Marietta Daily Journal

Man charged with murder after abused 2-year-old niece dies
by Katy Ruth Camp

January 21, 2010

MARIETTA – A man accused of severely abusing his 2-year-old niece while baby-sitting her on Friday has been charged with murder since the girl was pronounced dead Monday afternoon.

Humberto Hernandez-Pineda, 27, of Marietta, is also charged with first degree cruelty to children and aggravated battery. Hernandez-Pineda is accused of causing severe head trauma among other injuries to his niece, Isabelle Cordero, which led to her death.

According to investigators, Marietta police officers arrived at an apartment at 1034 Franklin Road at 11:57 p.m. Friday after receiving a person injured call. While at the apartment, the police discovered that Cordero was suffering from a life-threatening head injury and was rushed to the hospital.

When Hernandez-Pineda’s first arrest warrant was issued Saturday, Cordero was on life support and medical staff said they did not expect her to live.

According to that warrant, Hernandez-Pineda punched the girl in the stomach, hit her on both arms with a fishing pole, hit her on the back with a belt and hit her across the face, which then caused her to fall to the ground and strike her head on the floor, among other attacks.

Hernandez-Pineda’s arrest warrant for the murder charge was issued Wednesday. He has been held without bail since Saturday. According to his booking report, Hernandez-Pineda is suspected to be an illegal immigrant.

HERE

NumbersUSA

Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Frank Kratovil Introduce Pro-Enforcement, Anti-Amnesty Resolution
Thursday, January 21, 2010 NumbersUSA

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) has introduced a bi-partisan House Resolution along with Rep. Frank Kratovil (D-Md.) and 20 other House Members that would express the House’s intent to 1) mandate the nationwide use of E-Verify, 2) secure the borders, and 3) prevent any amnesty as part of an immigration reform bill.

Read Full Story

Medill Reports — Chicago

As “immigrants” push for reform, some question use of King’s legacy

Immigrant advocates are calling the fight for immigration reform an extension of the civil rights movement. — “The civil rights movement was about what is essentially American,” said Alie Kabba, executive director of the United African Organization. “And I think that that spirit is consistent with the immigrant rights movement.”

HERE (don’t miss the photo)

KRDO-TV — Laredo

Jail stays for inmates decreases for 1st time since ’99

For the first time since 1999, the average length of stay has dropped at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center. The average length of stay is likely the most significant factor to the jail population and subsequent crowding issues…

HERE

Rally at the State Capitol for “Immigration Reform Week of Action”
Followed by an Ecumenical Prayer Service at 6:30 PM

Atlanta, Georgia – January 20, 2010

CIR ASAP presented by Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) reopens the debate between Congress, the White House and other important players across the nation about the necessity of passing Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR) this year; Therefore, throughout the United States from January 12th – January 20th, grass-roots organizations, human rights groups, unions, professional associations, business men, legal offices, etc. will hold numerous events in support of CIR.

Today, a diverse group of community members will gather at the State Capitol in Atlanta to support of comprehensive immigration reform.

Rally for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

When: Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Time: 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM (Rain or shine)

Where:

State Capitol
Atlanta, Georgia
Exterior Washington Street side

Who:

Jerry Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALEO
Pastor Ariel Robles of History Makers International of Marietta, GA
Helen Butler, Coalition for the People’s Agenda
Ara Alan, Kurdish Youth Club and Kurdish Cultural Center
Ken Lee, National President of OCA
Keisha Carter, Georgia Restaurant Association
Ev Howe, ABLE
Rich Pelegrino, Cobb Immigrant Alliance
Teodoro Maus, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights
Susan Pavlin, Refugee Family Services

Contact: Jerry Gonzalez, jerry@galeo.org, 404.745.2580

###

“The organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”

Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals. ”

Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.

Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.

Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.

Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.

Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”

Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.

Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”

Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.

Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”

Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”

The Hill

Republican victory could affect more than healthcare legislation

By Ian Swanson – 01/19/10

Republican Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts could be a game-changer on much more than healthcare.

It’s not just that the victory deprives Democrats of the 60 Senate votes necessary to leap procedural hurdles. More importantly, it’s a sign that President Barack Obama’s power has diminished, and that voters are unhappy with at least some of his agenda.

