Seems anti-Latino-immigration guy (and Tea Party GOP gubernatorial candidate) Tom Emmer tried to hold a stealth rally in enemy territory. Unfortunately for Mr. Emmer and his friends, they got caught at it.

Riding the media blitz that followed the DREAM Act’s recent defeat, Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Orrin Hatch (R-UT) unveiled their own comprehensive immigration reform bills just before Congress adjourned last week. The bills are enforcement-heavy, party-line bills that were immediately referred to committee, where they are expected to languish for some time.

America’s national bastion of arch-conservatives have turned a community center in the Big Apple into a “ground zero” phenomenon. And from a regional perspective, the arch-conservatives have turned Arizona’s SB 1070 into a regional crisis and equivalent to a ground zero. However, I am not an arch-conservative, but a Chicano with a ground zero crisis that is totally local in perspective. Thus, enjoy!

One can talk about the facts and what the law will and will not do. One can cite studies and try to employ well-reasoned arguments to explain why people, whose prejudice against immigrants is too much for them to bear, exaggerate the immigration problem. Or, one can simply share the remarks with others and give the reactionary views what they deserve: sunlight.

by Erin Rosa, Media Consortium blogger

President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday that he would be deploying 1,200 National Guard troops to the Mexican border to beef up security along the Río Bravo. This surprise move has garnered criticism from immigrant rights supporters, who argue that it will dehumanize and endanger immigrant and Latino communities.

SB 1070, which makes being undocumented a crime, shows us that we are becoming a country that asks for “your papers, please” much like in Nazi Germany where “Papiere, Bitte” meant the same in German.

Despite what Governor Brewer says, racial profiling is officially legal in Arizona, given that there is no other way to determine what an undocumented person looks like beyond brown skin, which would serve as a proxy for criminality — the crime of not carrying proper identification and a birth certificate. Find out what you can do to help repeal SB 1070.

The new CBS/NYT poll of tea party supporters (PDF, H/T Greg Sargent) includes a question on climate change:

Do you think global warming is an environmental problem that is causing a serious impact now, or do you think the impact of global warming won’t happen until sometime in the future, or do you think global warming won’t have a serious impact at all?

This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but it turns out that tea party supporters are far less informed about climate change than the general public:

This meshes with a spate of other recent polls showing a sharp decline in understanding of and concern for environmental issues among Republicans.

In contrast, other recent polls have shown that latinos, veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and young Americans are much more concerned about climate change and environmental issues.

They’re considered a minority in the United States, composing a rapidly growing sub-set of the population. The majority are immigrants; public sentiment, aroused by nativism, is sometimes hostile towards them. They vote heavily Democratic, but because many are immigrants they turn-out in numbers not as great as the share of the population they compose.

On May 30, 29-year-old Raul Flores and his 9-year-old daughter Brisenia Flores were shot to death, purportedly by a group of far-right anti-immigrant activists who broke into the Flores home by posing as police officers. On Friday, Shawna Forde, anti-immigrant activist and Executive Director of the Minutemen American Defense, (MAD) along with accomplices Jason Eugene Bush and Albert Robert Gaxiola were arrested on two counts of first-degree murder and burglary charges related to the Flores murders.

We must change how we handle those who offer their lives for our nation’s well-being, reshape the entire conversation on immigration, and recognize the great value in accepting those who work to make their dreams come true and keep their families safe. These changes are essential to our country’s well-being and future health. Let’s make big changes this year. Especially in light of the newest supreme court nominee, made by a President who hails from Hawaii and Kenya, let’s live up to our potential and remember what it means to be a “nation of immigrants