South Carolina legislature has finally passed laws attempting to respond to the illegal-alien crisis in our state. However, the front-page story in Saturday's P & C is loaded with one-sided opinion, presumably that of both the reporter and the editors. [See S.C. Targets Illegals for the full story.] Although it purports to give both sides of the story, it becomes a shill for one side. Why did that happen?

Examples:

• "Yet for all its proposals, the law's chilly sentiment might be its strongest weapon."
• "The bill is riddled with proposals already covered by existing law." [diction implying that it is needlessly flawed]

• "But what about the adult who needs antibiotics for an infected wound? If care is denied, the problem could balloon into a far more expensive problem in the emergency room. Already, immigrants too often turn to emergency rooms for primary care. By closing the doors of community clinics to illegal immigrants, hospitals could face even more expenses." [perhaps true, but the reporter is arguing a position]

• "Many illegal immigrants [. . . ] say the decision to enter the U.S. illegally isn't a stark choice between right and wrong — it's survival. [Quoting one worker]"I crossed the border out of necessity," he said. "Not because I want to, because I have to." ]This is a reason to accept illegals?]

• "University of South Carolina professors released a report in August analyzing the lives of Latinos. The report does not distinguish documented and undocumented people." [Shouldn't we get one that does?]

How Much per Hour to Die?

W & C Construction Inc. of Ladson and its president, Larry Wilkins, have arrived at the top of the INFAMY list this morning. They are the one company mentioned by name in an article about child labor regulation in South Carolina. This unlucky and invidious firm hired the brother of another of its illegal workers, and the brother turned out to be 16. How do we know? He died at the construction site. We all know that area construction sites and lawn services rely heavily on illegal aliens for workers, but WHY?

Here's the situation. Sixteen-year-old illegal Guatamalans will work for less money than even 21-year-old Mexicans. And all illegals will work for less money than Americans. Which is why I want to shout at the television set when a politician states that "illegals take jobs that Americans won't do"--yes, won't do at that price!!


How many decades, and how many dedicated workers, did it take to arrive at a workplace that is safe and non-exploitative for American laborers? Why do we have a minimum wage? Why do eight-year-olds no longer work in mills?

The use of illegal aliens of any age negates those laws in one fell swoop. How can illegals complain about illegal and unsafe working conditions? Whom do they go to if the employer is not paying the minimum wage or shorts them in their paychecks?

Josue Daniel Martinez Castillo was not the only illegal alien to die working in construction last year; he represents the tip of the iceberg. What about those injured on the job? Forget Workmen's Comp for them!

And the employer makes out like a bandit--which he is! And now so many illegals work for so many companies that a firm cannot successfully bid on a contract unless it employs cheap illegals like every other firm. So it goes in Beaufort County we know. I'd love to see the Newsless Courier investigate THAT issue in the Charleston County bid process!

Now for the cold, hard facts.

• Because Martinez Castillo was too young to be working on a roof, the child labor violation cost his employer $11,000.
• OSHA lists three other underage fatalities in SC since 2003, all Hispanic [and all illegal, I would bet].
• The employer was also fined $302 for "faulty recordkeeping." [You would assume the small amount represents just one faulty record--but you would be wrong. Six workers had no records; 11 of the remaining 18 employees' were incomplete--pitiful! A pitiful effort and a pitiful fine.]
• The company didn't even know the teenager's correct name until his father showed up with his birth certificate.
• Another $2,375 fine was levied on the company for "safety violations" after the boy's death.

Unanswered questions:

• What was Martinez Castillo's rate of pay?
• Did his family receive any compensation other than picking up his body? [I bet not!]
• Is his cousin still working at W & C Construction?
• How much did the company save on labor costs on that job site by using illegals?
• Who is following up on the company to see that it walks the straight and narrow in the future?

"A Smooth Legal Path Is Hard to Find"--Illegal Alien

http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=stateregion&tableId=103306&pubDate=8/19/2006
Great quote, isn't it?

Buist Again & Update on Illegal Alien # 1

BUIST: The Newsless Courier continues to ignore the Buist kindergarteners fiasco, and indeed it is one.

Aside from not reporting what has happened at constituent board 20 meetings, it also has not reported that three of the students supposedly coming from districts with "low-performing" schools are NOT. That is, for the 10 slots reserved for students from low-performing schools, 30 percent are fakers.

Isn't this a great story?

• First, the list of those residing in the district is faked;
• Now the list of those from low-performing schools is faked.
• Next I suppose we will learn that the students on the county-wide list are not living in the county.
• Maybe the children on the list of siblings of present students includes students who are cousins and not siblings?

HELLO! The lists are a joke, and the Newsless Courier decides this is a non-event. Perhaps Mr. Big works for the paper?

And, how you ask, do I know these facts? Believe it or not, the local TV news is covering the story. Wonders will never cease!

ILLEGAL ALIEN #1: More "facts" come to light

1. The mysterious purple van supposedly driven by the victim (obviously he wasn't driving it THIS time) has been located parked at a "local migrant labor camp," presumably on Wadmalaw Island.
2. Mr. Ortiz has been identified as a "native" of Guatemala. Actually, today's article identified "the man" as a Guatemalan, not using the name Ortiz.
3. Sheriff's deputies are searching the van.

Ask yourself, where would you begin here? The van? Whose is it? Did it have plates? Fingerprints? What do you do? Start with the FBI & then send them to every Central & South American country? Interviews? I hope the deputies are fluent in Spanish. Oh, yes. I'm sure the illegal aliens will be happy to talk to them! Has there been an autopsy? What are the results?

We can hope that the Charleston County Sheriff's Office is doing more than going through the motions. No death is a throw-away.

Illegal Alien Story 1

Have you noticed yet that, though thousands (yes, thousands) of illegal aliens live and work in the Low Country, they never appear in the Newsless Courier? How could that be? Oh, yes, I forgot. The Newsless Courier's policy is not to identify them.

Such is the case with the first article in today's local section. A body is found roadside on Wadmalaw Island in the wee hours of the morning:

"Man found dead on roadside leaves big mystery for police"

How could this story have any connection to illegal aliens? Read on.

The dead man, Maynor Gomez, died of his injuries "either hit by a car or [fallen] from a car or ... thrown from a car on the Maybank Highway." Mr. Gomez "had been living in the Charleston area, though his exact address was unknown." Unknown by whom? Need I spell out that the area where the accident occured is heavily populated by illegal aliens? How do the police or anyone else determine who are the criminals among them?

Please do not insult my intelligence by suggesting that there are no criminals among illegal aliens. Of course, as far as we know, they are a small minority, as they would be in any other group of poor people. Still.

This victim, a Hispanic man in his early twenties, alien or not, may never be avenged. Sheriff's deputies are asking for information on the case.

Here's the most interesting part: they are also looking for a van he may have owned that sheriff's Capt. John Clark stated is "not at his house." That would be the house where "the exact address is unknown"? [Editor, where are you?].

So, we have a mysterious death of a victim who had been seen driving a mysterious van that was usually [but not now] parked at his "unknown" exact address. Got that?

Illegal alien story #1. Prove I'm wrong.