The vote could bolster Republicans, who for much of the year have decided that their best strategy is to gather together to vote no against Obama’s agenda.

Democrats, already fractious, are likely to be even more on edge.

Lawmakers already worried about addressing issues such as climate change and immigration may grow more anxious about taking politically dangerous votes in an election year where voters have suggested they are disillusioned with Washington.

An early legislative victim may be climate change, though its future was in doubt before the rumblings in Massachusetts. ..

HERE

Insider Advantage Georgia is a subscription Website. The below is reposted here with permission. We thank Insider Advantage and Mr. Dick Pettys, editor for the space and the permission.

Insider Advantage Georgia

Guest Column – D.A. King: Georgia Legislators Not Considering All Options In Budget Crunch

By D. A. King

(1/20/10) Reading the headlines surrounding the Georgia budget problems brings to mind an old story about a large truck getting firmly wedged under a too-low highway bridge.

As the tale goes, while puzzled engineers and consultants try to decide whether or not to try to somehow jack up the bridge or how much damage would be done if they forced the wayward truck out, a young bystander yells a suggestion: “Why not let the air out of the tires?”

During the budget hearings under the Gold Dome, here is a respectful request to the Georgia General Assembly from someone who studies the consequences of the crimes of illegal immigration, illegal employment and illegal administration of Public Benefits: consider letting some air out of the tires while making cuts that will effect citizens and lawfully admitted immigrants.

Consider reducing the size of Georgia’s “undocumented worker” population, thereby creating jobs for American workers and redirecting benefits and services to eligible recipients.

We should consider some undeniable and nationally proven facts: people who are in violation of American immigration laws migrate out of every area in which the law is actually enthusiastically enforced. Simply put, again: on reducing the illegal population, enforcement works.

As this long time American has written many times, in 2006 Georgia passed a law that says Georgians – including local governments and state agencies – must obey federal immigration, employment and benefits laws. Like many immigration laws that do not directly benefit the illegal aliens or the Americans who have created an industry out of using and rewarding them, the law was treated as an option by virtually all local governments in Georgia.

In 2009 another law, with an effective date of January 1, 2010, was passed (as HB 2) to stiffen the original law.

We now have a law that says we must obey the law that says we must obey the law.

Unsurprisingly, it too is also being quietly being treated as an option. To date, of the 159 counties and 535 municipalities in Georgia, 47 are authorized to use a federal (“SAVE”) database to verify eligibility of applicants for public benefits as mandated in the law. Another 214 have pending applications to use the program.

No one in state government seems to even have a count of the other various official agencies that administer public benefits. We cannot change what we cannot measure. The Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act must be enforced.

Imagine the headlines if the laws that grant taxpayer funded education, health care, Medicaid and translation services to illegal aliens and their children were to be violated. Or the Governor’s Super Speeder law…

Speaking of headlines, here are three:

“Decade ahead will be severe for the unemployed”

“Jobless payouts a strain on the state”

“Summit addresses Georgia’s job crisis.”

And here is a suggestion: mandate use of the federal E-Verify employment eligibility system for all employers in the state to check newly hired employees for eligibility, using citizenship and immigration status. It’s a no-brainer.

It has been done in other states and the highly accurate and successful E-Verify system happens to have been designed for exactly that purpose. Do we really want to struggle to create jobs and then sit back and ignore available tools that would prevent Georgia workers from competing for those jobs with people who escaped capture at our borders?

Another headline: “College applicants face tough competition for enrollments.” Since providing taxpayer benefits to illegal aliens for postsecondary education is illegal under both federal and state law, it follows that use of the SAVE system to insure compliance with those laws will open up seats for students who are here lawfully – and will be eligible to work upon graduation.

How much money can Georgia save if we move to stop allowing the hiring of black-market labor and reduce the number of illegals who access services and benefits? Good question. A glimpse: Just one California county, San Bernardino, reports spending nearly $64 million in state and federal money last year alone to provide welfare benefits to just the American-born children of illegal aliens.

In a “duh” moment, some California lawmakers say it’s an expense the state can’t afford as it struggles to close a nearly $20 billion budget gap.

