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Two choices for Wednesday

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Staff

By Chris Fitzsimon

When the votes are finally counted Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning, except for a few possible runoffs, the primary season will be over and the general election push begins.

There are plenty of issues likely to define the general election battle in statewide and legislative races, and plenty of issues that should define it, and if past campaigns are any indication, the two lists are likely to have little in common.

One fundamental decision is how to treat immigrants in North Carolina, those who are undocumented and those who have documentation. That is an issue where thoughtful, honest debate has been almost nonexistent.

Gubernatorial candidates of both political parties are talking as tough as they can, none of them supporting the decision by the leadership of the State Community College system to allow undocumented students to enroll if they can pay out-of-state tuition, more than it costs the state to educate a student at a community college campus.

Gov. Mike Easley has spoken out strongly in favor of the decision, but all of the people who want Easley’s job publicly oppose it, posturing to deny children who have excelled in North Carolina public schools the right to continue their education.

The community college flap, as frustrating as it may be, isn’t the most troubling part of the current immigration debate. State and local officials are not only crusading against education and even emergency services for people based on their immigration status, they are demonizing human beings in the process and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment to dangerous levels in some parts of the state.

The Beaufort County Board of Commissioners is among the leaders in this demagoguery. The board voted in February to end Spanish-language options on the county phone system, which would limit the access of some citizens to county services. The county health department reinstated the Spanish option after learning that removing it would violate federal law and jeopardize federal funding.

That hasn’t slowed down the anti-immigrant rhetoric one bit. Commissioner Hood Richardson is still at it, now proposing that county employees report the number of residents accessing health department services who have Spanish surnames, calling it a good indicator of “illegals.”

Richardson complained last fall that the county was spending too much money on alternative schools for troubled kids, saying “it costs twice as much to educate them. If they’re incorrigible … let them be out on the streets.”

Now Richardson says that anyone with a Spanish surname is an undocumented immigrant. That could be embarrassing for the Republican county commissioner if Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, the former chair of the National Republican Party, comes to town.

And what will he say if former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales stops by, or if some of the local kids see Yankee slugger Alex Rodriguez on television and can’t understand how he could be born in New York under Richardson’s ridiculous assumptions? Not to mention New York native Jennifer Lopez or naturalized citizen Gloria Estefan.

Richardson’s claims place him close to Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson in the most offensive statements category. Johnson has said undocumented immigrants have bad morals and described them as alcoholics and pedophiles. Gaston County commissioners have passed a resolution criticizing immigrants for a “lack of social and personal health care standards.”

Those are elected officials making those statements, not anonymous people commenting on websites. That’s what the debate has been reduced to: racism, ignorance of federal law and fear mongering.

It’s a sad commentary on the state of our political discourse that few candidates in either party are willing to stand up to it, though many know better and privately believe otherwise.

A Spanish surname has nothing to do with citizenship. And for most statewide candidates this year, standing up to racists is nowhere to be found in their campaigns, and we are all the worse for it.

Chris Fitzsimon is the director of NC Policy Watch.

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