“This is a huge burden on our state,” said Assemblyman Steve Knight”. Radical stuff. “We should never be giving benefits to people in this country illegally,” said state Sen. Bob Dutton.

Besides the courageous exceptions, we hear of far too few Georgia legislators with similar sentiments.

Why not create a system to identify illegally present beneficiaries of our payouts? Federal laws mandate many benefits to illegals… but they don’t say we can’t ask and determine immigration status. Again: If the law is enforced, we will reduce the number of people in Georgia who use these benefits. (Duh)

A final headline; “Lawmakers out of ways to cut spending in ‘10”.

No… they aren’t.

——————————————————————————–

D.A. King is a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration and president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society. He lobbied in favor of Georgia’s laws on immigration.

InsiderAdvantage, 4401 Northside Parkway, Suite 100, Atlanta, GA 30327 Phone: 404.233.3710, Fax: 404.233.6877
InsiderAdvantageGeorgia is published daily by InsiderAdvantage,
4401 Northside Parkway, Suite 205, Atlanta, GA 30327;
Phone: 404.233.3710, Fax: 404.393.3710
POSTMASTER: Mail address changes to InsiderAdvantage,
4401 Northside Parkway, Suite 205, Atlanta, GA 30327
Copyright © 2005-2010 InsiderAdvantage.com, Inc.
Photocopying or reproducing in any other form in whole or in part is a violation of federal copyright law and is strictly prohibited without the publisher’s consent.
Dick Pettys, EDITOR

Privacy Statement

After working for more than four years on Georgia’s immigration laws, ( the Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act of 2006 ((GSICA)) – and because it was virtually ignored by local governments in Georgia, the 2009 follow up – HB 2) we are finally seeing some movement toward compliance in some places. Including Athens/Clarke County.

We at the Dustin Inman Society are firm in our position that rewarding illegal aliens – from anywhere – who escape capture at our borders with a business license is unproductive. Not to mention illegal. I have written about the lack of compliance in several places including the ABH… HERE.

The Athens Banner Herald ran a news story (HERE) about the questions local business owners have on the fact that they must swear they are citizens or legally present aliens ( a requirement that has existed since our law went into effect in 2007). I wrote a letter to the editor at the ABH in response HERE . A reader who doesn’t seem to like my postion (or me) too much replied and then Inger Eberhart sent her observation on that letter.

Her observation was a little long and was edited. Below is the published version, below that, I post the entire response that Inger sent to the ABH editor. We thank Mr. Jim Thompson, ABH opinion editor for the space and the effort to set the record straight.

We encourage readers here to see the online comments below each letter – particularly comments on Inger’s letter today. Feel free to put in your 2 cents.

Inger Eberhart’s letter to the editor published in the Athens Banner Herald today. Thanks Inger!

Athens Banner Herald

Inger Eberhart: Letter misrepresented activist

Athens Banner-Herald

Thursday, January 21, 2010

A recent letter to the editor advances a myth manufactured by people who defend and encourage the crime of illegal immigration, and attempt to silence anyone who speaks up for immigration law enforcement.

The Tuesday letter headlined “Immigrants deserve compassion” contends that Georgia anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King told a gathering of Newton County Republicans three years ago that illegal immigrants are “not here to mow your lawn – they’re here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me.”

King did say exactly that, but he was talking about potential terrorists who cross our borders illegally.

In that 2007 talk, King referenced a federal report revealing that “aliens were smuggled from the Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America, before being smuggled illegally into the United States from Mexico.” He informed the group that the report also stated “members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the Southwest border … .”

Aliens enter the U.S. illegally from all over the world. The Tuesday writer’s determination to show “compassion and good will” to anyone who comes to our republic “whether they come legally or not” can be dangerous, and, happily, does not represent the majority opinion of mainstream America.

As an African American and a proud member of the board of the King-founded Dustin Inman Society, I believe illegal immigration, like illegal employment, is a crime. Both take jobs and wages from the poorest Americans and hit native-born Hispanics and black Americans first. Illegal immigration represents a clear and present danger to our country.

Inger Eberhart

Acworth

• Inger Eberhart is a member of the board of advisers for the Dustin Inman Society.

Letter and comments HERE

——–
Inger’s original response to letter writer Kent Nessel sent to the editor ABH –

A recent letter to the editor published in the ABH from a Kent Nessel advances a myth manufactured by the people who have made it their very profitable business to defend and encourage the crime of illegal immigration. And to attempt to silence anyone who speaks up for immigration law enforcement.

Mr. Nessel writes: “According to a talk given at a county-level Republican Party gathering in this area in 2007, King said they’re “not here to mow your lawn – they’re here to blow up your buildings and kill your children, and you, and me.”

Mr. King did say exactly that – about potential terrorists who cross our borders illegally. This intentional twisting of the facts is often used as a weapon against the message of equal application of immigration laws. It is perpetuated because many people insist on intentionally blurring the line between real, legal immigrants who join the American family lawfully and aliens who escape capture at our borders while crossing in violation of American laws. The ultimate immigrant bashing.

What King said at a Newton County GOP meeting (and what was reported in the Newton County Citizen newspaper) during a presentation on the Mexican issued matricula consular ID – needed only by people in the US illegally – was that the fact that having obtained two matricula consulars himself, Mr. King proved that anyone could get the easily obtained and forged photo ID , including potential terrorists. These Mexican IDs can be used to board American airliners.

King also informed the audience of a 2006 U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security report “A Line in the Sand, Confronting the Threat at the Southwest Border” which clearly states that “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations have revealed that aliens were smuggled from the Middle East to staging areas in Central and South America, before being smuggled illegally into the United States from Mexico.” I accurately informed the group of the fact that the report went on to say that “members of Hezbollah have already entered the United States across the Southwest border and that U.S. military and intelligence officials believe that Venezuela is emerging as a potential hub of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere.”

Aliens enter the U.S. illegally from all over the world. Mr. Nessel’s determination to show “compassion and good will” to anyone who comes to our republic ” whether they come legally or not” can be dangerous and happily does not represent the majority opinion of mainstream America.

Nessel also invents the accusation that “groups such as D.A. King’s Dustin Inman Society try to place blame on the undocumented Hispanics only because they feel their white, suburban way of life is threatened.” King wrote about laws regulating illegal immigration. Only Mr. Nessel brings up ethnicity and skin color.

As an African American and a proud member of the board of the Dustin Inman Society, I am not sure how Mr. Nessel will explain my own active opposition to the illegal immigration. Let me: Illegal immigration, as is illegal employment, is a crime. Both take jobs and wages from the poorest Americans and hit native born Hispanics and black Americans first. Illegal immigration represents a clear and present danger to our country.

The alternative to enforcing our immigration laws is open borders. We already take in more real immigrants than any nation in the world. In the 21st century, we have nothing to apologize for on immigration. We are the most diverse nation on the planet.

I hope that Mr. Nessel will contemplate the words of the late Barbara Jordan, “It is both a right and a responsibility of a democratic society to manage immigration so that it serves the national interest.”

Mr. King ended his letter, which simply explained two separate Georgia bills passed aimed at requiring compliance with federal immigration law, with the observation that “… the anti-enforcement crowd surely will regard as “intolerant extremism” any effort to deter illegal aliens from residing in Georgia and taking American jobs, taxpayer benefits and services, while we watch unemployment hover at 10 percent and a legislature that again must cut the state budget.

Speaking for all Dustin Inman Society supporters and board members, I thank Mr. Nessel for so vividly proving King’s point.

Inger Eberhart

Member, Board of Advisors

The Dustin Inman Society

In Belize, an employer was jailed for hiring “undocumented workers”. This is their term not mine. The “undocumented workers” came across the border from Guatemala and Honduras. Yes, you heard me correctly! Latin Americans penalizing other Latin Americans for employing “undocumented workers.” What a concept!

The employer, if found guilty, must pay $1,000 for each “undocumented worker” for a total of $19,000. As if that were not enough, try this on for size. The “undocumented workers” could also be fined and if they cannot pay, they will serve prison time before they are deported back to their home countries.

There were no howls of racism, xenophobia or hate. There were not any marches down the street demanding rights. The illegal aliens will be shipped back home and the immigration laws are enforced. Job done!